#people will always chant (rightfully so) on the killing of an abuser of a friend or loved one... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gjnnypotter · 5 years

Text

Looks like I’ve coughed up another oneshot witten at 3 in the morning. I was in the mood to celebrate my favourite bro-tp, Harry and Ron. Strong language ahead. Enjoy :)

“Harry I’m bored.”

“You’ve said.”

“No, I’m bored.”

“I know Ron.”

“Let’s go and do something.”

“Pardon?”

“I said let’s go and do something - anything - I don’t care what - before I go crazy!”

“But your mum said-“

“I know what she said, but what she doesn’t know won’t kill her.”

The sun was setting on the Burrow. It was a pleasantly warm evening for July, not too hot but certainly not cold. Harry and Ron were lounging out in the garden, hidden from Mrs Weasley’s worried eyes behind a clump of trees. The Battle had been a mere few months ago and Mrs Weasley was still concerned about the pair of them leaving the confines of house after night had fallen - and rightfully so. There had been many threats made against Harry’s life by a bunch of rogue death eaters out for revenge, and Molly had strictly forbidden them from leaving the safety the Burrow’s wards offered. They were both of age though, adults, so she couldn’t really keep them there against their will - but the thought of causing her any unnecessary worry made Harry squirm with guilt.

“I’m not sure.” Harry said, running a nervous hand through his hair while glancing back at the house.

“Come on it’ll be fine!” Ron stood up and threw is hands in the air in a placating gesture. He paced over to Harry and stood over him, offering out a hand that Harry grudgingly took. He straightened up and looked over his shoulder again to the Burrow, where he knew Mrs Weasley would be settling down for the night. He bit his lip and sighed, before nodding at Ron.

“If she finds out, I’m blaming you.”

Ron smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s fine by me.”

“Where are we going then?”

“You’ll see.” Ron started walking to the gate where they would be able to apparate from. Harry was by his side. He couldn’t help but feel bad for going against the promise he made to Mrs Weasley, but the thought of being able to go out and enjoy himself with Ron for a few hours made him grin with anticipation.

The months since the Battle hadn’t been easy for anyone, but Harry was having a particularly hard time of it. He would wake up screaming and on more than one occasion he had forgotten to put up a silencing charm and ended up waking the entire house. He found himself becoming caught up in his memories at the most random and inconvenient times. Slipping into flashbacks while at the dinner table, seeing a flash of green light speeding towards him in a forest clearing. Even looking after Teddy was taking its toll on him, as every time he looked into the baby’s eyes all he could see was Remus looking back at him. It made him feel some semblance of pity for the people who knew his own mother, he understood now how taxing looking him in the eye must have been.

However now was not the time for sorrow. So when Ron offered his arm, Harry grasped it with a trepidatious smile. The tight squeezing sensation of apparition only lasted for a few seconds, but he was grateful when it was over. Harry could hear loud shouts in the distance before he opened his eyes. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Middlesbrough”

“Ok,” Harry said slowly, “Care to tell me why we’re in Middlesbrough?”

“We are here, my dear friend, to get you well and truly pissed.” Ron said, clapping Harry on the back as he steered him out of the dark alleyway they appeared in, out onto the busy street ahead of them.

The street was lined with small shops and a couple of pubs that were packed full to the brim. People were spilling out of the door, craning their heads to see something inside. They were chanting, but what they were chanting Harry couldn’t make out for the life of him.

“Merlin, is it normally this busy?” Ron shouted into Harry’s ear as they pushed past the crowds of enthusiastic muggles spilling out of the door of a pub called O’Connells.

“How should I know? I’ve never been here before have I?” Harry said while weaving through the throngs of people to get to the bar.

“Fair enough. There must be some sort of event on. Reminds me of the Leakey when there’s a Quidditch match on the wireless. George recommended this place to me, said he came here with Angelina once and it was nice and - sorry!” Ron hastily apologised after knocking straight into dejectedly pissed off looking muggle in a yellow and green shirt. The man glared at Ron before turning back to look at a small television screen perched in the corner of the pub. Harry followed the mans gaze to the screen and realised with a slight groan why the crowds were so large.

“Of all the nights you want to get drunk in a bar that’s not the Leakey, you just had to choose this one?” Harry hissed into Ron’s ear while pointing up at the screen. Ron stared at the screen in amazement before turning excitedly back to Harry.

“What is that? That is incredible! Is that the thing you told me about back in sixth year - a feletision?”

“Television.”

“Right, that’s what I said.”

