#the coverage of the men's world cup is never fucking ending

[eurofox]

I do not care for sport and never will but the male reaction to literally any coverage of the women's world cup is desperately sad.

Paragraph long comments about how much they don't care.

#get a fucking life #the coverage of the men's world cup is never fucking ending

[redeyedroid]

A lot of the great rivalries in sport aren’t really. We create narratives and imagine storylines that don’t really fit the reality. Serena beat Maria Sharapova twenty times and lost twice, but their contrived rivalry has it’s own Wikipedia page. Tennis’s Big Four was really Federer, Nadal and Djokovic far ahead of Andy Murray, who was just as far ahead of everyone else (unless we’re talking Olympic gold medals, of which Murray has twice as many as the other three combined.) Stephen Hendry crushed Jimmy White in snooker final after snooker final. Nikki Lauda won twenty-five Grands Prix and three Formula 1 titles; James Hunt ten and one. There’s a decent movie about them that makes it look more even than it was. At the end of fourteen of the last twenty series, Australia’s men have held the Ashes and England's women haven't done much better (though, to be fair here, there's a galaxy of more stories to it than that). And so on. Equals that go through long phases of being very unequal. Or never were. 

But there are some rivalries between objective unequals that don’t play out the way they should.  

First played in 1872, the oldest fixture in international football is England versus Scotland. England have won the World Cup (which – in my Scottish opinion - really should come with an asterisk or two attached). They were beaten finalists at the last Euros (to be Scottish about it again, they do best when they rig the draw so they can play all their matches at home, at Wembley). They aim at finals, semi-finals. Grudge matches against Germany and Argentina and big ones against France or Brazil. 

Scotland have never played a knock-out match at a tournament. Our men have only qualified for one in the last quarter-century (though, unlike our neighbours, who have decades of penalty pain to look back on, we are perfect in shootouts.) Only one Scot, Kim Little, has ever scored the winning goal in a full international against Brazil. Our men have never beaten them. On the global stage, most often we lose and most often we fail, because that is what we have always done.  

Our players are collectively not as good as England’s. Even our good players are undervalued. Andy Robertson, probably the best left-back in world football over the past five years, cost Liverpool £8m. The most expensive transfer involving a Scot was the £27m Arsenal paid Celtic for Kieran Tierney. Chelsea paid PSV £30m recently for an uncapped English player called Nomi Madueke. Nobody would be surprised if it turned out he's actually a Football Manager regen. Prising the equally uncapped and not very good Englishman Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Crystal Palace cost Manchester United £50m.

Before she moved to Real Madrid, the absurdly good playmaking midfielder, Caroline Weir would regularly – casually - dominate matches in the WSL for Manchester City, racking up a collection of goals that by rights, should have won her at least one Puskas Award. 

(I didn't fuck up the links. The last two are different goals.) 

But it would feel like precious little footage of her, or Kim Little, or Erin Cuthbert would make it into promos or prematch coverage that preferred to feature far less talented English players..  

England: a team world famous multi-millionaires playing the biggest matches on the biggest stages.

Scotland: not often – if ever – that. 

And yet, 150 years of history gives an all-time record in men's football of 48 England wins, 41 Scotland wins, and 24 draws. 195 goals for England. 171 for Scotland. The last game, played at Wembley in 2021 during the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020 ended 0-0, with Scotland having the best of it. 

I think – and I probably am very wrong - this is because there’s a difference in how the match is perceived these days. As the gap in talent has grown in one direction, the gap in attitude has grown in the opposite.

Before that match in 2021, Rio Ferdinand was on English coverage saying, "It’s a huge game. I can’t wait. Nothing to fear, and we will go down and get our seat and watch it. Looking forward to it. England are going to win. I can’t see anything else, I’m telling you. I’ve never been this confident about a game in a major championship." 

Meanwhile, on the Scottish feed, they were showing this: 

We used to play annually, but those days are gone and it feels like the English have moved on, that the fixture stil matters to them only because of history and because the Gammonscenti among them are upset that a lot of Scots want independence and the breakup of the United Kingdom. But, on the whole, they aim higher and a game against Scotland doesn’t live in their heads the way it does for Scotland.

For Scotland, there is only England. When we don’t play them, we live in perpetual annoyance at anglocentric TV coverage during tournaments we aren’t even at. When we do make it, we get more annoyed, because – fairly or not – we feel we’re treated as afterthoughts by broadcasters that ostensibly cover the whole UK. And so, England must lose. Preferably to us, but anyone is acceptable. We’re fuelled by grievances real and imagined; schadenfreude; a desire to see the ruin of our enemies; and a weird sporting inferiority complex that affects the whole country.

(And, let’s be honest, that fucking song was tedious when it was released in 1996, long before it was shorn of all nuance by the hordes of pink-faced cretins who only know three words of it).

If England were playing the Fascist Red Spiders From Mars, most Scottish football fans would be sitting there, rooting desperately for the Fascist Red Spiders. 

It matters to England because it matters to Scotland, but they underestimate how much it matters to us. Because, pathetically, we have nothing else. 

On September 12 the men’s teams will play a friendly at Hampden in Glasgow to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Scottish Football Association. On the 22nd, the women’s teams play in the Nation’s League. England should win both. They are better teams with better players. And it’ll hurt if they do. But it won’t be because the Scots haven’t performed, haven’t given their best. Somewhere in their preparation, someone will have pointed out that “It’s fuckin' England. Let’s get intae these cunts” and they'll come out looking like they’re about to chib someone. 

(No, really. Set Robertson to malky!) 

If England show up thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion, or that they can roll substitutions, or that they need to avoid injury ahead of their Champions League game next week, they’ll find themselves in trouble. They have more than enough class to win, but the Scots have the fight. 

#scotland #Scotland v England #Football #I am actually very well behaved when watching England play with English friends. #Seriously. I watched Iceland beat them at the Euros alongside an English friend and said nothing. #Caroline Weir is the best British midfielder and has the best left foot in British football. #Would be remiss to not mention that all three of those goals by Weir were scored against Mary Earps who the English have semi-deified.

[jack-yin]

The Topest Of Killer

CHAPTER ONE

December 23, 2021.

     107 Plank Street, SN District, Altoona, Pennsylvania.

     One of the nameplate of [Bai Niu Information Network Service Company] is hung on the wall of a three-story building with a typical American red brick exterior.

     7:30 in the morning.

     Tommy Blanc puts on his badge and walks into the office with a cup of Starbucks—just like an ordinary office worker.

     "How's it going?" Tommy put his backpack on the seat and glanced at the screens hanging on the wall.

     The colleague on duty shrugged his shoulders, turning his pen boringly: "Everything is normal."

    Then tommy sat down blankly, took a sip of the coffee he had brought, and stared at the screen on the wall for a while.

    In tommy’s sight, three different split screens respectively display different satellite images.

     The three different real-time satellite images show the same target which is on a certain area of the high seas and the target is being monitored in real time by three different satellites.

     Tommy manipulated it in front of the computer: "Forty minutes later, the No. 3 satellite enters the blind zone. Switch to the No. 6 satellite to continue monitoring."

     And then he stared at the screen for about a minute, then sat down and looked at the watch on duty monitoring records.

     "You said..." The colleague walked to Tommy's side and sighed while leaning on the back of his chair: "...How long do we have to do this job? I have been in this place for three years. "

     Tommy looked back at the young colleague and smiled: "Isn't this job bad? High salary, high benefits, all insurance is paid for, and I commute to and from get off work on time every day. I hope this job will continue like this-- You should really see what the outside world has become like."

     The colleague murmured, with a hint of unwillingness in his tone: "I fucking transferred from the Navy's early retirement, not for this kind of boring waste of life."

     Tommy sighed and touched his pale hair: "When you reach my age, you will understand how valuable it is to have a secure job."

     ·

     [Bai Niu Information Network Service Company]

     The registered capital is 500,000 U.S. dollars.

     On paper, this is a very ordinary information processing company.

     The business scope includes: information consultation, information processing, network erection solution provision, etc. According to the registration data of the municipal system, this company has been operating well for the past eight years, and the books and taxation status are clean. Even the vultures of the IRS (IRS) can't find any problems.

     ——Of course Tommy knows that these clean and unremarkable accounts are actually made by the vultures.

     In fact, this [Bai Niu Information Network Service Company] is just a cover.

     Its true identity is a secret surveillance agency under the Langley Building (CIA).

     Eleven members of the monitoring team, including Tommy, are all professionally trained monitoring and information analysis and processing personnel, as well as four security personnel transferred from the military.

     In addition, the monitoring authority of six satellites can be mobilized at any time, and a water-cooled high-density server hidden in the basement of the building is used for information analysis and processing. And can enter the red authority of the federal highest security information network at any time.

     Eight years ago, when the company was first established.

     At that time, Tommy Blanco, who had just been transferred from a certain intelligence analysis department of the CIA, looked at the boss of the newly established surveillance team, standing in front of him, pointing his eyes and the surveillance screen. Roaring at myself, the foam almost hit my face. ·

     "We have only one job!

     All eleven monitoring members are divided into three groups of shifts, six satellites have sub-time monitoring permissions, and 100 hours of coverage monitoring data storage server!

     All the goals are for one thing: stare at that damn guy!

     Stare him firmly! !

     Make sure that there are no blind spots, no dark time periods, no blind spots, all-weather, all-year-round, stare him to death! ! This is not my request! It was the order of the Langley Building, the order of the White House! "

     ·

     Yes, stare at that guy.

     To be precise: It is on the open sea, with a certain latitude and longitude as the center, and the radius does not exceed 200 nautical miles.

     According to the order: the target is a boat, and there is a person on the boat... this person, this boat, must move within this range, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not allowed to exceed this area of activity, otherwise...

     At that time, Tommy, who had just arrived, couldn't help but ask his boss a question: What if he ran out? "

     I remember that at that time, the boss with a fierce expression was taken a back suddenly, and a strange tinge appeared in his eyes.

     "...If that happens...it's not something we can handle. There will be someone else to deal with it...I hope the fuck can be done...Um no, I hope that terrible thing will never occur."

     ·

     In eight years, 2894 days and nights. 69456 hours.

     Tommy has been staying in Altoona, monitoring this target.

     Fortunately, the situation the boss said has never happened.

     There are many times, Tommy could not help but have such years: he, a senior intelligence information processing expert of the CIA, was arranged in this small town in central Pennsylvania, and he stayed for eight years. If he said it, he spent eight. Years of life are here just to...

     Watch a ship that is always in circles.

     Would anyone believe this kind of thing?

     ·

     For eight years, Tommy has also thought about why so much manpower and material resources are needed to monitor such a ship that is always swimming in a radius of 200 nautical miles. What's on this boat? Who is on this boat?

     What Tommy Blanco didn't know was that in addition to Country M, there were intelligence organizations from more than six countries and regional alliances around the world. A similar organization was also established at the same time one night eight years ago.

     The goal and mission are also very consistent: staring at this ship!

     ·

     Tommy took his last sip of coffee, threw the paper cup in the trash can, and then glanced at the time.

     It was eight and one in the morning.

     It's less than ten minutes until the 69457th hour of my tenure in this company.

     He stretched subconsciously and glanced at the screen on the wall.

     On the screen, the logo representing that ship is moving.

     "It seems to be a bit fast?" Tommy couldn't help rubbing his eyes, wondering if he had made a mistake.

     And the direction of the target's movement is getting closer and closer to the critical point of the 200-nautical-mile radius drawn by the surveillance!

     Tommy opened his mouth subconsciously.

     A few seconds later, when the ship’s logo finally touched the critical point on the screen...

     Tommy suddenly jumped up like an electric shock, his expression horrified.

     "WTF!!!"

     The sound came from behind. Two colleagues in the same group who were on duty watched the screen together, and one of them made a sound.

     Tommy instantly felt a rush of blood in his mind... as if he had been working for eight years and was waiting for this moment.

     At this moment, Tommy, as a civilian intelligence officer, didn't realize any more. In addition to shock, there was even a hint of ridiculousness in his heart.

     ...Actually, really, it happened?

     Tommy reacted immediately and hurriedly picked up the phone on the table and pressed a button.

     "BOSS, something went wrong."

     "What" the boss's voice came from the phone.

     Tommy swallowed and spit: "Red alert."

     On the other end of the phone, there was an angry curse—as if the boss spilled coffee.

     ·

     Four minutes later, in an office in the Langley Building (CIA headquarters), a gloomy-looking middle-aged man picked up the phone and listened to it, then silently put it down and cursed: "WTF!"

     Eight minutes later, in the largest office of the White House, an old white man picked up the phone and after listening, he couldn't help but uttered a curse: "WTF!"

     ·

     11:21 AM local time on December 23, 2021.

     British Lowy Hill Island in the South Pacific.

     The door of a local shop on the hillside.

     A middle-aged man in a sweater is sitting on a rock and smoking.

     The middle-aged man sat on the rock and turned to look down the mountain until a silver yacht next to the pier slowly drove away before he lit another cigarette.

     But after only one sip, he started coughing violently.

     But the middle-aged man didn't seem to care. Instead, he turned around and beckoned to a vendor who was sitting next to a shop not far away, covered with fruits.

     The vendor seemed to be taken aback.

     "Okay, come here." The middle-aged man frowned and sighed with a cigarette in his mouth: "Let your people come out too."

     The vendor seemed to hesitate, but finally gritted his teeth and slowly got up and walked over.

     He took off his jacket as he walked, revealing the tactical vest inside. Do two actions at the same time.

     One is to let the companion show up.

     The other is raising his hands high, indicating that he has no intention to attack.

     With middle-aged people as the center, on the hillside, around nine o'clock and three o'clock, from the bushes and the hillside, a group of heavily armed soldiers quickly filed out.

     The middle-aged man examined it and whistled: "Six tactical teams, is there anything else?"

     The trader slowly walked in front of him: "There are four sniper positions aiming here. There is a navy submarine in the water standing by nearby. As long as I give an order, your men and that ship will not go far. We will sink it!"

     The middle-aged man turned his lips and smiled disdainfully: "Put away this meaningless intimidation. You can't afford that price. Now, you must have a satellite phone on your body, right? Let me talk to someone who can count."

     "You shouldn't tear up the agreement, you walked out of the safe zone we agreed on!" The vendor looked gloomy: "The Langley Building and the White House are very dissatisfied with this."

     The middle-aged man shook his head: "Then let those dissatisfied guys go to hell. Now, let me talk to someone who can really take charge."

     The vendor gritted his teeth, turned around and took out a satellite phone, whispered a few words after connecting, stood up straight subconsciously, then turned around, and handed the phone over with complicated expressions.

     The middle-aged man took the call with his cigarette butt between his fingers.

     His eyes looked at the coastline in the distance, as if carelessly. Then he made a grimace: Hello, Mr. President......um...um...Hi! Don't curse!

     "...Okay, okay, I see, now is no longer the time to complain." The middle-aged man was smoking while talking on the phone: "When any agreement expires, I have been at sea for eight years. It has given the great America enough face, and now, I just want to step on the soil on the land and smoke a cigarette"

     "...We don’t have to go around in circles. You know my physical condition very well. You will check even a piece of potato every time my ship buys. You also know the medicines I use regularly. Your medical experts must have backed out mine. The physical condition and the progress of the illness, right?"

     "Then make a deal, yes, the last deal, now is the time."

     "The 16 sets of nuclear bomb codes I stole from you will all be invalidated, and all anti-detonation procedures will be automatically cancelled after three months. My request is simple: three months. Three months, you can’t Take any measures to hunt down my people. My people will dive underwater and disappear completely from this world."

     "As for three months later, you can do whatever you want, I can no longer control."

     "This is my final condition. If you accept it, we can open a champagne remotely to celebrate. If you don't accept it... BOOM! The local nuclear bomb exploded. Isn't it exciting?" The middle-aged man held the phone slightly away from his ears. At one point, there seemed to be a roar on the phone.

     The middle-aged man continued to laugh, then his face became serious and said: "Okay, stop slapped on the table, put away your acting for Congress. I will just ask you, is it a deal? Mr. President?"

     The phone went quiet, the middle-aged man whispered something to the phone and returned the phone to the vendor.

     The vendor answered the phone and hung up with a complicated expression.

     A few minutes later, a bottle of champagne was delivered.

     The vendor opened it by himself, but the middle-aged man threw away the cup and took the bottle.

     "The taste is average." After taking a sip from the bottle, the middle-aged man curled his mouth: "Considering the time is tight and the task is urgent, you can immediately bring out a bottle of champagne instead of mouthwash. I am satisfied with the efficiency of the Langley Building. ."

     As he said, he raised the champagne bottle and made a toast gesture to the sky.

     "They are watching us with satellites, aren't they." The middle-aged man smiled.

     "So, is this the last moment?" The vendor suddenly sneered: "It was included in the list of the most dangerous persons in 14 countries, and 32 countries are prohibited from entering and wanted. The most notorious terrorist black hand in the world, Underground King, your end, is it today?"

     "You seem to have an enemy with me?" The middle-aged man smiled and looked at the vendor.

     The vendor shook his head and said with irony: "Me and the three departments of the Langley Building, more than 400 elites of the American intelligence service, have been serving you for the past eight years." Speaking of the word "service" At that time, this guy was a bit gritted his teeth.

     "Hahahaha." The middle-aged man laughed: "I just like your expression: I can't understand me, but I can't get rid of me."

     "This is not a joke." The vendor said solemnly, "Master Lucifer!"

     When the middle-aged man heard the name, he suddenly wiped a sharp edge in his eyes, raised his eyelids, and smiled: "Actually, I don't like the nickname you gave me. According to the tradition of my hometown, I like it better. Others call me... Yama!"

     The middle-aged man put down the champagne bottle and lighted another cigarette.

     But this time, his fingers are already slightlyTrembling.

     The vendor's gaze flickered, and he secretly made a gesture, and the surrounding armed men tried to move closer.

     "It's useless." The middle-aged man smiled and pointed to his head: "The brain tumor cells have spread to the cerebral cortex and are pressing on the right spine. Besides, I have taken some medicines that allow me to accurately grasp the time of death. There is still life left..."

     The middle-aged man glanced down at his watch: "Ten..."

     "nine."

     "Eight."

     The vendor exclaimed: "Stay back!!"

     The armed men quickly dispersed.

     The vendor rushed forward and helped the middle-aged man.

     The middle-aged man raised his head and smiled: "How can you think that someone like me could let yourself be captured by you? The one in the White House understands, but you don't. Five...four..."

     The vendor gritted his teeth: "Fak! I will catch all your companions! I swear!!"

     The middle-aged man looked disdainful: "Don't brag, you don't have the ability, and your president doesn't dare to give this order. Three...two...one."

     "I wish I could look at them again, but... Angels should go to heaven, and demons like me, let's go to hell..."

     "Zero! Hell... I'm coming... Hahaha..."

     Seeing the middle-aged man slowly closing his eyes, he lost his breath...

     The vendor sighed and waved his arms.

     Armed personnel rushed quickly, and prepared medical personnel swarmed.

     After cursing in a low voice, the vendor tore off the tactical vest and threw it to his men. He caught a medical expert: "I don't know much about medicine, but he said that brain tumor cells spread to the cerebral cortex, and they also compress the spine... people……"

     The medical expert looked weird: "I can only say that even a Siberian white bear can only lie in a hospital bed under such circumstances, and can't move a finger."

     The vendor's eyes were complicated: "But just a minute ago, he was smoking a cigarette, drinking champagne, and yelling at each other over the phone with our president."

     "...I can only say that this is a miracle." The medical expert stammered.

     "Huh!" The vendors often exhaled and looked solemnly: "Fortunately, this miracle... is over! For the United States, it is a blessing! This demon has finally gone to hell... No, it should be said that he is back to hell! It should belong to that place."

     ·

     In 2000, 11:45 am on the 23rd of December.

     The Eighth Vocational High School, JN District, Jinling City, Sudong Province, China

     Senior two (6) class

     A teenager suddenly woke up from a sleeping position on his stomach on his desk.

     On the podium, the math teacher was pointing at a question on the blackboard.

     Given log3(x-2y)+log3(x+2y)=1+log3x+log3y, find the value of log2x-log2y...

     The math teacher threw away the chalk, and then looked around, staring at the boy, pointing his finger at him.

     "You, Chen Nuo! You come up to solve it."

     The boy's gaze was blank, he slowly focused, looked at his surrounding classmates, looked at the classroom, and then at the blackboard...

     The afternoon sun, the shabby classroom, the white walls...

     Looking at the series of math problems on the blackboard...

     "Emmmm... this is really... hell..."

     The young man suddenly sighed with a wry smile. The eyes are as bright as stars.

     Half a lifetime away, come back...

     Still a teenager.

#fiction novel

[ad1thi]

four weddings and a funeral

this is very very fluffy, and then very angsty you have been forewarned 

--

@theavengays Stars, this is for you

--

1.

The first place they get married is Amsterdam.

Tony shows up in a three piece suit to Edwards, and finagles with Rhodey's superiors until he gets extremely annoyed and simply says "If you don't give Private Rhodes leave, I won't give you anything"

Things go pretty smoothly after that, and Rhodey is on the jet within the hour. Tony crowds him into the sofa, straddling his waist and whispers, "Lighten up sour patch we're getting married," before nipping at his neck

Rhodey's so surprised that he forgets to be mad about Tony using his considerable leverage and tugs on Tony's chin until he's facing Rhodey completely

"Say that again," he says softly; not letting up his hold until Tony sighs and starts talking

"Netherlands legalised same sex marriage yesterday. We're getting married sour patch"

Rhodey moves his hands until they're intertwined in Tony's hair; tugging softly and leaning up to capture his lips once, twice, a thousand times because they're getting married

Tony's still laughing as he spreads him out against the couch, to keyed up to shift them to the bed, but he looks up at Rhodey with such unabashed fondness that Rhodey doesn't even try to shut up- just focuses on turning his laughs into gasps and moans

Later, when they're curled up in each other- limbs entangled; Rhodey moves his chin from where its resting on Tony's head and says "that's a horrible way to propose, I want a re-do"

Tony turns to him, eyes bright and replies, "What makes you think this is your first wedding?"

and Rhodey laughs until he gets a stitch; and spends the rest of the journey showing Tony just how much he loves him

--

2.

When news reaches Iraq that Massachusetts is the first state to legalise gay marriage, Rhodey cashes in all his pending leave and gets 10 days off.

When he touches down in Logan, Tony is already there- and the jet is covered in heart shaped decoratives.

"You realise that we aren't flying anywhere right? We can't fly around Boston and rappel down in MIT, we're going to normal way; by bus"

Predictably, Tony shudders against him; and turns to Rhodey with his lip jutting out "Please don't subject my derriere to public transport, I'm too rich for this"

He nips at the offending lip and whispers, "Don't worry- you can sit on my lap"

They pull it off splendidly, a bit of slurring and swaying and everyone is convinced that Tony is just drunk and overly physical- instead of sober and just affectionate with his husband

They get married at the chapel just outside MIT, and the pastor knows them well enough that Tony doesn't even have to buy his silence

Rhodey allows himself 10 minutes of close contact with his husband before they keep careful distance; just because Massachusetts has legalised it doesn't mean DADT isn't still in effect

The distance lasts until they make it to the penthouse suite, and Rhodey slams Tony up against the door; latching onto his neck immediately and rubbing the back of his palm against his hardening dick

"Happy honeymoon husband," he breathes against his skin before dropping to his knees, and Tony just moans in response

--

3.

The day DADT gets repealed, Rhodey goes up to General Macweather and says, “I’m gay.”

To his credit, General Macweather just blinks and says, “so you’ve been fucking that Stark boy?”

Rhodey bites down all cutting responses and nods once, “Sir as I understand it, its pretty normal to fuck your husband”

General Macweather just raises a single eyebrow, and Rhodey is genuinely terrified that the general can hear his heart pounding

“I assume you’re here to ask for leave,”he says finally; and Rhodey just about holds in a sigh of relief

“Sir yes sir,” he says and spreads his legs slightly so he’s standing in parade rest

“You get 7 days off at the end of the month,” General Macweather says, “but if, and only if you hold off telling your squadron for another week.”

“Sir?” this time Rhodey doesn’t keep the bite out of his voice

“Pipe down Lt, there’s been a poll going around the base ever since Washington started making noise about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and I stand to lose a good 3k if you come out this week”

“You’ve,” Rhodey’s throat is dry, “you’ve been betting on my sexuality Sir?”

“The whole damn world knows you’re gay Lt Rhodes, you only got to spend 5 minutes around you and that Stark boy to know he’s got you wrapped around his pinky finger”

“Now keep your trap shut and don’t cost me three thousand, and you can leave at the end of the month to go marry him all over again”

There’s a brief second before he’s dismissed, but Rhodey can feel the weight of their secret pulling him down every second he’s not near Tony. There’s this newfound urgency now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed, this newfound desperation to let the world know that Tony is his

He touches down in New York, where Tony has temporarily relocated so that he can fulfill his desire to build a massive Tower and fuck up the Manhattan skyline forever, and he doesn’t even think; he gathers Tony in his arms- wrapping Tony’s legs around his waist and slants his head up to kiss him

He’s barely aware of the cameras and the media and the insane amount of coverage this must be getting; too caught up in the feeling of Tony against him, pressing smiles on his lips

“Lets get married,” he whispers, setting Tony down and pressing their foreheads together, “lets have a huge crazy society wedding; marry me again Tony Stark”

and Tony kisses him and says, “Always”

--

4.

After Carol brings him back from Space, Rhodey can’t seem to leave Tony’s side. He’s been through the routine of losing Tony so many times that its almost an old trick, but Rhodey couldn’t stop thinking of all the nights he’d had to wake Tony up because of this very nightmare and there was some finality to it that terrified him

He uses any excuse to touch Tony, to hold his hand, to balance him by placing his palm on the small of his back, to curl his arms around him on the couch; until one day Tony snaps

“I’m not a fragile doll!” he yells and Rhodey’s arms are stretched out in an aborted motion to hold him that Tony’s slipped out of, “so you need to stop treating me like one”

They stay like that for several seconds, Rhodey on the couch with his arms outstretched, and Tony, standing, with his arms crossed against his chest in defiance

“I can’t - ” Rhodey wets his lips, “The six months you were in Space were the most terrifying six months of my life. I need to touch you, to remind myself that you’re still here”

Tony’s gaze softens, and he comes closer to press a delicate kiss on the corner of Rhodey’s mouth

“You know,” Tony murmers, “its been about 20 years since our first wedding? What do you say we go full camp and have a vows renewal ceremony?”

**

Its a small affair, and Tony debates whether or not to call who’s left of the Avengers; but he’s not seen Steve since he collapsed in front of him in a fit of rage; and his wedding didn’t really seem like the time to rehash all that

They call Happy and Pepper, and Pepper’s eccentric uncle Morgan because Tony absolutely adores him; and the whole thing is over in 30 minutes

They kiss and everybody throws flowers, and if Rhodey turns away to hide his tears in the crook of Tony’s neck; nobody says a thing

They’re lounging in the backyard, neck-ties pulled off and sleeves rolled up- lazily exchanging kisses when a black sedan pulls up

Steve and Natasha step out, and Tony tenses against Rhodey

They’re with Scott Lang, who everybody assumed had died in the Snap, but somehow survived and now has this crazy time travel idea

“Wait wait wait,” Rhodey says, looking up at Scott from where he’s sitting, “Are you telling me that your idea of time travel is based on Back to the Future?”

Scott nods, and Tony doesn’t even try to suppress an eye roll

“The answer’s no Cap, I’m sorry”

Steve sighs, “Tony I get it, and I’m happy for you, I really am. But this is a second chance?”

Tony looks up from where he’s curled against Rhodey’s chest, “I got my second chance right here Cap, can’t roll the dice on it”

Later, after they’ve left, Rhodey turns slightly and says, “It would be nice if your spiderkid were here for the next one”

“The next what sugarplum?”

“The next wedding. We’ve had about 4 now and we’ve never really had everyone attend. It’d be nice, get the whole family together; really celebrate us”

Tony just hums, “maybe for our 25th anniversary. We’ll get Pepper go wild”

--

+1

They never have a fifth wedding

They never reach their 25th anniversary

There’s a thrum of power that surges through the battlefield, and the aliens froth and blend into the sky, dispersed into the wind; and even before he turns Rhodey knows what’s happened

He knows as he pushes the boots off the ground, soaring across the battlefield, looking; until he sees Tony- sagged against a boulder

He’s bleeding from his temple, half his body is charred, and there, clasped in his right hand; is the infinity gauntlet- frozen in a snap

He sets down lightly, flipping up the faceplate and bending down so he’s at eye-level

Tony’s eyes flail for a couple of seconds, glassy and unfocused until they zero in on him

General Macweather had once told him, Son, the battlefield is no place for tears, so Rhodey just smiles, cups Tony’s face as best he can and says “Its okay, you did good Tones”

Tony’s lips move ever so slightly, and his voice is barely a whisper, “love you,” 

and Rhodey watches as the lights fade out of his eyes, and his chest rises and falls for the last time, and his head lols back

Rhodey watches, as his husband dies; and only once Tony’s body collapses within itself- falling against Rhodey; does Rhodey let himself cry

All around him, the men and women Rhodey has fought alongside, kneel

They kneel for their saviour, for the man who sacrificed everything

but Rhodey just cries, clutching onto his limp husband’s body like it will somehow bring him back to life

Fin

#my writing #tonyrhodey #ironhusbands #rhodeytony #tony stark x james rhodes #james rhodes x tony stark #james rhodes/tony stark #tony stark/james rhodes #tony/rhodey #rhodey/tony #ironhusbands fic #four weddings and a funeral #the timeline for this is really vague #but amsterdam happens in 1998 #mit happens in 2004 #dadt got repealed in 2011 #so after im2 but before the avengers #and the last one happens in between endgame #so 2023 i guess #also its up to interpretation whether or not you think rhodey and tony are living in thecabin #ive hinted at it #but also the cabin felt like a pepperony thing and i didn't wanna take that away from them so

[lavenderbones22]

Angel-  Ben Hardy

Summary: His girl is one of the hottest model's in the world and she's about to walk the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Incredibly aroused, Ben must wait until the show's over before he can see her and show her how he truly feels.

Requested: 'yeaa i think tumblr did eat my request >;( i sent u a few days ago about a ben hardy smut ; his girlfriend is a Victoria Secret model and he's at a show & ya noe'

Word Count: 3548

A/N So sorry about the absence guys, hope this makes up for it! 

------------

I finally felt like I was being recognised for all of my hard work over so many years. My career had indeed reached it pinnacle; this was it, my defining moment.

My diet though leading up to the big day was extremely restrictive. I certainly wasn't a stranger to intense diet and workout regimes but this was unlike anything I had done before.

I could take the food restrictions and the workouts three times a day but the restriction I and not to mention my boyfriend Ben, struggled with the most was the ban on sex a week prior to the show. I had no idea why it was, apparently it was something that had been set in place since the very first Victoria's Secret show ,so unwilling to create a stir, I nodded and accepted what had to be done.

Of course, breaking the news to Ben was another story as our sex life was above average I guess you could say. We had sex pretty much every day, sometimes more if we were feeling particularly frisky.

Needless to say, when one of us was away working things were pretty tough.

"You're joking!" His brows were raised so high on his forehead that I thought they were about to be launched into space.

I bit my lip nervously, shaking my head. "'fraid not," I responded.

"W-what!?" He tried to spit his words out. "W-why?"

I shrugged my shoulders, tying my hair into a bun on the top of my head. "It's just what they said." I informed him. "I didn't want to question it."

"I can't believe you didn't!"

"Ben I wasn't going to jeopardise anything just to ask why I can't have sex with my boyfriend for a week," I crossed my arms defensively over my chest, shifting my weight onto one hip. "This is my dream come true."

Ben sighed, feeling bad for catechising me. "Baby," his voice cooed, stepping closer and pulling me into him. "I didn't mean it like that."

I looked up at him and into his bright, green eyes. "Believe me when I say it's going to be as difficult for me as it is for you," I said quietly with a smirk.

"That's where you're wrong my love. I have to watch you strut around on that runway half naked," he kissed underneath my jawline, down along my neck. "I'm going to be hard the whole time," his words were muffled against the heat of my skin. "I just know it."

***

BEN'S POV

Today was the big day.

I didn't get to see my girl for long before the show. She was up at 5am. I was barely awake as she pecked me on the cheek and said she'd see me later on. I think there were soft calls of 'I love you' but whose to know.

I couldn't wait to see her. I'd gone for an all black suit with a sheer black shirt underneath that was her favourite. I couldn't wait for her to rip it all off of me later on.

Arriving at the venue, I was stopped a few times for quick interviews as well as chat's with friends of hers. We'd been together for three and a half years so I was definitely used to all of the attention she received but sometimes, and I knew that tonight was certainly going to be one, I struggled with it all; especially when it came from the men.

I never really considered myself a jealous guy. I wasn't quick to anger nor did I ever have a lack of trust in the partner's I'd chosen. But when you're faced with a situation where your girlfriend is the object of many men around the world's wildest fantasies; it makes you feel some kind of way. I'd come across posts online, heard people talking in public unaware of who I was and even had men say to my face how much they'd love to spend a night with my girl.

