He might be unhinged but thatâs still my goat frâŚ
So the MW4 trailer came out about a week ago and I have some thoughts about it that I donât want to get too much into detail here.
But to sum up my thoughts:
I think that the franchise is trying to do something new for once instead of releasing the same game over and over again with a mediocre story attached to it (I might be wrong but weâll see).
For that, I was quite glad and a bit excited, but what sours my initial excitement about this game is the lack of Gaz in the trailer.
Iâm more irritated than disappointed about it than anything else. This shit happens all the time in media so itâs no shock that itâs happening here.
What makes me the most upset is the fact that back in 2019, I was so excited to finally play as a prominent black protagonist in the franchise.
With me dealing with anti-blackness within the fandom at the time (and still dealing with it now if Iâm being honest) this ONE thing made my overall experience with the franchise better.
Having Gaz be sidelined so heavily in the series has left me feeling more and more irritated with each game that releases.
Itâs quite clear that Call of Duty (and Activision in general) could care less about its black and POC characters and would rather use them as a way to prop up their white male leads instead of actually doing something productive with them.
(I could ramble on more, but Iâd rather stop while Iâm ahead before I start saying some dumbass shit out of anger. Sorry if thereâs any grammatical errors itâs late while Iâm typing thisâŚ)
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Also the original illustration that this based on is by Gus Bofa. An interesting illustrator to learn about if youâre into art history!
It always hurts in that big, bright way, like a thousand sticks of dynamite blowing a tunnel open through a mountain, giving you a way to pass to the other side. Like whispering the same wish over and over again until your lips go numb and your voice goes hoarse, your plea still unheard after all these years.
Perhaps it would hurt less to desire if you could fill that hole every once in a while. If you could wet your tongue with the taste of satisfaction, of a want fulfilled, of the opportunity to say to someone, âOh, look what I gotâ or âLook at what all my work has amounted to.â
Thatâs never been the case though, has it? Never been lucky enough for a wish to come true. You work like a dog for the barest scraps of what you know youâre worth (what you know and what every day seems less and less true).
Vacations that you never had enough money to take, jobs that never came to fruition, mistakes that couldnât be undone, memories that you could never remake, friendships that grew apart or that never materialized altogether.Â
Itâs not all doom and gloom. You have a good job and a decent network of friends and acquaintances, parties you attend on occasion and warm nights at home curled up in bed. You have a roof over your head. There's more than enough in your life to be grateful for.
But the wanting never goes away. That, you have in spades. That, you have in heaps and bounds. That multiplies itself tenfold.Â
And it happens that way with your heart too.
Thereâs a coffee shop down the street from your office with a decent amount of seating and an app to order your drink ahead of time, and every day at around two, you order your coffee ahead of time and walk over to pick it up, rain or shine.Â
Itâs always busy to some degree when you walk in, a handful of people waiting by the counter and a short line at the register snaking around the merchandise display. The whirr of the coffee grinder hums in the background, just a touch louder than the music, always filling the cafĂŠ with the rich, pleasing scent of freshly ground coffee.
The same chairs are always filled by the same people. Plenty of them youâve even grown to recognize over timeâstudents bent over thick textbooks, elderly men creasing newspapers in ink-stained hands, and laptop screens glowing with blank Word documents, scarcely a sentence added in the time it took to order and finish their coffee.
You recognize most of the takeaway regulars as well.
Theyâre harder to remember at first. Quick to come and quick to go. Hard to commit their faces to memory. But some give you no choiceâsome boisterously loud or ostentatious in dress, eye-catching enough to hook you like a fish, drag your attention down river with them.Â
Then, to him.Â
He, like you, comes in every day around two for his afternoon coffee. He, unlike you, comes striding in full-chested, confidence nipping at his heels, no world-weariness weighing him down.Â
Hard not to notice him. Of course you notice him. He takes up space like a living sun, all bright smiles and radiant energy, handsome in the way that, when men are, they draw people in like moths. You feel no better than a moth sometimes, particularly in his presence.Â
Tea-coloured eyes. What you notice at first is that thereâs a beautiful man waiting for his coffee next to you, a tall man with the sculpted physique of an athlete, all long limbs and broad shoulders tapering into a lean frame, and what you notice next are those tea-coloured eyes, honeying under the sun.Â
You stare so long that you only realize how dry your eyes have gone when the door swings shut behind him.Â
Itâs no wonder then, that you latch onto his presence like so, a little flutter in your chest on your way to the coffee shop every time after that first time, hoping that youâll cross paths again.Â
And you do. Cross paths again, that is. Only a few times those first couple of weeks, and then seemingly all the time, the two of you always in at the same time.Â
That isnât unusual. There are plenty of other familiar faces picking up their afternoon coffees at the same time as you, people that you recognize at the mobile ordering station and laptop stickers that youâve come to memorize, the same people sitting at the same seats. People like routine; youâre no different. Neither is he.Â
It comes over you like an ague, a desperate, eager thing, quiet enough at first when youâve only seen him in bits and pieces, not studied him at length yet, but itâ
It grows.
It grows like a vine in your chest, weaving around your heart and squeezing until you can feel it with every beat.Â
You donât entirely blame yourself. How could you? You swear youâve never seen anyone even half as good-looking as himâbroad-shouldered and lean, perfect smile, perfect teeth. Haircut always fresh, his edges neat. He squints with the force of his smile, always effusive with his gratitude and praise, so earnest in his kindness that it makes your teeth ache.Â
Heâs objectively a handsome man. Perhaps the handsomest man youâve ever seen. What else could you do but go a bit crazy?Â
Want may not be a strong enough word for what youâre experiencing. Itâs more of a torsion of the soul. A desperate, yearning ache that both releases and constricts when he walks into the cafĂŠ to order his coffee.Â
You donât know what to do with yourself when he doesnât show up at the same time as you. Your schedules are so in sync that youâve grown to expect him, fattened and spoiled by the timeliness of his presence. But he doesnât owe it to you to show up, and there are days when he doesnât, held up for some reason, or maybe simply not in the mood for a coffee.
You practically drag your feet on the walk back to the office, a sorry sight. Pathetically despondent. You hardly know what to do with yourself the rest of the afternoon, oscillating between dejection and self-reproach. Itâs pathetic that the mere absence of your crush would reduce you to such a state, hardly able to concentrate on your work because the stranger that youâve become infatuated with wasnât at the coffee shop where you see him for a total of twenty seconds every other day.Â
Forgive yourself though. Nothing youâve ever wanted has come without pain.
What you donât expect is for him to finally notice you.Â
It happens on a day when you cross paths rather than arriving at the same time, him leaving the coffee shop as youâre about to enter. Your heart skips a beat when you look up and see him staring down at you, both of you taken by surprise when you go to pull the door open and heâs already pushing on the other side.Â
âTraffic jam,â he laughs when you both lean left and then right at the same time, trying to let the other go around. âHere, Iâve got you.â
He extends an arm to hold the door wide open and angles his body to let you pass through. You thank him as you pass, your heart pounding against your ribs. His gaze follows you as you step inside, and you nearly jump when his voice calls a farewell after you, leaving through the same door.
You stand near the doorway for far too long, other customers coming in and going around you, cutting you annoyed looks on their way to the cash. Your drink must already be waiting for you on the counter and still you canât move. It takes someone actually stumbling into you to jolt you back into the present.Â
That wasnât part of the plan. Itâs thrilling, initially, a rush so overwhelming, so kaleidoscopic, that you ride it all the way back to the office and all the way home, replaying the memory again and again in your head until even you start to tire of belabouring it.Â
And still you roll around in bed that night thinking about it, heart racing even hours after your short little conversation, picturing it over again in your mindâthe crinkle of the corners of his eyes, the smile nearly pulling across his face, all white teeth and soft, supple lips.Â
The only problem isâ
Now he knows who you are.
You donât expect him to remember you after such a quick encounter. Heâs not the one thatâs been pining these past few weeks. Heâs not the one thatâs been beating himself up for crushing on a stranger.Â
But he does remember you. And not only does he remember you, but he looks for you the next time heâs in.Â
Itâs one of those days when you get there first, coffee already ordered and paid for by the time he walks in, in dark trousers and a quarter-zip today, and filling them both out nicely, the sweater clinging to the muscles of his arms. You expect him to head straight for the cash like he normally does, blessedly and lamentably unaware of your presence.
Instead, your breath hitches when his eyes drift across the cafĂŠ and settle on you, a spark of recognition glinting in them.
His gaze immobilizes you, stronger than any paralytic. Itâs what holds you in place as he approaches, the distance between you halved in an instant, and then fully collapsed, the gorgeous man in front of you doing what Zenoâs Achilles never could.Â
âHey stranger, no dance today, huh?â he asks, clearly addressing you. Â
You donât know what to say. This is your worst case scenario, your category five emergency. In the weeks youâve spent crushing on him from afar, you hadnât considered the possibility of him ever noticing you in return.Â
âSorry?â you croak.
He gestures with his thumb towards the door. âFrom the other day, remember?â
You donât know how youâll make it through this interaction without making a fool of yourself. âRight. Haha. I guess the dance floorâs closed today.â
You could throw up on the spot. Of all the abysmal conversation rejoinders there have ever been in the history of humanity, the one you just offered must rank comfortably near the top.
For whatever reason though, whether divine intervention or something more dastardly, he chuckles, amused. He seems to like talking to you. Seems to like you even. That only becomes clearer when he approaches you the next day, and then the day after that, and then every day when you stop by at two p.m. for your afternoon coffee, your coffees now handed out together by the barista, as if you had ordered them that way.Â
The small talk alone almost makes you consider switching to a different coffee shop. Itâs too much pressure. You feel sick with anxiety at the thought of him figuring you out.Â
And he will figure you out. You havenât exactly played it subtle.Â
Then he gets your number. Somehow. And your name too, pried so easily from you that you donât even notice, like freeing a pearl from a clam; barely a flick of his wrist and you offer it up without a second thought, embarrassingly malleable.Â
You get his too. Kyle Garrick. He spells it for you as he watches you save his number into your phone from over your shoulder, so close to you that your fingers fumble with the keypad, mistyping it almost four times before getting it right. Â
Kyle doesnât seem to care that you can barely seem to string together a sentence in front of him. If anything, it seems to endear him to you. Â
His attraction makes itself apparent in tender words and a new penchant for touch, a hand always reaching out for you.Â
At first, itâs nothing more than the casual brush of his fingers against yours as he picks up your coffee from the bar and passes it to you, no different than a handshake or a high five. Ostensibly perfunctory. But that too changes over time. A fleeting touch becomes a hand at the small of your back as he guides you to a table for a quick chat before heading back to work, fingers squeezing your shoulder when he laughs at a joke you didnât realize you made, and quick hugs that grow a little longer each time.
Maybe. Or maybe youâre imagining it.Â
âSo when are you gonna let me take you out for real?âÂ
That snaps you out of the daydream, reality crashing down with such force that it leaves your ears ringing. His words leave you dumbfounded, gaping up at him in that stupid way that you canât seem to suppress.Â
âFor real?â you repeat.
âOn a date,â Kyle clarifies, as if the word alone werenât enough to wreck you.Â
âOh.âÂ
You tell him yes because the word no evaporates from your vocabulary. By the time it returns, heâs already gone, disappearing into the world (likely an office building around the corner from yours, but it might as well be Timbuktu).Â
This isnât what was supposed to happen. You were supposed to pine in agony until you died.Â
Itâs everything you ever wanted, and yet, you couldnât want it less in the moment, terrified for some reason that you canât quite articulate. You count down the days with growing apprehension, jitters giving way to a full-body sweat.Â
Youâll break it off at a later date. That thought comforts you to a point. At some point, there will be a moment for you to bail entirely.Â
The problem is the longer you say nothing, the harder it is to say anything at all. Already guilt stays your tongue when all you want to do is tell him that you canât do this anymore. You need to leaveâgo anywhere else, run home and lock the door behind you, never go back to the coffee shop again.
But thereâs a text in your phone telling you the time and place, and every time you look at it, it leaves you feeling off-kilter. Sea legs without leaving dry land.Â
What is it about you that you feel the need to run as soon as you get too close? What about this isnât what you want? Do you even know what you want?
Of course you know what you want. You want love and affection.Â
But having is not wanting. Wanting is safe. Itâs the having thatâs dangerous.Â
You contemplate cancelling on him about a dozen times until suddenly itâs too late, the man in question standing in the lobby of your building to pick you up. He must know someone in the building because heâs deep in conversation when you spot him, his head turning to meet yours at the same time, as if even in conversation, he wouldnât allow himself to be distracted enough to miss you. Your heart squeezes when he wraps it up in the same breath, crossing the lobby to meet you.Â
Dinner is a restaurant in a different part of town, one youâve seldom spent time in before, trendy in the way that would unnerve you were it not for the abrupt realization that to everyone else, this is simply a familiar part of town.Â
To some, the restaurant must be familiar as well. There might even be regulars. To you however, the small, dimly lit room with the booths on one side and the chairs lining the bar at the other, an eclectic assortment of framed photos and decorative porcelain plates on the wall beside you, is lovely, uncharted territory.Â
Over dinner, Kyle peppers you with question after question until your head spins, each answer that leaves your lips betraying some nervous tendency towards clandestinity. You have to keep some things to yourself. You have to keep some things private.
You have to shut your mouth before youâ
âA long time,â you reply without thinking, the whole world blowing open when you admit it. You hadn't even consciously registered the question before answering. When was your last date?Â
Kyle doesnât seem phased by it though, warm smile somehow warmer than the blood boiling under your skin. âI must be one lucky man then.â
He sweet talks you into agreeing to a drink after dinner, probably sensing the nervous animal in you, the fear about to take flight.Â
You assume he means a drink at a bar until youâre standing in the kitchen of your apartment, Kyle standing behind the island with a bottle of wine in one hand, uncorking it with practiced ease. When it pops out, you flinch.Â
What a strange thing, to lose time like that. You lose it again after he pours you both a glass, coming to on the couch with his arm around your shoulders, pinned between him and the side of the couch.Â
He turned the television on, you notice distantly, staring at it through your glass, red wine sloshing from side to side. Itâs not a program either of you would care to pay much attention to, possibly by design.Â
âDo you have, umâŚany plans tomorrow?â you ask, swallowing when he drags his fingers over the bare skin of your upper arm.Â
âNope,â he answers, playing with the sleeve of your shirt now.Â
You can hear it coming from a mile away. He makes it too obvious with his fingers trailing over your skin and the heat of his gaze searing into the side of your face.
The sky outside your window is black, the moon only a sliver of its usual brilliance, but your living room is bright, turning the window into a mirror reflecting the two of you, the picture of a couple in repose.Â
You watch his reflection lean over yours in the window, his lips grazing your doubleâs ears, your breath catching when his touch yours as well. âIf I give you an inch, youâre going to run a mile, arenât you?â he murmurs.Â
Thereâs a lump in your throat when you swallow. âNo,â you lie.
He must see right through you though. Must see the creature inside you about to succumb to its instincts.Â
He must be good at chess, you think to yourself, staring down at him with a stupid look on your face as he lowers himself to lie flat on the bed between your legs, spreading your thighs wide enough to wedge his shoulders between them. Any game of strategy.Â
If you never give your opponent a moment to breathe, they canât gather themselves enough to retreat.Â
That thought crumbles to dust when he makes you watch him lick the first stripe up the seam of your pussy, crudely spreading your lips with his tongue. Nothing more substantial materializes after that.Â
He eats pussy like he hasnât had enough to eat. Lips and tongue and hollowed cheeks when he sucks your clit into his mouth and your back nearly arches right off the bed, twisted into such a complex shape that you almost donât know how to unravel yourself. Fingers grasping at his head, his ears; rasping over the coils of his hair, fingers committing the texture to memory.Â
Your thighs tremble and squeeze, pried open again and again every time you try to shut him out. The muscles in his arms barely even bulge with the effort it takes to keep your thighs spread.Â
You are wound up in ways that would be a challenge to anyone, but Kyle doesnât seem to care. He just holds you down and forces you to come on his tongue, rolling it over your clit until you actually start crying. Big, belting caterwauls. His poor baby, he croons.Â
When have you been someoneâs âpoor babyâ? Someoneâs darling, sweetheart, honey, thatâs it, Iâve got you, that felt good, didnât it? God, youâre so pretty, I canât believe you let meâ
He flicks his tongue over your sensitive clit and you yelp, reaching down to slide your hand between his mouth and your swollen sex only for him to lace your fingers together and pull your hand to the side and lick it again.Â
âItâs still sensitive,â you complain, and he lifts a brow, unmoved by your bellyaching.Â
âSo what, you got twitchy little orgasm legs, that means Iâm not allowed to lick your pussy anymore?â
âNo,â you hiss, embarrassment warming the blood already pooled under your cheeks.Â
Warm hands rest on either side of your face as he eases his cock in for the first time, holding your gaze in place as sinks in to the root. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut.Â
They donât stay shut for long. He pries them open without words, without touch, every ounce of his ardor poured into you and lifting your own to the surface.Â
Sweat drips from his forehead onto yours. The sweat makes his hands slip up and down your face with the force of his thrusts, fingers tugging on your lips and pulling them apart, sliding over your gums and teeth.
âYou are the most beautiful thing Iâve ever seen,â Kyle pants, sweat dripping off his forehead and onto yours, eyes darker than youâve ever seen them, glassy and feverish.
âDonâtâdonât say that,â you gasp.
He dips his head down to press his forehead against yours. âYou canât tell me that. You canât tell me what to do.â
Whatever this is, itâs nothing like anything youâve experienced before. Proper lovemaking. Real kisses with passion, with fervor, with delight; the messiness contained between you, in the sweat rolling down your back and soaking into the sheets, the saliva dripping from his mouth into yours, the squelch of his shaft splitting you over and over, never giving you a second to catch your breath.Â
Coming a second, no, third time is painful, like a thing wrested unwillingly from you, and you fall back on the bed windburned. Kyle follows you down, hips bucking into yours faster and faster, his own end nearly on his heels.Â
He comes with a grunt, without warning; a sudden surge of heat and warmth, his fingers biting into your cheeks where he holds your face in his hands, his lip curling up into a snarl that you swear you can almost hear, andâ
You expect it to be over after that. For him to roll out of bed and pull on his pants, maybe give you a courtesy kiss for a job well done before leaving you to stew in the mire of another rejection, the small win eclipsed by the enormity of losing him.Â
What you donât expect is for him to lay down beside you and pull you into him. Kyle laughs softly when he notices your stiffness, jostling you slightly in an attempt to coax you into relaxing.
âThatâs right, baby,â he chuckles a touch breathlessly, pressing a kiss to the bridge of your nose before relaxing back down. âIâm not going anywhere.â
Coffee the next day is different than usual. Early for one, the sun still a syrupy morning gold, not yet the starchy afternoon white, and in a different location than usual, the coffee machine on your kitchen counter hissing through its second cup of the day.Â
Kyle maneuvers around your apartment too naturally, a stark contrast to the way you scurry from the bedroom to the bathroom like a stowaway. Heâs entirely at home in your space though, helping himself to coffee and breakfast, only glancing at you for permission, the slightest cock of his head and arch of his brow, and you fold under the pressure instantly.Â
When you try to skirt around him, he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you into his side, the touch of his lips against your chest shocking you still, electrical impulses still skittering under your skin.Â
âI can feel your heart racing,â Kyle teases, caramel-smooth voice sending a low vibration through your chest.
And why shouldnât he? Your heart is racing after all. âIâm nervous.â
âI know you are, baby,â he murmurs. âThis is hard for you, isnât it?â
It is. A few too many years on your own have turned you to stone, the slightest touch almost too much to handle. Youâve long learned to expect anything you touch to shock you.Â
âWant me to make this easier on you?â he asks gently. Youâre not sure what he means by that, but you have an inkling.Â
And wouldnât it be nice to not have to worry? To not have to second guess what you really want or what you should do?Â
You nod.Â
âOkay, honey. Then you donât have to do it. No telling me to go away. Iâve got it from here.âÂ
When Kyle takes your phone from your hand, you donât stop him, even typing in your password for him when he turns it towards you, watching over his shoulder as he shares your location with his phone.Â
You exhale shakily, the tightness in your shoulders easing. There he goes with that oyster shucker again, opening you up.Â
So be it. What use is there in protecting something thatâs already his?Â
do not forget the patron saint of these weeks that we celebrate ourselves proudly and openly in the streets
her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.
remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.
I know Priceâs ex-wives are mad asf, having to deal with the government knocking on their doorâasking them about his whereabouts. Hauling them off to some undisclosed location and questioning them. Offering them protection in exchange. Money too.
It gives them something to talk about when they get together for brunch though.
inspired by the new teaser. idk what to think about it yet, but i will definitely be watching a playthrough. i just need to know if Gaz & Farah are okay.
I have resisted asking for help, outright, for a long time, but I think it's about that time.
My partner and I are Black US Americans who have left the United States and live as immigrants in LATAM. I work in healthcare in the US, remotely, supporting marginalized communities, especially Black and LGBTQIA+ folks. My husband used to work supporting the Headstart Program in the US as a sub-contractor, but lost his job in Feb 2025 due to the DOGE cuts. He hasn't been able to find another job since, partly due to the fact that most remote jobs are not global remote, partly because the job market is so oversaturated, and partly because, as immigrants with temporary residency, getting a work visa where we are is a complicated process.
SO! If you are aware of a fully remote position (Full or part time, or even a temporary contract) for an experienced IT Support, Instructional Design, and/or Customer Satisfaction Project Manager, I would love if you could reach out and let me know. (Mr Dragon, over my shoulder, says: "Resume available on request!") We both appreciate any leads, wherever those might be.
We are extremely lucky that my job is enough to pay most of our bills where we live, and do not take that for granted. We still have outstanding medical and credit card bills in the US, and my business is growing, but it's not enough to support us fully. We are not in the most dire of straits, but we could use a boost to help us stay on track and get things to a sustainable level.
If you have the capacity, I would appreciate any donations to my Kofi, and I'm very proud of Augmentations over on Patreon if you'd like to hop over there to read it and consider subscribing. And even if that's not something you're in the position to do, I appreciate you taking the time to read this!
regularly scheduled reminder that I hate AI, I don't consent to any of my art being used for AI whether that's for chatbots or generative AI, I've never used ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or Grok or whatever the fuck in my life and never will and I do think that makes me a better person than people who do. also if you're a "fan" of mine and willingly use AI, I think you're actively making the choice to hand over all brain function to companies owned by billionaires who hate you and humanity, which makes you pathetic and embarrassing.