“Mmhhm, so it was.” Harry arched an eyebrow in amusement.

“What is it showing? Looks like that crazy game Dean is always going on about.”

“Crazy game, lad?” A middle aged man turned to face the pair of them, his beer tipping precariously in his hand as he swivelled round, almost splashing the drink over his blue strip. “You can’t be from around these parts. That right there-“ he pointed passionately at the TV “- is the World Cup final. Brazil against France. Biggest game in four years, you boys should be glad you ain’t missing it!” the man spoke with a hearty grin and a lofty expression, he reminded Harry distinctly of Slughorn.

“I’ll just get the drinks then, shall I?” He didn’t wait for Ron’s response and instead pushed past a couple of people to get to the bar, leaving Ron to discuss the foreign matter of Football with the kind faced muggle. Harry waved the bartender over and received a rather pitying look from the young woman. She smiled with a pained expression.

“This your first time here? I can tell - you look awfully flustered. I get it, don’t worry. My colleagues and I drew straws to see who would all work tonight, and low behold I drew a short one. That’s just my luck.” She shook her head and sighed dramatically, causing Harry to grin slightly. “God I’m sorry! Here I am blethering - what can I get you?”

“I’ll just have two pints please, that’d be great.” Harry had to shout so he could be heard over the noise of the crowd shouting at the players in the screen to “just pass the bloody ball already!”

“Sure thing.” The bartender handed him two full glasses that Harry awkwardly paid for and carried back to the spot he and Ron had claimed as their own. Ron’s face lit up as he saw Harry weave his way back towards him.

“Harry! Thanks mate-“ Harry handed him his glass and watched on smirking as Ron chugged down half of his drink in one go. Ron wiped the froth from his face with his arm, the glow from the TV giving him a green tinge, “- listen, this muggle tele thing is brilliant! Imagine if we had that back at the Burrow, actually getting to see a Quidditch game instead of just listening to it! We should get George on it once the shop gets going properly again.” Ron closed his eyes and sighed with a blissful smile before peeling one eye open to see Harry laughing at him.

“What’re you laughing at? It’s a great-“ but Ron was cut off by half of the pub erupting in cheers and whistles, while the other half scoffed and shouted profanities to nobody in particular. The noise was deafening, people were waving their blue scarves in the air and were punching their drinks up in victory. The man reminiscent of Slughorn spun round on his heel, a look of sheer joy gracing his features, to face Harry and Ron and he slapped them both of the back - hard. Ron snorted as Harry stumbled slightly, sloshing his drink down his front.

Harry had never seen anything like the scenes in front of him before. The noise in the pub was deafening as the commentator screamed out that the score was now two nil to France. Even the Brazilian fans in the pub grudgingly wore looks of awe at the goal that had just been scored. He had been to the Quidditch World Cup final in the summer before his forth year, and the atmosphere there was similar to the one here - however the muggle environment, no major threats to worry about and the fact he was in a pub with his best mate made this final feel just that bit more intimate.

He looked to his side and saw Ron with one of the biggest smiles Harry had ever seen on his face, and so Harry couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed by his soaking t-shirt. He was beginning relax his previously tense stature as he began to feel more comfortable in this new environment, and seeing Ron chug down his pint while being egged on by the chants of the muggles around him made the last thread of worry Harry had disappear.

Hell, what is there to loose?

Harry caught Ron’s eye and tossed down what was left of his drink, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head slightly in satisfaction at his friends approving look.

Ron nodded his head, laughing, he slapped Harry on the back, “That’s more like it! I’ll get the next round.”

Ron got the next round, and the round after that and Harry the fourth along with one after. By the time they had finished their fifth round, Ron’s goal in getting Harry pissed had been achieved. Well and truly achieved.

The pair of them each had one arm each slung round the others shoulders, their free hand grasping a tall glass that was filled precariously to the brim. Harry’s cheeks were flushed and he was leaning heavily on Ron. He seemed to be having a slightly harder time coping with the drink than his gangly friend. Harry took another swig of his drink, however it was then that one of the Brazilian players were fouled.

Harry choked as Ron hollered abuse at the referee, flapping his hands wildly in fury and he accidentally elbowed Harry in the ribs.

“Oi! You lousy ref! He barely touched him! Merlin’s saggy left-“

“What he said! He barely toush-t- touched him,” Harry shouted, gesturing with his glass towards the game while looking to Ron, “what a joke! Is this a joke? Imagine if they were this biased in Quid- what? Don’t shush me like that I was speaking! That’s just rude.” Harry’s expression melted into one of exaggerated hurt as he removed his arm from around Ron’s shoulders and clutched his chest as if he were genuinely in pain.

Ron - who himself was only slightly less drunk than Harry looked horrified. He grasped Harry’s shoulder and squeezed it hard, looking straight into his eyes.

“I’m so sorry. That was mean of me.”

“It’s ok, I forgive you.”

“Thank you for your forgiveness.”

“It was no problem,” Harry gave Ron a hearty pat on the back and a wider than normal smile before draining the rest of his glass in one long chug.

The match was nearing its end and the French supporters were all going riot, while the Brazilian fans watched on with the hope that their team could score 2 more goals in 5 minutes - a feat that they knew was unlikely. Most of the pubs occupants were completely hammered, those in blue singing a drunken rendition of ‘We are the Champions’ while receiving disgruntled glares from those in yellow and green. Ron was completely immersed in the game as if he were watching the Canons play.

“Come on Goovash you glorious bastard.”

He hollered to the screen while linking arms with a tall blonde muggle who was standing just next to him.

“It’s pronounced Guivarch.” She turned to smirk at him, unwinding her arm from his as she did so.

“S’wat I said, isn’t it Harry?”

“Hmm? Oh right, yeah - that’s what he said.”

“Oh?” she nodded sceptically, “I don’t suppose you know what position he plays then?” She challenged them, crossing her arms and

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment, “don’t suppose he’s a-“ He made an inappropriate gesture with his hands “-kind of guy by any chance?” He asked seriously while Harry dissolved into giggles beside him.

The French-stripped girl looked torn between looking disgusted or amused, so she settled for shaking her head slightly and muttering, “so immature,” under her breath, the corners of her mouth twitching as she spun on her heel back round to watch the match with her friends.

Ron, meanwhile looked baffled.

“What was that all about? She asked a question and I answered it!”

Harry opened his mouth, about to reply with a sarcastic comment, when suddenly the hoards of muggles around them erupted in excited shouts.

“Come on, Come on, Come on Zidane you beautiful bast-.”

“Yes boys, go on-“

Hands were covering mouths.

Fingers were tangled in hair. Fists were clenched round glasses of bitter.

Harry had his eyes fixed on the game. He reached out blindly to his side, arm waving through the air until he eventually found Ron’s hand and grabbed it - pulling his best mate closer to him in anticipation. Ron clutched back, his grip unyielding.

On the screen, they could see a small player in blue zip towards the goals - kicking a small white ball that went streaking into the back of the net.

“ZIDANE I LOVE YOU YOU GORGEO-“

“Get the fuck in there!“

“C’MON BOYS!”

Drinks were flung into the air, and the frazzled bar staff couldn’t do anything to prevent the alcohol from raining down upon both the people and the floor. Harry and Ron punched their drinks into the air, Ron hollering joyous expletives to anyone who would listen and Harry drunkenly professing his love towards the French team.

It was then that the final whistle blew and the large crowd slowly began to file out onto the street, vacating the cramped pub. The sun had set, leaving a dark dusky pink sky behind. Chants could be heard echoing down the street as the elated muggles made their way home, most of them tripping over themselves as they stumbled away.

Harry was leaning heavily on Ron as they ambled back to the alleyway they had appeared in. He caught his foot on the kerb as they crossed the road from the pub to the opposite pavement, causing himself to stagger slightly. Muttering intelligibly under his breath he straightened up again, cursing all the way.

“Please remind me to thank George for telling me ‘bout this place. That was brilliant, I chose I good night to be bored!” Ron exclaimed at an unnaturally high volume as both he and Harry turned into the dark side alley.

“Don’t try and pretend you knew that football game was going to be on, you barely knew what it even was before tonight.” Harry slurred slightly, however he has basically shouting when compared to Ron’s loud rambling. His hair was damp and sticky from the beer he had thrown into the air, and his shirt was still sodden from when the Slughorn-esque muggle had hammered him on the back making him . But in spite of this, he was feeling as light as a feather - like nothing could drag him down from his current residency on cloud nine. It was as if the sound dial on all of his worries and fears had been turned down to mute for the first time in months, maybe even years. There was no weight left to weigh down his shoulders.

It was a truly wonderful feeling.

Harry shifted slightly to face the drunken Weasley next to him as Ron shook his head, hair flying and sending little drops of alcohol in every direction, while looking sheepish at Harry’s last comment. An immense surge of gratitude rose up from deep within Harry, and before he knew it - he had opened his mouth.

“I’m glad you were bored this evening, and thank you bringing me here - guess Middlesbrough isn’t as shit as I thought it would be. Your mum’ll be fuming if she ever finds out about this, but I don’t mind-“ Harry put his hands on Ron’s shoulders, eyes shining as he spoke in a slow and emotional tone, “-because if it weren’t for you I would be dead - literally. I’d still be at the bottom of that bloody pond. I don’t know what I’d do if I’m honest. Thanks for sitting with me on that compartment mate, you’re the best brother I could ask for - Merlin, don’t tell George I said that, he’ll take the piss out of me. Oh and thanks for sticking with me last year, the last seven years really. I wouldn’t’ve blamed you if you decided to bugger of and be pals with someone with a less demanding lifestyle than mine.”

Ron only looked slightly baffled before he put his own hands back on Harry’s shoulders. “T’was and tis my pleasure my dear Harry. You know us Weasley’s, we stick together. I couldn’t just leave my brother could I?” They looked at each other for a moment before stepping forwards and sharing a hug, something they didn’t do often - but it felt right.

The pair of them broke apart as the streetlight above them flickered on weakly, casting a dull orange glow over them. Ron held out an arm to Harry, whose glasses were slightly squint and were reflecting the light from above them.

“Guess we should head back before Mum realises we’re gone, eh?” Harry grinned at Ron’s nervous smile and nodded, grasping Ron’s arm.

“Yeah, that would be a good idea. D’you think she’ll have noticed?”

Ron glanced quickly behind him to assure that no one was looking at them from the street, before he shrugged his shoulders.

“Nah, I think we should be good.”

They disappeared with a crack.

#harry potter #hp #hp fanfiction #harry potter oneshot #gjnnypotter fic #gjnnypotter #Harry and Ron #Harry and Ron bro-tp #bromance #i’m so sleep deprived aha #this was spewed out of my exhausted brain

15 notes · View notes

adhoption · 5 years

Text

GAME OF FINALES

There were many things to love about the finale:

Seriously, the aesthetic of that whole start, a broken city of ashes, the Targaryen banner slung over the ruins, that shot with the dragon wings, Dany’s zealous speech... nice.

She’s been getting away with being a power-mad, egotistical, vengeful white saviour for years, killing anyone who dares to even disrespect her, and it’s been presented as WOO STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER and fans encouraged to believe the hype about her destiny to save the world and right to rule as much as she does. It’s nice that they did the twist of ah, actually this kind of person is bad news, it’s only a matter of time before they cross the line and start killing innocents. It was coming.

But at the same time, it wasn’t really coming when it did? They didn’t lead up to it at all, and if anything she’d been more tamed since meeting Jon and friends than in the early days. They could have shown her arc going towards madness, not in the opposite direction. They could have shown her grieving, being consumed with a need for vengeance, rather than go from a speech about mercy to massacring children with no reason. They could have made them collateral damage as she tried to go for Cersei who was using them as human shields and Dany decided she didn’t care, or have the newly orphaned children try to defend their city and throw rocks or toy horses at Drogon and Dany burn them just seeing them as enemies. That would have been a way to cross the line, rather than winning the battle and then deciding to go for an impromptu barbecue.

What’s weird is that they spent the first half an hour of the episode explaining how it was actually inevitable and reminding us of the bad stuff she’d done before, like the characters were actively trying to justify the way the plot had turned in retrospect, like the opposite of foreshadowing, the opposite of build-up. These episodes were filmed at the same time, but it felt almost like this was a weekly show and the writers were responding to the criticism of last week’s. Outrage that Jon didn’t say goodbye to Ghost? Quick, reunite them and make him tickle him behind the ears (I was on my edge of my seat chanting Ghost Ghost Ghost the moment Jon went north again, I was so afraid they’d forget about him again). Laughter that a coffee cup was left on a table? Quick, tuck a plastic water bottle under a chair.

It’s also important that whenever the atrocity was mentioned it was explained that poor Dany lost her best friend and her dragon, whereas Cersei was just pure evil and hadn’t, say, lived her whole adult life under a prophesy that she would see her children dead and a young queen would come and destroy her, then watched all three of them die, seen her parents die, her whole world come crashing down, lurch from an abusive relationship to co-dependent incest and alcoholism and grief, and then simply decide to give no quarter to prisoners just like Dany burns them alive.

There’s a lot of things like Mad-Dany that which would have been nice and fitting if they weren’t rushed. Varys went from servant to traitor to bonfire in one poorly-lit, mumbled minute where you had to guess what was going on. Jamie went from ‘I’ve decided to stay with Brienne, the culmination of my years of character development’ to ‘actually no’ in a minute of her blubbing as out of character as him losing all moral fibre. This used to be a show of elaborate over-lapping plots, and characters who grew year-on-year. So yes, Dany-goes-bad, Jon-kills-her, Jon-has-to-go-back-to-Night’s-Watch, all nice and fitting ends to their stories. Nobody-sits-the-throne is a good resolution, symbolically melting it and starting afresh, electing somebody who wasn’t one of the main leaders. Gendry would have been nice, a fitting end to the story which began with the mystery around Robert’s bastards and Ned saving his life exactly like he did Jon, two children in danger as secret heirs to dynasties, and the irony of Dany having legitimised him only for him to usurp her as his father did hers.

But not Bran. This isn’t Bran’s story. Bran’s war was the Great War. He spent years of character development journeying beyond the wall to meet his destiny, learning from and becoming the Three-Eyed Raven, clashing with the Night King, gaining the ability to see through time and space and weirwoods, gaining the ability to warg into direwolves and ravens and Hodors. But he has zero of the aptitudes needed to be a king. He is barely even human any more. He has no strength or compassion, no steel or charm.

Here are some particular points that I loved:

I loved the way how, after years of patiently watching Bran crawl around in the dark to gain the ability to go back in time and influence past events, or the power to take over the mind of a dragon, he didn’t just... use none of those powers in the pivotal moments of the last couple of seasons apart from to do a few seconds of raven-scouting and volunteer himself as bait. It was important after all that build-up that there would be a pay-off, that the gun Chekov’s character had spent the whole play building would actually be used.

So it was satisfying the way that after the Night King won and conquered Winterfell, walked into the Godswood and reached out to claim Bran, Bran touched the heart tree and his eyes went white before they were brutally turned blue. Then, after we watched the army of the dead sweep south with a terrible inevitability, the last stand of the living as Cersei realised her mistake and all the forces of King’s Landing were similarly overwhelmed, scorpions aimed at the White Walkers on dead dragons, confused Night King coming face-to-face with the reanimated Ser Gregor, Qyburn staring in fascination as the dead tear him apart, wights of Jon and Dany and Arya and Sansa and the Hound coming to claim their living enemies, the living finally fall and the Night King sits the Iron Throne, it fades to black... and we are in the weirwood with Bran, making a crucial change in the past, perhaps in that vision of the creation of the Night King, perhaps in another pivotal moment in the series. Then the next episode opens and the dead are bearing down on Winterfell again, but this time, something small has changed, making all the difference. This time, they won’t win.

Or perhaps it was revealed that Bran had gone back and become the Night King, and that was why he was able to control the dead, using his warging and Three-Eyed Raven powers, and then Jon or Arya had to kill him. Or perhaps he was able to warg into one of the dragons and fight the way that Jon and Dany riding them couldn’t. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I do remember how satisfying it was that the skills he’d learnt actually meant something. It would be disappointing if he only came back to sit making cryptic comments from the corner for two seasons, saying he was no longer Bran Stark and couldn’t be Lord of Winterfell because he was a bird now, only to then randomly be chosen as a king of a distant city on his first visit.

It would then be especially weird if, after being named the first ever Stark king and uniting the north with the other six kingdoms as rightful king of both, the north then decide that they can follow Ned and Sansa as Starks but not him because as someone who was previously Lord of Winterfell and just left the north for the first time in his life they aren’t going to follow him as a southron king, whereas they will follow Sansa who grew up in King’s Landing.

In the same way I love the way that, after patiently watching Arya crawl around in the dark to learn how to see without eyes, learn how to wear other people’s faces and become them, she didn’t use any of those skills in the last two seasons, only stabbing with a dagger which she already knew how to do. It’s exciting watching Chekov’s character bludgen an intruder with a rolling pin, but a bit strange when you know the gun is hanging on the wall.

After years of hearing her list recited, it was satisfying that she ended up crossing off the final name and killing the people she was supposed to kill, rather than just claiming the person that Jon and Dany and Bran and Beric were destined to kill and had built up their character arcs around, and making it look easy, thus derailing not only her own narrative arc but theirs as well.

Similar to Bran, it was also important that she had a fitting end that matched her character development to date, like how she spent the last episode building up motivation to avenge the innocents Dany had just burnt, and to protect Jon who she knew was rightfully the first in line but would never have the heart to move against Dany, so she bravely went to kill her herself, moving in darkness or wearing a face as a disguise, and was killed by Drogon, but not before taking him down at the same time, proving herself a dragonslayer and assassin worthy of legend, which finally gave Jon the heart he needed to do what he needed to do and kill Dany to avenge the little sister whose hair he used to ruffle and whose sentences he used to always finish, finishing her final act for her instead.

Or did she go back to the riverlands and take up the mantle of Beric and the Hound who had saved her life, becoming the leader of the Sisterhood without Banners, a protector of the smallfolk and innocents everywhere against the tyranny of lords and soldiers whose atrocities she had witnessed at Harrenhall and The Twins and across the riverlands (and now at King’s Landing), riding around on her white horse and delivering the justice that Beric and Thoros used to give with their hanging ropes, or she and the Hand had given to the likes of Polliver, or that she had given to the Freys. There was that poignant scene where a little girl came to her with the names of men who had done unspeakable things to her village, and Arya calmly added the names to a list. There was that scene where she found Nymeria again, leading her pack of a hundred wolves around the riverlands, and joined forces with her to ensure that evil had refuge in the towns or in the trees, and turned to her and finally said “Yes. This is me.”

It was important that she had a satisfying, fitting end that matched her path and her background and her newly earned skills, like Bran, rather than say, him becoming king, or her randomly deciding to become a sailor having previously shown precisely zero inclination or aptitude for a life on the seas. It would have been especially ridiculous for her to start her nautical career by heading out with a single ship across the open ocean, which the books tell us has been tried before by whole fleets of ships and they have been torn apart by storms, and just doing it immediately with no real planning, in a jarring contrast with a scene where everyone else is talking about how they have no ships and are about to start building the sort of fleet that might be able to support her.

I loved the way the writers remembered they’d left Ellaria Sand to be kept alive in a dungeon beneath the Red Keep and had her released as leader of Dorne to take part in the council, rather than just replacing her with some randomer and not even acknowledging if she was dead or not.

I loved the way Brienne got over her rollercoaster emotional journey from stoic professional to sobbing teenager after one night of lovemaking and took the time to ensure Jaime’s memory was honoured correctly, such as by writing his biography with all the things he’d told her, and especially remembering to correct the single most important thing he’d told her (that he’d only killed the Mad King to save the whole city which was about to be blown up), and not just... leaving it written in his biography that he’d infamously broken his vows and killed the king and was known as Kingslayer since without providing any of the vital context, which she was one of the only people in the world who knew. It’s also a nice end to her character journey, which is based around her oath to protect Sansa and Arya, that she just leaves them both to take on huge risks and responsibility on her own and gets a new job wheeling Bran’s chair around.

‘Bran the Broken’ was definitely the best name they could come up with to describe a disabled character who definitely couldn’t have gone without an epithet (because all the others had to have one, like Cersei the Sassy and Joffrey the Juvenile Delinquent and Tommen the Timid and Dany the Deluded) and who had no other qualities, such as literal super-powers, which could have lent themselves to better ones. Bran the Raven had a ring to it.

I loved the way that the most teased and important plot twist, R+L=J, which they spent ages having characters explain to each other in hushed, important scenes, turned out to be important to the plot in any way. It would have been a bit disappointing if, say, only a handful of characters ever found out about it, or if the whole story could have happened in exactly the same way without it ever having been mentioned (beyond one episode where Jon rides a dragon and crashes it after achieving nothing).

#game of thrones #got #spoilers under the cut

10 notes · View notes

biofunmy · 5 years

Text

Lesbians Won The Women’s World Cup

Alex Grimm / Getty Images

Lesbian athletes Ashlyn Harris, Megan Rapinoe, and Ali Krieger of the USA following their team’s victory in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup France final match between the US and the Netherlands at Stade de Lyon.

Four years ago, at a bar in Brooklyn, I cried a few drunken, happy tears watching soccer titan Abby Wambach, fresh off a World Cup win, run ecstatically toward the stands to kiss her then-wife, Sarah Huffman. Wambach, one of the best players of all time, would be retiring from the game with a 5–2 win over Japan and yet another coveted title under her belt. It thrilled me that someone who’d proven herself the best of the best on the world’s stage was also openly gay, and openly in love. Wambach and her team’s triumph felt less like an American win to me and more like a win for the gays — and lesbians, specifically — just a week after the Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

At the time, Getty Images infamously captioned its shot of Wambach and Huffman embracing with “Abby Wambach of USA celebrates with a friend,” releasing a deluge of memes poking fun at the ways in which mainstream culture willfully overlooks romantic affection between women. But in the years since, the queerness of the US women’s national soccer team has only grown more visible — so visible, in fact, that it’s pretty much impossible for even the densest of straight people to ignore.

Over the weekend, the USWNT beat the Netherlands 2–0 in this year’s World Cup final for its second consecutive World Cup win, a victory that, as star forward, team cocaptain, and America’s lesbian sweetheart Megan Rapinoe pointed out, would have been impossible without queer power: “You can’t win a championship without gays on your team … that’s science right there.” Rapinoe’s out teammates include Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger, who announced their engagement earlier this year, while their coach, Jillian Ellis, is also an out lesbian. And then there’s fan-favorite Kelley O’Hara, who, recovering from a nasty head-to-head collision during yesterday’s match, replayed Wambach’s famous kiss with one of her own: She ran to the stands after the game and embraced her girlfriend, in a moment at once completely unexceptional and rather profound. She hadn’t previously made any grand pronouncement about her sexuality, but openly kissing her partner spoke for itself.

USA Today Sports

Megan Rapinoe kisses girlfriend Sue Bird after defeating the Netherlands in the championship match of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

I don’t closely follow most sports, soccer included — I still barely understand what offsides means, no matter how many times my friends try to explain it to me — but this World Cup, as with the last, I was drawn in by all these incredible lesbians. For one thing, a lot of the players look like the kinds of hot mean girls with ponytails who both intimidated and titillated me in my closeted youth. For another, I’ve become enamored with the way the US team (and especially Rapinoe) has used its international platforms to advocate for LGBTQ rights, equal pay, and racial justice.

Lately, I don’t feel particularly proud to be an American. A few days before the World Cup finals, President Donald Trump hijacked the National Mall to stage his 4th of July rally, as a monument to (white) American exceptionalism and supremacy. At a time of year when we’re all supposed to be celebrating our hard-won freedoms, there are men, women, and children detained in cages and subjected to horrifying treatment at the border. That doesn’t make me proud; it makes me sick. I’m not proud of where the United States — supposedly the best place the world — stands in international rankings when it comes to gun violence or maternal mortality rates. I’m not proud that trans women of color are being killed at epidemic levels, nor am I proud of a health care system that bankrupts citizens for the crime of poor health. I feel, if anything, perversely grateful that my race and class status have afforded me the safety and well-being so frequently denied to others in this country.

I’ve become enamored with the way the US team has used its international platforms to advocate for LGBTQ rights, equal pay, and racial justice.

But do you know what does make me proud? The fact that Megan Rapinoe was among the first American athletes to kneel in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, and that during the World Cup, she continued to protest by refusing to sing the national anthem. I’m proud that Rapinoe, earlier this year, said she wouldn’t go “to the fucking White House” if her team was invited after a potential World Cup win; and I’m proud of her teammates, whom Rapinoe said wouldn’t likely accept a Trump invitation either. I’m proud that Wambach, Rapinoe, and other women’s soccer players would have no problem playing with and against trans women athletes, and have demanded an end to discriminatory anti-trans policies in international sports. And I’m proud that, for all the policy’s other faults, Title IX helped build a team of women champions by mandating schools provide equal sporting opportunities for girls.

Someone’s pride is inevitably someone else’s shame, however, and everything I love about the US women’s team is everything plenty of others despise about it — in our country and around the world.

Rapinoe, for example, for her protests and for her refusal to let an explicitly anti-LGBTQ administration use her as a photo op, is “ungrateful,” “selfish,” “divisive,” and (of course) “un-American.” Trump has led those charges, playing to his base the same way he once did with Kaepernick, accusing Rapinoe of dishonoring the American flag (and, bizarrely, managing to twist a jab at a white soccer player into a racist tirade). It will never cease to stun and disappoint me that so many Americans can be whipped into a furious frenzy when someone who’s gay, or black, or otherwise marginalized dares speak out against injustice in ways they deem to be impolite or brash or unseemly. As Adam Serwer recently wrote in the Atlantic: “when those in power are caught abusing that power in ways that are morally indefensible and politically unpopular, they will always seek to turn an argument about oppression into a dispute about manners.”

Meanwhile, as Rapinoe and her fellow players who have spoken out against US atrocities are branded as “un-American” by conservatives at home, they’re considered by naysayers abroad to be all too American. Even before the US beat England’s lionesses in the semifinals, the British press continually attacked the USWNT for their “arrogance.” Pundits were surely going to lose their minds when, during the game itself, Morgan celebrated a goal with a gently ribbing gesture — she pretended to sip a cup of tea — that, on 4th of July weekend, amusingly recognized the fact that our country was born of anti-colonialist revolution.

I don’t have any problems with poking light fun at a powerful country like England. But I admit I was less comfortable when, in the World Cup opener, the USWNT completely demolished Thailand 13–nil, kicking off early rounds of criticism that the team was too arrogant for reveling in another country’s humiliating defeat. Beating the Brits at their own beloved game is one thing, but bulldozing a team made up entirely of people of color — who have far less cultural and economic power than ours does — feels, I’ve got to say, rather different.

Yes, our women’s team hasn’t achieved pay parity with our far crappier and far less beloved men’s soccer team — an injustice deserving swift rectification. But watching the World Cup, especially in the earlier rounds — before semifinals consisting of the US, England, the Netherlands, and Sweden had rendered the pitches blindingly white — I spent more time thinking about the pay disparities between our women’s team and others around the world, particularly in less wealthy countries.

Our team is great because of public policies like Title IX, and because, in the US, women’s sports are slowly beginning to earn the respect they deserve. Also, of course, we’ve got some incredible individual athletes, all of whom I love and admire. Still, I can’t really bring myself to join the chants of “USA!” whenever I’ve been to games in bars bedecked in red, white, and blue, because there’s a part of me that recognizes at least some of the USWNT’s supremacy is born of unearned American advantage.

While most of the criticisms lobbed against this team have struck me as completely ludicrous, I do cede the point that this is really the first time that an American team has dominated in a truly international sport — which means soccer has become yet another arena for the US to gloat about our supposed supremacy. Merch declaring “USA vs. Everybody” leaves a bad taste in my mouth; it sounds less like a great team (rightfully) owning their greatness and more like an uncomfortably cheery summary of US imperialism’s bloody history.

And yet it is precisely because of my discomfort with slobbering jingoism that I’m grateful to the US players who champion a messier, more honest, more noble vision of the American patriot: someone who is constantly pushing this country — which wasn’t, in fact, built on a foundation guaranteeing universal freedoms — to be a better and more equitable place.

I’m grateful to the US players who champion a messier, more honest, more noble vision of the American patriot.

And even though I haven’t managed to fully embrace the American-branded celebrations of our win (the flags, the constant loops of “Born in the U.S.A.,” all the insufferable chanting), I’ve still felt overcome with joy these past couple days, seeing these women unapologetically celebrating their win. They’ve been shamed for their celebrations because they’re Americans, yes, but also because, obviously, they’re women — women who dare to take up space, who refuse to demur or downplay their own greatness.

The queer joy, in particular, has felt revelatory to me. Rapinoe’s girlfriend, WNBA superstar Sue Bird, wrote a completely delightful Players’ Tribune entry last week about how in love she is with this remarkable human — someone who’s not only openly gay, but credits her sexuality for her successes, and uses her own marginalized identity as a way to empathize with and advocate for others. Watching the game yesterday in a bar with some of my best gay friends, who decided against a “USA” chant and went with “LES-BI-ANS” instead, I felt exactly like Bird: “I was happy. I was crazy. I was PROUD. I was pretending to know about soccer. I was a little overwhelmed. I was pretty damn American. And I was in love with Megan Rapinoe.”

I was also in love with Ashlyn Harris, whose boozy Instagram stories of the team celebrating in beer goggles in the locker room after the game deserves an EGOT, and whose commitment to shouting “gays rule” has sustained me at least through the next week. I was in love with all of them, their goofiness and their clear affection for each other, their euphoria a shining light in this long, dark American summer. We can all use a little joy these days. ●

CORRECTION

Jul. 08, 2019, at 17:29 PM

Adam Serwer’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post.

Sahred From Source link Sports

from WordPress http://bit.ly/32lh35c via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

biofunmy · 5 years

Text

Lesbians Won The Women’s World Cup

Alex Grimm / Getty Images

USA Today Sports

Megan Rapinoe kisses girlfriend Sue Bird after defeating the Netherlands in the championship match of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

I’ve become enamored with the way the US team has used its international platforms to advocate for LGBTQ rights, equal pay, and racial justice.

I’m grateful to the US players who champion a messier, more honest, more noble vision of the American patriot.

CORRECTION

Jul. 08, 2019, at 17:29 PM

Adam Serwer’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post.

Sahred From Source link Sports

from WordPress http://bit.ly/32iRy4c via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes