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sprout-fics · 1 month

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Silver Fox

(Nikolai x F! Reader)

Call of Duty Masterlist

Rating: Explicit (MDNI) Wordcount: 5k Tags: Character study, Age gap, Light Dom/Sub, Fluff, Slowburn, Smut, Dominant Nikolai, Soft Nikolai, Aftercare, Orgasm delay/denial, Light BDSM dynamics, Cuddling, Corruption kink, Brat Taming, Overstimulation, Dirty talk in Russian, Power dynamics, A dose of manipulation but everything is consensual Warnings: Brief mention of capture and torture A/N: This is my first and most likely not my last attempt to write for Nikolai. I really like this dynamic and welcome requests for more

When Nik first meets you, you try to rob him.

You’d been younger then. Wilder, scared of a world you struggled to survive in. With hardly a roof over your head, always an empty belly, chased by ghosts of a past you struggled to leave behind. You were desperate, constantly looking for a way out, clawing and scrambling at the stone alleyways in hopes you could one day see the sky.

He finds you like that- as a dirty, fierce little stray. In a grimy jacket, eyes wild, dirt smeared across your face, you hold up a knife to him and demand his wallet. Stupid, you know, but shivering, scared of the world that was destined to eat you alive, choosing a target far bigger than yourself.

Cute, he’d admitted later.

It takes little effort from him to twist the knife from your hand, examining it as you froze in a shock that only seems to multiply when he asks you if you want a warm meal. The offer is too tempting to ignore to your growling stomach, but in reality it’s the barest hint of softness behind his eyes that has you follow him like a kicked stray out of the cold.

Little did you know, behind that softness lay his own hunger. A deep, prowling thing that circled you beyond your sight.

He takes you to a quiet little eatery, out of the way, only three tables in what amounted to a shed. One of his favorites, he tells you with a smirk. The cook gives you both a look, suspicious of the man who had escorted in a woman much younger than him, dirty and nervous as you are. Nik lets you order, smirking still as you nervously pick something small, cheap, and he instead orders something large and warm for you. He watches you scarf down the entirety of your meal, gazing at him suspiciously all the while. He’s quiet- appraising you later realized.

You know of men like him. Gangsters, thugs, men who work alongside the mafia or even worse. Men from the underbelly of Russian society who walk in plainclothes and hold dark secrets. You know the danger of accepting favors from men like him. Be it your body, your servitude, or a debt paid in blood, men like those you feared would come to collect in due course, would bleed you dry and leave you ruined given the chance. The only charity they offered served their own interests, the cause they flew their flag for.

It became clear as time grew that Nikolai was not much different, that he had taken one look at you and had seen the thing you never saw in yourself:

Potential.

In the end he tells you if you ever need work to come find him, and find him you do.

You’d been foolish, you think back, if only because you’d been so young, naive without the lessons he would soon teach you.

It’s simple things at first. Taking packages and dropping them off at seemingly random locations, picking up things from shady characters who’d let their eyes rake down your form. In exchange Nikolai offers you a warm place to sleep, a roof over your head, hot meals and shelter from the ghosts that chase you. Distant, professional, but there all the same. Steadfast, waiting for your skittishness to shed itself before he comes closer. Waiting. Expectant.

Curious, you’d watch as he tinkers on his helicopter, cleans his cache of weapons, fixes the aging appliances in his house outside Saratov where the remains of the Soviet legacy lay etched between the old manors of the дворянство.

You observe, quiet at a distance, and ask him about the life he led, to which he was vague.

“I fix things.” He tells you simply, snapping a cartridge back into place with practiced efficiency.

You wondered then, if he was trying to fix you too.

He welcomes your interests in his work, skittish though you are, ready to dart back to a safe distance at a moment’s notice. You peer over his shoulder as he works at his tool bench in the hangar, assist him as he tightens screws on his helicopter, pass him ingredients as he cooks dinner for you both on his stove. Rather than answer any questions you pose, Nik elects to show you himself, putting his hands over yours and allowing them to guide you with ease in his tasks.

His protege, he introduces you as to those that ask. The younger woman he had taken under his tutelage. You’d almost resented it at the time, still suspicious, ready to flee at the first instance of betrayal. Yet inside you knew it was too late. In the same way that wolves became dogs, you found yourself near the fire of him, resting your weary bones as he offered you a place to stay.

Even if he held a leash behind his back.

Nik is careful, stern as a teacher but tender as a friend. In moments of learning his voice is whip-sharp to correct any mistakes, but in the quiet evenings he is almost soft, blunted at the edges in a way that betrays his indulgence in you. Each time he gets close, you try to ignore the way his touch lingers, holding back, greedy but restrained as your heart flutters inside your chest. Purposeful, careful not to spook you lest it ruin the things he’s predestined for you.

You try not to miss him when he leaves you behind for work, reminding yourself this is only temporary, to not let your guard down lest he burn you. He will someday stop having a use for you, and you will once again walk into the wild seeking shelter under a different name.

When he returns, you try to ignore the relief that bubbles inside your chest, the desperate hunger of a lonely thing looking for warmth.

You don’t see the glittering silver collar he envisions in his mind.

The teaching moments are constant. It’s not long before Nikolai begins taking you on assignments rather than leaving you at the house alone. You become familiar with the inside of the chopper, and learn to doze in the co-pilot seat when you are allowed. You help him catalog his ammo and supplies, listen over your headset as he explains piloting to you. In meetings with suppliers and clients he tells you quietly to stay inside the chopper behind him, and you peek out to see the eyes of his ‘friends’ flicking towards you. Curious, even as Nik stood as a stalwart wall between you and them.

In the passenger seat of his truck you learn to carefully balance his chosen rifle on your lap, feeling the stiffness ease from your shoulders as he lays a heavy hand across your nape. On long drives he stops at sunset to admire the view, and you hover close to his side as he smokes long drags of cigars. When he encourages you to try you cough on the smoke, and he thumps you between your back gently, chuckling even when you shoot him a glare. The next morning finds you somewhere new, and the lessons resume.

All the while his careful guidance reminds you to keep your eyes up, to stay alert, focused, to heed his warnings and obey his orders when given.

Nik is an endless wealth of knowledge when it comes to his profession. He’s deliberate in the things he teaches you: how to calculate the distance of a target 100 meters away, what the warning lights on the helicopter console meant, how to handle the kickback of a machine gun, where the major organs of the body were located and how to slice them open in deadly fashion. You take to the lessons easily as predators take to the snap of bone between jaws, and can’t help but preen with every accomplishment, every feat you manage to show him.

“Good girl.” He offers when you finish the task assigned to you, noticing the way you stiffen, a shiver racing down your spine at the praise. Testing the waters, quietly moving goalposts in his mind as he maps your future before you.

When you fell ill during that first winter he nurses you, sits your sluggish form up in bed against his chest and watches as you finish what little food you could stomach. When you insist on drinking with him one evening, pass beyond your tolerance, he smooths a hand over your back as you bend over the toilet bowl and whispers soothing reassurances in your ear. When you cut your palm on the edge of a tool bench in his helicopter hangar he lets you squeeze his hand as he pours alcohol over the gash, reminding you the wound would make you stronger. When you take a swig of the vodka to settle your nerves after your first mission with him he hums happily, murmuring an ounce of praise that settles low in your veins like warm liquor.

You let him, suspicious though you are, so desperate for a place to belong, to be taken care of, to have somewhere in which to shelter the storm. Nikolai is your mentor, yes, but more than that Nik shapes himself into your ally, into someone you can turn to, to a man you look to and seek praise from like turning your face to the sun.

Teaching you to eat from the palm of his hand.

You trail behind him at a distance, eyes softening and heart weary, seeking a soft place in which to rest itself. Nikolai is not a soft man, you remind yourself. Tender as he can be, his true heart remains a shadowed thing like all the men and women he keeps close. Even so you cling fast to that same shadow, hovering at his side as he makes a place for you there.

He’d plucked you from the wilds, had taken you like a starved, injured, feral animal into his care. You’d growled and snapped at him, unsure, suspicious of the twinkle behind his eyes that betrayed intentions you couldn’t quite discern. It was as if he knew the things you were capable of before even you could see them, the way he shaped you slowly under his care.

You stay there when he introduces you to his allies, to Price who looks at your skittish, suspicious nature and to Nik with a disapproving but knowing stare. You hear the meaning to it later as you creep downstairs to listen to them smoke outside.

“I won’t say anything.” Price tells him gruffly. “God knows I have my own vices. Just don’t ruin her, Nik.”

Nikolai takes a long, purposeful pause as he considers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, captain.”

Price chuffs, but comments no further.

Slowly, Nik begins to move closer to you, getting you used to his touch. It seems incidental at first. Squeezing too close behind you in the kitchen and offering a chuckling apology as you feel his hips press against your spine; leaning over you to inspect your work, rubbing a hand between your shoulders after a hard day and relishing the tiniest little sigh you offer in return.

In his teachings he is deliberate, gauging your progress under a keen eye, offering life lessons just as he purrs little doses of praise at your progress. He knows you wouldn’t leave now, you’ve become too accustomed to a life under his care. So slowly, Nik begins to test the boundaries of your trust in him, pushing a little farther each time and leaving you dizzy in the wake of him.

In the hot days of summer he works with his shirt off, the broad span of his back glistening with sweat. You tell yourself it is just the warmth of the sun that lays upon your cheeks, but even then you find your eyes straying, catching his own knowing gaze at a distance. Teasing, waiting, expectant.

“Smells good.” He hums over your shoulder as you made breakfast one morning, bacon simmering in the pan. “You’d make a good wife.”

When you feel heat rise to your face, stammering and scandalized, Nik only laughs.

“Шучу.” He grins. “Just kidding.”

It doesn’t seem to be that much of a joke, not with the way Nik is so comfortable around you these days, easing into your personal space just enough to make your heart race, dangerous thoughts of the ‘what if?’ lingering even after he’s pulled away.

On longer jobs he puts a cot in the back of the chopper to sleep on. Normally he likes to sleep in the pilot seat- vigilant and ready to take off at the slightest hint of trouble. Yet sometimes he complains about his aging back and squeezes in behind you, tucking you against the wall and arranging you so you both share what little space there is. You can’t really find it in yourself to complain, taking in the warm, musky scent of his and letting it lull you into dreams.

Slowly, you come to him. You ease into his touch, to the way his hand rubs across your shoulders in greeting, the way he holds your hand as you stiffened during client negotiations. In the evenings he sometimes watches terrible knock-off action movies, rolls his eyes at the impossible stunts as you nod off on his shoulder. Comfortable, you curl into him- seeking the place you belonged, and Nik quietly smiles at the wild creature that has made a home in his heart.

On the odd stretches of time where there are few assignments to follow through from his strange clientele, Nik takes you on his version of a holiday. He brings you to places you’ve never been, restaurants in cities you didn’t know existed.

“Try this.” He tells you in that smirk of his, lifting an oyster from the Caspian Sea to your lips, loaded with butter and spices. You make a face as you swallow, lips closing around his fingers, and don’t notice the way Nik’s eyes flick to the bob of your throat, distracted. “Good girl.”

The praise sends a shiver up your spine, alighting inside you with the need to please him- this man who has taken you in, sheltered you, is teaching you everything he knows.

You don’t realize the danger you’re in when you realize you’ve gotten too comfortable.

It’s a sunny Wednesday morning when you’re taken.

Being the pretty, feral thing at Nik’s side comes with a fair bit of attention. People begin to notice the beautiful vixen at his side. Whispers of your skills echo in the halls of underground bunkers and private airliners. Nik is known to work alone, so to see you with him as his protege, his partner, his co-pilot that he trusts as much as he mentors, means that you’re a target.

You pop out for groceries on his old Soviet era moped, having pestered Nikolai for pirozhkis for dinner- to which he told you only if you fetched the ingredients yourself. You ignore the small gaggle of men smoking near the corner store, common as they were in your neighborhood. It’s only when you come out with your arms full that they spring on you.

Your head cracks against a stone wall. The world goes dark.

When you come to, you’re somewhere you don’t recognize. barely lucid, head pounding, they try and ask you questions about him you can’t answer. There’s things Nik keeps secret from you for your own safety, and the things they want to know are among them. The blows come, knock you from your chair, and you’re left alone in the cellar, trying to understand how the nightmare you dreaded before you met him could have come true after all.

The difference is- now they’ve made a mistake. They took you after he’d taught you how to survive.

The men who took you are stupid. They underestimate you, tying the ropes too loose for your frame. You manage to get your hands free first as Nik has taught you, then your feet. In the corner of the cellar a sliver of light peeks through broken slats, and despite your battered limbs and bruised hands, you peel the plank off quietly so it reveals the underbelly of the house. Like digging a den, you crawl your way into the earth, beyond the foundation, and stumble into the night before your captors even decide to check on you.

Escaping the snare, as wild things do.

It’s early in the morning when you manage to stumble to the back gate of the house. You trip over a loose rock in the soil, collapse in a heap of bruised limbs and fatigue just beyond the back step. The door swings open, and you close your eyes before you can see the sight of Nikolai with a rifle in his hands, ready to fend off intruders.

“лисёнок.” He murmurs hoarsely as he gathers you in his arms, cooing his name for you as you whimper into his chest. Injured, broken, limping back to him. Only him. “What did they do to you?”

You don’t tell him, too exhausted to form words, slumping against him and letting the crash of adrenaline pull you blissfully under.

When you wake up, you’re in his bed. Bandaged, tucked in tightly. He’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.

You don’t realize until later it isn’t yours.

You never ask him what he did to those men while you were asleep, maiming them, killing them for the offense of hurting you, only to come home and haul your figure close to him with whispered reassurances that they’d never touch you again.

Things...change after that.

It wasn’t as if Nik wasn’t affectionate before- he was. Nik’s fondness of you was intertwined with his mentorship. Yet there was always a sort of distance involved. Teasing, playful, interested but careful not to push too far lest he spook you away too soon.

Now, as you cling to him in the aftermath of your capture, shiver and feel your bandaged fingers grip at his shirt, Nik is indulgent.

He lets you sniffle into his chest, rubs his hand along the knot of your spine and rumbles low, soothing words in Russian. He hauls you to him, calls you quiet pet names, cuddles you close and reminds you you’re safe.

In your recovery Nik spoils you, allows you to take all the time you need. You sleep until noon, a rare luxury under his tutelage, and find him cooking your favorite meals when you wake. When you call for him, he’s there, helping you ascend the stairs with your mending knee. He sets you on the couch in warm blankets so you watch movies of your choice until you doze off, to which he carries you upstairs and tucks you quietly, sweetly, back into bed.

All this and more, as Nikolai silently declares to himself that he is never letting you go.

When you recover, the gentleness doesn’t seem to stop. Yet with it comes a sternness, a demand to yield to his promise to care for you, to keep you safe. The hole of want inside you yawns open for him, looking to his care, his guidance, seeking ways to please him. You’re softer now, no less deadly, but the softness in the aftermath has you brushing against him, yearning for his embrace, which Nik offers readily.

With his nose buried in your hair, your arms wrapped around his waist, Nik smiles at the silver snare he’s circled around your throat.

and, silently, he begins to pull.

“Behave.” He tells you when you snarl at a supplier who tries to upcharge him, and Nik lays a heavy hand on your nap that somehow feels like a warning. It settles low in your stomach, warm and liquid with a want you don’t understand yet but need all the same.

“That’s my girl.” He hisses as you stitch a gash on his arm after close contact when you were flying out of a hot zone. He takes another swig of his vodka and groans just as a drip of red oozes down your fingers. You shudder at the sound, feeling something pull taut below your belly, trying to echo the praise quietly in your thoughts.

“Pretty thing.” He smiles as he offers you one of his spare shirts on mission. You swore you had packed more, but the scent of him clings to your skin and it distracts you enough to not question it. You warm under his words, curl up beside him when he gestures. Obedient, wanting.

You think he’s gone from the chopper that night, tucked on the cot and sneaking a hand under your panties to rub idly at yourself- thinking of him. You’re surrounded by the scent of him, swaddled by a phantom of his warmth, and imagining what it would feel like to have his fingers inside you, stroking, coaxing wetness to trickle down the breadth of them. What would it be like, you wonder, for him to hold you like that, to whisper those filthy praises in your ear so you clench down on him?

Footsteps, boots on the metal grate, and a low chuckle.

You yank your hand free, but it’s too late.

“Don’t stop on my account, Дорогая.” He murmurs, and you back against the wall with a shuddering little gasp, skin on fire as Nikolai couches over you, ready to eat you whole. “I was only gone for a few minutes- did you miss me that much?”

The utter confidence in his voice, the knowledge that you were thinking of him, has wetness ooze between your thighs as you try to find your voice. It’s no use, because Nik swoops down against your lips, humming in satisfaction as you ease against him with a little whine, slowly reaching for him until you drag him down onto the cot with you. Surrendering at last.

Hours later, his seed dripping between your thighs, you doze on his chest while he smokes. Exhausted, entirely worn out from the number of orgasms he’s wrung from you, lulled to sleep by his calming heartbeat under your ear.

It’s the first night of many. Like a dam collapsed, Nik releases the full tidal wave of his desire onto you, never missing a chance to haul you to him, to bend you over, to sit you on his cock as you groan and leak around the stretch of him inside you. You realize far too late just how much Nik has been holding back, his hunger for you as boundless as your desire to please him, to stay.

He has you there in the chopper on the cot that can barely hold the weight of his thrusts, back in his bedroom where you collapse face first into the pillows. He eats you out slow and luxurious with you balanced on the kitchen counter, has you brace on his tool bench as he drapes himself against your spine and ruts into you from behind.

“Taking me so well, little fox.” He purrs in your ear, nimble fingers working at your clit as you hiccup and mewl for it. “So tight. Made for my cock, hm? Твоё тело сводит меня с ума. Fuck.”

Nik is an unstoppable force, with stamina you struggle to match. He keeps you in his bed as long as he is able, staving off his orgasm if only to prolong yours, trying to draw as many as he can from you even when your hand smacks at the headboard, trying to tap out.

“Just one more.” He growls as he tries to fuck you through the mattress, glued to your back so the heat of his frame, the swell of his cock inside you is the only thing you can feel. You’re teary eyed, gasping, the lewd squeal as he thrusts into you filling the quiet of the bedroom. Your eyes roll back just as he nails that perfect bundle of serves inside you, voice caught on a choked sort of whimper. “Just one more and then we can take a break, darling.”

You sprawl against the sheets, exhausted as he lounges bare by the window, a whisp of smoke curling from his cigarette before returning to you once more, spooning you and slipping back inside the sloppy mess of your well-used cunt.

“Good girl.” He tells you again when you moan breathlessly, hand cupping your jaw and turning you to him so he can kiss the gasp from your parted lips. You clench down on him at the words, and he hisses a sound of pleasure against the corner of your mouth. “All mine. My girl.”

“Yours.” You whisper hoarsely, as if there were any other answer.

In the come-down he gathers you to him, kisses the tears of overwhelm from your eyes and holds you as you shiver in the aftermath of your orgasm, feeling worn to the bone in only the best of ways. Cum splatters the inside of your thighs, and Nik idly scoops it onto his fingers and back inside, purring endearments between presses of his lips to your face.

Comforting, gentle when you need it, but demanding, forcing you to surpass beyond what you think yourself capable of if only to see the glimmer of pride in his eyes. When you fail, deliverance is swift as it’s always been, but now it’s different.

“I told you no touching.” He growls, forcing you to look at him as his thumb circles roughly over your clit. He’d caught you masturbating in your room, thinking the house was empty, that he wouldn’t catch you. “You want to touch yourself, you come to me, sweet thing. I’ll take care of you, I always do, don’t I?”

“Yes, yes-” You pant, bucking your hips, desperate, aching without the fullness of him, but Nik pulls away. “Wait. P-please-”

“Need to learn your lesson, little fox.” He soothes, pressing a kiss into your hair even as you whine, trying to buck up and grind against him in a vain search for friction. “Make sure it sticks, Да?”

Yet even as you obey, keep your hands to yourself just as you promised, Nik delights in working you up and pulling away at the last minute. He corners you, slips his hand beneath your waistband and soaks his fingers in your leaking cunt until you moan and mewl for him, then withdraws if only to smirk and suck the taste from them. For days he teases you, edges you until a hiccup threatens in your throat, makes sure you’ve learned your lesson that you are his, and then pulls away to let the reminder sink in. You can’t stand it, go mad with need, find yourself close to humping his knee if only to get some sort of relief.

When he finally does let you come days later, you howl into his flesh, biting down into his skin until he shudders, groans against you and spills inside your clenching cunt.

“My sweet girl.” He murmurs, stroking your face as he cuddles you afterwards. “Я не могу без тебя жить.”

You smile, nuzzle into the warmth of him, knowing he has you, he always will. You can’t forget, not with the things he growls against you as he makes love to you, reminding you that you belong to him. Soft in his room, you lay with him, fold into him as a beacon of safety and trust, know that he will never hurt you, will keep you safe, that this will always be your home.

In front of others you’re his partner, his accomplice, the apprentice he found like a diamond in the rough and had polished into a perfect blade. Deadly, clever, keen-eyed and watchful of all threats. Nik tells Price you don’t play well with others when Price tries to introduce his own protege, and when Gaz offers his hand in greeting you make no motion to return it until Nik grazes a thumb against the side of your throat as if tugging an invisible collar there.

“Careful.” He warns the sergeant. “She bites.”

In private he calls you all his endearments in purring Russian. Ангел, Прелесть, Огонёк. Angel, precious, little fire, the object of his desire. You're his girl, his sweet, fierce little sweetheart, the thing he taught to eat out of the palm of his hand while keeping your wild, dangerous nature.

You're his only family, his beloved little fox he managed to domesticate, the thing that still will bite him given the chance, but likes to curl up in his lap and yawn like a housecat. You're his obsession, his partner, his apprentice. If anything else, you're his weakness.

“Я тебя никому не отдам.” He swears to you, voice a low, deep rumble as he strokes your face, feeling your sleeping breaths fan across his palm.

“I will never give you to someone else.”

You dream of the first day you met him. Feral, scared, hungry and starved and inside- looking so desperately for somewhere safe to call home.

Now, years later, you know. Generous though Nik was, it was this that he had hoped for in the beginning- with you as his partner, his protege, but at the end of the day sleeping in his bed, worn and exhausted from the effects of his desire. Dangerous, feral, useful, but in the end tamed just as he’d envisioned.

And you, younger than him by years and foolish as you were, had gone blindly into the snare.

Nik had never given you any reason to regret it.

Russian Translations (Native Russian speakers feel free to leave a comment of correction)

Дворянство - Russian nobility

Шучу - I’m joking

Лисёнок. - Little fox

Дорогая - Darling

Твоё тело сводит меня с ума - Your body drives me crazy

Да - Yes

Я не могу без тебя жить - I can’t live without you

#nikolai x reader #cod x reader #cod nikolai x reader #nikolai x you #call of duty modern warfare 3 #my writing #my fic #x reader

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stillunusual · 8 months

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The word "Nazi" has a specific meaning to normal people, but to vatniks and tankies it has five basic meanings…. "anybody I don't like" "anybody who disagrees with me" "anybody who's a citizen of a country that Russia wants to invade" "anybody who opposed or simply didn't want to live in one of the tyrannical regimes I simp for" "anybody who was oppressed or killed by one of my favourite mass murderers" EDITED TO ADD: a tankie clown reblogged this post and made some typically asinine comments, so I thought I'd elaborate a little bit…. Tankie clown: @well1x is either referring to the fact that a lot of the "deaths under communism" listed in "the black book of communism" (which gives us the 10 million number or whatever) are quite literally Nazis in WWII, or they're referring to the fact that the only people who have been made to deliberately suffer under communism have been literal Nazis and fascists (generally speaking)

Joining the tankie cult requires you to live in a delusional clown world and believe in a shit ton of made up (and often contradictory) nonsense that requires a considerable repertoire of mental gymnastics (and lies) to maintain….

@well1x is literally trying to claim that all victims of communism are "nazis and facists" (sic), which - back in the real world - is a very obvious lie. It's also a blatant example of victim blaming. For example, most of the millions of men, women and children who were robbed, raped, imprisoned, sent to the gulags, tortured, starved to death, executed or ethnically cleansed by Stalin's henchmen were not Nazis or fascists, and many were innocent of any crime. The vast majority of the population in Stalin's Soviet Union also had to put up with crippling poverty and backwardness, the brutal suppression of their religious and community life and the total lack of freedom.

Based on his comment, I doubt if the tankie clown has ever read "the black book of communism" and I'm also not sure why he mentions this book in particular, when there are thousands of others that thoroughly document the numerous crimes of the regimes tankies insist on being the useful idiots for, and I think it's safe to assume that he hasn't read any of those books either (in fact, I doubt if he's ever read any book whatsoever)…. Tankie clown: Karina then shows an image of (presumably) some kids in the Ukraine famine. This is completely unrelated though because this famine was not manufactured by the USSR as say the Irish famine was by the English. Can't really attribute natural disaster to "muh communism"

Again - a typical genocide-denying tankie lie.

Tankies generally start by saying that the holodomor was Nazi propaganda, and when you debunk that they claim it was just a natural disaster, and when that doesn't work they make up some bullshit about how millions of farmers who barely had enough to live on were wealthy kulaks who burned crops and slaughtered cattle (and therefore deserved to die). And when you point out that the red army actually broke into their homes and confiscated all their grain, every cow or chicken or any other food they had, and that the Soviet authorities blacklisted villages, sometimes purely for containing relatives of Ukrainian independence fighters, and prevented the villagers from leaving, shot them for even collecting ears of grain from the fields, and watched them starve to death - tankies will just deny it, or laugh, or pretend that millions of holodomor victims were all rich landlords (and therefore deserved to die) etc etc….

I've also never seen English people pretending that the Irish famine never happened, or claiming that the victims deserved it, or that it was a good thing, or that Britain should re-conquer Ireland. On the other hand, it's difficult not to notice Stalin's smooth-brained groupies swarming all over social media every day denying or justifying the holodomor and other crimes of Russia and the USSR, and hoping that Russia not only re-conquers Ukraine but also Finland, the Baltics, Poland and other countries it has invaded and occupied in the past.

There's no point trying to reason with tankies using facts, logic or common sense - and appealing to their sense of decency while they're simping for their favourite mass murderers is a complete waste of time. Tankie clown: Karina then says @well1x is defending imperialism(???), defending ethnic cleansing (which …what??), dreaming about labour camps and mass shootings (for Nazis yes plz), and does not do any praxis (based on?).

Yep - most tankie clowns claim to be communists while simultaneously embracing Russian fascism, supporting the imperialism of Russia’s mega-rich ruling class, mindlessly repeating the Kremlin's propaganda and cheerleading their war crimes. These morons seem to have no idea that the Russian Federation is an empire made up of many conquered states that Russia invaded, occupied and colonised in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, or that Russia's war against Ukraine is a brutal attempt to reassert control over one of its former colonies. Russia's history of imperialism is at least as bad as that of any western country - and they're still doing it in the 21st century.

And I have seen countless examples of tankies speaking openly of wanting to mass murder their ideological enemies (or people they don't like) - because they also delude themselves into believing that if their revolutionary dreams ever came true, they'd be the ones doing the arresting and killing, despite the fact that in a real revolution they'd be about as much use as a fart in a spacesuit. They also have no idea how their small dick energy is somehow going to bring capitalism to its knees, which they'd inevitably end up crying about if it ever actually happened in reality.

Most of them are complete losers who spend the majority of their time sitting in their bedrooms huffing their own farts while reading tankie fan fiction online. Tankie clowns also claim to be against western imperialism and capitalism, despite living comfortable lives in western capitalist countries and owing everything they have to capitalism, including the freedom to use their capitalist smartphones or laptops to post anti-capitalist tantrums on social media platforms owned by western capitalists (thus helping these western capitalists to maximise their profits).

This is generally the sum total of a typical tankie's - ahem - "revolutionary" activity.

The vast majority of tankie clowns wouldn't dream of ever giving up the comforts of capitalism to move to one of the authoritarian shitholes they stupidly simp for, because then they might not be able to play their favourite capitalist video games anymore….

It's also a fact that Russia and the USSR have ethnically cleansed millions of people. Tankie clown: OP takes this insane train all the way to the station, and says @well1x is talking about anyone they don't like which… no. They're talking about the traditional Nazis.

No - they're falsely claiming that all victims of communism are Nazis and fascists. Learn to read…. Tankie clown: But also let's break this down. Who does OP think is being called a Nazi? "anyone I don't like" I mean I don't like Nazis, but I don't think everyone I don't like is one lmao. Funny tho, dude throws around the word tankie until it has no meaning.

In my experience, if you disagree with tankies about anything, they will pretty soon call you a fascist or a Nazi. It's they who throw around words like "fascist" and "Nazi" until they have no meaning (and most of them hilariously claim to be opposed to fascism while simultaneously supporting it - if it happens to be Russian). Tankie clown: - "anyone who disagrees with me" if you disagree that all human beings deserve to live a dignified life regardless of race/sex/gender identity/sexual orientation/age/disability/whatever then yeah you probably are a Nazi

Straw man. See above….

It's also amusing to observe the doublethink of somebody who apparently believes that "all human beings deserve to live a dignified life" while simultaneously thinking that when his favourite mass murderers oppressed and/or killed huge numbers of people it was perfectly OK…. Tankie clown: - "anyone who's a citizen of a country that Russia wants to invade" why the fuck are we talking about Russia? Believe it or not OP, USSR does not stand for "United Soviet States of Russia" lmaoooo

We're talking about Russia because most tankie clowns support Russian imperialism and mindlessly parrot the Kremlin's propaganda about how Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine is some sort of special de-nazification operation (see above). Tankies are generally so ignorant, gullible and stupid that they will literally believe anything the Kremlin tells them…. Tankie clown: - "anyone opposed or simply didn't want to live in one of the tyrannical regimes I simp for" tyrannical regimes lmao. These were only "tyrannical regimes" for people who actually were in fact Nazis.

Again - this is the kind of reality-denying nonsense I'd expect to hear from a tankie clown. One thing that really appalls people in the central and eastern European countries that experienced the reality of being occupied by the USSR and/or Russia, is the staggering ignorance and stupidity of western useful idiots who have no idea what it was actually like, and are not only dumb enough to join the tankie cult, but insist on westsplaining to the victims and their descendants about how the horrors they and their families suffered (usually for doing literally nothing) either didn't happen ("cuz the CIA made it all up") or claiming that they somehow deserved it ("cuz they were all Nazis/fascists/kulaks/slave owners").

Back in the real world, these were tyrannical regimes for tens of millions of ordinary people who had done nothing to deserve being subjected to tyranny…. Tankie clown: - "anyone who was oppressed or killed by one of my favourite mass murderers" yeah basically that's what I've been saying.

Thanks for proving my point….

And please note that smoking weed on your mum's sofa isn't actually going to bring the world revolution closer.

That was just a joke…. 🤣😂

#vatnik #tankie #tankie clownland #useful idiot #keyboard warrior #ignorance is strength #history #communism #ukraine #holodomor #soviet union #ussr

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diejager · 5 months

Note

makarov hunting an/a (enemy? long assassin?) reader who doesn’t really want to work with him- reader knows their stuff, erasing tracks, setting up traps, etc- its a game

призрак Cw: canon-typical death, murder, assassination, mercenary, blood, tell me if I missed any.

You were a ghost —призрак in his mother-tongue. Appearing whenever you wanted and disappearing before anyone could find you, a phantom in the business of assassination, a killer without too high of a price. He’s watched the aftermath of your handiwork, the shows you played and the kills you made, they were a masterpiece he wanted to witness, to utilise for his goals. Even from the darkness of his solitary cell, locked away in the Gulag - the Zorgaya prison complex - he kept hearing about your endeavours.

You interest him, your brought out a certain excitement, made adrenaline pump in his blood, when you were first brought up. You were the a ghost - a wraith - that haunted the world, killing off men and women for the right number. You were a killer for hire, one of the best in the industry that even he - Vladimir Makarov - had attempted to recruit, to tie you down to his name and fame, to have you work for his purpose. Permanently.

But you were a slippery one, escaping whatever trap he carefully laid out for you, falling through his fingers, finding the smallest crack - mistake - in his plan that he once thought was full-proof. You were smart, feisty and skillful, able to see through his carefully crafted words for a hire, pushing past the firewall of his mind and planting a virus, corrupting his original purpose, rooting yourself into his sick mind. This feeling, the way his heart rammed against his rib when you sent a warning shot, or when you escaped from his grasp, this wasn’t love —no, he was a being detached from such frivolous affairs. He didn’t love. He couldn’t with his cold, dead heart. This was an obsession, Makarov obsessed over things, he knit picked, he stole and took apart.

Makarov was a being whose conscious transcended the likes of capitalist westerners who’ve corrupted his motherland, small-minded and parasitic politician who made the Soviet Union crumble to dust; whose forgone the primal needs that made humanity weak —vulnerable; Vladimir Makarov was better than any man.

That’s where stemmed his obsession with you, the need to hunt you down. You portrayed yourself as a being higher than him. A better strategist and killer than him. It went from word of mouth to ear, Makarov heard from the other guards and new inmate speak of you, you achievements, the spike in your demands and the people who were ready to give you an arm and leg to pay for your service. Powerful men and women routing you an undisclosed amount of money to kill of someone, to have them assassinated in their own bedroom, to be drowned in their own bathtub or to be poisoned by their own wine.

He had Konni keep a track on your work while he waited for the right time to be freed, jumping back to work once he landed in Russia. He took it on himself to follow your steps, he had a hand in every sector of the underworld, dabbing in everything to keep his hold over the world. He couldn’t find anything about you, neither your past nor your character, you were nameless and faceless, the hooded mask obscuring your face from the world. Makarov’s best couldn’t even track you through cameras and find your deposit account, it seemed as though you had a team of your own, working in the dark to keep your and their livelihood going.

You evaded his traps, able to figure out which deals were made by him as a ploy to catch you, to find the ghost that haunted his mind. You were a disease, a parasite that unknowingly clung to him. You knew him, the messages he received through the grapevines, taunting remarks and threats that made him see red. You were too skillful, erasing your steps, making it seem as if you were never there in the first place, uninvolved with it, but the world knew who committed the crime. This was a game - or so he liked to think - of cat and mouse, he preferred being the cat, the dangerous and cunning feline who stalked the small mouse, he had to swallow his pride and confess that he played the mouse as often as he played the cat, being hunted and narrowly escaping because you let him.

But this, this meeting was a surprise, to see his призрак stand before him, tempted by the proposition he had to offer you —without any underlying meaning or hidden thoughts.

“мы наконец встретились, Призрак.” (We finally meet, ghost.)

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @havoc973 @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @danielle143 @dont-mind-me-just-existing-sadly @tuttifuckinfruttifriday

#x reader #cod mw2 #cod mw2 x reader #mw3 makarov #makarov cod #makarov #vladimir makarov #cod makarov #makarov x reader #mw3 #call of duty makarov #vladimir makarov x reader #makarov x you #call of duty mw3 #cod mw3 #mw3 x reader #cod mw3 x reader #mw3 spoilers #vladimir makarov cod

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blingblong55 · 11 months

Text

Perception- 141 x M!Reader

Based on a request

M!Reader, angst, mentions of blood,

The Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps

You are a well known member of Task Force 141. Although on field you are known for being the violent and viscous way you fight enemy soldiers, many on base don't really mind calling you names. In a way, you have become the freak of base. Ghost himself fears you at times, mainly because he has see you kill men with your bare hands and act as if it was nothing. He has seen the blood of the enemy dripping from your body and how you act as if it was normal. The team has so much respect for you though, they understand you are there for the mission, that you'd kill if it means to reach the goal.

Nothing really stands in your way when it comes to combat. But before you had become the man you are known as today, you were normal. A man of honour, never wanting to hurt anybody, no matter the circumstances.

----

What changed you, was 12 years ago, you were 2 years into your service when in a mission you were captured. Although the Soviet Union had fallen, Russia still held prisoners in infamous Gulag. You and a few of the other men who were also captured were tortured. Day and night was a living hell. The conditions were always horrible, men dying ever other hour due top weather and physical strength.

One night, you and three other men tried to escape, but because of a guard dog, you all failed. You fought back though, kicking, scratching and punching the guards. When one of the men saw you fight, he knew where they'd send you to next.

"глупый гребаный человек, думает, что может убежать от нас." a soldier spoke, some laughed as the other beat you senseless. They had broken your old self to the point that you just didn't care how you survived. For three hours straight every soldier that wanted to, would go and kick you, punch or even throw rocks at you.

Sometimes at night when you feel your most vulnerable, you feel for the cigar burns they left around your body. At times, you look in the mirror when you are shirtless, the deep scars that were scattered all over your body. Each touch took you back to the three years you were held in.

The winters were unbearable, at times, some of the men that would sustain injuries would die or have body parts be amputated. Others also died from hyperthermia, and somehow you survived the easy deaths.

On the night they sent you to a new part of the camp, they made sure to tattoo a symbol on your chest. A large skull a sword that pierced the top of it. All the prisoners were in cages, it ranged from the smallest of men to the biggest of all. You were well in your early 20's, so your shape was not so bad, even after all the days you spent without eating.

Once they clothed you properly, they threw you and a few other men into the fighting area/stage. Rich people watched from the stands as you all looked at them, you were all new. No one knew what the hell you were thrown in for.

Until you spotted the tools for fighting. And eerie sound came from speakers, the crowd clapped and cheered as soon as the prisoners started to fight each other. You, with some luck held a small dagger, a man much smaller than you sprinted to you, a sword on his hand.

If this was the way of getting out might as well fucking fight, you thought. You quickly dodged the man and soon stood behind him, you slashed his throat and took the sword from him. For hours on end, the smallest and even biggest of men fell to their demise. Blood was soaking the floor beneath you. Only 10 men survived from 50. You being lucky number 3.

And for many nights the routine was the same. Get beaten to sleep, trapped into a cage and wake up early, eat little to nothing and by sundown fight for your life.

In your time of fighting, you learned a few tricks, go for both weak and big. You did things you aren't proud to ever admit. You killed more men than any of the task force ever dared to do.

One night as you slept another prisoner escaped his cage, you woke up to being held by a knife at your throat.

"ты убил моего гребаного брата" the man spoke. (Translation: you killed my fucking brother)

"этот слабый ублюдок на это наткнулся" you answered coldly. (Translation: this weak bastard stumbled upon it)

"Я убью тебя" (Translation: I'll kill you)

"Нет, если я убью тебя первым" and thats when you grabbed the knife from him, stabbing him in the eye and then his throat. Before the guards came, you threw the night far from your cage and pretended to sleep. (Translation: Not if I kill you first)

----

You still have nightmares about it, but they aren't ever too bad. This mission that you were on though was a hard one. You and the rest of your team were captured. Price took the situation under control, trying to make negotiations with the enemy. In your years since being freed from the gulag, you hadn't spoke Russian or even heard it until tonight.

"Говорю тебе, сегодня вечером мы договоримся об этом, а завтра они проснутся мертвыми." the soldier said from the other room. (Translation: I'm telling you, we'll settle this tonight, and tomorrow they'll wake up dead.)

Your blood ran cold. Your breathing started to get out of control, you looked around the room, none of the other men knew what they had said. Gaz was the one who noticed your shift in behaviour, "Mate, whats wrong?" he whispered which caused all the other to look at you.

"I won't die, not by fucking Russians." your hands slowly shaking, you tried to steady your breathing, and thats when you realised you were back in a cage. You knew you were trapped, but it was as if you were young again, fighting every night for a spot to live.

"What does that mean?" Soap asked.

"Nothin'" you answered. You have to escape, you can't live like that anymore. You looked around the room and saw a poster, the same kind that was at every fight. You started to feel dizzy, and thats when Ghost noticed it, you were having a panic attack.

"Price, we have to get him out, now."

One look at Price understood why, Ghost shifted closer to you, he positioned himself in a way that would help him rub your back.

"s'alright mate, I won't let that shit happen twice." Ghost knew about what happened to you years ago, he accidentally found the files Laswell and you worked hard to bury. But not once did he push to know more, at times when you felt comfortable, you would open up, and he'd listen to the stories of those days.

But you couldn't listen, you didn't really understand the words that came out of his mouth when he tried to reassure you. Your hands digging at your skin, trying to feel your skin brought some good.

"Gaz, you untie me, and I'll untie you." Price ordered, soon the two men were up. They untied Soap, who untied Ghost. And he knew you best, so he opted to untie you once the Russians were taken down.

And once your eyes met Price, Ghost and Gaz untied you, Soap holding close as they all comforted you. Your breathing was starting to go back to normal. But still, the memories and the horror that place brought you were no fun.

The constant nights where you wished to just end your life, that maybe I'd be best if you die by your own hands and not by someone else's, especially not in front of the all the wealthy people who would watch the fight as if it was a sport.

The memories will forever stick to you and the regret you carry is who makes you the soldier you are today.

-----

A/N: I wanted this to be longer, but my ideas ran out, sorry

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Tags: @xweirdo101x

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50cal-fullauto-astarion · 10 months

Text

☈ your bones singing into mine ii

one - two

nikto x gen!bio-weapons engineer reader (no use of y/n) 3.4k words cw: honestly just the relationship being dysfunctional, also like warlord sugar daddy overtones, but that's just how this cookie is gonna crumble Nikto has swept you out of the darkness, and into an intact world burning full of ugly lights. He meets your every need as you work to create weapons to supply him an armory of shock and awe. He buys for you a place in Bruges, a rowhouse right on the water, and your only desire is a romantic dinner with him. He does not have it within himself to deny you.

Nikto brings you out into a world that is bright and burning, but mostly whole. He tells you that things are tied on a shoestring of balance, that any strong enough blow of breeze could tip the whole house of cards, and he has a look in his eyes that names himself typhoon.

He is one of the most complex and deeply locked men you have ever met in your life, and you have met a great many men with secrets that could turn cities into subatomic particles in a blinding flash of a second. He wants to father a new world, a savage paradise, and, yet, he holds you in the palm of his velvet-covered iron fist as his finest treasure.

Penthouses are cleared out for you–places high in the sky, in any number of cities, so far away from the ground and the dark. He pours money into your comfort like hemorrhaging, and he cares not that his funds bleed, because he can always dump more into the wound.

It’s a wound he wants to sustain, because he likes to see you clean, and comfortable, and sparking electricity as you work. He provides makeshift, mobile labs for you. Thousands upon thousands of dollars for computers, and programs, and security. Though he lifts you into the light, he makes you a small space of darkness, allowing you to run and return to your work.

He begins to call you Spider, or Pauk, depending on whether his English is dropping your name like a threat, or if his Russian is soft and trying to entreat you.

There is a place in Bruges, right on the water, that he pulls together for you. It is smaller than your other hideaways, cozier. Bulb-lit with warm wooden flooring and tall walls. He walks stiffly through the halls, watching for your reaction, and his shoulders relax when you turn from the window watching boats on the water to give him your cracked grin.

“It’s out of a book,” you say, “the buildings are such bright colors. How is this real?”

“It’s always been this way here,” he tells you. He shuffles a moment, bringing his clasped hands from his back to his front, before he adds quietly, “We’re glad that you…find it acceptable here.”

Surely he is remembering the blocs he grew up on, all the colorless brutalist construction from the Soviet era. Houses for workers, starvation in the streets. You wonder if his place had heriz rugs all over the floors, to insulate sound and cushion steps and provide color.

You press your fingertips into the cool glass, looking at him, wondering about him. You’d like to see his face, though he’s told you that it is a nightmare. You’d like to kiss him. You know he loves you, just as you love him.

“It’s perfect. I’m going to like it here,” you tell him, and your heart swells and patters when his shoulders raise a little bit, proud of himself for his pick. With his hidden face, you’ve become an expert in his body language. All his little tells become clear to you, the more time you spend with him.

He is slow with you, cautious. Not as if approaching a wild animal, he would never treat you with such base suspicion and wariness, but as if he is the animal, well-aware of exactly how powerful his bite is. He treasures you too much to damage you.

Such brutality is held within this many-faceted man, vast and damning. He is a gentleman though, through accident or practice, and he puts that hardwork into effect with you.

It causes you to make the first move most of the time.

“I want you to have dinner with me tonight,” you say, tapping your fingers against the glass, feeling the condensation cling to your fingerprints.

He shakes his head. “Your value is too high for us to allow you out of the flat, Pauk,” he says gently, misunderstanding, as if reminding you. There are so many beautiful homes he has carved out for you, but you’ve never stepped foot outside of them.

He thinks you want to, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The reality is that you are brimming with hatred at the fact it still stands. That your suffering was for nothing, and the apocalypse still lies dormant but rumbling, a stalled birth. You love your closed spaces and your blackout curtains that hide the world and your tall walls and bright lights.

“We can have something ordered and brought to you,” he continues, trying to soothe the blow that never landed.

A grunt of annoyance snaps out of your throat, hand pressing flat to the glass. “Nooo,” you draw out, turning to face him in full. “I want you all to eat here, with me. Only us, none of the guards making all that fucking noise with their heavy boots. And I want to pretend that we’re all just having a nice night. And there are no contagions or stadiums or belt-fed guns.”

In shame, his head drops a degree, arms tightening in front of him. The supple leather of his gloves creak. “Apologies, Pauk.” His head remains that one slice lower, but his eyes flicker up like a bird’s from beneath his rippy lashes. “We…” he pauses, trying to formulate the words, “we will put that together. For you. What do you want to eat?”

Your hand comes away from the glass, and you press your palms together like a prayer, holding the sides of your hands to your lips. “I want something bloody and buttery. Something good made by someone that doesn’t love me.”

A small noise like a laugh sounds behind his heavy mask, and his neck relaxes. It puts together a picture of thought: it’s a good thing we do not cook for you, then. “We will find something.”

Neither of you cook. It’s a sad reality. You were too built up for epidemiology and plague-practitioning to have the room or time to learn the skill, and Nikto readily admits that he’d long ago lost his sense of smell. “Nova gas,” he explained, funnily enough. “That was your grandfather’s work, yes?” It was. He and his team. You are a legacy leper-making, just like God and all of his followers.

The sun has settled fully in the city of Bruges, and the light of street lamps, the running lights of boats on the water, and fairy lights around shopfronts make the water glitter. It is warm here, with all the brick and cobblestone soaking up the yellow light, and for once you are fine with the curtains open.

Nikto has spoiled you rotten with clothing, all of it fine and soft and rich. You dress comfortably, beautifully, and wander the flat, looking over things leftover from past tenants, waiting on his return. He always leaves you with a guard when he is gone, and tonight it is a short but sturdy woman from Montenegro who does not speak. She sits on the small leather couch in the living room, reading a book with horses on the cover, rifle across her lap. You do not bother her, but you cannot wait for her to leave.

When Nikto arrives, it’s with yet another guard, this one in plainclothes, carrying two large paper bags in their arms. It’s always seemed funny to you that he just goes out in the mask, nightmare beneath it or not, and that people must have reactions in public. But, you don’t think Nikto travels anywhere that people would dare comment on it. He has lackeys for embarrassing, mundane duties.

He takes the bags from the second guard, and dismisses the woman on the couch, letting you approach to lock the deadbolts on the back of the door when they’re out. It is your comfort and your right, he will not interfere with it.

Meeting his eyes, you grin a cracked grin at him. “Smells good. What is it? What was the restaurant called?”

He makes another laugh-noise, looking skin-close to bashful. “We do not know. We sent Dejanović to get it, he knows the city.” He peers into the bag. “He said foreign dignitaries enjoyed the place. We don’t feel like that always speaks well to quality.”

You try to take the bag into your hands, but his arm tightens. He does not like you doing menial tasks. He likes it only when you are free to tend to your work and whims. It is much preferable to him that your needs are met, and he is glad to tend to those tasks when he is with you.

“If it’s all rot and garbage, we can make zakuski instead, and wash it down with vodka,” you tell him, swaying a little, hoping the promise pleases him. “Tahumi brought me a can of caviar, and even found a mother-of-pearl spoon for it.”

His eyes grow hard at the mention of Tahumi giving you a gift. That is another thing that heckles him. He does not like others knowing about you, much less providing for you. That is his honor, and an honor he thinks it is.

Your mouth starts to curl. “Don’t eat yourself with knots,” you instruct him, but his eyes only grow harder, his posture stiffer. “I wanted it, and Tahumi saw it, and he bought it. He did it to please you, because you are so here-and-there with your underlings. Your favor can’t be curried because it doesn’t exist.”

“They are warm, walking corpses, and nothing more,” he says, stone-solid, cold. “We don’t need them for anything more than catching bullets and carrying out orders. You are not a tool to buy their way into security. There is none, and you–you’re–”

He turns his head and breathes out hard. His body is held so tightly it paints pain on the walls behind him. His molars squeak as they grind together, trying to collect himself, but he is upset.

“Andryu,” you say, pulling his diminutives, trying to pluck the chords that will bring him back to you. You bend your body to swerve, attempting to capture his eyes. “Andryusha.”

There is a little break in the armor, a crack where you can push your fingers in, to find contact with him. There is a little light in his eyes. “We cannot allow you to be taken advantage of. Your wholeness is…” he trails off, struggling, and you provide him the territory to prowl, find his words. He turns and meets your eyes, and there is his passion. “Our last shred of warmth is you. If you are pained, or used, or discarded–it is a blow that would destroy the last human thing in us.”

And, here, your scant humanity answers his. You fold, slope, ease. You nod in agreement. “I know, Andryu, I do. But all of you know where my loyalties lie. You know I wouldn’t hesitate to find you if I felt targeted.” You want so horrendously to reach out and touch him, but you don’t. You have to allow him to initiate, otherwise he cannot handle it. “My lot is in your lot. I go where you go. Everyone else is a corpse that forgot to lie down and die.”

Using his language in ways that he understands it unlocks him to you. His gloved hand comes up, hovering just to the side of your jaw. But he doesn’t touch, he only traces the air in a line down the bone structure.

He allows—or, rather, you give him no in allowing you to stand in the kitchen as he unpacks your meals to plate. It could be call an awkward affair, if either of you had the social graces to register that feeling in your minds.

He’s taken his gloves off and swatted at your hand trying to take the paper bag for recycling, giving you a sharp look borne of the love he holds. Again, not allowed to lift a finger.

There are faded Cyrillic characters tattooed across his knuckles, the black ink bloated and faded to blue. SOS across three fingers: either spasi, otets, syna or Suki Otnyali Svobodu. Save me, father, your son. Bitches robbed my freedom.

He’s never told you which in specific, though he’s offered both as options. Tattoos are carved into so much of his skin, and he’s given you brief walking tours of them when he’s stripped down enough for them to appear. A warping on Russian prison tattoos, repurposed for the Spetsnaz.

Epaulets on his shoulders—horses die from work. Devils just below those, oskals, hatred of authority. ‘I Fuck Poverty and Misfortune’ in Cyrillic, riding his Adonis belt. A lighthouse on his forearm, yearning for freedom. His skin tells his story, hard-lived, a language known to few.

His plating skills are what cause him minor self-consciousness. He’s not an artistic man, and he has no eye for aesthetics. The blood-rare ribeyes are just placed and pushed to one side of the plate, crumbled blue cheese dumped artlessly on top. Creamed potatoes end up slopping over roasted asparagus, and he growls in his throat, frustrated. He is trying incredibly hard to make it pleasing. The more he moves it around, trying to be careful, the worse it looks.

He wouldn’t care if it was solely for him. His frustration is because you will not be eating something pretty. In his mind, the only things you deserve are pretty and perfect.

His hands stop fussing, resting on the edge of the counter, glaring down at the plates. “It looks like shit,” he renders his verdict. It sounds like he is considering throwing it away and ordering something else.

“Pelmeni look like shit. So does poutine. But it all tastes good, so we still eat it,” you push back. “No one eats shiny plastic or tinsel.”

He grunts again. “People eat shiny plastic and tinsel all the time, because they are fucking stupid.”

“If any of you are insinuating that any of us are fucking stupid, you’re being a fucking child.” Despite the content of your words, it is not said with heat. It is an olive branch, trying to reach him across the expanse of his dissatisfaction. You’re not sure you’ve made contact until his fingers start tapping on the counter, and he hums Krokodil Gena’s Birthday Song deep in his chest. He is calming, rectifying reality with himself.

After a few, long moments, he picks up the plates, nodding at you, and carries them to the dining table outside the kitchen. It is situated in front of a set of big picture windows that he honestly does not like you standing near, ever, but it is for the sake of the evening. He sets your plate down, and pulls out your chair for you, before he seats himself. There are already sets of silverware and water on the table. A bottle of vodka, and two small glasses to drink from.

You start by pouring two sips of vodka, offering him one. A toast falls out of your mouth, unthinking, and he clinks your glasses together in agreement. When you put your shot back, he hands you his glass, and you shoot that, as well. He has not removed his mask. He will not. But he overturns his glass next to yours.

It’s an odd affair, how the meal goes. Conversation picks up, on plans and your work, on the state of the world as it stands. That will run out, and you will both turn to other topics. Books, movies, cars. Oh, Nikto has such a soft spot for cars–he could talk about them from dusk until dawn. Luxury cars, supercars, performance and rally cars, working vehicles, even an astonishing breadth of consumer cars. He has opinions that stretch the globe, and you soak it up like a dry sponge.

The oddest thing is that you eat, and he does not. He keeps his hands resting on either side of his plate, guarding it as if he was a prisoner, but he does not once touch his silverware. He won’t eat in front of anyone. He can’t, not without taking the mask off. It’s something he didn’t have to explain to you, you just understood it by studying his patterns. It’s something that made him even softer toward you.

You finish, part of your steak left–you intend to slice it up and put it on some grilled crusty bread with piles of caramelized onions later–resting your fork and your knife on the edge of your plate. “That was good. Despite the dignitaries and dog shit. I want a copy of their menu, to tear up and eat bit by bit. I want all of you to have more dates with me, this one dripped romantic. All the seams were splitting up, and it went drop by drop by drop.”

“Date?” he queries, looking at you across the table as he reaches for your plate.

“Date.” You nod once, emphatically.

He shudders, smothering something that sounds like a sigh, averting his eyes. “We…will make sure there is a menu for you, next time,” he starts, unphased by your request. “Roses, if you like.”

You shake your head. “No use for roses, they wilt and die. Flowers all-wilted smell like the dark parts of the bunker, and my stomach eats and eats away at me because of that smell.” You send an apologetic look across the table, thinking. “I’ll take tokens in trinkets. Whenever you bring me jewelry, I don’t take it off.”

As if in example, you pull up your sleeves, showing him the bracelets he’s brought you, left for your discovery on desktops and dressers. Next, you tug at your collar, showing him a pile of necklaces.

His fingers twitch, looking at you helplessly. Not even he can prevent the swallow that goes down his throat, when he sees that you hoard the fine things he brings back for you.

Another long moment passes, and he is hoarse when he agrees, “Jewelry. We will bring you jewelry, then.”

In as much of a rush as you’ve ever seen him, he collects your dishes, and the bottle of vodka, storming back through the kitchen door. It doesn’t latch behind him, and you know he will be a while. It feels dirty, destructive and found and deceitful, but you sneak up to the crack, wanting to watch him.

His back is turned, his mask removed. Hair so deep in darkness it shines white under lights sticks up from his head at all angles, some of it missing from the side of his skull, along with an ear. He eats quickly, in clipped bites, gorging himself, stopping only to tip back the vodka bottle. It’s almost an ugly display, brutal necessity, and you know as well as you know the own pounding of your heart that he is uncomfortable, that he hates this. He hates to be bare.

You cannot see his face, and you would not try to see it. You want to see it someday, and that will only happen when he is ready to show you. You will not steal that freedom from him. You will not sneak looks when he is unawares. It is the same courtesy he has afforded you, and you are hellbent to pay it back in kind.

With that prickling your skin, you back away from the door, allowing him his needs.

When he returns, sitting next to you on the couch, he is warmed-through and softened by the alcohol and food. He takes hold of your ankle, pulling it into his lap, rubbing the knob of your bone with his bare fingers. His masked head tips back, resting against the back of the couch, and he heaves a heavy sigh.

Your stomach clenches, and your heart races. There is so much love between the two of you, so impossibly massive that it cannot ever be feasibly dealt with, and that is something you are fine with when his eyes meet yours in a crinkled smile.

Perhaps your union will kill the world as it stands, but you don’t particularly mind. His hands are warm against your bones, reaching deeper than any other human possibly could, and he looks at you as if you are his only purpose in life, even if that is not true.

“Andryusha,” you greet him quietly, turning your leg in his touch so he can have more skin.

Another small noise, pleasure, and he rubs deeper, followed by a soft, heartsick request, “Say it again, Paukya.”

#nikto #nikto x reader #cod nikto #mwii nikto #cod x reader #cod fanfic #cod mw x reader #my work

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emilybeemartin · 11 months

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Ok ok ok ok listen. Because I have anxiety I feel it's my duty to say that this show won't be for everyone. I came to it over quarantine because my husband suggested we read Bernard Cornwell's series together, and I agreed because I liked Hornblower and knew this was the army equivalent and, let's face it, I wanted to see scruffy mid-thirties Sean Bean in uniform.

THE PREMISE:

Richard Sharpe is a lowborn rank-and-file soldier in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars who is raised to an officer after saving Sir Arthur Wellesley's life (this all happens differently in the books, but the basic event is the same). Throughout the series, he rises in the ranks thanks to his bravery and heroism/recklessness, but he's always caught between two worlds--trying to be a leader of common men while never being accepted by the rest of the highborn officers.

Let's start with the bad:

CONS:

Look, this is a 90s drama glorifying the British army. So like, there are gonna be issues. Women are mostly romantic side pieces to be wooed and rescued, and there are plenty of subplots, verbiage, and stereotypes that didn't age well. Production values are low for the first few and so you've got battle scenes with like fifteen guys and a horse, which honestly I find endearing. But no episode is more cringey than Sharpe's Gold. Due to legal issues, the script had to be rewritten with none of the original material, and it turned into this bizarro semi-supernatural horror involving Aztec gold (in Spain, yes). It's completely different from all the other episodes, and even Sean Bean didn't like it (he called it a "mish mash," which is true). It's such a weird piece of work that we almost stopped watching the show, but we continued, and we were relieved to find that the rest of the series is markedly better. History Hack podcast does a great dive into why this episode was so whack.

PROS:

I MEAN COME ON

Sean really understood this character--absolute chaos on the battlefield and shy and awkward pretty much everywhere else. He's amazing in battle scenes and he's EPIC at acting wounded. But the scenes I replay over and over are when he's socially out of his depth and gets flustered and sputtery and so Sheffield the captions can't handle it.

Supporting cast:

You'll find a lot of your classic British TV favorites making appearances throughout this series, and the camaraderie among the riflemen is always fun. Obviously this is a dude fest, as stated above, but some of the women are also written and acted really, really well--- Assumpta Serna as Teresa is that winning combination of a love interest/action heroine who doesn't devolve into a damsel in distress, and even passes the Bechdel test on a few occasions. And Diana Perez as Ramona is so badass and enjoyable.

Locations: Aside from a few interior sets, these films are mostly shot outside on location, with practical effects and stunts. There's some gorgeous scenery of the Crimean peninsula standing in for Spain and Portugal, and it's just really fun watching these guys run around rocky escarpments and fields with flares and stage explosives going off around them.

Music: I saw someone tag the opening theme as "electric guitar jumpscare" and they're not wrong. It's wonderfully anachronistic and totally 90s and you'll never get used to it. But far better are the soldiers' songs John Tams threads throughout, as well as his and Muldowney's thematic scores, and you will always, always finish an episode with him singing "Over the Hills and Far Away" stuck in your head.

Filming Lore: There was a LOT that happened during filming. Everything from Paul McGann having to drop out as the lead to misadventures in filming in Crimea just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History Hack podcast has an awesome series of "filming of" episodes with input from cast, crew, and historians, and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has a book called "From Crimea With Love" that details the batshit filming adventures. I haven't read it but he references it every six minutes throughout the podcasts.

So: you've been warned, you've been primed. Start with Sharpe's Rifles; it's on Youtube. Watch it and Eagle, maybe jump to Battle or Siege if you're not sure, and then make up your mind.

If this all sounds enjoyable to you, but you wish there were more tall ships, more Paul McGann, more heroic brooding, and even MORE true love cosplaying as masculine camaraderie, you're in luck! Because you should also watch Hornblower!

And then draw fan art of it all! Please,,, I am so lon el y

#sharpe #hornblower #sean bean #paul mcgann #ioan gruffud

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pseudophan · 7 months

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on of those twitter phannies yesterday was like “soviet of you haven’t watch BIG in a while maybe you should” in regards to people talking about the hand holding in spooky week and i badly wanted to respond being like ?? basically i’m gay… the video where dan calls phil his soulmate and literally confirms everything 😭 maybe they should watch BIG again actually

there is this weird thing where some people heard dan say that the speculation about his sexuality and invasion of privacy that he endured was traumatic and somehow from that got that he hates so-called "Phan Shippers" and is against anyone talking about him and phil potentially being a couple and it's so bizarre because it's just literally not what he said at all ? and if he did say that it would be highly hypocritical because, and i cannot stress this enough, dan and phil have always leaned into the shipping thing. always. they know it gets them views and they also clearly find it funny. that was never the issue.

the actual issue has always been people demanding answers and straight up harassing them about it, accessing their families' social media looking for clues, showing up at their literal home being weird, and, while closeted, constantly asking them if they're gay. THAT was the issue, that's what dan is talking about in his video.

i'm not even saying the general shipping didn't also get on their nerves sometimes, i'm sure it absolutely did, but that's not at all what dan said really affected him mentally.

the amount of times dan and phil have joked about it, actively encouraged fanfic (both by tongue-in-cheek writing it themselves and many times saying they consider fanfic to be a good creative outlet), referred to themselves as "phan" (a term they coined themselves, lest we forget), gone along with phannie jokes about them being together, and most of all emphasised that they generally try to stay out of fan spaces (i.e. anything they aren't tagged in) because they want us to feel free to be weird and post whatever without being afraid they'll see it... i'm sorry but to then vehemently insist dan and phil hate it when people ship them and are gonna ?? stop uploading again ?? if we do it ?? fucking stupid. and unbelievably annoying. if you don't like rpf that's fine, but there are so many more important issues you could dedicate your time to than policing people going 'aww' over two lameass grown men touching hands.

#sorry anon this got long #i saw the tweet you're talking about yesterday and this rant has been building in my head since then lmao #i DESPISEEEE it when people twist dan's words in big i hate hate hate hate it #answered

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annebonnydyke · 1 year

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So you’ve had fun Goncharov posting and now you actually want it to be real

(Disclaimer that this is my own opinion based on the vibes I get from Goncharov and you might not necessarily agree with me. Also blanket content warning most of these work deal heavily with domestic abuse, violence, racism, and sexual assualt)

1. The Godfather Part 1 and 2- as far as I can tell this is where most of the Goncharov gifsets come from. This is one of those movies people constantly tell you is amazing and when you finally sit down and watch you get upset bc they were right. They’re regarded as some of the best and most important movies in the film canon for a reason. Mafia movies about the corruption of the soul, inescapable cycles, being doomed by The Narrative™ and of course young hot and sexy Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

2. House of Leaves- for people who enjoy the interpretation of a nonexistent work part of Goncharov, House of Leaves is partly a horror story about a house that bigger on the inside, partly an academic analysis of the nonexistent record of that horror, partly the story of a man’s psychological unraveling, partly a critique of cold academic analysis, and partly a love story. If your favorite part of Goncharov was the metanalysis of a work that doesn’t exist and trying to fit all the pieces together this ones for you.

3. The Handmaiden- for all the people who love Katya and Sofia, two women stuck in their place in the world, who love each other but end up betraying each other. The Handmaiden is psychological thriller about a Korean pickpocket who is sent to con a Japanese noblewoman out of her fortune. Deals heavily with themes of deceit, betrayal, queer love, imperialism, and a woman’s place in a world controlled by men. My favorite movie of all time, highly recommend.

4. Black Sails- truthfully only tangentially similar vibe-wise to Goncharov but as a black sails blog the mutuals would have my head if I didn’t include it on this list and trust me the Goncharov to Black Sails pipeline is very real. Fans of clock symbolism and being being trapped by The Narrative™ will greatly enjoy this one. also that Katya/Sofia and Eleanor/Max/Anne parallels are real and I can prove it and don’t get me started on the Silver and Andrey parallels.

5. Bound (1996)- another one for the Katya/Sofia girlies out there. Two women hatch a plot to steal millions from the mafia, but will they make it out alive? Great style and cinematography and much more punchy and action heavy than the the rest of these. Its a very good modern film noir and the first feature film directed by the Wachowski sisters. Also a much shorter movie (1 hour and 48 minutes) if longer runtimes aren’t your thing.

Honorable Mentions

1. Goodfellas- I personally haven’t seen Goodfellas yet so can’t really give my opinion on it however if you actually want a mafia movie directed by Martin Scorsese starring Robert De Niro here’s one you can actually watch. My friend Angel says this ones really good and I trust their opinion

2. War and Peace 1966-67- again I haven’t seen this one but my friend Bianca really liked this one and tells me whenever she pictures Goncharov she imagines this. From what I gather people who are interested in how soviet history affected the art of the time and enjoy complicated relationship drama will enjoy this one. Also if you’re into very long media this one is split into 4 parts and clocks in at a crisp 7 hours.

If anyone has other suggestions let me know! I love getting recommendations :)

#goncharov #goncharov 1973 #the godfather #house of leaves #goodfellas #the handmaiden #black sails #bound 1996 #war and peace #film

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 5 months

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Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 46

Back to the 1980s! Fun fun fun. Or not, because it's now 1983 and we're watching a Mark Gatiss episode set on a Soviet nuclear sub, which is. Well. Not fun. He's a very boring writer. Lots of stereotypes in both plot and set pieces, and a general feel that he'd have made a very good writer in the 1960s. WITH THAT SAID THOUGH I remember absolutely hating this episode at the time, but on a rewatch, I'm delighted to say it's actually very solidly just below average.

So, Matt Smith and Clara again - ironically, in the air date order we've only skipped backwards by one. Here, they land on said Soviet sub in the middle of the Cold War. Because this is a Gatiss episode, every single person on it is a white man, because aliens and time travel are fine, but women would be Pushing It. Fun fact! This is the first time since 1978 where the only woman is the companion. Two of these white men, in accordance with the laws of Films About Russian Submarines During The Cold War, are at loggerheads because one wants to blow up America and the other thinks nuking the planet is Bad, Actually. Oddly, even this tension feels like a shoehorned-in stereotype, given that the nasty one dies like a third of the way in, but whatever.

ANYWAY the nuclear sub has found what they think is a mammoth in some ice, and Cold War nuclear subs are famous for wanting to advance the plight of natural history museums, so they have it on board. Unfortunately, some science-hating one-scene character decides that thawing out a dead mammoth carcass to continue decomposing in an enclosed submarine is a fantastic idea, and so thaws it with... well, a blowtorch, somehow. This reveals that the mammoth is not a mammoth! It's an Ice Warrior! We've met their queen. It immediately chokes out and kills the idiot with the blow torch.

(Another Fun Fact! This is the first televised Ice Warrior story to feature no Ice Warriors played by actors from Trinidad.)

Meanwhile, Clara and the Doctor arrive and nearly get arrested, then in a scene that belongs in a mildly tedious 1950s it's-behind-you farce, the Ice Warrior turns up on the bridge. It gets assaulted by the nasty Russian who wants to nuke America. This then sets off the premise of the episode, which is that there is an Ice Warrior on a stricken nuclear sub that wants to wipe out humanity because Martian honour means "Attack one, attack all" - as multiple characters stress multiple times, because the Nasty Russian attacked it, the Ice Warrior now gets to kill everyone. "You attacked me," insists the Ice Warrior at one point.

Which is very interesting, given that the first scene of this damned Ice Warrior was of him attacking stupid blowtorch boy.

Obviously, this is just resolved by convincing the Ice Warrior not to kill everyone, and then an Ice Warrior ship turns up and takes it away, presumably back to the queen and that one human guy on Mars. Would he still be alive? Can't remember the year we saw him, now.

SO! What's plot relevant?

Well, this is clearly early Clara - it's her first trip, possibly? We find out about the TARDIS' translation circuits again, which she didn't know about. She gets to have her first Companion Does a Thing scene, I presume (first from her perspective, anyway), but is in fact utterly fucking useless in it, because it's written by Mark Gatiss. Her only actual function in this story is to remind the Ice Warrior that he has a dead daughter, because she is the Only Woman in this story (seriously why did the Ice Warrior have to be male as well? That would have at least HELPED.) Also we find out about the HADS for the first time! If the Doctor leaves it on, the TARDIS just gtfo if it senses danger. Cool. Oh, and another extraordinarily tedious Moffat-era "You are a soldier, Doctor... Another soldier can always tell..." moment.

Otherwise... yeah I think that's it.

Let's update the board!

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up (unless she’s Missy. Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not? Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? A psychic midwife says she’s just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

Why doesn’t the TARDIS like Clara?

#doctor whom #and yet we are continuing

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justsweethoney · 2 years

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#serviced watch #soviet mens watch #watch USSR #eBay #Slava watch #gift for him #Slava Sekonda #gold plated watch

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homunculus-argument · 2 years

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I have thoughts about war.

I fucking hate war. Passionately so. My hatred of it is among the core defining traits of the fabric of my soul. Every single gram of steel or stone, every drop of oil or blood and every hour of human life that has ever been wasted on war could have been better used for literally anything else. I fucking hate the fact that wars and militaries have to exist, because they only have to exists because wars and militaries exists.

Finland has mandatory military service for all able-bodied men. I got the summons at my time, and I could have ended up doing prison time if I had refused to comply altogether. I barely needed to show up for the medical examination, as my mental health records automatically ranked me at c-tier, "released from service during peace time". But if shit ever hits the fan in Finland, I'm still expected to fight. And I've made peace with that.

I'm a fucking cartoonist, and that is what I'm good for. I'm a terrible aim, dogshit at following instructions and verbal orders, and my skills at improvising were born purely out of my complete incapability of just doing what I was supposed to, exactly the way it was supposed to be done. I know that would make an absolutely dogshit soldier, and not because of some delusion that I would simply be too good to kill people if I had no choice. Nobody is.

I've known plenty of russians, and though they've got their edges, they haven't been bad people. I had a stained glass teacher from Ukraine, whose passport still read "Soviet Union" when he left his homeland for good. Ordinary people who just want to make art, watch movies, and have relationships.

In Finland, we've been watching the war with the grim awareness that every russian soldier who gets shot in Ukraine is another one that won't ever step foot into Finland. And every single one of them would probably also have preferred to be something else than an absolutely dogshit soldier.

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etirabys · 1 year

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The first episode of The Americans is one of the most perfect episodes of TV I've ever watched from a my-kinks perspective. CW: rape, and brief sexual harassment of a minor.

Non spoilery burbling followed by spoilery burbling (again, just for the first episode, which is 40m long)

NON SPOILERY

The main characters are a married couple of KGB spies who have been in deep cover as normal Americans for almost two decades. They have two preteen kids who have no idea.

They are both phenomenally competent – a lot of my pleasure lies in just watching them work.

He's acclimated to his life and feels the pull of the life he's playacting – he's a goofball dad, more naturally affectionate with his kids, more drawn to American prosperity. A new mall opens up and he mentions to his wife, on the way there with his kids, that it has "fountains and skylights". I love that line – so unimportant, but she'd never say it.

She's the fanatic. She idealizes the Soviet way and despises Americans for their weakness in comparison, but it's also been decades since she was in the country. It seems that, even before she left, she was so immersed in her harsh training program during her formative years that she lost touch with what normal Soviets were like.

He's in love with her but not so much the other way around, and watching him try to love her is like watching someone trying to grab a knife by the sharp end.

They can only be mostly open with each other. A cult of two. And even then – because they were told not to share their pre-spy lives with each other, to make it easier to keep their cover stories straight – they don't even know each other's birth names until the end of episode 1.

SPOILERY

Oh my gosh. So. I'm really into how he's in love with her and how emotionally unsafe she is to love because of who she is.

He listens to a tape of her seducing a CIA guy and the unhappy microexpressions rippling on his face as he listens to it – amazing! You just know she's never been expressive with him during sex, because it wasn't necessary for the job.

At another point he comes home and starts kissing the back of her neck in the kitchen, and her expression tightens as he ignores her stop words, and she whirls on him with a knife. He says, "You're my wife." She replies, "Is that right," and her eyes say: that means nothing to me.

And of course –

The guy they're keeping in their trunk, a Soviet defector they kidnapped, is a colonel who raped her in her cadet days. She's cracking under her desire for revenge, arguing for killing him immediately (rather than waiting out the American scrutiny on every train station / port, and shipping him back to the motherland), and not saying a word about her personal reasons. When it comes out – because the colonel, tired and expressionless, apologizes after she beats the shit out of him – her husband veers on a dime from planning to return the colonel to American hands and defecting himself, to choking the colonel to death in the garage.

They dispose of the corpse together and fuck in the car. I find this unbearably romantic. Especially because... (1) the intimacy is genuine, her loyalties really do shift closer to him (she lies to her superior about his loyalty for the first time), but (2) sleeping with him at this junction is also the strategically optimal for her to be doing to manage him. She cares about him, unlike the other men she manages with sex, but he is in fact in that category for her.

There's no way he doesn't know that, but he loves her anyway, and maybe even admires her for it. He's so fucked.

#rambl #the americans #if my read of the vibe is wrong don't tell me #i'd like to find out for myself as i keep watching

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 8 months

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Republicans Are Soft on Fascism

(I try to put my head in the sand, but I suffocate.)

Stephen Jay Morris

9/7/2023

Billionaire Elon Musk blames Jews for the failure of his social Media venture, “X” (formerly “Twitter). It has something to do with the ADL. I saw recent videos of neo-Nazis on a Florida bridge, waving their swastika flags left to right in view of the oncoming traffic. Hitler fan and podcaster, Nick Fuentes, tells the world he hates poor people. Anti-Semitism has come full circle, again, to being blatantly expressed in public. There used to be repercussions for talking shit about the Jews. I am watching this cadre of Jew haters unfold in front of my very eyes. Lots of American Jews once thought that if they converted to Christianity and married a Gentile, they would be immune to being put in concentration camps or thrown into ovens. I can still hear my father pounding his fist on the dining room table, in a rage, yelling that the Jews are a religion not a race. “Why is he yelling at his family and not to real Jew haters?” I thought. That is a story for another time.

But alas, you can’t convince a Nazi that Jews are white. They think and feel that Jews are a mogul race of mud people and should be destroyed. Once they find out that you are Jewish—bye, bye!

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a book, “It Can’t Happen Here.” It warned about the possibility of Fascism in America. I read that book in 1969. I told my parents and they thought I was crazy. America is the strongest country in the world, they said; it would never happen here!

It is now happening here. What about the owners of massive wealth and the military industrial complex? Do they care? First, the so-called deep state couldn’t give a damn about Jews at risk for death! Second, Nazis are pro-capitalism so long as White men control it. I’ve asked this question a million times: have you ever seen a Right winger protest a Nazi? Neither have I. Conservatives are soft on fascism. They get embarrassed by Nazis because they say the quiet rhetoric out loud. They say things like, “the East elites (Rich Jews) want to run our country” or “the globalists (Rich Jews) want to run the world!” They say, “the Jews will not replace us!” to which the conservative agrees, but thinks the Nazis are giving the game away.

But when it comes to Communism? Holy fuck burgers! Bomb them! Kill them all and let God sort them out! They know that Communists would take away their property and businesses and give it all to the poor. If you ask me, I’d rather live in Stalin’s Russia than in the 1950’s America, anti-communist hysteria. Fuck anti-Communism!!! Conservatives outlawed free speech in America in the 50’s. If you slightly inferred liberal tendencies in your speech, the FBI would tap your phone and follow you to work! You think I am exaggerating? Go through some time machine and find out. During the 50’s, if you were in America and, simultaneously, in the then Soviet Union, you wouldn’t know the difference! In Russia, The KGB would follow you around and, in the USA, the FBI would follow you around.

As an anarchist, I am not surprised. As a Jew, I am highly concerned. Oh, and your gentile spouse will not be spared. During the Nazi’s regime, many Aryans were put into camps for marrying non-Aryan husbands or wives. The price for race-mixing is death.

I sure miss the Jewish Defense League, even though they were Right wing, Zionist revisionists. They were pro-active. Whenever there were Nazi rallies, they were there with baseball bats. I am not pro-violence, but I am not pro-surrender, either. I’ll tell you one thing. I will not walk into a gas chamber peacefully. Never again, motherfuckers!

#stephenjaymorris #poets on tumblr #american politics #youtube #anarchism #baby boomers #anarchopunk #anarchocommunism #anarcho punk #anarcho syndicalism #anarchofeminism #anarchoqueer #democratic party

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pinkeoni · 6 months

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Stranger Things and the Male Gaze

In the second episode of season one, Stranger Things gives us a literal example of a character employing the male gaze, when Jonathan takes a snapshot of Nancy undressing through his camera.

Following this creepy display of voyeurism (I'm sorry Jonathan, but it's what you did!) Jonathan turns his gaze to a similar yet very different subject— Barb.

And it's after Jonathan asserts his gaze on these two subjects do they experience a point of "attack" from a male presence, eg Nancy has sex with Steve and Barb is killed by the demogorgon.

The term "the male gaze" was first used in film theorist and feminist Laura Mulvey's 1973 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly."

The idea of the "male gaze" can be a hot topic of discussion in recent film theory and film spaces, even with its legitimacy being debatable. But it's an idea that has been known within film for half a century and, for all intents and purposes, Stranger Things is made from a male perspective. Its creators are male, its producers are male, its directors are mostly male and its cinematographers are male. There are certainly strong female voices within the show as well, but the control of the narrative, like most mainstream media, is still male.

The idea of gazing within the show is present from the very beginning to where the series is now. We see the government spy on Joyce's phone call in episode one, the Man "with a capital M," as represented through Martin "Papa"— the government itself being understood as a male presence historically, and the other great-omniscient-male gaze present in the show comes from the Mind Flayer/Vecna.

Gaze as a Weapon

The male gaze is a sexual one, and it's a dangerous one at that. In her book on gender in horror Men, Women and Chainsaws, (yes I'm still reading this, reading the final chapter actually inspired this whole post) author Carol J. Clover writes:

"This is the narrative's present and casual gaze, its "doing" gaze. It is also, of course, a predatory, assaultive gaze—in the story's own terms, a phallic gaze."

Clover writes about the 1960's film Peeping Tom, which shares the story of a filmmaker who enjoys gazing at women sexually as much as he enjoys killing them, their bodies and gruesome deaths all captured through the crosshairs of his camera, which doubles as his weapon.

The idea of gaze or sight as danger or as a weapon is prevalent in the show. Papa forces El to spy on soviets, employing her as a weapon through the power of sight, Vecna utilizes hallucinations to attack his victims, and Kali weaponizes her ability to manipulate what people see.

To control the gaze is to have power and autonomy, and to be gazed upon is to lose that power. For example, we see Will enacting his own gaze through his own lens when he brings Bob's camera trick-or-treating. When Will is scared and sent into a true-sight vision, he drops the camera and thus loses control of said gaze. We later see Joyce gaze upon Will through the television screen as she replays the tape. This is also the moment when Joyce discovers the presence of the Mind Flayer.

In a similar vein, El has been subjected to being gazed upon and gains power and autonomy through sight. This is shown most literally during NINA, when El is subjected to Papa's gaze. Not only is he watching her as an omniscient eye through this whole process, but he is using tapes that were recorded and curated by him— Papa is literally the male gaze that is manipulating the narrative.

The strongest moment for El during NINA, the one where she gains new knowledge she never knew she had, is when she has a flashback where we see the world through her eyes, her gaze, and I think it's important that in this moment the person gazing back is another woman.

And after this experience, she shifts the narrative that has been given to her by Papa.

Gaze as Knowledge and Freedom

The way that El has learned about the world has been through sight. It's significant that part of this exploration involves looking at a television screen, in both seasons 1 and 2.

In seasons 2 and 3 El picks up spying on her own, which is something she brought over from the lab. But this time, without her gaze being controlled by Papa. While it's encouraged by Max (granted a female presence) using her powers to spy is something that El chooses to do.

While the spying is indicative of El's anatomical freedom, it's inherent invasiveness of this act, especially as she spies on the boys, is something that codes it as male. The idea of a "female gaze," while sometimes debated as real or not, is something that exists in modern feminist film theory. The idea isn't that it subjugates men under the power of women, a mirror of what the male gaze is, but rather "about using the presence of a female perspective on screen to emphasize the story’s emotions and characters."

But it should still be considered what gaze the show is made under. As stated before, Stranger Things is made from a male perspective, even with a female character at the lead. And perhaps this is why El's personal freedom feels male, since it's controlled by a male perspective. If the female gaze is pervasive then it is in indie-film spaces, and mainstream and commercial projects such as this show have been dominated by men for years.

Part of the male gaze isn't just the act of how the male viewer gazes upon women (scopophilia), but how the male viewer identifies with the on-screen female presence (ego libido). If El is meant to be the hero in a show from a male perspective, and arguably for a male audience, then perhaps her personal freedom and empowerment was always going to feel male.

But still, I don't think that El's gender can necessarily be completely ignored, or that the existence of the male gaze eradicates the importance and meaning behind El's empowerment and gain of autonomy. I think about a quote that Clover used to describe the maleness of final girls. If El is a woman, then her personal freedom, autonomy, and empowerment is not completely male.

#stranger things #el hopper #st analysis #my analysis #film theory

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jadedbirch · 5 months

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The Three Musketeers (2023) - Part 1: d'Artagnan

Directed: Martin Bourboulon

Starring: Vincent Cassel, Eva Green, François Civil

First of all, you do not know the struggle we had to go through to even get our eyeballs on this movie! Only die hard Dumas idiots like me would have even bothered 🤦🏻‍♀️. Finally, we had to buy it from AppleTV. Anywho, below is my live blog of the latest French nonsense! I make a point of tutoring myself watching as many 3 Musketeers adaptations as possible, regardless of the psychological damage, and I kind of have high hopes for this one despite the fact that I can already tell they cast more for 20 Years After than for The 3 Musketeers. But I'm willing to pretend there are no good, young actors in France (because there's no other way to explain these casting choices) for the sake of my own sanity. The rest of my babbling and movie spoilers will be below the cut!

I see we start the movie in 1627, which already makes me laugh 🤣. The book famously starts in 1625 and then they time skip a year and a half into the future because I guess Dumas remembered that the war starts in 1627. Alex was the king of inexplicable time skips and I see the movie has chosen to stick to history rather than literary canon 👌🏻.

Everything is cold, dark, and wet. I have no idea what's going on, or who this blond woman is, or why d'Artagnan is coming back from the dead. But I'm always in favor of immortal abominations 😈.

It does entertain me that Eric Ruf, who played Aramis in an earlier French adaptation, plays Richelieu in this one. Nice touch.

LOL d'Artagnan gate crashing the musketeer headquarters all "I'm not Soviet, the French do not stand in line!" Anyways, he's authentically obnoxious, which I like, although clearly also 20 years too old.

I feel like this is an AU that takes place before they invented soap and also dyes, which is hilarious because if they're going for historical accuracy, this is just what the plebs think looks "authentic". Why are these men all so dirty and old? At least they make fun of Athos being a thousand years old in the movie, but why is Jussac also so ancient? And still serving in the guards? Life expectancy back then was like 25, but surely no one would be serving in the army past the age of 50, which was like Ancient for the 1600s, even among nobility.

I must laugh at the fact that Athos straight up introduces himself to d'Artagnan as Athos de Sillegue, le comte de La Fère. So, I see we are just going to go there 🤭🤭🤭. This changes his story arc completely though, stay tuned for my whinging. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Absolutely incredible, legendary , A++, 11000/10: bisexual Porthos waking up in bed with a lady and a dude after a night of debauchery! Chef's fucking kiss! I forgive the fact that there are no young people in France.

Aramis, so far is very Murder Kitten. I do wish he'd wash his face more and do something about his guyliner (I feel like he should have just committed to MORE MAKEUP frankly because the guyliner alone is odd), but c'est la vie, I guess.

Plus one point for Athos getting wrongly arrested, minus twenty points for making Athos a Protestant WTF? And in what world would a nobleman of Athos' lineage get sentenced to death for stabbing an unknown woman? This is all so silly! (I do have to give Milady points for just like fucking with him so fantastically. Plus one revenge point to Milady.)

Aramis torturing a guy to save Athos is honestly 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 11/10 Murder Kitten, automatic plus one point.

This is all incredibly Dramatique, as much as it strains credulity. I love it when modern directors decide that they can write better "action" than Dumas himself. I'm just sitting here screaming "Why would you have that conversation where anyone can hear you!" Minus one point.

I must say Constance and d'Artagnan have a much more believable romance here than in the book. Plus 5 non-creeper points.

(Please I can't stop looking at how old all these Musketeers are 😅😅😅)

Okay so they've also given Athos a BROTHER. Who is part of a Protestant conspiracy. This is all so fucking crazy, I don't even know what to say. Am I watching the musketeers or La Reine Margot? 🤔

Incidentally, the King also gets a brother! Everyone gets a brother! J/K at least the King really did have a historical brother. Athos just gets fucked with in this movie a lot. Automatic minus one point for unnecessary siblings.

WHY must you all insist on having these super SECRET conversations in the middle of a public square where literally anyone can hear you? Minus one dumbass point.

And now d'Artagnan must go to England.... Alone? Because it's more heroic this way? Ambushed by ghost squirrels in the woods? Oh no, that's just Athos, lurking in the woods, as one does. "All misery comes from love." Thanks, Old Man Lush.

This revisionist tale of Milady's past is all very convenient but I FUCKING HATE IT every single time they try to do this in modern adaptations. Let Milady Be Evil 2023! But I see that you will not. Listen, it's not "feminist" to turn the villain into the victim. I'm so tired. 🤦🏻‍♀️ These misguided attempts at feminism really do not do her any favors, she has a lot more agency as simply the Really Bad Girl who just wanted money and power. Minus 5 points for not letting Milady have any fun and minus another 10 points for giving her an abusive ex-husband!

As for Athos, IMO it's always much more compelling to let him be the guy who tried to kill his beloved wife for betraying him, than to make him the spineless man who turns her over to the authorities for Handwavium. Yes, it's pretty fucked up. But it's much more humanizing and makes him a darker, more interesting character. And I will always maintain that.

(This movie is so fucking dark, all the scenes take place at night or in some cthonic tunnels or prisons ffs have mercy on my eyes!)

Oh dear, here we go again. Milady taking a Dramatique - and completely unnecessary - dive off a cliff. Only this time, we know she doesn't die because.... She can swim? And definitely will not have all her bones broken by that 1000 ft fall. Minus 20 points for lazy writing.

(My God, everyone is so dirty, you would think they never did their laundry in France 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Ironically, the only well lit scene takes place in what looks like the Notre Dame which is just very silly as that place is a sepulcher.

(Once again, we are advancing the plot by having super secret conversations conducted in the middle of the palace with an open door where anyone can see and hear you plotting 🤦🏻‍♀️ Minus one petty point.)

Okay, so poor Constance has been kidnapped, and our young hero (who is already a Lieutenant because he and his pals conveniently saved the King's life in a plot twist that was very necessary in other to return Athos to favor in this version) lies unconscious in the streets. They probably didn't even try to kill him this time because they know he's immortal. And speaking of people who just won't die, in a mid-credits scene, it is confirmed that Milady is indeed, very much Not Dead Yet. Surprise! The scene is now set for war in The Three Musketeers: Part 2: Milady.

In summary:

I tallied up my totally random points and ended up with a score of -51, which is Not Good, my friends.

Okay, so I've seen much worse? It's better than Atrocity in 3D, for example, which was just barely watchable as a film and as an adaptation. But they changed so much about the plot and some of the main characters, that it doesn't really feel true to the spirit of the book at this point, which is my main criteria for measuring whether an adaptation is successful. And the main reasons for that are because it's much darker and grittier and less fun than the novel. Which - Quelle domage!

I know that as an unrepentant Athos fangirl, I tend to be biased, so I was trying to be on guard (heheh get it?) for my own biases while watching this. But it's really difficult when Ya Boy is such an integral part of the novel as well as this particular adaptation. And so I must regrettably come back to what a shame it is that they've cast a 60 year old Athos (Vincent Cassel is 57 and he's a fabulous actor whom I've loved in many of his worlks), and I feel like they had to rewrite his character to be more age appropriate and less of the drunken asshole he is in Dumas' first d'Artagnan book. But that's the asshole I fell in love with, and will stan forever. Without him going around beating his servant, indulging his gambling addiction, and being a sarcastic pain in everyone's ass, it's just a completely different story.

Pros:

Hot Eva Green!

bisexual Porthos!

d'Artagnan is given a much less creepy love story with Constance (and I assume he will also not be nonconning Milady in this adaptation)

The King and Queen are much more humanized and sympathetic here.

Cons:

Visually really drab, everything is brown, everyone is dirty.

Very little humor unlike in the novel and some other adaptations.

EVERYONE IS WAY TOO OLD, which changes the feeling of the story significantly, and IMO for the worse, because these people are just not allowed to have fun, and subsequently, neither is the audience.

I will still absolutely be here for Part 2 because I am a masochist!

Grade: B- as a piece of art, but a C as an adaptation of the Dumas classic.

#the three musketeers #2023 the three musketeers #alexandre dumas #the three musketeers: d'artagnan

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