So no, I wasn't jealous. I just didn't put up with having my girlfriend spoken and written about like she was some sort of public possession.

Sat in the audience next to her mum and sister, I was beyond excited for the show to start. Not having to wait long, the lights went out and The Weeknd came out to open the show.

She was the fourth girl out and the breath got knocked out of my body the minute my eyes landed on her. She wore a black lacy thong that laced all the way up to her belly button, her D cup breasts looking phenomenal in a match lacy, black bra. A sparkled long sleeved top that cut off just above her breasts covered her; I'd never been so horny in my twenty eight years of existence.

"Fuck," I breathed out. Her mum, who I was sat next to, looked over at me smiley widely-proud.

"She's beautiful," she sighed happily as she grabbed my hand in hers. "You must be so proud of your girl!" Her eyes that were identical to her daughters looked at me, tears were brimming in them.

"I really am. You must be so proud of your girl too!" I said back to her, squeezing her hand in support. I got along with her family extremely well, they treated me like the son they never had.

"Like you wouldn't believe Ben!" She said before she got up on her feet, cheering out her girls name. I laughed, clapping and using my fingers to whistle loudly as she strutted to the end of the runway, smiled widely whilst doing a cute little pose and turned around walking back. On her way back The Weeknd held his hand out to her which she took and did a little twirl under. Fuck, she was adorable. I loved her more than anything, I was so fucking proud of my angel.

Once the show was over, we had to attend the after party. I knew she had to get changed for it since I'd sat around whilst she had many dress fittings. Whilst waiting on her I took in my surroundings. It was mostly media. So many of them. The coverage of this thing was crazy, I'd never seen anything like it.

The second I spotted her, my heart starting thumping heavily.

"Ben!" She squeaked, running up and wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me.

"You did so well baby," I spoke into her ear, pulling back and kissing her hard. "I'm so fucking proud of you." She was in a pink Victoria's Secret robe, looking exceptionally adorable.

"Thank you!" Her energy was palpable; she was like sunshine. She left my arms and went over to her mum and sister who had been chatting to a few people. Unfortunately they weren't able to attend the after party so it was just me and my girl. Not that I was complaining of course.

"I'm just going to get changed into my dress for the party," she told me with a quick peck to my lips. "Won't be long."

***

REGULAR POV

I was on such a high. The show was over, a total success, I hadn't fallen and I was free to finally have sex with my boyfriend.

I knew Ben was raring to go the second his skin touched mine, I could feel the heat and arousal flowing through him. I think if my mum and sister hadn't been standing right there he would have whispered multiple dirty things in my ear. I wished he had anyway.

I changed into a silver, floor length dress that was 90 percent see through. It had chains that went around my chest and my neck, my tits nearly falling out. But I felt a million dollars in it and I knew it would make Ben loose his mind.

He hadn't expected me when I wrapped my hands around his mid section from behind, my fingers crawling along his abs. He was looking tasty as fuck tonight. The bastard knew how much I loved that shirt on him.

"I'm back," I sung, kissing his back. He turned around so quick I nearly fell over, his strong hands grabbing my upper arms to steady me, while his eyes wandered my scantily clad body.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Are you sure that's legal?" His green eyes, nearly black from his hugely dilated pupils, lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

I nodded, biting my bottom lip. "In most places..."

He cupped his jaw, rubbing his fingers along it, lost for words. "Erm...I...well, fuck!" He laughed. "You look so fucking gorgeous." His hands now both placed on my body, moved down to my lower hips, creeping down over my ass and cupping both cheeks. "I don't even care if we're in public," he exclaimed. "I'm so horny I can't even stand it!"

I giggled and pulled him into a kiss. "Two hours max babe, then we can go back to the hotel!" A frustrated sigh followed by a reluctant 'fine', Ben and I put our socialising faces on and headed off hand in hand into the crowded venue.

I hadn't intended to drink so much, have so many shots and give my boyfriend a blow job in the disabled toilets but hey, things happen!

We stumbled out of the elevator onto the eleventh floor of the hotel we were staying in in New York, Ben hopelessly trying to locate the key card in his wallet.

"Hurry up!" I begged, my hand finding its way to his cock while he groaned in irritation at his own complacency regarding the room key. "I need you inside of me," I purred into his ear, biting his lobe.

Finally success in finding the key, Ben used it to open the door and drag me inside. I was in a fit of giggles, horny, drunk, excited from my dream having come true this evening. "Ben, help me take this off," I moaned trying to take the dress off but failing miserably.

"With pleasure." His eyes narrowed as he walked across the room towards me, untangling me from my dress and as much as I knew he wanted to literally rip it off of me from having been celibate for a week, it was far too expensive for him to do that.

"I'm so glad I have a boyfriend with respect for fashion," I giggled, running my hands through my hair.

"And I'm so glad I have a girlfriend with tits as perfect as yours," he replied, taking my right breast in his grip and bringing his mouth down to cover my nipple.

"Fuck," I moaned, my eyes closed and my fingers running through his hair. "Don't hold back on me tonight, yeah?"

He looked up. "Did you really think that I would?"

"No, but I thought I should remind you how much I fucking need it," I smirked.

"Love you," he kissed me quickly right before he got to his knees and ripped my thong off.

"Love...you too," I responded in gasped breaths as his tongue met my clit for the first time tonight. "Ahhh," I cried as his tongue kept moving up and down my opening, purposely avoiding touching my clit again. He had one hand gripping my hip, whilst the other he used to open me up to him.

My knees began to feel weak as he eventually found his way back to my clit, beating at it with such unrelenting focus that I could barely remember my own name. Before too long, his fingers then joined his tongue, stroking along me then pushing inside of me. His tongue sucked on my clit while he pumped two fingers in and out of my pussy. "Fuck yeah Ben," I moaned. "So fucking good!" My grip on his hair got tighter and I think that the more I pulled at the strands of blonde locks, the more he was getting turned on. The boy liked a little bit of pain, there was no denying it. I let out a little squeak when he bit at my labia, causing Ben to laugh with a mouthful of my pussy. "You freak!" I laughed, pushing at his shoulder.

"Don't act like you're not impressed baby." He was right, she had no comeback because she fucking loved it. His tongue was back at my clit moving at a ridiculously fast pace, his fingers rubbing against my g spot perfectly. My moans were getting out of hand and I hoped that we didn't have any other people on this floor.

Slowing down to help me control my orgasm, Ben started licking at me softly, moaning against me to create that little bit of extra stimulation. "Mmmm," I hummed. "So good." He had taken his fingers out of me, both his hands running up the back of my legs and cupping my bare naked ass as he continued to enjoy the taste of me on his tongue.

Although I loved the fast, radical pace he had began with, it was the slow, sensual licks that became my undoing; Ben knew this. I was yelping in his grip, his hands having to move to my hips again in order to keep me from falling over in pleasure since I was still standing. His tongue sped up a little, as he brought me closer and closer. "Ohhhh yeah, fuck Ben....mmmm," I cried. "I'm coming," I warned him, his tongue moving inside of me so he could capture my juices on the tip of it.  Once Ben licked me clean, he got to his feet and ran his tongue up the side of my neck. I moaned loudly, tilting my head to the side so he had more access, my fingers digging into his shoulder blades.

"I wanted to jump onto that catwalk and fuck you right there in front of everyone," he growled, picking me up with his hands firmly on my upper thighs. "Show everyone that this body is mine."

A high pitched squeal escaped me as Ben bit down on my collarbone, before soothing it with a lick of his hot tongue. My legs were tight around his waist now as he carried me over to the king sized hotel room bed that had yet to be touched. I loved it when he was dominant with me like this, he always was after we'd gone a while without having sex.

He laid me down on the bed gently while taking his blazer and sheer shirt off, holding himself up by his defined arms either side of my head. I pouted and ran my hands along his now bare chest. He cocked his head, asking without words what on earth there was to pout about right now. "I wanted to take that off." I said sweetly, looking up into his eyes, my hands running through his hair.

"Well I can always put it back on so you can?" He suggested, laughing a little before kissing me.

"It would be a sin to cover that gorgeous chest back up," I cooed, eyeing his defined chest that looked like it was sculptured from a Greek God. "But really Ben," I began as I looked back into his heavenly green eyes. "Thanks for being there tonight." I hadn't thanked him and maybe I didn't need to, but I wanted to. I wanted him to know just how much his support meant to me. I knew it was sometimes hard for him to stand back when so many people said stuff about me, particularly about how I looked. His natural instinct was to defend me, protect me, but unfortunately in this industry you had to let a lot of things go.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world," he spoke softly. "You are the most magnificent woman I have ever laid my eyes on," he littered my skin with soft kisses and occasional licks of his tongue that created shivers through me. His lips found mine again thankfully where he indulged me in a heated kiss. "But I would think that whether you walked the Victoria's Secret runway or not," he laughed.

Our soft moment was soon over quickly when I hastily flipped him over so I was sat on his midsection, my body on full display for him. My pussy was soaking, leaving a patch of wetness on his abs. I rocked my hips a little creating a whiney groan from Ben. "You like riding my abs like that?" His hands were on my hips guiding me while he wore a cheeky grin. "Leaving your juices all over me?"

I giggled, nodding my head but never losing my rhythm.

"You're such a good girl," Ben praised me, his hands leaving my hips and silkily roaming up my sides until he harshly grabbed each of my breasts. "So fucking sexy." Deeper now, his voice could have made me come right then and there. One of my favourite things about my boyfriend was his talking voice; smooth and calming. But when things got heated in the bedroom it reached a level that previously I would have thought impossible. The deepness exuded pure sex.

"I want your cock." It was getting too much now, I needed him inside me.

"Oh you do, do you?" He cocked a brow, a brazen smile on his face. Damn, those pink lips looked extra luscious from eating me out.

"Yeah. So take your pants off please." I climbed off him, his stomach glistening under the low lights coming from the lamps on either side of the bed. I pulled a hair band off my wrist to tie my hair up while I watched him undo his belt, pulling his pants and underwear down so fast if I blinked I would have missed it.

"Keen?" I giggled.

"Baby, keen is an understatement," he retorted, kicking the last of his pants off his ankles. "Now get back over here!" He reached out, pulling me over by the back of my leg. I threw one leg over Ben and hovered above his angry looking cock. Pre cum was leaking out the top, he was literally about to explode.

"Hop on baby, I'm bursting," he took my hips in his strong hold again as I impaled myself with his huge dick.

Mutual moans filled the room as I started to rock my hips in circles. The intrusion of him inside of me after a very long week had me yelling, my mouth falling open as high pitched moans constantly fell out. Usually Ben liked to gradually build up to the hard and fast art of fucking but not tonight, no he was right into it and I was loving every second.

I leant forward on his sweaty chest which Ben took as an opportunity to thrust hard up into me. "Oh fuck Ben.....mmmmm," I cried, throwing my head back in pleasure as my pussy took the full brunt of each hard thrust. His cock slide in and out of me with such ease at this point, the wet sounds and skin slapping all that could be heard among our loud, passionate moans.

It was becoming the most intense sex we had had in a very long time. I supposed the anticipation to it as well as how fucking sexy we thought one another looked tonight, I would have been crazy to think that this would have gone any other way.

I ran my ringers through his sweaty hair as I leant down further, kissing him, his fingers scratching down my back, which I arched to create a deeper angle. Our moans became lost in our kisses before Ben pulled away.

"Ahhh, fuck, you're so fucking wet, babe," he groaned, moving to leave multiple bites along my collarbones, just above my tits, finally almost taking my right nipple off by yanking it so hard.

"Shit," I squealed, making Ben laugh. "Do you not want me to have nipples?"

Ben chuckled, pumping into me even harder and pulling my attention right back to where it needed to be. We clung to one another, clawing at each other's damp skin as we both approached our peaks. Things were becoming fast and frenzied.

"Fuck yeah, harder!" I coaxed Ben on, to which he sat up immediately and dug his fingers into my hips. I took the hint, instantly starting to bounce up and down on him. My arms wrapped tightly around his neck, my tits still bouncing against his chest as I fucked myself on him.

"I'm gonna come," he groaned deeply, his fingers leaving red marks on the skin of my hips as he guided me up and down faster. Sure enough a few seconds later I felt him come inside of me which triggered my orgasm. Ben groaned again as I tightened around him and rode out my orgasm.

Once we both recovered from our orgasms, we remained in the same position, him still comfortably inside of me.

"Next time someone tells you to refrain from sex for work can you tell them to go fuck themselves?" His hands ran up and down my back in a loving manner.

"How about I'll tell them that I'll go fuck you instead?" Gruffly laughing, he proceeded to roll me over for round two.

TAG LIST: @galileoqueen-mama-mia , @fuckinghurricanesoul , @tanya-is-dead@ziggysstarrdust , @spidreling , @screaminggalileochickenwrites , @softbenhardy , @mortifiedmoon

#ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy fanfic #ben hardy smut #fanfiction #smut #queen fanfic

[thedirtygotconfessions]

No title cause I suck at titles. “Thoros fireplace smut” should tell you ‘nuff.

Thoros of Myr x reader (as always I keep neutral grounds regarding insert’s background etc, reader is a follower of the Lord of Light)

Smut, NSFW gif.  Lots of flaming sword involved… and not the steel kind.

Mmmm, I suck at picking titles. That’s k. I don’t know if nosy-as-fuck Hound is a warning.

For whatever reason there aren’t many milkmaids swooning after Thoros, but you will probably see quite a bit of him here, he makes me hot… This one is for all my impudent vixens lusting after the red priest

It was a good year for your homestead. Another family joined in, making it a little over a dozen, the crops were plentiful… You started out small, by rebuilding whatever the old man managed to ruin with his drinking before you offered to care for him in exchange for a place to stay. But with your wits and golden hands the place began to prosper again, and within a few years it formed a small community. Settled south-east of the Twins, the homestead often welcomed travelers and merchants. If it grew any bigger it could even become a village.

Another quiet evening and you hanged around the tavern, where you yourself resided out of comfort, refilling pitchers and keeping the fire in the pit lit… winter has come, and the walls were dead-cold at nights. You kept a chaise longue in front of the fireplace, and all people knew it was your spot… when everyone left to their beds, you’d wrap yourself in furs and lay there, watching the fire. As you’d drift in and out of sleep, the Lord of Light would tell you stories through the flames. You were blessed… Room was filled with lively conversations, locals and wanderers tired from the day’s work alike. The fire danced against the bricks, creating a warm, sunkissed hue. All was calm…

…until you heard familiar singing in the distance. The Brotherhood visited rarely, but they did. The homestead was way too off the charts and main roads for Lannister raids, or anyone for that matter, and so they’d sometimes come by for a short refuge. They became your close friends over the years, but there was more to it than that… however, it was an old story, well kept between yourselves. 

You opened the door to the tavern, looking out for the exhausted men. You held the doors for them as they entered from the chill outside. They were missing some… and had an additional new guest with them. Leaving questions for later, you welcomed Beric with a friendly hug, continuing through the men until your eyes met with Thoros’. He smiled at you with that calm look he always had and wrapped his arms tightly around you. You were dear to him, and vice versa. Your cheek sank into his shoulder, as you whispered a “Hello”, and he gave you a small peck on the cheek as you parted. 

“There is someone you should meet.” Thoros cocked his head towards the massive, scarred man next to him, whose eyes were on the two of you with alert throughout the ordeal. “This is Sandor Clegane, the Hound, you have probably heard of him…”

“Some yes, but it doesn’t matter what I heard… It’s nice to meet you, welcome”, you reached your hand towards him, trying to be polite and not make a deal out of his terrifying posture… afterall, if he was tagging along with Beric and Thoros, there had to be a good reason. The Hound shook your hand with hesitation and mild confusion, as it was rare that someone would just welcome him and be so polite about it. Trying to pay it no mind, you set the men a table and continued on with your tasks… friends or not, others at the inn also needed to be catered to. 

“What is going on here?” Sandor growled under his breath looking first at you and then Thoros. The red priest didn’t answer, simply looking back at the Hound and taking a gulp out of his cup. Irritated at the lack of answer, Clegane kept on pushing, “You’re looking at her like a hungry fox that just spotted a chicken, what’s that all about?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know…?” Thoros decided to mess with him a little bit to kill the boredom, much to Beric’s entertainment.

“There is only one reason a woman would look at a bald cunt like you that way, and that’s either because you fucked her once and good, or because you owe her something and hope to fuck your way out of it.”

“None of those, imagine…” Thoros stopped the teasing, quickly bored of Clegane’s haste. It was way deeper than that. He took another deep dive into his cup, bringing his attention to the firepit.

“She saved his life some while ago. They have a bond, leave them be.” Beric butted in, trying to ease it down. Clegane was much dismayed by such vague explanation, but caught on that perhaps it was not something to be dug into. But as the evening dragged out, and he saw Thoros discretely run his hands across your back and shoulders on a few occasions, he couldn’t help but to wonder further. 

“Just tell me what the fuck you did to her, or she did to you.”

Thoros sighted, again ignoring him. Beric looked at him, searching for approval which he recieved after some seconds. Why keep it from him… if he is to believe in the Lord of Light, all the proof the better.

“The first time we came across this place was a couple of years ago. Thoros caught a few serious wounds in a botched raid Robert sent us on just a little while before Ned Stark became the Hand, and this was the closest we could find. And it was the Lord’s will-”

“With that shit again? If you’re going to tell me some story about magic and big-teated faries you can stop now…”

“Then I will not. He lead us here. She has the Light in her. She knew we were coming before we even stepped into this inn, (Y/N) was already waiting.”

And that’s exactly how it was. That night you had woken up to the flames furiously flaying the bricks of the pit, clearly reading traveling men and a wounded warrior at your doors. It didn’t take long for them to arrive, with Thoros mortally pierced by steel. 

Beric continued quietly, having the Hound’s growing attention, “Not a lot of people know of this, but some women who follow the Fire Lord have a gift. Hadn’t they beared children yet and given life, they may chose to give that life to someone else and in result never be fertile again… Those which are aware of their ability count their moons carefully and know well to whom give the gift. The life that would be created from the seed meeting in one’s womb is instead devoured by the Lord to keep the man alive. Hadn’t she saved Thoros that night, he would not have revived me at the Hand’s Tourney. We didn’t truly believe that it was (Y/N)’s gift that kept him in this world, but after the Lord brought me back we have no more doubts.”

“… so you did fuck her good afterall.” the Hound concluded, expectantly looking at Thoros. The cleric was already a little tipsy from trying to drown out the boredom, and didn’t much feel like indulging Sandor’s interrogation further. 

“No. I remember hardly any of it, and nothing came of that. She is simply a dear friend…”

“I think your cock would argue with the defintion of a ‘friend’ here, the ‘dear’ no doubt, but whatever you say…” the Hound finally let go, his attention going back to the food on the table.

And so it went. Thoros cared for you deeply and was grateful in every possible way for what you have given him. He knew that it was the Lord that prompted you to give up your ability to ever bear children for his sake… and if not for Thoros’ life, so much would have happened differently. Beric would have perished, too, at the hands of the Mountain, the Red Witch would have never seen him brought back… so much more. Afterwards, all you two ever did was try to live your lives and follow the Lord’s ways. But Thoros lied when he said he didn’t remember any of it; he remembered enough to know that there was more to it, and more to you. He spent several days after that in bed, recovering, with you tending to him, and you two grew close, but kept a safe distance. Yet sometimes, if the drink had gotten to his head a little, he’d like to come and wrap his arms around you, steal a kiss on the cheek somewhere when nobody watched, run his hand through your hair at a passing, and tangle his fingers with yours under the table. Yet when night would come he’d disappear off into the chambers without a notice. You were fine with it, because you were uneasy at the thought that he’s away so much. Even if something happened between the two of you, few days later he would surely make himself comfortable at the Peach or some other cathouse disguised as a tavern… He was a drunken, impudent, lusty man, with a smile that calmed everything inside you, a touch that had you melting, and a voice that made you burn in the most secretive places. Hadn’t you been so focused on begging to Lord to let you keep him that night, the love you made to him would have been the most generous and feversome experience of your life. But it was fine. You had done your duty, and had more towards the people of the homestead.

As the locals slowly departed to their homes, and the room emptied but to the Brotherhood and a few merchants on the road, your work was coming to an end. You were wiping the laquered pine of the bar from remenants of wine and what-not when you felt a hand gently make it’s way onto your hip and a strong chest making contact with your back. You became alerted, but quickly calmed when the other hand moved the hair out of the way of your neck and you felt a familiar pair of lips on your skin. You didn’t protest, you weren’t shocked… Whoever was in the room knew already that there was some chemistry there, and you cared not for the others as they’d leave in a day or two. Furthermore, it seems that Thoros was being very discreet about his proceedings, as nobody even seemed to have paid attention to what you were up to. There were plenty of other girls around the room, and that provided enough coverage. But you couldn’t help and wonder why he’d become so affectionate, why now…? You touched the hand on your hip and brought yourself around. Thoros, not being able to keep his balance at top notch pressed you lightly against the bar, his other hand now on your waist. You looked at him with a smile, amused by how playfully he approached you.

“And what do you think you’re doing? Out to steal my heart and break it into pieces?” you teased him, hoping he was just missing you and wanted a warm chest to lay on. You were afraid of letting your feelings go.

“Just because I cannot keep my balance doesn’t mean my mind is out… Just warning you in case you’d get some idea into your pretty head that I am planning to get myself some good time and leave a crying maiden behind…” he rumbled. 

“Crying? My, my, you have a high mighty idea of yourself… If you’re looking for a bedwarmer you’re in the wrong spot, my love! All you will get from me is a good amount of wine and a song, don’t get your hopes up.” you whispered. His gaze turned away from your face and towards the floor. He seemed a little lost in thought, but chuckled, pulled away from you and bent his arm with an expectant look.

“Walk with me. I need to sober up and speak with you.” he said, more clearly now. You hooked onto his arm and you two left the inn.

The conversations danced between his travels and the boredom you sometimes experienced despite the work overload. You knew that he had something on his mind, and it was mainly because he wouldn’t look at you, where as normally the warrior’s eyes were focused on yours. He was dodging it like fire, ironically. But not wanting to pressure him, you wanted to wait until he found himself a comfortable time. You walked without even checking where you were headed, until you came by a bridge over a small stream.

“We should head back, there is too many bugs further down by the stream, and we’re getting too far away from the homestead…” you noted. He took a few more steps forward, turning himself to face you, still avoiding your look. It took some more seconds of silence until he finally looked up, taking your hands into his and giving them a kiss. He smiled at you and finally spoke up.

“I was a fool to wait until now. I have been thinking about you over and over since that night, and I don’t think it’s just lust. Perhaps my approach towards you wasn’t the most clear and surely wrong to have been drunken, but I didn’t want to startle you or make you think I only search for pleasure with you. Being around you (Y/N), it feels right, and at the closest chance I get I will stay by you more often… if you will allow and wish for it.”

You didn’t have to think of an answer. With Thoros everything felt natural for you, the most free and comfortable as one could be. Eventhough you were not seeing eachother all that often, he was your companion. You had a mutual understanding, a wordless bond, and it was not the one created by the Fire. Everything about him, his honesty, his lack of denial, his acceptance of the filth that this world was… you adored all of him, and no matter how much you kept it away from yourself all this time, now it bursted out inside your heart. 

“But why have you waited so long… I did not know what to make of it…”

“I will be away for a while. We’re heading down North, something important is happening and we need to take care of it… I couldn’t leave without making sure you know I feel for you deeply and want you to await me…”

Hadn’t it been obvious he sobered up, you’d consider his words twice, but it was clear Thoros was dead serious. He continued fidgiting with your hands.

“I will wait. But you better come back to me, you had me waiting too long already.” you declared stricly, at which he again smiled and kissed your hands.

“I swear it, my love”. 

You hoped for a kiss, but nothing came of it as you made your way back; that’s how the two of you were… a little shy, gentle, and calm. The night had just arrived and there was plenty of time for all the to unload the mad longing you compressed for all this time.

As you entered the inn, it was not even half-full of people present when you left. Beric was still conversing with the only survivor of the alcoholic rampage on the table, last two girls still entertaining and keeping the remaining guests in good care. You decided to call it a night for yourself, and headed up the stairs with Thoros, down the corridor to your chamber. You hadn’t set the fire that evening, and so it was freezing. Thankfully, you didn’t have to struggle with the fireplace much as Thoros had his handy pyromaniac tools on him, quickly dealing with the deadly temperature in the chamber. You lay out furs down on the floor, next to the fire and sat yourself down comfortably. You liked your wine in the evenings, and so you sipped on the sweet liquid as Thoros told you more of his recent doings… you loved his calm voice, the light husk from alcohol on his words. You listened with interest about what happened to Anguy and the rest, about undead creatures lurking beyond the wall, about how lost the Hound is within himself… Soon enough the words turned to delicate kisses as he placed his palm on your cheek and leaned in for you. The first one was soft and caring, and as the next ones became more brave, his tongue ever so discretely skimmed on your bottom lip, you began to melt… You were becoming impatient, but knew you’d regret a rushed and rough time… this was meant to count, and nothing would get in the way of making every move unforgettable. All this time you denied yourself the lust you felt for him, the longing for his calm attention, your heart begging you to lay in his arms on a chilly evening. And this was it. Every nip he took on your lips send bolts all over your body. Soon, he had you pressed against his chest, nothing but fabrics of clothing seperating you. His tired, worked arms wrapped tight around your waist, your hips were on the floor and hands on his neck, brushing into his beard here and there… Thoros held you tight into him as his attention pulled away from your lips and travelled down to the neck, slowly distancing every kiss until you felt him on your collarbone… the attention and care he was putting into worshipping your skin started to get you wet. You worked your hands down his chest to get rid of the shirt; you wanted to get to his body. Realizing you wanted more, he complied and removed his shirt, but expected something in exchange. He looked at you for approval as he lay you down on your back and placed himself next to you, trailing his rough fingers up the bottom part of your dress. A hazy glare from you made it obvious you were more than ready to have your night with him. Understanding this, he sank his lips into your skin again, as your hands began to explore his bare shoulders and chest, not forgetting the hand lacing up your leg. Thoros managed to get rid of your undergarments quite easily, but surprised you when he then went for the rest of your dress… 

“I hope it’s not too cold in here for you…” he double-checked with you as the strings of your dress became loose. You had no objections, and eventhough you shivered a little when the cold air hit against your skin, it wasn’t going to be long now until he’ll have you hot and sweating surely. Even if you were taking it slow and gentle, Thoros knew what he was doing to your body. The dress quickly departed your space, and you now lay completely bare on nothing but warm furs, your breasts becoming perky from the chill. Your arched a little as he began brushing his fingers through the middle of your chest, down to your stomach and further down into your hips… You’d have thought that this would make you a little embarassed, but you felt completely at ease looking at Thoros as he explored your body with his touch. He looked you in the eyes with longing and satisfaction as you gasped when his palm wrapped around your intimates… the warmth of his hand against your cold parts gave you comfort you never felt before, but also prompted a longing for him to enter you. He put a little pressure on you before his fingers started to get more complicated, running between the delicate folds, thumbing on your clit occasionally to bring you into a haze but just enough… Thoros started to feel you becoming wet, and decided it’s time to take it further as you began to tighten your fingers into his skin, overwhelmed with the need for him to fill you. He lowered himself to your chest and began to lay kisses all over your bridge and chest as his fingers began working your entrance. After a few strokes you felt a strong, steady prodding inside you… out of control for the moment, you threw your head back and pushed your hips against his hand. 

That’s how your first night with him should have been. And he wanted to make it up to you by giving you all the pleasures he knew how to give. Realizing you were ready for more he added another digit into you, now slowly pulling both in and out, searing for a spot that would drive you over the edge. He watched your reactions with curiosity and pleasure as you suddenly began to grind your hips onto his hand… he found it… deep inside you, with his whole fingers in you, there was the place. Keeping them in the spot, Thoros pushed his free arm under your back, right behind your hips and pulled them closer to his own body, making it easier to put pressure on your inside. You gasped again and grabbed the hand that had you going mad, but Thoros was presistent, keeping it right where it was. Once you were where he wanted you, he began to work his fingers on the inside, without pulling them out. At first he was slow and gentle, not wanting to hurt you, but you quickly made it obvious you were perfectly comfortable with it… until you suddenly felt his mouth around your clit. 

You didn’t want to come like this. You wanted him in you, your bodies joined, his mouth on yours. Your grasp on his wrist became almost painful for him as you panted out,

“Not… not like this… take me…”

He looked up at your, your face flushed and breasts shimmering in the firelight… he realized fast in fact he himself got out of control with trying to please you. He, too, wanted to taste you. He pulled away and started to remove his pants, eyes on you the whole time. But you had another plan. You sat up, as in waiting for him to finish undressing, but the moment he was done you pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him.

You didn’t need to work your mouth on him, as your moans and the feeling around his fingers were enough to make him rock hard. He didn’t resist you, because you both recalled the night you gave him life. It was just like that, you on top of him, your hips clashing against his… with the exception of neither one of you being able to really enjoy it back then. It was no blessing. It was a cruel will of the Fire Lord. But this time it was your choice, yet you wanted to relive that moment. It has been in both of your fantasies for that night to have been a real lovemaking. Here was a chance to fix it all. 

He wanted to take you by the hips, but became paralyzed half-way there as you slid your warmth onto his cock.  His palms opened wider as you were going lower and lower on him, his face full of relief. You focused on him, wanting to see every feeling he had. When he was finally in you, you both wanted to take a moment to just be. There, as you were, joined. You stayed still as he gotten used to the tight feeling around him. You had your hands on his stomach, and as he finally came around he placed his above his head, willing to let you take full control. You smiled at eachother as you began to slide back and forth on his long, thick member. You loved how his eyebrows furrowed when you gave it a harder thrust, quiet moans escaping you both… the walls were thin, afterall. You picked up the pace as you felt yourself become more and more aroused, definitely getting closer to coming…

It didn’t take long for Thoros to lose himself and take control of your hips, his own beginning to hit against your movement.  Your moans and panting became faster, the grasps and slams more and more harsh until you were both hungrily breaking into one another. He pulled you down until your chest was touching his, tangled his arms around your waist, making you unable to move anymore, and he started to move in and out of you. The angle made you edge as his thrusts became harder and harder, eventually getting the perfect rhythm… The moment he kissed your lips you came, and you came mad, shivering against his body, fingers dug into his shoulders, a long, tender moan finally escaping you… Your juices dripping down his cock as he continued to fuck you, it didn’t take long until he followed you, your reaction to the pleasure driving him to his own orgasm.

You both panted as he lay you on your side, letting you face the fire to keep you warm. Thoros pressed himself against your back, kissing the behind of your neck as you watched the flames silently hit the walls of the fireplace. After you have calmed down, wrapped in furs and laced with more drinks you conversed and caressed eachother well into the dusk… 

#thoros #game of thrones smut #thoros of myr imagine #thoros of myr #thoros of myr x reader #thoros x reader #brotherhood without banners #got imagine #got smut #thoros of myr smut

[artificialqueens]

A Fresh New Start- Trixya - Chapter 1

A/N- Trixie and Katya are both women. It touches on Biadore and Shalaska but this is the chapter which sets the scene really. It also touches on abuse from Trixie’s stepfather. 

This is it. Trixie thought to herself as she looked in the cracked mirror of her bedroom. She waited for the day she had saved enough money to leave behind her abusive stepfather and mother who never payed attention to the abuse or her. She hairsprayed her backcombed golden blonde curled hair and let out a sigh. She thought this is exactly what she needs. A fresh start. She finished covering her swollen and black eye with her extra coverage foundation, it now barely noticeable. She hardly had any belongings to take with her when she moved to L.A. Trixie shuddered at the sound of her stepfather coming up the stairs, drunk and as loud as ever. TRACY YOU BITCH, he screamed. She hid down the side of her bed and waited for him to walk past her bedroom door, he didn’t hesitate to bang on the door and listen to any movements coming from inside. However, she heard him fall in the room next to her with a thud. She said to herself, this is it now Trix, now or ever. With that she grabbed her things, leaving behind her blood stained, mascara stained sweatshirt but grabbing her small unicorn teddy her grandmother gave her before she passed away. She left her key on the cabinet near the front door of their home and with that she left and never looked back.

She finally felt free, she strolled along the sidewalk with her hot pink suitcase and bag. She smiled to herself as she thought about all the new things she could accomplish in L.A. She was finally living the life like Barbie did. She was the real life Barbie. As she sat on the bus to the airport, she held the unicorn her grandmother had bought her. She brought it closer to her face eyed and closed her eyes, picturing her lovely gran. She thought about how much her gran was the only person who truly loved and understood who she was. How she was the first person she came out to about her sexuality, and the only one who truly accepted her. How if her gran was still alive none of this would have happened, her mother would have still cared about her and her stepfather wouldn’t have been around to make her life a living hell. She remembered the day her gran died and her whole world around her collapsed. She would give anything to go back to that day. Before she knew it the bus had stopped at the airport. A sudden urge of excitement and anxiety filled up inside her. A massive adrenaline rush. Her boarding ticket said seat 32B. Trixie giggled to herself and thought that was the 32B she would fit in, relating to her larger sized breasts.

She sat on the plane and put her headphones in, she fell asleep before they had even took off. She awoke to a nudge from the person next to her pointing at the plane food being placed in front of her. Trixie scrunched her nose up at the food which resembled the food she used to feed to her kitten. She looked at the woman next to her who was giggling to herself at Trixie’s reaction. She was a beautiful woman with blonde hair and a beauty mark on her forehead. Trixie had never seen anyone quite so beautiful before, she was perfect and pristine. She couldn’t help but notice the chicken tattoo she had on her arm, staring a little too long before the woman said ‘Oh that. That chicken won me an award!’ Trixie quickly snapped out of her gaze and laughed at the woman.

‘My name is Fame, what’s yours?’ Trixie froze, how can someone be so friendly to her? She’s only used to people giving her abuse or completely disregarding her. ‘Um, T-Trac-I mean Trixie. My name is Trixie.’ Fame laughed. ‘Well T-Trac-Trixie, it’s nice to meet you. So tell me, what are you doing coming to L.A.?’ Trixie thought to herself, what do I actually say to this woman? It’s a long journey, do I tell her all? Do I tell her business what? ‘Oh I don’t know really, a fresh start.’ Trixie bit her lip and the woman realised something wasn’t quite right. As they continued to talk, Fame noticed Trixie’s makeup had started to rub away and her black eye was once again becoming more visible. She reached into her carryon bag and took out her makeup bag and turned Trixie’s face to her. Trixie seemed concerned at first but realised with the woman’s delicate touch, she was just being a good person. Had Trixie finally made a friend? Fame finished covering her eye again, eyeing her whole face up and down and nodded. ‘Yes. Perfect. Just like Barbie again.’ Trixie smirked to herself. She loved it when other people called her Barbie, seeing as Barbie was her favourite person in the whole world.

‘So where are you staying Trix? Oh I can call you that cant i? I mean we are friends now, right? Ha, I always do this to people but you’re really nice and I can sense us being really good friends, oh I’m rambling aren’t I sorry.’ Trixie laughed, this woman never shuts up, but it was comforting to know she didn’t have to make small talk with someone. ‘Oh I, I don’t actually have anywhere to stay yet, I was gonna stay in a hostel tonight and see tomorrow.’ Fame seemed shocked. Her smile widened as her eyes lit up. ‘No, no Trix, I have an excellent idea!’ Trixie swallowed with a gulp, her mouth went dry. She had never felt someone trust her so much just meeting them on a plane. ‘I live in a building with all my friends, we live on the same floor in different apartments. My friend, she’s just moved back from Moscow, she’s in need of a roommate, and this is so perfect!’ Trixie nervously smiled, oh  no, she was never good with meeting new people. Especially with a black eye. ‘You can leave your things at mine, we will meet them all at the bar over the road, that’s where we spend every night. Our friend Adore sings there, it’s also a karaoke bar.’ Trixie thanked her new friend. Wow, if she knew it was this easy she would’ve left a long time ago. Trixie dozed off again, waking up to the bump of the planes wheels touching the floor and the irritating sound of people clapping the pilot. Fame rolled her eyes and turned to Trixie ‘I hate when people do that’.

Fame linked her new friend as they walked out the airport, Trixie looking round. WOW. This was her new life now. Goodbye every shit part of her old life. Fuck you all. They grabbed a cab and ended up pulling up outside this normal looking building. Nothing special. Trixie noticed the bar opposite and breathed. Aaaaah, this must be it. She stepped out the cab and looked around. Fame excitedly shimmied her inside to the elevator. Trixie was excited and nervous, she could feel her chest start to burn. The elevator binged, third floor. They stepped out and fame carried most of Trixie’s luggage. Trixie’s heart warmed, how somebody can be so lovely, she hardly knows anything about me. ‘So you’ll be in apartment 304, this is mine, 302. Come in. Freshen up.’ Trixie smiled as she walked in, wow this is beautiful. It reminded her of Monica’s apartment from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, with the purple walls. ‘So Fame…’ ‘yeah?’ ‘Can you tell me some things about my new roommate? So y’know im not sharing with a freak.’ Fame laughed to herself a lot more than Trixie expected. ‘Oh, you’re definitely sharing with a freak.’ Trixie bit her lip nervously and raised her eyebrow. ‘No, no! Don’t be scared. Everyone loves her, you can’t not.’ That made Trixie feel slightly better. Fame gave her a cup of coffee before they went to the bar and sat on the sofa with her. ‘Ok so, her name is Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, but you can call her Katya. She is Russian, a bit of a whore if I’m honest.’ Trixie laughed. ‘Oh and she’s a lesbian. I hope that doesn’t bother you but if it does I mean you may aswell leave, most of us are.’ Trixie felt so much better about this whole situation, wow. ‘No, no that’s fine, I mean I’m a bisexual so it’s no bother at all.’ Fames face lit up, ‘GREAT!’ She exclaimed. She grabbed Trixie’s hand, ‘Let’s go to the bar and meet your new friends!’ Luckily Trixie got changed into a nice pink bodycon midi dress. She couldn’t go out in those jeans she had been wearing all day, they stunk.

As Trixie walked into the bar, she smelt beer straight away, it was dark luckily, but she could see groups and groups of people. Fame took her to the bar and ordered a lemonade for herself, and a beer for Trixie. Ugh a beer, who did she think she was? ‘Oh there they all are! Come over Trix!’ As Trixie walked over she seen a group of around 8-10 people. About 4 men and 6 women? Possibly more she couldn’t tell from afar. She noticed a beautiful dark haired girl, in ripped fishnets and a denim shirt. She looked like a ball of energy and Trixie automatically liked her.  Fame introduced Trixie, and the dark haired girl was the first to introduce herself, she hugged her straight away ‘Hi! I’m Adore Delano, I sing here!’ Trixie smiled back, ‘Oh you’re Adore, Fame was telling me about you on the plane here.’ ‘Yeah what star sign are you? I’m fucking libra, I love to sing, I’m bringing rock back into fashion.’ She laughed at Adore, she was so lovely, how was she so worried to meet these people, well she had only really spoke to one. ‘This is Roy, he’s my boyfriend. We live in 308.’ Trixie turned to the man she pointed to, he had the nicest dimples and sweetest face. ‘Hey Trixie, you look like a cunt. You’ll fit in well with these absolute bastards’ Trixie couldn’t help but laugh. She was a little shocked that someone could insult their friends so much and it be ok, but then again that’s because she didn’t have any friends so she wouldn’t know. She then proceeded to meet Alaska and Sharon, a very tall skinny woman with beautiful high blonde hair, and a smaller but slimmer woman who had the nicest dimple in her chin. They were 306, so they were to be Trixie’s neighbours. She then met Willam and Shane, two roommates who obviously had a thing for each other but continued to deny it. Tatiana and Pearl, who were also roommates but as Adore claimed ‘just fucking each other and anything’. She then met Jason, Fame’s roommate, lover, best friend and ride or die as it was described. These people were really warming and welcoming, Trixie was beginning to feel welcoming. As soon as Trixie sat down, she began to introduce herself. ‘My name is Trixie, I’m 23 and I fucking hate my family so I ran away’ as soon as she opened her mouth to continue, she was distracted. The most beautiful woman walked past her and sat down next to Adore. She had the most beautiful cheekbones, piercing blue eyes and bright red lips. Trixie felt lost for words. She was stunned by this beautiful woman. Fame whispered to her and she smiled at Trixie. Oh My God. How can someone have the most perfect teeth she had ever seen and be so beautiful? Trixie felt herself staring a little too long when she felt someone grab her hand to drag her to the bar, it was Adore again.

‘Oh Trix, do you sing?’ ‘Uh yeah I guess so. I mean I used to. I used to play guitar but um things happened. I guess.’ ‘Well it’s a karaoke bar, you should put your name down for something.’ ‘Hmmm maybe. Adore? Who just sat down next to you and Fame?’ ‘OH! That’s Katya, Im guessing your new roommate’ No fucking way. Trixie found herself happier then she’d ever been, but how could she stop the obviousness that she was attracted to her? Next thing, Adore handed her 2 shots. ‘Bitch you better fucking shot them if you’re gonna sing here.’

Katya bit her lip. She was looking at this fucking beautiful Barbie doll at the bar with Adore, is this really her new roommate? Her curves were amazing, her bum was beautiful and as soon she turned around Katya couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering from her breasts to her legs and all the way back up again. She could actually feel something with this person. She didn’t understand why, she never felt like this. Infact, she hadn’t even fucking spoken to her but she knew they would be special.

Trixie didn’t feel like singing, she was too interested in drooling over her new roommate. Whenever Katya stood up for a cigarette Trixie would admire her. She was wearing a red fluffy coat with a matching pompom in her hair, with a braid hanging down from it. She was yet to hear Katya speak, but she didn’t need to speak, Trixie was already mesmerised. As Trixie watched Katya walk back towards the table, she felt Katya squeeze her hands on her shoulder and Trixie smiled to herself. She heard a laugh to her side and Alaska leaned in; ‘you could make it less obvious you like her’. Shit. Trixie turned to her. ‘Is it that obvious?’ Alaska giggled ‘No don’t worry. Katya gets that reaction a lot. Shes used to it’. ‘Oh I see, she’s beautiful.’ Sharon joined in. ‘She’s a beautiful mystery.’ With that, everyone decided to call it a night, Fame linking Trixie as they walked back to the apartments.

As Trixie walked in front of her, Katya lit a cigarette but focused on Trixie’s bum as she walked. Wow. Now that’s a woman she thought. Her mind started to wander about things she could do when she felt a hand on her arm. It was Sharon.

‘Don’t bother.’ ‘What?’ ‘Don’t bother doing anything to that one. She’s a good girl and part of this group now Katya, don’t hurt her like you do to the rest.’ Katya laughed. ‘Fuck off Sharon you cunt’ Sharon pushed her with a laugh. Trixie stood behind Katya as Katya opened the door to their apartment. Trixie walked in and looked around. It was odd in here but it was nice. There were different patterned throws on the sofa and Trixie couldn’t help but laugh and Katya’s taste in fashion. Katya looked at Trixie and smiled. Trixie’s heart melted. ‘That’s your room Trix.’ ‘Oh ok thanks.’ Her accent was fucking sexy wow. The roll of her R’s made Katya automatically all the more attractive. As Trixie turned around Katya smacked her ass. ‘Sorry about that, I’ve been looking at it all night and I’m constantly horny.’ Trixie laughed, she could get used to this.

Trixie took off her makeup after a long fucking day. She looked in the mirror and her mood automatically dropped, her black eye. She couldn’t wait for it to fade so she could completely forget about her life. As she changed into her pyjamas she noticed a bruise around her ribs area. She prodded and realised how much it hurt. That fucking bastard she thought to herself. She felt her eyes start to burn and the tears start to fall. She pressed herself into the unicorn she brought with her. She didn’t realise how loud she was crying until she heard a knock on the door, she shot up. ‘Trix, are you ok? I hear you crying.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m, erm, im f-f-f-fine’ her voice trembled. ‘No you aren’t I’m coming in ok.’ Katya swung open the door, to see Trixie sitting there in her underwear, this was not a sight she expected to see on their first night. She started to admire her body and realised why she was in there. ‘What’s wrong Trix’ grabbing her hands and turning her towards her. That’s when she say the marks. ‘What the fuck is this?!’ Trixie put her head on Katya’s shoulder and cried. And cried. And cried. When she finally calmed down, she explained to Katya that her stepfather was abusive but didn’t go into much detail. Katya could feel herself getting more annoyed the second it went on. How anyone could hurt someone so perfect and more so, how can she still look so gorgeous when she’s completely bruised and inconsolable.

‘I’m sorry’ Trixie explained. ‘I know we only just met and you shouldn’t be having to do this on a Tuesday night.’ But Katya didn’t care, something about Trixie was enticing, and made Katya feel things she’s never felt before. She’d only just met this girl, what the fuck was going on. ‘I know I’ve only just met you, but I really don’t want to be alone tonight… Will you stay with me?’ Katya didn’t think this would happen for a few days, even weeks but she didn’t care. All she wanted was Trixie to be ok. ‘Yes of course I will.’ They both crawled under the covers, and Trixie found herself cuddling into Katya’s side with Katya hugging and holding her towards her. What the fuck was Katya doing, she never cuddled. Even when her friends needed her, she offered sarcasm and twisted humour instead of affection. But something about this felt different. She felt Trixie’s breath on her skin and assuming she was asleep, kissed her forehead. Trixie wasn’t asleep, she smiled to herself as she felt herself blush and felt butterflies in her stomach. They both knew this was the start of something different, something new. A fresh start for Trixie and she couldn’t wait.

#trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #a fresh new start #lottie #rpdr fanfiction #submission #lesbian au

[lodelss]

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2019 | 8 minutes (2,111 words)

In the past, the bow tie seemed to hold him together, kind of. Tucker Carlson had always been as red-faced and obstreperous as so many other conservative pundits, but he had never been known to be “cunty” or “faggot”-level offensive. Still, it wasn’t much of a shock earlier this week when progressive watchdog Media Matters unearthed him spouting slurs like that — a couple of racist remarks rounded out the misogyny and homophobia — during a series of appearances on Bubba the Love Sponge Clem’s radio show between 2006 and 2011. From Monday to Tuesday, after the first recordings surfaced, Tucker Carlson Tonight hemorrhaged almost half its advertisers.

That bow tie had been a flourish of propriety: a strip of cloth separating him from a loudmouth like Howard Stern, the “shock jock” who looks and acts like a dollar store rock star, grabbing his crotch for whoever will listen. But he dropped it the year he appeared on that radio show. It was Stern who hired Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (yes, that’s his legal name) in the mid-2000s to host a show on his second satellite radio channel, and it was on that show that Carlson crossed the line. That was where the shock jock and the political commentator proved that they were one and the same — the former played off conservatism, the latter played it up, but both relied on its foundation. “Well, you’re talking about God and illegals,” Carlson told Clem. “I thought we were just going to be talking about blow jobs.”

But what’s the difference, really? Blow jobs were once used for shock value. Now it’s “illegals.” The punch line being that neither one of them is transgressive in the end.

* * *

No one used the words shock jock for Joe Pyne, the host of It’s Your Nickel (that’s a reference to pay phones, kids, and I’m including myself here) who pioneered in-your-face talk radio in the ’50s and went on to create TV’s The Joe Pyne Show, which sometimes devolved into actual physical altercations between him and guest. No one really knew what to make of him. His unconventional style — dressed-up to dress down “pinkos” and “women’s libbers” and riff on, rather than read, reports — was neither news nor entertainment. It seemed to be best described (well, The New York Times and Time both did anyway) as an “electronic peepshow.” The personality-free press of the time considered Walter Cronkite the most trusted man in America and Johnny Carson the funniest, but Pyne, with his syndicated show on more than 200 radio outlets, was the most Machiavellian. “When it comes to manipulating media,” Icons of Talk author Donna Halper told Smithsonian Magazine, “he was the father of them all.”

Pyne briefly descended from his soapbox in the mid-’60s — for a week’s “vacation” — after bringing a gun to his show during the Watts riots, suggesting the world wasn’t quite yet ready for his kind of conservative appeal. It took until the mid-’80s, when the FCC was no longer so hard-assed and political correctness was all the rage, for Howard Stern to turn the shock jock into a thing. The idea was that PC America was muting real America, and personalities like his were there to liberate our ids … usually on the way to work. “They were pushing the limits of what you could hear on the public airwaves,” TALKERS Magazine publisher Michael Harrison told Thrillist of mavericks like Pyne and Don Imus, who set the stage for Stern. “That was the key to the whole thing: that it was on the ‘sacred public airwaves.’”

Full disclosure: I have always hated Howard Stern. His banality offends me: “The closest I came to making love to a black woman was I masturbated to a picture of Aunt Jemima on a pancake box” — that’s the kind of joke he makes. It’s the sort of quip that leaves a dumb bro stuck in 1992 in stitches. To be offensive your words have to have power, and his … don’t. He swears a lot and cajoles his guests into talking about fucking and snorting and it’s all very Free Speech, Motherfuckers! He can be sexist and racist and classist, because, hey! He’s sexist about men too! He’s racist to everyone! He drags every class!

Sorry, I just fell asleep.

The rebellion is a pose, because at the heart of Stern and all the other shock jocks is conservatism — 2.1 kids, strong moral fiber. They can joke about fucking and inhaling, because they ostensibly aren’t doing either. So what positions itself against PC America, in fact, at its core, feeds into it — the conservatism is the rebellion. Knowing that, you can see how Don Imus calling the members of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” can happen as late as 2007 on his radio show Imus in the Morning (he was fired by CBS and NBC, then hired by ABC). As David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker 10 years before Imus’s offense, personalities like Stern and Mancow Muller and Opie and Anthony appeal to the “audience that feels put upon by a new set of rules — sexual harassment guidelines, the taboo against certain kinds of speech — and wants release, if only in the privacy of the drive to work.”

The audience meaning white heterosexual men. The shock jock industry itself is predominantly white men (Stern’s foil, Robin Quivers, is a black woman, but she has never been the star attraction). Which is not to say that women can’t be as “offensive,” it’s just that the people in charge of hiring them would prefer them to be barefoot and pregnant. There are shockingly few exceptions. Wendy Williams, who rode the wave of ’90s hip-hop and shamelessly confronted celebrities like Whitney Houston with tabloid gossip (she also had a bad habit of trying to out rappers) was christened by New York magazine in 2005 as the “shock jockette.” She was “the black Howard Stern” right down to the middle-class moralism. Other than Williams, the female media personalities who cause offense — Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham — tend toward conservative commentary, presumably because the men on the top floor think they will be less likely to break a nail in those environs. “The complaints of Western feminists look like petty self-absorption when you line them up against human rights abuses in Third World military dictatorships,” is a thing Ingraham came up with — a misogynistic comment cloaked in doublespeak.

This genre of radio personality was dubbed by my colleague Ethan Chiel as the “outrage jock,” the political version of a culture and entertainment-aligned predecessor, who arose in the late 1980s after the FCC regulations on political talk became less clear. This is where a bow tie comes in handy. The outrage jocks market themselves as transgressive, but instead of fighting conservative America, they uphold it, a stance they brand subversive in a sea of progressive liberal media. Rush Limbaugh, who has the most popular talk radio show in America — 15.5 million listeners, according to Talk Magazine — was dubbed by National Review as the “Leader of the Opposition” back in the ’90s. “Rush took radio at a time when the norm was basically NPR. He comes into that church and blows it up,” radio host John Ziegler told The Washington Post in 2015. “Our presidential politics have become a kind of church. The media says, ‘You’re not allowed to say this, or this, or that, because we’re in church.’ People are sick of that.”

So: Stern 2.0, except instead of shouting about pussy, Limbaugh — not to mention Glenn Beck and Michael Savage — shouts about policy. You may remember him calling women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” in 2012 for advocating for contraceptive insurance coverage. “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception,” said the man who has been married four times. “She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

Limbaugh needs a brushup on his sex work nomenclature, among other things. But if you want to talk about pimp: Janet Jackson’s nipple ultimately killed the shock jock. In case you aren’t old, it happened during a performance of “Rock Your Body” at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in 2004, when Justin Timberlake tore off the right cup of Jackson’s bustier, exposing her breast. (Per Jackson, the red bra underneath the rubber was supposed to stay behind, but came away accidentally.) In response, more than 500,000 complaints, all of them from people presumably with nipples of their own, were reportedly lodged with the FCC. President Bush responded two years later by signing the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which raised the penalty for broadcasting “indecency” tenfold. With that, Howard Stern fucked off to satellite radio and the rest of the shock jocks kind of followed suit. Tucker Carlson was what was left behind.

* * *

“Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.” Tucker Carlson did not say that. That was Donald Trump in 2013 talking to Howard Stern about a pregnant Kim Kardashian in a radio show appearance that reemerged during his election campaign. On the same show, across almost two decades, the future president also agreed that his daughter was “a piece of ass” and dismissed flat-chested women and women over 35 (thank God). For all his work to divide the nation, Trump had a big hand in bringing shock and outrage jocks together, dissolving any sort of wall (!) between them. “If the political class is appalled by the notion that anything from the morass of ’90s shock-jock radio could become part of a presidential race,” wrote Virginia Heffernan in Politico in 2016, “it may be just as surprising to Stern’s fans, who proudly embraced the outsider-ness of a guy who couldn’t seem further from inside-the-Beltway political chatter.” TALKERS’s Harrison has called Trump “the first shock-politician.”

By the time Trump entered politics, shock jocks were no longer defining the culture and conservative commentators were filling the vacuum. They entered the mainstream on networks like Fox and the intellectual dark web via Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin. “The shock jocks weren’t defeated,” wrote Dan Jackson at Thrillist. “They went viral.” This is where Tucker Carlson fits in. He called his resurfaced xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic comments from Bubba the Love Sponge’s show (he described women as “extremely primitive,” supported child rapist Warren Jeffs, and compared the behavior of Muslims to animals) “naughty,” then equated contrition with betrayal. “We’ve always apologized when we’re wrong and will continue to do that,” he said on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday. “That’s what decent people do; they apologize. But we will never bow to the mob.”

Almost 70 years after the first shock jock hit the air, Carlson was toeing the same party line as his predecessors. “They claim that they’re just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes,” Rory O’Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio, told The Guardian in 2009. “It’s all bound together so when it’s convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it’s all just a joke. But when it’s not, they say they’re giving you information that you need.” Carlson’s comments were only shocking because they veered so sharply away from Beltway politics; with his regressive approach no longer couched in policy, they revealed him for the person he is. And even though advertisers have pulled out of his program, the notion that he could disappear like Stern is one from another time — conservatism is the status quo and there’s always room for it now, particularly when it masquerades as information rather than entertainment.

After Megyn Kelly left Fox, Tucker Carlson took her spot, and if Carlson were removed, a new version of him would sprout in his place. This whack-a-mole quality to outrage jocks extends, more troublingly, to their politics — if they are not outraged about one thing, they will immediately find another. They are as adaptive as comedians like Stern, use facts as props to play journalists like Cronkite, and influence voting and policy just as seriously. As Jon Stewart scolded Carlson and his cohost in 2004 on the CNN show Crossfire: “You’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate.” And without the FCC to shut them down for good, or at least out them as entertainers, the only hope is that their audience will realize that the most transgressive thing to do is to stop listening.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

#IFTTT #Blogger

[lindyhunt]

Leslie Jones Recently Discovered RuPaul’s Drag Race and her Twitter Reactions are Hilarious

Season ten of RuPaul’s Drag Race just wrapped, but on Twitter it’s all about season six–at least it is on SNL actor Leslie Jones’ page. If you’ve been following Jones on Twitter for a while, you know that when she really loves something, she’s going to share it with the world. Remember her hilarious coverage of the Winter Olympics? Well, live-tweeting RuPaul’s Drag Race has become Jones’ next obsession.

Ok where the fuck have I been that I haven’t ever watched this show?!!I’m mad now!! Lol not that mad! But you know what I mean lol @RuPaulsDragRace @RuPaul it’s soooo good! Is rupaul a stand up comic too? Cause omg he funny as hell!Sorry y’all just love when I find a show I like

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) May 25, 2018

Although the show debuted back in 2009, Jones admits she’s only recently discovered it and yes… she knows she’s late. Both fans and participants alike have caught wind of the comedian’s hilarious tweets and are keeping up with her #ShutUpIKnowImLate hashtag to read up on all of Jones’ Drag Race opinions. (There are a lot.)

From calling out sassy contestants…

You just mad cause she was better!! And let me tell Adele would never wear that bullshit!!! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season6shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/iMZrMkN7O7

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 23, 2018

…to repurposing some of RuPaul’s iconic phrases…

I’m so saying this to my next Man! You see how she looked away at the end like the classic shade! Like she should have had a fan that open and started fanning her or took a sip of tea from a cup! damn @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace can you be my mom please?!#season4shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/dzalt7jzWM

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) May 30, 2018

Another line I’m gonna use on men!! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season5shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/7D1Zp3WiLx

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 9, 2018

…to shouting-out glam looks on the main stage…

Yassss that wig Muthah!! And your makeup is b-b-beat up!! Lordt you is awesome, you is fine, you is fierce!! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season4shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/FCuEdKiXrs

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 3, 2018

Ok this walk lordt!! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season6shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/xgezmDxn5y

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 21, 2018

…Jones has a lot of love for the drag race fam.

One contestant that quickly became a favourite was Alyssa Edwards, with Jones even comparing the Southern pageant queen to a woman she’d met previously at a tupperware party.

You remind me of my mom friend Jan! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season5shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/kmA1rzk56c

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 13, 2018

Edwards then tweeted back at Jones with the hashtag #NewHomies and thus began the celeb friendship we never knew we needed.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I LOVE YOU!! I need you text me a face every night!! You are a savage at lip sync!!

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 13, 2018

Willam, another former contestant of RPDR, also responded to Jones’ tweets after she questioned why the drag queen was infamously kicked off of season four. Despite the reasoning being buried since literally 2012, Jones somehow got Willam to dish on what really happened and a collection of screenshots was posted that detailed a toxic atmosphere on set.

Ok but only cuz you asked @Lesdoggg pic.twitter.com/GmebzeEqwM

— Willam (@willam) June 5, 2018

After more coaxing from Jones, he continued to spill the tea, revealing that he was also chopped from All Stars season one (a spin-off show where old favourites return to compete for another chance at the crown) mere days before filming was scheduled to begin.

There’s that time they booked me for All Stars 1 and canceled me 40 hours before filming but AFTER i canceled 3 weeks worth of work in June during pride season. Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go… https://t.co/l41aq13EZw

— Willam (@willam) June 6, 2018

Aside from revealing long-awaited juicy gossip, Jones also revealed a lot about herself while watching the show, bringing up her own experience with her late father after watching a sweet moment with Edwards on season five.

I don’t have my parents but I did get to talk to my dad before he died &found out so much. Some stuff I knew some I didn’t. What I did find out is he was my biggest fan the whole time! Yo love your kids &don’t ever stop talking! @RuPaul @RuPaulsDragRace #season5shutupiknowimlate pic.twitter.com/t2hr9Jq0jk

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) June 12, 2018

“It was an accident,” Jones told IndieWire about the start of her RPDR obsession. “Late at night I was flipping through the channels and saw a rerun on VH1 from season ten. I didn’t know RuPaul’s format was like that. It’s like Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model for drag queens! I was like, oh snap! They’ve gotta lip sync for their life? Oh hell naw, this is the bomb!”

Jones was recently snapped with RuPaul himself at the 2018 Time 100 Gala late last month. Our fingers are crossed that they were sorting out the details of a guest judge appearance for Jones next season.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Time

With plenty more episodes left to catch up on, we hope that Jones will continue to share her Drag Race experience with us. We personally love reliving the drama, the runways and the hilarious challenges through her tweets… even if they ARE a little late.

[latestnews2018-blog]

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victory Face

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/there-were-zero-things-better-this-week-than-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-victory-face/

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victory Face

Welcome to Good Shit, HuffPost’s weekly recommendation series devoted to the least bad things on and off the internet. 

This is obvious, but the best thing I saw this week was NY1’s video of 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez realizing she had beaten out Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for the 14th Congressional District of New York. The results all but assured that she will soon become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, and they set off a predictably nauseating period of 24/7 news coverage.

Challenger @Ocasio2018 toppled one of the top Democrats in Congress, @repjoecrowley, Tuesday night in their primary in the 14th District. The victory stunned even her, live on our channel. #NY1Politics https://t.co/fnK1O0bacz pic.twitter.com/RjuqHJpn1p

— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) June 27, 2018

But the particulars of that moment were mesmerizing: the way she convulsed just for one second when she saw the results; her widened eyes and covered mouth, first with two hands, then with just one; when she shook her head exactly once and replied “Nope” after an interviewer asked Ocasio-Cortez to put what she was feeling into words; and then when she composed herself and told the world that the victory belonged not just to her but to everyone who was with her. It was something wholly foreign to 21st century American politics: pure, uncorrupted joy, and we were right there with her in the bar to witness it. What a shocking delight. ― Maxwell Strachan 

Gucci Mane In Iceland

If you love yourself, watch this video of Gucci Mane in Iceland. Then you should mention BET, VH1, HGTV and the Travel Channel on Twitter, and petition for him to have his own show in which he travels the world and talks about how it makes him feel. Fuck, I love Gucci so much it hurts. ― Julia Craven

World Cup Tequila Shots

Re: Korea defeating Germany, thus allowing Mexico to progress to the next round–this video of Mexican fans bumrushing the Korean embassy in Mexico City to thank the ambassador personally, and forcing him to down tequila shots is so beautiful and perfect 😂 #KORGER pic.twitter.com/E1GeZCRrlK

— Very Stable Genius (@Rantaramic) June 27, 2018

Mexico got thrashed by Sweden in its final World Cup group stage game on Wednesday, but South Korea’s improbable win over Germany allowed Mexico to advance to the next round anyway. So, after the game, Mexico fans swarmed the South Korean embassy in Mexico City, mobbed the ambassador and other consular officials, and all but forced them to do shots of tequila with them. Then they chanted, “Korean, brother, you’re Mexican now!” The videos brought me genuine joy, even though the week was otherwise mostly awful. Mexico, which has had a pretty fun ride through this World Cup so far, plays Brazil in the first round of the knockout stages on Monday morning. It’ll be worth a watch. ― Travis Waldron

New Books!

Amazon

If you want to deftly thread the needle of unplugging from the horrifying news cycle while still thinking deeply about all the political, social and economic factors that have combined to make it so horrifying, allow me to humbly suggest two electrifying debut novels that were published this month.

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg takes the hoary tale of an 18th century folk hero ― the infamous English pickpocket and jailbreak Jack Sheppard ― and transmogrifies it into a wildly entertaining epic featuring a trans hero and a London underworld as diverse in race and gender identity as the real 18th century London was. 

Set in Oakland, California, There There by Tommy Orange weaves together the stories of urban-dwelling Native people grappling with the consequences of white colonization that has disconnected them from their heritage. All the while, the plot builds inexorably toward a shocking conclusion. ― Claire Fallon

“Salvage Dawgs”

For anyone who wants to escape the madness of the news cycle, turn off the worrisomely relevant “Handmaid’s Tale” and flip to the DIY Network ― where you can peacefully watch Robert, Mike and the rest of their Black Dog Salvage team carefully extract architectural elements from private homes, historical properties and crumbling mills across the eastern U.S. states. I first caught on to “Salvage Dawgs” four years ago (as an HGTV fanatic), and with a new season currently airing on Sundays at 9 p.m., I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it again. ― Leigh Blickley

“Demolition Man” Nacho Fries

Taco Bell

Is it a coincidence that in “Demolition Man” ― a movie depicting a world of peace, love and Wesley Snipes with bleach-blond hair ― every restaurant is a Taco Bell? I think not. Now, in honor of the 25th anniversary of this cinematic masterpiece, in which Sylvester Stallone says “Heads up” before literally kicking Snipes’ head off his body and people clean their butts with seashells, Taco Bell is bringing “Demolition Man” nacho fries to San Diego Comic-Con. And as if this partnership could get any more perfect, the fries are supposedly free.

So even if you’re not into “Demolition Man” (but, really, who even are you?), it’s still enough to make you say, “Aw, bell yeah.” Anything else happening in your life is nacho problem. But just remember: This is still Taco Bell we’re talking about, so keep those seashells ready. ― Bill Bradley

Some Hedonistic Art

Irena Jurek

“Strawberries Wild,” 2018, acrylic, graphite, colored pencil, glitter and collage on paper.

Fuck self-care, “Alive With Pleasure!” ― a new group show at Asya Geisberg Gallery in Manhattan ― seems to suggest. These dire times require unabashed hedonism, stripped of nutrition, intention or good sense. Curated by Irena Jurek, the exhibition takes its name from the playfully seductive Newport cigarette ads from the ’70s and ’80s. The works on view ― by artists including Caroline Chandler Wells, Raúl de Nieves and Melissa Brown ― are united by an excessive energy that oozes from their materials, style, palette and subject matter. Strawberry orgies, sprinting nipples, smoking birthday cakes and rainbow horses with serious BDE populate the gallery space, manifestations of self-indulgence far more strange and satisfying than bubble baths and goat yoga. ― Priscilla Frank

Kieran Culkin In “Succession”

Listen, I do not know how I feel about “Succession” on the whole. It is a longish HBO show filled with rich white men whose business dick swagger is very sad emoji, pretty frightening and a little funny. But I do know how I feel about Kieran Culkin in “Succession,” and that is that Kieran Culkin in “Succession” is very hot. He is the media conglomerate sex idiot I never knew I needed. He is the entitled son of a Rupert Murdoch avatar that I would otherwise hate if he weren’t so good at sick sibling burns and fast talking. He is Igby Slocumb, if Igby had just gone ahead and Jeff Goldblum-ed himself. That scene where Kieran Culkin in “Succession” is wiping his own semen off the window of his high-rise office window is exactly how I imagine Wall Street Men behave, so maybe this is a documentary. I don’t know. Watch it for Kieran. ― Katherine Brooks

Music For Your Ears

It’s always been difficult to get a handle on Deerhoof’s noise pop. It’s both artful and art-damaged, heavy metal and wistfully melodic. On a recent episode of the great podcast “Essential Tremors,” drummer Greg Saunier explains at length how the band’s sound is rooted in an unlikely source: Burt Bacharach’s orchestral pop. Saunier is a captivating storyteller, unwinding his tale much like his band’s twisty songs bouncing from a nostalgic remembrance of his mom’s love of soft rock to dissecting the essential genius of the 1968 hit “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” to karaoke singing. “People have rarely agreed with me on this, but I pretty much think of Deerhoof as being a soft-rock band,” Saunier said. ― Jason Cherkis

Freaky people, clap your hands! You’ll hear that command on “The Now Now,” the latest LP from sprightly synth cartoon band Gorillaz. We could use a freaky handclap or two right now, especially if it’s filtered through baroque bops like “Humility” (a summer jam if there ever was one) and “Magic City.” This album? It’s sunshine in a bag. ― Matthew Jacobs

A Movie About Aliens

This week I’m all over “How to Talk to Girls at Parties.” Don’t be fooled by the “Dude, Where’s My Car?”-esque name, this is an entirely precious, entirely new, entirely weird movie about growing into love in the most outlandish of circumstances. Enn is a punk boy in the ’70s who likes nothing more than scaring old ladies on his beat-up old bike and eating tomatoes that grow in the sewer, but his life gets shaken up when he meets Zan, an alien girl from a clan of introverted extraterrestrials touring Earth. I loved the subversion of expectation, like when he leans in to kiss her and she vomits on him. Somehow this is still cute. Elle Fanning is a great alien, and Nicole Kidman makes an appearance as an aged punk, which is worth it just to see her done up in the requisite 3 inches of eyeliner. The special effects are really campy and kind of jarring, but fun if you just go with it. And Mitski (!) even makes an appearance on the soundtrack to round it all out. Upon watching it, my mother said, “What in God’s name did you just show me?” Great fun. ― Anna Krakowsky

Maeve On “Westworld”

The best thing for me this week was, hands down, the subtle power of Thandie Newtown’s performance as Maeve on the Season 2 finale of “Westworld.” There’s this one, glorious shot of her toward the end of the episode, defiantly using her powers to hold off a horde of crazed hosts in order to protect her daughter. It’s brilliant on many levels, foremost because it’s the instant where the show fully crystalizes something that, all season, it had only been half-committed to acknowledging: Maeve is basically every black woman who has had to save herself (and everyone else) because no one else would. In light of the dumpster fire that has been this week and quite frankly this entire year, there’s something cathartic in seeing that visual metaphor on screen. ― Zeba Blay

The Passionate Experts On “Ologies”

My evergreen podcast recommendation this summer has been “Ologies,” a delightful science series. Each episode features a different expert, or -ologist, who can expound on all the cool shit to do with topics including death, birds, fear, squids, even postcards (!!!). Host Alie Ward is a true delight and basically asks all the weird questions I’d want to ask. It’s educational without feeling too heavy. Listening to people who are passionate about things is kind of the best thing? I’ve yet to come across a dud episode, and there are nearly 40 in the back catalog to work through on your journeys this summer — or simply your journey ~through life~. ― Jillian Capewell

And Finally, This Photo

received a very promising tip today pic.twitter.com/UaAJGwoVWz

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) June 28, 2018

This photograph was DMed to me by a stranger with absolutely no words or explanation. It is beautiful and makes me want to die, which is all you can really hope for with art. ― Ashley Feinberg

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘1621685564716533’); // Edition specific fbq(‘init’, ‘1043018625788392’); // Partner Studio fbq(‘track’, “PageView”); fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’, “content_name”:”There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victory Face”,”content_category”:”us.hpmgarts” ); fbq(‘trackCustom’, ‘EntryPage’, “section_name”:”Culture & Arts”,”tags”:[“@health_gad”,”@health_depression”,”@health_models”,”@health_erectile”,”@health_ibs”,”alexandria-ocasio-cortez”,”thandie-newton”,”gucci-mane”,”greg-saunier”,”kieran-culkin”],”team”:”us_enterprise_culture”,”ncid”:null,”environment”:”desktop”,”render_type”:”web” ); waitForGlobal(function() return HP.modules.Tracky; , function() /* TODO do we still want this? $(‘body’).on(‘click’, function(event) HP.modules.Tracky.reportClick(event, function(data) fbq(‘trackCustom’, “Click”, data); ); ); */ );

[globlenet-blog]

The alternative 2016 sports awards: the years best quotes, gaffes and meltdowns

https://clearwatergolfclub.com/the-alternative-2016-sports-awards-the-years-best-quotes-gaffes-and-meltdowns/

The alternative 2016 sports awards: the years best quotes, gaffes and meltdowns

Your investment medal tables: it had been another big year for sporting soap opera. The quotes, the rows and also the capybaras that made yesteryear 12 several weeks special

Star of the season

Cristiano Ronaldo won a 4th Ballon dOr, launched a variety of CR7 blankets, tossed a microphone into a lake, inspired a tantrum meme, and located the eras defining football press conference, using the press banned from asking them questions. He denied it had been his idea to possess the questions resulting from a Uefa media officer rather: I decide nothing. Also, he made an appearance to goes a magic fully-created Euro 2016 TV graphic during Portugals quarter-final. Perfect.

Ian Finch (@FinchIan)

Not only a skilful player, Ronaldo may also gob out a replay wipe #POLPOR pic.twitter.com/UC44YRv5TA

June 30, 2016

Manager of the season

Claudio Ranieri, using the edge off 2016.Hey, man, dilly-ding, dilly-dong. Seriously! Former Ranieri player Gianfranco Zola revealed the saying was attempted and tested. Hes always stated dilly-ding, dilly-dong. Hes a vibrant guy. Initially when i first heard it’ understood what he meant. He explained it a lot of occasions.

Modern footballer of the season

Lots of contenders, but two Rental property men share the title: club captain Gabby Agbonlahor, relegated on the nitrous oxide legal high 2 yrs after extending his Rental property deal because: I get that very same buzz pulling around the Rental property shirt, and team-mate Joleon Lescott, who livened up last seasons harsh run-in by tweeting a photograph of a sports car following a 6- defeat and telling the press how going lower would be a real weight off the shoulders. He left on the free in August.

Also standing his ground: Poultry midfielder Ozan Tufan upset with media critique throughout the Euros after he was caught on camera doing his hair as Croatias Luka Modric formed as much as score before him. I do not get the way a single moment by which I actually do my locks are considered an error. It damages my confidence.

Best Olympic moment

Recording the atmosphere: Nikki Hamblin and Abbey DAgostino helping one another finish Rios 5,000m after colliding mid-race. Hamblin: After I went lower it had been like: Whats happening? Why shall we be held on the floor? And all of a sudden theres this hands on my small shoulder. That girl may be the Olympic spirit, immediately.

Story from the summer time

Syrian teen Yusra Mardini winning her heat within the 100m butterfly for that Refugee Team in Rio, annually after surviving the capsize of the six-man dinghy transporting 20 refugees towards Lesbos. This is actually awesome there are plenty of tales about me now and lots of people who wish to take my picture: its assisting to spread our message. This doesn’t stop here This isn’t the finish.

Most off-message

1) US womens football star Hope Solo, reflecting on their own Rio quarter-final defeat to Norway: We performed a courageous game but we performed a lot of cowards. The very best team didn’t win, I strongly, firmly think that. They wont allow it to be far. They provided the ultimate. And 2) The uniform golfers delivering their pre-Games causes of not likely to Rio. Rory McIlroy: Though the chance of infection in the Zika virus is recognized as low, it’s a risk nevertheless. Dustin Manley: My concerns concerning the Zika virus can’t be overlooked. Jason Day: The only reason behind my decision may be the danger to future people in our family. And Vijay Singh: I must take part in the Olympic games, however the Zika virus, you realize everything crap.

Best change of direction

Originated from Sepp Blatters substitute at Fifa, Gianni Infantino calling his new pay deal evidence of its emerging anti-avarice culture. Infantino stated his modest contract 1.15m fundamental plus bonuses, vehicle, house, 1,542-a-month expenses and funding for just one-off costs for example 1,100 for any tuxedo and 660 on flowers reflects greater than any word can reflect my strong will to finish recent conduct.

Former Fifa man of the season

Most relaxed because the FBI required a grip: former Concacaf mind Jeffrey Webb, who located a Harlem Renaissance-themed blackjack party in Feb while under house arrest in the Georgia mansion he bought with fraud money. Webb, looking for sentencing next May, required the Concacaf presidency this year pledging to attract a line underneath the organisations shameful Jack Warner era: We must move the clouds, and let the sunshine in.

Interview of the season

Gary and Paul ODonovan, live on RT in August after winning Irelands first rowing gold discussing the craic, Nutella, peeing in cups, how you can row (close your vision and pull just like a dog), and just how sad they believed to stay in Rio simply because they were missing the Rio-themed parties in Skibbereen. Recently these were named RT Sport Team of the season, appeared inside a new documentary Pull Just like a Dog, were interviewed for Graham Nortons New Years Eve BBC1 show, and named as Britains most Googled Irish-related search phrase within the entire 2016. Gary: Its funny the way in which its labored out.

Best commentary moments

Icelands Euro 2016 coverage, which from Irelands Cathal Dennehy and Ronan Duggan, live streaming Aprils Irish Universities Athletics Association womens 4 x 400m dramatic relay final being an outsider billed in the depths of hell to victory. Dennehy accepted later hed achieved a pitch approximately your dog whistle along with a squealing pig All of us lost the brain.

Worst commentary moments

1) Canadas Olympic broadcaster CBC apologising in August after their swimming commentator known as the entire mens 200m individual medley mistaking Michael Phelps for Ryan Lochte and 2) John Virgo, confident he was off-air during BBC1s live coverage of Mark Selby and Marco Fus epic contest at snookers World Championship in April: I wanted to watch a bit of racing this afternoon. Ill be lucky to look at some fucking Match during the day. Spokesman: Hes embarrassed and apologetic.

Pundit of the season

The clip that never grows old. Skys Steve McClaren in June, together with his in-play analysis of Englands reaction to Icelands equaliser: It has been the right response from England. You simply think: Not a problem, begin anew, keep dominating, keep getting pressure around the Iceland back four the only real factor they have got may be the big boy in advance Sigurdsson, nobody Sigthorsson Oh, ohhh

Best attitude

Mike Allardyce negotiating the 400,000 top-up that ended his 67-day England reign. He guaranteed undercover reporters hed deliver their pretend clients keynote speaking, thats what Id do, Im a keynote speaker plus good value not only the keynote speech but additionally within the bar after. I do not are available in like many of them, bang, youre off. What happens I am talking about? Im likely to stand in the bar. Possess a couple of social drinks.

Best protest

Charlton and Coventry fans, staging some pot protest in October against both clubs boards by hurling hundreds of plastic pigs in the pitch. @CAFCofficial, 3.02pm: Play is stopped. Pigs on pitch. 3.03pm: (A fantasy ones).

Social networking awards

Best live tweeting: 1) Danny Willetts brother Pete, watching the Masters in April with tweets including: Without words. I once punched that kid in the head for hurting my pet rat. Now look and: Ive shared a shower having a Masters champion. His Ryder Cup online preview in September which branded US fans pudgy, filthy cretins along with a baying mob of imbeciles didnt go down so well. 2) @hastingsufc, remaining professional from the odds in October: Apologies for insufficient updates / Ive been stung with a wasp. Even game, no significant chances. 3) And Icelands @rvkgrapevine, giving one minute-by-minute evaluation of keeper Hannes Halldorssons summer time performance against Portugal. dinns breath propelled our heroic goalkeeper to swat away that weak-ass header and: Goalkeeper Such As The High cliff FACE AT DYRHOLAEY The Only Real Factor Which Will DESTROY HIM IS CENTURIES OF Seaside EROSION.

Most sincere tweet: Sunderlands Victor Anichebe, copying and pasting an excessive amount of what his PR team sent him after Octobers defeat to West Pork @VictorAnichebe: Are you able to tweet something similar to: Unbelievable support yesterday and great effort through the lads! Hard lead to take! But we go again!

Most confused: Californian Facebook user Petra Fyde, asking her buddies and family in June: At the chance of sounding stupid How come a lot of strange men within my facebook inbox saying WILL GRIGGS Burning, YOUR DEFENSE IS PETRA FYDE?????? What the heck is happening?

And also the best-crafted pledge: @Joey7Barton, 24 May: To be a Ranger would be to sense the sacred trust of upholding everything this type of name means within this shrine of football. 15 Sep: I apologise unreservedly.

Frederick Barton (@Joey7Barton)

To become a Ranger would be to sense the sacred trust of upholding everything this type of name means within this shrine of football. pic.twitter.com/nb5yTKq420

May 24, 2016

Best put-lower

Andy Murray in August, requested by John Inverdale: Youre the very first person to ever win two Olympic tennis golds, thats an remarkable task, is it not? Murray: I believe Venus and Serena have won four each. @jk_rowling: Murray just advised John Inverdale that ladies are people too.

Best analysis

One of the footballers reacting to Brexit in June: @PetrCech:It appears as though the greatest decision within the good reputation for the united states is made with different fake campaign and lies. Italys Giorgio Chiellini:The primary problem is an eventual domino effect. I do not think the straightforward United kingdom exit can alter the equilibrium from the whole European economy, besides the acid reflux everyones feeling. I believe the discontent shouldnt result in disintegration. Jermaine Pennant @pennant83: Now we’re not in Europe whats going to take place using the next euros 2018??? And Nolito: What’s Brexit? I believe its dancing. I might be wrong.

Wisest words

25 November:England coach Eddie Johnson, hailing wing Elliot Daly within the buildup for their game against Argentina: He is doing stuff you dont coach. 26 November:Daly sent off after five minutes.

Sharpest PR

Rio 2016 spokesperson Mario Andrada explaining why organisers couldnt be anticipated to simply fix the eco-friendly water within the pool overnight: Chemistry isn’t an exact science.

Best customer support

In August Englands slow over-rate against Pakistan motivated spectator Alexis Larger to tweet: I would like 10% of my money-back. Wouldnt visit football and discover it ended after 80mins. Alex Hales tweeted back: ok DM me your bank details then transferred 4.10.

Miss of the season

Italys Simone Zaza tiptoeing his way to stardom in the place against Germany in the Euros the summers single greatest non-Ronaldo meme. Among the remixes: Zaza like a seagull rubber stamping for worms, Zaza doing Olympic dressage, and Zaza inside a queue for that toilet. Zaza: Regrettably the ball went excessive. It will likely be beside me throughout my existence.

Single worst moment of 2016

Setting a dark tone for Trump, Brexit, Farage and exactly what adopted Germany coach Joachim Lws distressing televised in-trouser scratch and sniff routine in mid-June. Im sorry for this. When you’re filled with adrenaline, unexpected things happen that you simply dont see. I’ll attempt to behave differently later on.

President of the season

Palermos 74-year-old owner Maurizio Zamparini entered 2016 searching to place his coach-eater image to sleep. Heres the way it unfolded:

10 Jan: Zamparini denies hes already feeling twitchy about his new coach Davide Ballardini. I won’t sack him, despite the fact that I possibly could. 11 Jan: Sacks him and hires Guillermo Barros Schelotto. 11 February:Finds out Schelotto hasn’t got his badges and hires Giovanni Bosi rather. 15 February: Sacks Bosi and rehires Giuseppe Iachini, who he sacked in November. 8 Marly:Calls Iachini a fool that has gone mad and replaces him with Walter Novellino. 12 Apr:Sacks Novellino, rehires Ballardini. People say Ive gone mad, but Im the victim here. 6 Sep: Hires Roberto de Zerbi after Ballardini resigns two games in to the season. 28 November:Denies he already has his doubts about De Zerbi. I’ll keep him. That’s my decision. 30 November: Sacks De Zerbi to be pitiful and hires Eugenio Corini to determine out a hard year. Why Corini? There wasnt much on the market.

Most British moment

In April West Indies needed an unlikely 19 in the final to win the planet T20 and Englands Ben Stokes was the person using the ball in the hands to shut the result. Four balls and 4 Carlos Brathwaite sixes later, it had been over. I send Ben commiserations, stated Brathwaite. Hes a complete legend.

Most unpredicted hero

Marcus Willbomb Willis, world No775 as he stunned Wimbledon and, almost, Roger Federer sticking it to trolls who dubbed him Cartman because of his big bones. His Wimbledon run ended having a cheque for 30,000. It is the greatest pay day Ive ever endured. I’m able to repay a few charge cards now.

Chant of the season

Huh! by Iceland. Also worth a mention: tactics-minded Carlisle fans having a Peter Andre-themed message to manager Keith Curle: Woah-oh-oh-oh, Mysterious Curle, I wanna play 3-5-2.

Best falling lower

2016s best football tumbles: Brazilian players Marcelo Cordeiro and Rossi pretending to have been headbutted by each other in October (Cordeiro: Thats just existence. Thats the sport were in) Toulouse coach Pascal Dupraz feeling upset in November by critique of his response to a paper plane brushing his head: Each one of these critics, theyre so brave and Louis van Gaals Miranda Hart pratfall in Feb, because he designed a serious point.

Best Strictly contenders

a) Everton manager Roberto Martnez, filmed dancing at a Jason Derulo concert in Feb b) Mike Allardyce, spotted in Marbella in May spinning on the spot to Rihannas We Found Love and c) Alan Pardew, marking Castles FA Cup final goal by throwing dad shapes on Wembleys touchline. The 3 of these were sacked within several weeks.

Politicians of the season

Were Icelands Ministry for Foreign Matters, @MFAIceland explaining how their 23-man Euro 2016 squad chose itself by whittling lower their people in this country of 332,529.

MFA Iceland (@MFAIceland)

@pin_upicierno pic.twitter.com/ot0Mq2lsjM

June 27, 2016

Best celebration

Michail Antonios horizontal-running grass-dance in Feb after scoring for West Pork. I saw The Simpsons Movie a few days ago. I believe I pulled them back.

Least foreseeable setback

British cyclist Adam Yates, out while watching primary peloton within the Tour de France in This summer, simply to be flattened whenever a fans belt punctured an inflatable Vittel advertising arch. He still continued to win the white-colored jersey, though.

Best clarification

Skiing star Lindsey Vonn, ambassador for Mind skis and bindings, reacted to some ski detaching mid-race in Feb by posting a video of herself destroying her Mind bindings having a hammer. After talks together with her agent she clarified: It was by no means, shape or form an expression around the performance from the Mind skis and bindings. In my opinion in Mind.

Most distracted

French fencer Enzo Lefort entering the Rio Games declaring: Ive given something to arrive here. Its important to not be distracted then being booed through the crowd after his phone fell out of his pocket mid-bout.

Best pose

Roy Hodgson, recognizing themself around the giant screen as England trailed to Iceland.

Danny Bloodstream (@dannyswfc)

Whenever you place your self on the giant screen and wish individuals to think there is a plan… pic.twitter.com/YLX3Mf6kB0

June 27, 2016

Best comeback

Andy Townsend, back on ITV for that summer time: Thats as blatant a problem as youll ever see. Could it have been certainly within the box? I do not know.

Worst luck

Australian rugby league star Jarryd Hayne, cutting short his presentation to 200 school pupils around the risks of the web when his screen began flashing up porn. Organisers stated the pictures didn’t originate from Jarryds device Hayne: It had been awkward. Wow.

Greatest last laugh

Louise Watson obtaining the second biggest fine in Wimbledon history, 9,040, for racket smashing 1,500 greater than Viktor Troickis acceptable for ranting from the worst ever umpire on the planet. She arrived on the scene ahead, though: winning 50,000 on her mixed doubles victory.

Cheapest blow

Spare a concept for Serb rowers Milos Vasic and Nenad Bedik, who showed up in Rio feeling good after 4 years of beginning training and sank after 1,250m.

Greatest attention seekers

Headlining 12 several weeks of viral animal cameos: a) an unflustered cat supporting play at Januarys Everton v Dagenham game, then losing its poise when keeper Joel Robles shooed it b) a squirrel doing the same at Marchs third T20 between Nigeria and Australia (@samuelfez: Watson in to the attack. Zampa at square leg. Maxwell gully. Squirrel deep point #SAvAUS) c) 20 mongooses storming a green during Novembers European Tours Nedbank Golf Challenge in Nigeria

and d) two pitch-invading dogs one sparking an earlier tea in Novembers second India v England Test, another chasing Gois left-back Juninho throughout a Brazilian Serie B game. Juninho stated he ran since you cant tell with dogs locals told RBS TV the stray, Zulu, is simply soppy If he sees a ball, he goes chasing. Not one of them outshone time top sporting animal, though: Brazils hefty and nonplussed golf course capybaras. Australia captain Ian Baker-Finch: That bloody factor is big. Have you ever seen it? Its half wombat, half dog. US player Matt Kuchar: Its just like a moosehead on the gigantic rat. US director Andy Levinson: It appears as though your dog. A just like a dog-pig.

Plus special mention for: Lorenzo the horse, dancing to Smooth by Santana in Rios individual dressage.

Most thorough

These warning notices stuck over the toilets in Rios Olympic Village, banning a variety of unlicensed toilet activities. US basketball star Elena Delle Donne: Guess I will not be toilet fishing today.

Most depressing fact

For fans of the certain age: in May Burys Callum Styles grew to become the very first footballer born in 2000 to look inside a League game in November fellow millennial Moise Kean switched out for Juventus within the Champions League.

Getting people together

Wales midfielder Joe Ledley: dancing for Europe last summer time. One of the headlines: La drole de danse du Gallois and Ledley enflamme le vestiaire.

Best message

Cricketer Liam Thomas wasnt frustrated in October when his prosthetic leg came off as he dived close to the boundary while fielding for that England Physical Disability team. He jumped following the ball rather and delivered a fierce return. Should there be kids available watching who thought they couldnt take part in the game before week, he stated later, I would like these to know they are able to do anything whatsoever installed their mind to.

Most satisfactory reply

Originated from 15-year-old Wimbledon women singles champion Anastasia Potapova answering press questions regarding her existence after winning the ultimate. I do not have siblings or siblings but I’ve got a duck, Vita. Shes small.

Best swagger

Haitian hurdler Jeffrey Julmis the undisputed star from the 110m hurdles in Rio. Within the selection before his race he gave your camera some textbook Usain Bolt-style attitude, then went mind over heels in the first hurdle.

Most uplifting

Showing the planet isnt totally damaged: Barcelonas under-14s side, lightly consoling their tearful Japanese rivals after beating them within the final of Augusts Junior Soccer World Challenge a mixture of hugs and pep talks.

Plus: most offended

Japanese pole vaulter Hiroki Ogita upset by reports in August that hed knocked the bar off with his penis. Irrrve never expected the foreign media to consider me lower such as this. Its false, and i’m devastated they mock and ridicule me a lot. He later tweeted: Watching again, this really is pretty funny, basically let them know myself. LOL.

Find out more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jan/01/alternative-2016-sports-awards-quotes-gaffes-meltdowns

#Football #Olympic Games #Rio 2016 #Sport

[lodelss]

How the Shock Jock Became the Outrage Jock

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2019 | 8 minutes (2,111 words)

In the past, the bow tie seemed to hold him together, kind of. Tucker Carlson had always been as red-faced and obstreperous as so many other conservative pundits, but he had never been known to be “cunty” or “faggot”-level offensive. Still, it wasn’t much of a shock earlier this week when progressive watchdog Media Matters unearthed him spouting slurs like that — a couple of racist remarks rounded out the misogyny and homophobia — during a series of appearances on Bubba the Love Sponge Clem’s radio show between 2006 and 2011. From Monday to Tuesday, after the first recordings surfaced, Tucker Carlson Tonight hemorrhaged almost half its advertisers.

That bow tie had been a flourish of propriety: a strip of cloth separating him from a loudmouth like Howard Stern, the “shock jock” who looks and acts like a dollar store rock star, grabbing his crotch for whoever will listen. But he dropped it the year he appeared on that radio show. It was Stern who hired Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (yes, that’s his legal name) in the mid-2000s to host a show on his second satellite radio channel, and it was on that show that Carlson crossed the line. That was where the shock jock and the political commentator proved that they were one and the same — the former played off conservatism, the latter played it up, but both relied on its foundation. “Well, you’re talking about God and illegals,” Carlson told Clem. “I thought we were just going to be talking about blow jobs.”

But what’s the difference, really? Blow jobs were once used for shock value. Now it’s “illegals.” The punch line being that neither one of them is transgressive in the end.

* * *

No one used the words shock jock for Joe Pyne, the host of It’s Your Nickel (that’s a reference to pay phones, kids, and I’m including myself here) who pioneered in-your-face talk radio in the ’50s and went on to create TV’s The Joe Pyne Show, which sometimes devolved into actual physical altercations between him and guest. No one really knew what to make of him. His unconventional style — dressed-up to dress down “pinkos” and “women’s libbers” and riff on, rather than read, reports — was neither news nor entertainment. It seemed to be best described (well, The New York Times and Time both did anyway) as an “electronic peepshow.” The personality-free press of the time considered Walter Cronkite the most trusted man in America and Johnny Carson the funniest, but Pyne, with his syndicated show on more than 200 radio outlets, was the most Machiavellian. “When it comes to manipulating media,” Icons of Talk author Donna Halper told Smithsonian Magazine, “he was the father of them all.”

Pyne briefly descended from his soapbox in the mid-’60s — for a week’s “vacation” — after bringing a gun to his show during the Watts riots, suggesting the world wasn’t quite yet ready for his kind of conservative appeal. It took until the mid-’80s, when the FCC was no longer so hard-assed and political correctness was all the rage, for Howard Stern to turn the shock jock into a thing. The idea was that PC America was muting real America, and personalities like his were there to liberate our ids … usually on the way to work. “They were pushing the limits of what you could hear on the public airwaves,” TALKERS Magazine publisher Michael Harrison told Thrillist of mavericks like Pyne and Don Imus, who set the stage for Stern. “That was the key to the whole thing: that it was on the ‘sacred public airwaves.’”

Full disclosure: I have always hated Howard Stern. His banality offends me: “The closest I came to making love to a black woman was I masturbated to a picture of Aunt Jemima on a pancake box” — that’s the kind of joke he makes. It’s the sort of quip that leaves a dumb bro stuck in 1992 in stitches. To be offensive your words have to have power, and his … don’t. He swears a lot and cajoles his guests into talking about fucking and snorting and it’s all very Free Speech, Motherfuckers! He can be sexist and racist and classist, because, hey! He’s sexist about men too! He’s racist to everyone! He drags every class!

Sorry, I just fell asleep.

The rebellion is a pose, because at the heart of Stern and all the other shock jocks is conservatism — 2.1 kids, strong moral fiber. They can joke about fucking and inhaling, because they ostensibly aren’t doing either. So what positions itself against PC America, in fact, at its core, feeds into it — the conservatism is the rebellion. Knowing that, you can see how Don Imus calling the members of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” can happen as late as 2007 on his radio show Imus in the Morning (he was fired by CBS and NBC, then hired by ABC). As David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker 10 years before Imus’s offense, personalities like Stern and Mancow Muller and Opie and Anthony appeal to the “audience that feels put upon by a new set of rules — sexual harassment guidelines, the taboo against certain kinds of speech — and wants release, if only in the privacy of the drive to work.”

The audience meaning white heterosexual men. The shock jock industry itself is predominantly white men (Stern’s foil, Robin Quivers, is a black woman, but she has never been the star attraction). Which is not to say that women can’t be as “offensive,” it’s just that the people in charge of hiring them would prefer them to be barefoot and pregnant. There are shockingly few exceptions. Wendy Williams, who rode the wave of ’90s hip-hop and shamelessly confronted celebrities like Whitney Houston with tabloid gossip (she also had a bad habit of trying to out rappers) was christened by New York magazine in 2005 as the “shock jockette.” She was “the black Howard Stern” right down to the middle-class moralism. Other than Williams, the female media personalities who cause offense — Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham — tend toward conservative commentary, presumably because the men on the top floor think they will be less likely to break a nail in those environs. “The complaints of Western feminists look like petty self-absorption when you line them up against human rights abuses in Third World military dictatorships,” is a thing Ingraham came up with — a misogynistic comment cloaked in doublespeak.

This genre of radio personality was dubbed by my colleague Ethan Chiel as the “outrage jock,” the political version of a culture and entertainment-aligned predecessor, who arose in the late 1980s after the FCC regulations on political talk became less clear. This is where a bow tie comes in handy. The outrage jocks market themselves as transgressive, but instead of fighting conservative America, they uphold it, a stance they brand subversive in a sea of progressive liberal media. Rush Limbaugh, who has the most popular talk radio show in America — 15.5 million listeners, according to Talk Magazine — was dubbed by National Review as the “Leader of the Opposition” back in the ’90s. “Rush took radio at a time when the norm was basically NPR. He comes into that church and blows it up,” radio host John Ziegler told The Washington Post in 2015. “Our presidential politics have become a kind of church. The media says, ‘You’re not allowed to say this, or this, or that, because we’re in church.’ People are sick of that.”

So: Stern 2.0, except instead of shouting about pussy, Limbaugh — not to mention Glenn Beck and Michael Savage — shouts about policy. You may remember him calling women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” in 2012 for advocating for contraceptive insurance coverage. “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception,” said the man who has been married four times. “She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

Limbaugh needs a brushup on his sex work nomenclature, among other things. But if you want to talk about pimp: Janet Jackson’s nipple ultimately killed the shock jock. In case you aren’t old, it happened during a performance of “Rock Your Body” at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in 2004, when Justin Timberlake tore off the right cup of Jackson’s bustier, exposing her breast. (Per Jackson, the red bra underneath the rubber was supposed to stay behind, but came away accidentally.) In response, more than 500,000 complaints, all of them from people presumably with nipples of their own, were reportedly lodged with the FCC. President Bush responded two years later by signing the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which raised the penalty for broadcasting “indecency” tenfold. With that, Howard Stern fucked off to satellite radio and the rest of the shock jocks kind of followed suit. Tucker Carlson was what was left behind.

* * *

“Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.” Tucker Carlson did not say that. That was Donald Trump in 2013 talking to Howard Stern about a pregnant Kim Kardashian in a radio show appearance that reemerged during his election campaign. On the same show, across almost two decades, the future president also agreed that his daughter was “a piece of ass” and dismissed flat-chested women and women over 35 (thank God). For all his work to divide the nation, Trump had a big hand in bringing shock and outrage jocks together, dissolving any sort of wall (!) between them. “If the political class is appalled by the notion that anything from the morass of ’90s shock-jock radio could become part of a presidential race,” wrote Virginia Heffernan in Politico in 2016, “it may be just as surprising to Stern’s fans, who proudly embraced the outsider-ness of a guy who couldn’t seem further from inside-the-Beltway political chatter.” TALKERS’s Harrison has called Trump “the first shock-politician.”

By the time Trump entered politics, shock jocks were no longer defining the culture and conservative commentators were filling the vacuum. They entered the mainstream on networks like Fox and the intellectual dark web via Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin. “The shock jocks weren’t defeated,” wrote Dan Jackson at Thrillist. “They went viral.” This is where Tucker Carlson fits in. He called his resurfaced xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic comments from Bubba the Love Sponge’s show (he described women as “extremely primitive,” supported child rapist Warren Jeffs, and compared the behavior of Muslims to animals) “naughty,” then equated contrition with betrayal. “We’ve always apologized when we’re wrong and will continue to do that,” he said on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday. “That’s what decent people do; they apologize. But we will never bow to the mob.”

Almost 70 years after the first shock jock hit the air, Carlson was toeing the same party line as his predecessors. “They claim that they’re just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes,” Rory O’Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio, told The Guardian in 2009. “It’s all bound together so when it’s convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it’s all just a joke. But when it’s not, they say they’re giving you information that you need.” Carlson’s comments were only shocking because they veered so sharply away from Beltway politics; with his regressive approach no longer couched in policy, they revealed him for the person he is. And even though advertisers have pulled out of his program, the notion that he could disappear like Stern is one from another time — conservatism is the status quo and there’s always room for it now, particularly when it masquerades as information rather than entertainment.

After Megyn Kelly left Fox, Tucker Carlson took her spot, and if Carlson were removed, a new version of him would sprout in his place. This whack-a-mole quality to outrage jocks extends, more troublingly, to their politics — if they are not outraged about one thing, they will immediately find another. They are as adaptive as comedians like Stern, use facts as props to play journalists like Cronkite, and influence voting and policy just as seriously. As Jon Stewart scolded Carlson and his cohost in 2004 on the CNN show Crossfire: “You’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate.” And without the FCC to shut them down for good, or at least out them as entertainers, the only hope is that their audience will realize that the most transgressive thing to do is to stop listening.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2HnqgCG via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger