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davidmann95 · 4 years ago

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So… that Superman and the Authority preview. Thoughts?

Grant Morrison: Superman's genuinely made the world a little better, right?

Grant Morrison, writing Superman and The Authority: lol as fuckin' if you chump

Grant Morrison, continuing to write Superman and The Authority: ...okay but what if he COULD still tho

* First note past the OOF of that caption: Ben Day dots! The typically most cliché signifier of 'hey this is like old comics' transformed by being made so near-invisibly small by Jordie Bellaire that they're texturing the page.

* Clearly a product of the original 5G plans, I'd assumed the new explanation for Superman meeting with Kennedy would be the post-Death Metal "everyone remembers everything, it all counts!" idea, but between Superman maybe operating in secret in 1963 depending on how you read that first line and the moon landing seemingly happening earlier this looks to be a full on alt-history. Between that and Superman on October's cover of Action rocking his conventional look alongside the Authority this does seem to be an alternate version of Superman after all rather than the mainline even if it'll tie directly in; I'm fine with that since it'll help this stand on its own as a perennial. Oh god though, is this the Linearverse? Was that Generations book one last mediocre Morrison tie-in setup?

* The both earnest and tragic connotations are clear but I'm simply happy for Superman's good nickname to see some use.

* Anonymous asked: So, I'm NOT an American, but seeing the preview for SatA, I kinda roll my eyes at JFK there. I understand in America there is this mythology about him being so radical and going bring better tomorrow until he was denied to you, which doesn't really match the reality, where he was a cold warrior with reportedly little interest in domestic policy who's sucessor was actually very similar and consistent with his politics (more civil rights, more troops Vietnam). What do you think?

Fair, but besides Morrison's comments in the interview and the ways the Cold War shaped their childhood (as a non-American) as evidence that we're not meant to take this at face value as 'Aw, everything would've been perfect if not for that one thing going wrong', that comment on the JSA is charged. The President waxing rhapsodic about "mak(ing) a difference where the law couldn't" feels just as pointed as "Those poor, poor rich people" in their and Burnham's Detective #26.

* "I want you to stand tall, to end war itself and take us to the stars." "I'll see what I can do, sir." MORRISON PLEASE IGNORE YOUR BEST INSTINCTS AND NEVER STOP WRITING CAPE COMICS

* That this so effortlessly and profoundly captures everything Jupiter's Legacy tried and failed to in three pages - the great patriotic caped champion seemingly on the edge of a new Camelot when we know better, the story from there going into how they deal with the fallout of their failures - would be so embarrassing if it wasn't hilarious to see Morrison outclass the old kid sidekick yet again. Speaking of some Millar-ness, kudos to Janin for pulling off a celebrity likeness that doesn't look like a horrifying other-dimensional freak next to the other characters, that's not something that can always be said for his peers.

* While Janin draws his regular Superman face here, the red-and-yellow S shield on the cape, the pronounced barrel chest, and even the hair a bit (and then seeing him on TV in black and white) make me wonder if Superman's supposed to be visually evoking George Reeves just a bit here. An American golden boy with a tumultuous private life who died on the cusp of the 60s of a gunshot wound to the head, with a quick and tidy official explanation but conspiracy theories haunting his memory forever after, the Kennedy comparisons are obvious; I wonder if I'm not reading too much into it and this is all deliberate, or if this is an inadvertent synchronicity of the sort Morrison would conceive of in magical terms.

* Janin killing it with the assassination page, real Department of Truth vibes and managing to make it sudden and horrific without the gloriously obscene detail Quitely got into with the similar scene in Pax Americana.

* The astronauts doing hurdles on the moon is actually a reference to Superman's Mission for President Kennedy! as he gets kids interested in JFK's physical fitness program in the most roundabout fashions available to him, 'roundabout' being his foremost guiding principle at the time:

* The New Frontier and DKR parallels/evocations are obvious, but to me the big point of comparison is Pax Americana with the Hero-King President marshalling the capes in name of a better tomorrow for his nation only to find death and social impotence, the dream exposed as naïve PR in the end.

* Not exactly new information, but seeing this laid out does reinforce to me how much this book covers the sweep of the development of the superheroic idea through the lens of Superman, from the vigilantes (both the JSA and Superman returning to short sleeves) to the triumphant American science royalty to the post-traumatic superfolks trying to make good on all those lost promises and, at the beginning of this, a generation that has essentially failed (not only Superman, but clearly in his half of the preview Manchester Black isn't exactly the force he once was, and apparently Midnighter and Apollo at the beginning of this are semi-retired and think they've wasted their lives after the original Authority failed to make a difference) and what comes now after that failure. That Morrison can tackle this directly with Superman is probably corporately allowed with Jon being there as a more 'ideal' iconic model, and for Morrison personally because they can do their own purified take on the archetype with Klaus, so they can get into the muck of things here in a way they couldn't when trying to do a platonic vision or a new-and-improved model.

#Superman and The Authority #Superman #Grant Morrison #Mikel Janin #Jordie Bellaire #Opinion

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watusichris · 4 years ago

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My Brilliant Career in Chicago Pro Wrestling: A True Story

Damn, I could have sworn I’d posted this 2015 Night Flight story, which remains the funniest thing I’ve ever written. Every word is true. ********** In the early 1970s, before Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (today World Wrestling Entertainment) turned professional wrestling into a pay-per-view cash cow, pro grappling was a wide-open game run by maverick regional promoters and catering to lunatic fans. I got to experience this incredible world intimately: For two years, I served as “publicist” for the promoter in one of the biggest wrasslin’ towns in the country, Chicago.

I was fresh out of college back in 1972, and returned to my old room in my mother’s apartment in Evanston bearing a seemingly worthless bachelor’s degree in English and no immediate prospects for gainful employment. Fortunately, my father believed in nepotism.

After a long career as a TV executive that had garnered him two Peabody Awards, my dad was then the general manager of WSNS, a Chicago UHF station that broadcast on Channel 44. It was a low-rent operation that my old man helped legitimize by securing telecasts of White Sox games. (He loathed Sox announcer Harry Caray, who would get hammered out of his skull while working in the booth, and rightly thought major league screwball-turned-color man Jimmy Piersall was out of his mind.)

Though such questionable WSNS programming as a daily late-night weathercast delivered by a buxom negligee-clad blonde stretched out on a heart-shaped bed was a thing of the past, colorful holdovers from the old schedule remained. And thus my dad called me one day to say he could get me some part-time work doing PR for Bob Luce, the local pro wrestling promoter, who mounted the weekly show All Star Championship Wrestling on the station.

Naturally, I was hired on the spot at my first meeting with Luce, who was something of a legend in Chicago sports circles at the time. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bob Greene captured had him perfectly in a famous column in which every sentence ended with an exclamation point.

Stocky, florid of complexion, and as loud as his off-the-rack sport coats, the outsized Luce was the dictionary definition of the word “character.” You’d sit down with him in a restaurant, and the other diners would duck and cover. Constantly agitated and gesticulating wildly, his stentorian conversation was a manic torrent of hype and madness, punctuated by explosive laughter than sounded like a machine gun going off next to your ear.

Fittingly, before joining the wrestling biz, Luce had edited a tabloid, the National Tattler. Like the National Enquirer of that frontier era, the rag made its bones with totally fictitious “news” stories featuring lots of cleavage and outré bloodletting. At one lunch, to the very evident embarrassment of the neighboring clientele, Luce regaled me with the tale of one inspired Tattler cover story, which I will recount Greene-style. Imagine it at full volume: “I got this idea, see, for a story about a sex orgy! [He pronounced “orgy” with a hard “g,” as in “Porgy” of Porgy and Bess.] But it had to be a different kind of orgy! So I got my wife Sharon to take her clothes off and covered her with peanut butter! And we took some pictures, and the lights were HOT, and the peanut butter melted all over her! They were great pictures! We called it – ha ha HA! – ‘PEANUT BUTTER ORGY!’”

Luce had graduated to promoting pro wrestling events in Chicago and other Midwestern markets, in partnership with the American Wrestling Association’s star attractions, Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser, of whom more in a moment. (His sweet, funny, but definitely tough wife knew the business: She had wrestled under the name Sharon Lass.)

As the noisy host of All Star Championship Wrestling, Luce would interview the stars of his upcoming promotions, show footage of recent contests, and pump the next matches. Thrusting a finger at the camera in one of his windups, he would shriek, “BE THERE!!!” Ever the sales impresario, he also served as the show’s principal pitchman, appearing in tandem with some of his hulking charges -- and occasionally with special guest hucksters like former heavyweight champ Leon Spinks -- to spiel for a long line of sketchy local advertisers. They are among the greatest and most hilarious commercials ever made.

As Luce’s publicity rep, commanding a monthly paycheck of $200, I was charged with lightweight duty: writing and mailing press releases promoting the bi-weekly Friday night matches at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, assisting the WSNS camera crew at the gigs (sometimes by protecting their extra film magazines from flying bodies at ringside), and calling in the results of the matches to the local papers. (The last task proved to be the most onerous. I’d ring up the local sports desks late on the nights of the matches and harangue some half-drunk, bored assistant editor whose interest in the “sport” could not have been more infinitesimal. When I finally managed to get the Sun-Times to print the results of one match, I felt as if I’d qualified for a Publicists Guild award.) I also performed certain functions for Luce when he was out of town or too busy to handle them. One weekday afternoon I accompanied Superstar Billy Graham, later a big WWF name and a sort of proto-Hulk Hogan, to Wrigley Field, where he was interviewed by nonplussed announcer Jack Brickhouse between innings of a Chicago Cubs radio broadcast.

Every other week for nearly two years, I’d take the El down to the Amphitheatre, located on Halsted Street on the far South Side, adjacent to the old Chicago Stock Yards. (I held onto the job even after I secured a similarly nepotistic but full-time position – writing about cheap component stereo systems for Zenith Radio Corporation.) The antique, immense Amphitheatre had hosted big political conventions, auto shows, circuses, rodeos, and concerts by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, but Luce’s dates at the venue, as you will see, attracted a distinctly different class of customer.

The pre-match staging area, where I’d meet Luce and the crew, was the Sirloin Room of the adjacent Stock Yard Inn, not far from the site of the old South Side cattle slaughterhouses. This is where Luce’s employees and pals would also convene before the night’s entertainment began to swill a couple of cocktails and shoot the breeze. It was a cast worthy of a Damon Runyon story.

Luce employed a bodyguard, a towering ex-Chicago cop named Duke, who had reputedly shot six men before being relieved of duty by the PD. He stood about six-four and dressed exactly like John Shaft. He emanated an aura of extreme menace. Once, when I asked him what he would do if someone actually started any serious trouble, Duke wordlessly pulled back the lapel of his full-length leather coat to reveal a shoulder holster bulging with a .44 Magnum.

The promotion’s bagman, charged with collecting the night’s cash receipts, was a diminutive cat everyone called Bill the Barber. I never knew his last name, but he did in fact run a South Side barbershop. He’d invariably show up dressed in a sport coat that looked like a TV test pattern and a skinny-brim fedora, with watery eyes that sometimes flicked nervously above his pencil-thin mustache. He kept a .38 strapped to his belt.

Many nights, a mysterious character referred to only as “Carmie La Papa” would put in an appearance. This elderly Italian gentleman was always treated with great deference and ate on Luce’s tab. I never found out exactly what he did. But he looked a lot like the mobster played by Pasquale Cajano in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, and I thought it wise not to inquire about his line of work.

There were also bona fide wrestling groupies, well-stacked, slightly haggard old-school broads who draped themselves on the bar, sipping pink ladies. One night, Luce leaned over to me in the Sirloin Room and said, in a whisper that could be heard 20 feet away, “After the matches, these girls and the guys go to a motel up in Prospect Heights, and they have orgies.” (Again, pronounced with a hard “g.”) The most popular of these was reportedly Gloria, a tall, pneumatic redhead of uncertain but rapidly advancing age; Luce confided, “She will do anything.”

The matches themselves were something to behold. I’d usually watch them in the company of WSNS’s young, jaded camera crew, from the dilapidated press box high above the ring in the center of the Amphitheatre. The crowd – thousands of poorly dressed, myopic, malodorous, and steeply inebriated men – was a product of what may be called the pre-ironic era of pro wrestling. There was no such thing as a suspension of disbelief among these spectators. Disbelief did not exist. Though the matches were as closely stage-managed as a production of Richard III, these rubes accepted every feigned punch and bogus drop kick as the McCoy.

Pro wrestling is the eternal contest between virtue and evil, and the wrestlers were identified in equal number as good guys and heels. Most of the good guys on the undercard – there were usually half a dozen matches, with one main event – were young “scientific” wrestlers whose Greco-Roman moves were no match for the brazenly illegal play of the dirty heels, who almost invariably won their bouts with tactics that would not pass muster with an elementary school playground monitor, let alone a legitimate referee. About the only one of these “babyfaces” (or, alternatively, “chumps”) who was vouchsafed an occasional victory was Greg Gagne, son of the promotion’s star attraction and part owner.

By the early ‘70s, Verne Gagne had been wrestling professionally for more than two decades; drafted by the Chicago Bears and then rebelling against team owner George Halas’ prohibition of a sideline on the mat, he had chosen the ring over the gridiron. He was 46 years old when I started working for Luce; he was still in decent shape, and, unlike almost all of his opponents, he still had all of his teeth.

I only managed to spend time with him once. For some reason now lost in the dense fog of time, Luce dispatched me to meet Gagne at the elegant Pump Room of the Drake Hotel near Lake Michigan. There, as cabaret star Dorothy Donegan serenaded us on the piano, the 16-time world heavyweight wrestling champion of the world got me brain-dead drunk, and then poured me into a cab home. He was an excellent guy.

Many of the other good guys on Luce’s undercards were reliable patsies for the baddies. Pepper Gomez, one of the domestic game’s few Mexican stars, was a venerable attraction who was allowed the rare triumph; billed as “the Man with the Cast-Iron Stomach,” he once allowed a Volkswagen Bug to be driven over his gut on Luce’s TV show, where he was a frequent guest.

One of my favorites was Yukon Moose Cholak. Then a veteran of 20 years on the mat, Moose owned a bar not far from the Amphitheatre, but he still worked regularly for his close pal Luce in the AWA. Huge, pot-bellied, and benign, he boasted a ripe Sout’ Side accent rivaled only by Dennis Farina’s. He was hardly an exceptional combatant: He moved around the ring with the fleetness of a dazed sloth. He was a regular on Luce’s show, and often appeared with the host in his TV spots.

The only time I appeared as a guest on All Star Championship Wrestling, Moose was the victim of the on-camera carnage that was a requisite feature of the show. At the time, conflict of interest be damned, I was writing a column about wrestling for a short-lived local sports paper called Fans, and was brought in to lend something like legitimacy to the proceedings. Luce offered me a chair on his threadbare set to push a forthcoming match between Cholak, who appeared on camera next to me, and Handsome Jimmy Valiant, a new heel on the rise in the market.

I figured something ugly was going to happen, but I went about extolling the virtues of Moose’s nearly non-existent mat skills in the front of the camera. Suddenly, Valiant crept up from behind the black scrim behind us and whacked Cholak over the head with a metal folding chair. To this day, I believe my expression of outraged surprise was worthy of a local Emmy, but a nomination eluded me.

I was actually very fond of Valiant, whom I interviewed with his “brother” and tag team partner Luscious John Valiant for Fans. Jimmy was a peroxided, strutting egomaniac in the grand Gorgeous George manner, and he had some classic patter: “I’m da wimmen’s pet and da men’s regret! I got da body wimmen love and men fear! And you, you’re as useful as a screen door in a submarine, daddy!” A rock ‘n’ roll fan, he went on to a very successful solo career, appropriately enough in Memphis, the capital of all things Elvis.

After Gagne the elder, the AWA’s biggest attraction was the tag team of Dick the Bruiser and the Crusher. Bruiser had gotten his competitive start as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, but had been a top wrestling draw since 1955. Somewhere along the way, he had been converted from heel to hero, and the Chicago fans adored him. Among the merch sold at the Amphitheatre were Dick the Bruiser Fan Club buttons; measuring six inches in diameter, they could either be pinned on one’s chest or, with the aid of a built-in cardboard stand, be displayed as a plaque. I kept mine on my desk at my straight job to freak out my co-workers.

Early in my gig with Luce, I was taken to meet Bruiser in the locker room. He sat on a table smoking a huge cigar. When I was introduced to him, he exclaimed, “Hey, you’re Ed Morris’ kid? You got more hair than your old man!” My father, who was in fact almost completely bald, had been known to associate with winners of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. I was a little surprised that he ran in Bruiser’s circle.

The Crusher’s career in the squared circle dated back to the late ‘40s. I was even more impressed by him than I was by the Bruiser, for he had been the inspiration of the Novas’ wrasslin’-themed single “The Crusher,” a huge 1965 radio hit in Chicago for the Minnesota garage band the Novas (and later eloquently covered by the Cramps). Bruiser and Crusher were a unique combo: They were “good guys,” but they earned their keep by being badder than the “bad guys” they gutter-stomped.

The villains in that era of pro wrestling were often the object of atavistic xenophobia and hatred. Long before the U.S.’s conflicts in the Middle East, the Sheik (né Ed Farhat in Lansing, Michigan), who took the ring wearing a burnoose, was among the most reviled of heels. Some of the older fans were World War II vets, and they lustily booed Baron von Raschke, who climbed through the ropes with a monocle in one eye, draped in a Nazi flag. He was actually a U.S. Army vet born Jim Raschke in Omaha, Nebraska. His fake German accent was utterly feeble.

The AWA’s all-purpose villain, who would go on to bigger things as one of McMahon’s first WWF stars, was “Pretty Boy” Bobby Heenan, dubbed “the Weasel” by the Bruiser. Heenan was featured in his own matches, but he was most reliably entertaining as a manager, of the most duplicitous and cowardly variety, in another villain’s corner. You didn’t need a script to know what was going to happen: Just as it looked like the good guy was going to triumph, Heenan would leap into the ring and smash the apparent victor’s head into a turnbuckle or hit him over the skull with a water bucket.

Heenan featured in the most outrageous story I heard during my brilliant career in wrestling. One night I was sitting with the film crew when Al Lerner, the mustachioed, shaggy-haired, bespectacled WSNS sports reporter, entered the press box with a portable tape machine on his shoulder and a stunned look on his face. “I’ve interviewed people in front of burning buildings,” Al said. “I’ve interviewed people as they were jumping out of airplanes. But I’ve never interviewed anyone while they were getting a blowjob.”

It seems that while Al was in the locker room recording some audio bites from Heenan, a voluptuous girl standing nearby walked over to the wrestler, kneeled down in front of him, pulled down his trunks, and began giving him the kind of pre-match service Mickey Rourke probably dreamed of but never received. As she went about her business, Heenan continued to spout invective to Al as if nothing extraordinary was transpiring. With that moment alone, Bobby Heenan earned his place in the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

I visited Heenan in the locker room on a somewhat less eventful evening, but that night I learned the secret of many pros’ mat success. As I was talking to him, I noticed that his forehead was crosshatched with tiny scars, some of them new and still livid. I later mentioned this to one of the crew, and was told that these wounds – referred to as “juicing” -- were actually self-inflicted, so that the wrestlers could easily draw blood during critical moments of violence in their matches.

As Heenan said in a later interview, “If you want the green, you gotta bring the red.” Gore was a staple of pro wrestling, and there was nothing like sitting in an arena filled with 10,000 or 15,000 crazed spectators and hearing a drunken chant go up as a good guy pummeled a heel to the mat: “WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD!”

My last hurrah in pro wrestling was one of Luce’s rare alfresco promotions, a multi-bout 1974 card at old Comiskey Park, the White Sox’s stadium, which climaxed with a 16-man battle royal. I don’t remember who triumphed in the main event, but I do remember that someone on the crew brought a bat and some softballs along, and we ended the evening shagging fly balls under the lights where Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio once played.

The outlaw era of regional pro wrestling is a dim memory for most. The racket would get wilder after I left it: In an interview with Nashville wrestling figure Jimmy Cornette, Heenan said that a fan at a 1975 Amphitheatre match pulled out a pistol and began firing at him, but the shooter only managed to wound four people in the rows in front of him.

McMahon’s WWF brought the regional promoters’ day to a close, pillaging most of the big names in the game in the process. Today, the WWE has been displaced in popularity by the even gaudier UFC contests. Most of the stars I met – including Bruiser, Crusher, and Cholak – are dead now. Heenan, a throat cancer survivor, has been in poor health for more than a decade. Verne Gagne died this April; in 2009, suffering from dementia, he accidentally killed a 97-year-old fellow resident in a Minnesota assisted living facility. Even the old stomping grounds are gone: The Chicago Amphitheatre was razed in 1999.

Bob Luce passed away in 2007, but his wild-ass legacy may live on via an unlikely champion. There are many analogs between pro wrestling and rock ‘n’ roll, and this April, mat mega-fan Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins announced on Twitter that he had bought Luce’s memorabilia and an archive of 9,000 vintage wrestling photos. Maybe he and former Hüsker Dü front man Bob Mould, a fellow wrasslin’ aficionado who once worked for McMahon as a writer, can make something of it. That would rock.

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srhlsx · 5 years ago

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CHAPTER 2

master | ch. 1 | ch. 3

Tightening the high ponytail your hair was tied in, you listened to the whirl of the blender on the kitchen counter in front of you mercilessly blending together the fruit and yogurt inside. At first the color was an alarming splatter of red and white, but after a moment it smoothed out to an appetizing pink. The gears grinding together echoed through your empty home and you sighed a bit dramatically.

Ping!

You broke out of your stupor, shaking your head back and forth to clear the fuzziness as you turned around to where your phone lay on the table a few feet away. Picking it up and glancing at the screen, you squinted your eyes in confusion at the name that had messaged you.

New Message: 9:03AM

Oikawa Tooru: (y/n)! Are you busy!!!

You pursed your lips together in thought, unsure about what your classmate and old friend could want at this time of day with such enthusiasm. The school year started in a few days, your third and final year of high school, so it wasn’t like he needed anything relating to that. Curious about what he wanted you typed out a reply.

No. It’s 9am.

Oikawa Tooru: I see the spring weather has yet to thaw your heart </3

Oikawa Tooru: Can I come over, I need to talk to you

You rolled your eyes at his comment, not appreciating the reference to the reputation you’d earned throughout your time in high school. You agreed to let him come over, telling him you’d be in the backyard and he could just let himself in through the fence gate.

Oikawa Tooru: Can I get you anything from the quick mart? Snack? Drink? My treat!

That was odd. Oikawa had never openly offered to get anyone anything. You didn’t really want to go out later in the day, so you asked him for something for your lunch and he quickly replied that he’d get it.

You called out to your dog with a quick whistle, hearing him bounding through the house to come join you in the backyard. He pushed his head against the backs of your legs, urging you to move faster and get out of his way so he could explore the space outside that he already knew perfectly. You laughed and swatted at his butt as he ran past you. “Get going you big loaf.”

Thirty minutes went by and you were throwing a ratty tennis ball across the yard, your dog bounding after it with endless stamina, the jowls on his face flapping back in the wind. It made you laugh as he scooped up the ball and turned around quickly to race back and repeat the process all over again.

As you went to throw the ball again, the sound of the gate rattling from around the side of your house caught both your attention and your dog’s and soon he disappeared. A moment later you heard a yell of surprise, then nervous laughter with a few loud barks.

You turned to the set of matching outdoor furniture arranged around the patio you stood on, pulling out two chairs to accommodate you and your guest.

The tall figure of a boy of your own age rounded the corner with your dog close behind, his closed eye smile was aimed at you as he waved cheerfully and called out to you over the repeated barking and excited yelps. He jumped back a few times to avoid being knocked over, hopping on one foot awkwardly and swatting at the beast playfully. Oikawa Tooru had graced you with his glorious presence on a bright spring day.

“He’s has gotten bigger since I last saw him!”

“Well, he’s still a bit of a puppy,” You laughed, snapping your fingers in their general direction which made your dog’s ears perk up and catch his attention. He quickly bounded over to you, circling a few times before sitting and looking up at you with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. You reached out to scratch his ears affectionately, the whack of his tail wagged back and forth making a loud noise against the patio table he sat under. “He’s almost two now.”

“That’s not a puppy, (y/n).” Oikawa laughed as he walked up to you, pointing at the mastiff that had now moved to laying at your feet. “I know puppies, and that is not a puppy.”

You waved him off and offered one of the chairs for him to sit on. He thanked you, then handed over the plastic bag he was carrying with the food you had requested inside. You thanked him too after taking a glance in the bag and grabbing the stick of jerky you asked for. You unwrapped it quickly and held it down towards your dog, who gently took it in his massive jaw and began munching away.

“Did you seriously ask me to pick up a treat for your dog?” Oikawa asked. The look on his face was less offended and more amazed as he shook his head and laughed.

“He’s such a good boy though!” You grinned, reaching down to squeeze the dog’s face and make all the wrinkles push together as he continued to eat the treat you’d given him. You straightened back up after a moment of babytalk then looked over at your guest. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today?”

Oikawa removed the sunglasses he’d been wearing, folding them to hang from the collar of his shirt and looking at you sideways. “Am I not allowed to visit an old friend?” He stretched his hands up then folded them to rest behind his head, smirking over at you with that typical, shit eating grin he had perfected long ago.

“Don’t start with that shit,” You laughed darkly, flicking his ear. “You offered to pick me up food, you are clearly bribing me.”

“Well, you’re not entirely wrong.” He said, sitting up straighter in his seat as he turned to look at you fully. “I have a proposition for you~”

“Good God,” You stated, looking at him with an unsure expression, eyebrows furrowed together as you waited for him to continue.

“I need you to be my girlfriend.”

You blinked a few times, wondering if you heard correctly. “Excuse me, what?”

“Fake date me,” He repeated, like what he was saying was such a casual thing.

“Why in the world would I do that?” You asked him, shoulders stiffening as you looked at him. You knew Oikawa enough to call yourselves friends, having gone to school together for years now, but this was completely unexpected.

“Here’s the situation, (y/n).” The sudden change in his tone of voice and the look on his face told you that Oikawa was really serious about what he was saying. You hadn’t seen him with that kind of expression very often so you stopped your nervous laughing and actually looked at him. “This year is going to be really important to me for volleyball, we have a really good chance at making it to nationals.”

You nodded along as he spoke, explaining the pressure that was going to be on him and his teammates. You knew that kind of pressure, you put it on yourself every day when you practiced and performed for dance.

“And while I really do appreciate all the girls who come up to me and bare their souls in confession, it’s too much.” He said, running a hand through his hair that was surprisingly unstyled that day. He looked stressed just talking about it. “We’re talking like at least two a day recently, and they’ve started coming to practices, I can tell it bothers the team and coaches but I just can’t be cruel.”

“So you need me to get in the way of all that?” You asked, having slouched down in your chair and playing with the tie at the front of your athletic shirt, you turned your head to look at him with an eyebrow raised. “Scare ‘em off?”

“Well,” Oikawa reached up to rub his neck, he looked at you with an almost sheepish expression. “Yes. I figured if they heard I had a girlfriend then they’d leave it alone.”

“Why me?” You asked after thinking about it for a moment. It was a valid question, you were positive there were a number of girl’s he could’ve gone to about this and they’d agree without a second thought. Someone to date for real. But you?

“You’re the prettiest girl in the school, (y/n).” He said right away with a roll of his eyes, which made you look at him with a shocked expression, you hadn’t been expecting that. “And me being me, it makes sense that two good looking people would get together at some point.” There he is.

You scoffed, “Right when I thought you were really desperate for help, you play the vanity card. It’s a no from me.”

“(Y/n), please.” He was almost begging at this point. “You know it’d help you out too!”

“Enlighten me, Tooru.”

“Everyone knows that chump basketball player broke up with you,” The memory made you grind your teeth and look away, embarrassed. You’d been around a little bit and heard what people were saying about you, how they pitied you and how sad it was that you’d been dumped in such an embarrassing way. Oikawa noticed your change in mood and hurried to try to fix it. “(Y/n) the guy was a five, maybe, on a good day and you’re a ten without trying. Let’s be honest and say he did you a favor. Besides, I know tons of guys who are already planning on asking you out the first day we get back.”

It didn’t really make you feel better, but you looked over to him again anyways. You couldn’t deny that what he was saying to you made a little bit of sense, you’d be helping a friend. “What is this all going to entail? What are you asking me to do?”

“Just act like my girlfriend.” Oikawa perked up at the sound of you seeming like you were agreeing. “It’ll be easy, plus I was your first kiss after all so that’s nothing new.”

“That was middle school you idiot,” You rolled your eyes but smiled over at his excited expression. “Like four years ago.”

“And I’ve only gotten better~”

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu #haikyuu!! x reader #hq!! au #hq!! x reader #Iwaizumi Hajime #iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu iwaizumi #oikawa tooru

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forgottenpasta · 6 years ago

Text

Teach Me Dirty (m)

➤ Summary: Taehyung has a lot to teach his English teacher. Fortunately for him, you’re an eager and willing pupil.

➤ Taehyung x Reader

➤ Warnings: Oppa Kink, Unprotected Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Urethral Stimulation, Squirting, Fingering, Creampie, Pregnancy Risk(?)

➤ Word Count: 2.9k

➤ A/n: This is something I wrote a long while back, recently made some changes and decided to put it up. If the writing looks weird, then its probably because some parts were written more than a year ago. Also wrap it before you tap it please. Enjoy :D

Your feet moved fast on the pavement, breath laboured as you rushed past the pedestrians on the busy footpath. For the first time you were late for your tutoring session.

A tutoring session with the most coveted heartthrobs of the nation.

How did you get this job? Well, family ties tend to take people a long way. Just that one right connection and poof, you’re being paid 3 times more for a job that would otherwise make chump change for a person with way more experience than you. You were just an average university student who took a one year foreign exchange program with one of the biggest universities in South Korea.

Until you came here and the weight of the living expenses almost drove you to starvation. The scholarship only covered your tuition and the extra menial jobs didn’t even come close to paying the full rent of your apartment.

Fortunately and through sheer luck, your uncle was an old friend of Bang Si Hyuk.

You’d met him before on family gatherings and other such occasions and he was almost like an uncle to you too. He trusted you. You’d mentioned in passing that you were a literature major and joked about having no money and no life in the typical self condescending humour of someone trying to look cool in front of an intimidating elder. The next day you had an email siting in your inbox asking for your credentials and an interview for a teaching position with his entertainment company.

The thought had crossed your mind that you were ultimately selected only because of your uncle, because it couldn’t possibly be that half a million English teachers wouldn’t jump at the chance of teaching Bangtan. But you didn’t want to hear the truth, so you’d never brought it up to either your uncle or the Bighit CEO.

It had been a month into your new job and you still weren’t used to teaching boys who made your hands tremble and palms sweat with just one casual look in your direction. And you knew that they knew that you were a fumbling, nervous mess in front of them 90% of the time. At least they were gracious enough to not laugh at you or point out how maladroit you were for this job.

Well, except for one person that is

The familiar quickening of your heart meant that you were going to be one single jittery girl in between seven testosterone filled sex-on-legs boys who probably thought of you as their daily one hour of free amusement.

But when you opened the door to their dorm after a quick customary knock, Taehyung was the only face you could see. Sitting on the long couch, he munched on an apple while a wildlife documentary played on the television.

Of course it had to be him.

He glanced at you lazily as you entered the living room. "You're late. The others left."

"Huh.", you huffed, still catching your breath as you put your heavy bag full of assignments down. "Where?"

He gave you a playful smile which did not match the heat in his roving eyes at all. A slow once over of you from head to tow. When his eyes reached yours again he tilted his head, as if in approval.

"For practice. Our comeback is soon. You know that, Ms. __.”

A shiver rushed down your spine at the way he said "Ms.__". He was the only one who called you that, the rest just calling you __-ssi. Apparently, calling you Miss instead of the honorific made the English lessons more "immersive" for him.

His words not yours.

You gulped. "And you didn't go?"

He gave you a wide eyed innocent stare. "I couldn't leave you here alone. Besides you gave me a punishment last time remember?"

You raised an eyebrow. His puppy dog eyes always spelled trouble for you.

"You told me I'd get an F in evaluation if I didn't complete my assignment this time."

Right. The assignment. Every other member, even Jeongguk who struggled with English, had completed it. But for some reason Taehyung always day dreamed in class instead.

Daydreamed or gave you heated stares which made you blush in unspeakable places. More than once you’d caught him staring at your legs.

"Okay." You sat down on the carpet in front of the coffee table. "Give it to me."

His voice went husky. "Give what to you, Ms.__?” He joined you on the floor, sitting so close your knees were almost touching.

He always did this. Turned your conversations into sexual innuendos, while purposefully teasing you.

You gave him a stern look and held out your hand. "Your assignment."

His cute box smile made an appearance."Of course." He grabbed a paper from the side table and handed it to you.

Ugh. He could go from intense sex god to aegyo expert in a second. It gave you whiplash.

You grabbed your marker to evaluate him when he spoke again, shifting even closer to you. "Are you sure you want to read it though? I was brutally honest with my answers."

His deep baritone so close to your ear made goosebumps break out on your skin. You tried your best to ignore the lack of proximity between you.

"Good. Honest answers are exactly what I want.” You opened the front page.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

You furrowed your brows but ignored him, focusing on correcting his English.

1. Write a compliment for someone you admire.

~ Ms. __ has the most kissable lips ever.

Your breath caught in your throat and your heart raced a mile a minute. You hadn't expected this. You could feel Taehyung's heated gaze on you.

2. What is your biggest motivation to wake up in the morning?

You were sure his answer would be regarding their fan base, the Armys being his motivation. That's what most of the other members had written.

Boy, were you wrong.

~ Seeing Ms.___ in short skirts.

You didn’t dare look up at him. Your face was ten different shades of red.

3. What is the one wish you want to fulfill?

~ My English teacher's long legs wrapped around me while I fuck her against her precious blackboard.

Your eyes almost popped out your sockets as you looked up at the blackboard you had had installed in their dorm during the first week of your classes.

"Are you thinking about it, Ms.___?", his whisper snapped you out of you daze.

You blushed even more, if that was even possible. You had been imagining you both doing it against the blackboard.

Face screaming embarrassment, you looked at him finally. The top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, you realised for the first time. His hard pecs visible.

He smirked. "My eyes are up here, Ms.___."

"Hmm.", you snapped your eyes up, your own chest heaving with heavy breaths. "Taehyung-ssi you can't write-"

His lips crashed down on yours.

He moved his mouth against yours roughly, then softly, with expert ease that scrambled your brain and made all thoughts in any language nigh impossible. You were in sync when he moved above you, placing his large hands on your dainty shoulders and pushing you back on the carpet.

"Kiss me back, __.", he breathed harshly against your mouth. You gasped at him calling you by your name.

And he took the opportunity to thrust his tongue into your mouth, tasting yours. Your mouths made a frenzied mess as you couldn't hold yourself back anymore, pushing your hands in his soft hair, you clutched him even closer.

His tongue moved in and out of his mouth, mimicking his pelvis between your now open legs.

You moaned loudly at a particularly harsh thrust between your legs, your core pulsing with pleasure.

He broke the kiss abruptly, a string of saliva still connecting your mouths. "Say my name.", he ordered as he ground himself against you. The hard outline of his dick stimulated all your right places. Apparently he was generously endowed, and with that you had knowledge about something you were sure a good percentage of their fan population would want to know.

"Taehyung!", you screamed as you felt yourself gushing down there. Your panties were ruined and you could smell your arousal clear in the air.

"Properly!", he scolded, clutching your jaw in his hand. "I'm older than you."

"Taehyung oppa...", you trailed off as one more thrust made you topple off the edge. "Aahhhh.", you moaned as spasms after spasms of uncontrollable pleasure fired your nerve endings, your orgasm crashing through you out of left feild.

A first off. It usually took you at least thirty minutes to come by your own fingers and he hadn’t even touched you and you had went off in two.

He gave you no time to be mortified though.

When you finally opened your eyes after coming down from your orgasm induced high, you saw Taehyung smirking down at you. He clearly wasn't done with you yet.

"That's one out of the way. Shall we focus on making you come again now, Ms.___?", he asked, trailing his hands under your shirt before pulling it over your head.

The cool air on your naked breasts made you shiver. So did his reverent gaze. You hadn't been wearing a bra.

“Fuck. Such a tease. I knew you were purposefully driving me wild." He unhooked the belt on your short shorts, then proceeded to pull them off you, leaving you in your panties. "All these shorts and mini skirts. And don't get me started on those crop tops. I’ve wanted you beneath me since the first moment you stepped inside our dorm, all awkward, clumsy and so fucking sexy I could barely restrain myself from eating you out in front of my members.”

“I’m not gonna restrain myself now.” He hovered over you now, scooping down for a quick kiss as you still couldn't feel your limbs after the earth shattering climax. "Tell me you want this,__." , he pleaded desperately against your lips. "Please. I'll go insane if you stop me right now."

You pulled his shirt over his head in response, trailing both your hands down his toned chest and abdomen. "I want this.", you whispered just as urgently.

"Good girl." He moved your panties to the side, abruptly entering one long finger inside you. You grabbed at his hand as your eyes rolled back in your head when he sought and found your g-spot in less than a second, pressing against it in a circular motion.

His head swooped down covering you nipple with bites and nibbles. He took one in his mouth, suckling for a minute before doing the same to your other breast. Both his finger and his mouth were sending you to heaven.

He was good at multitasking.

Not wanting to be a passive lover, you pushed your hands inside his sweatpants and boxers, taking his thick cock in both your hands. He was rock hard and hot as you stroked his long length up and down.

"Fuck, baby.", he groaned against your breasts, his rhythm faltering between your legs. He sat back up and pulled your hands out of his pants.

"What?", you whined. He pecked your lips.

"I won't last long if you continue that. When I come it'll be inside you."

With those words he moved between your knees, pulling his own finger out of you. Only to replace it with his hot mouth on your core.

"Oppaaa!" Dizzying pleasure overwhelmed you when he caressed your sensitive clit with his tongue in a manner that told you he wanted to take his time enjoying eating your pussy. One finger circled your entrance delicately, only pushing inside shallowly to make you keen with wanting something to fill you up asap. Preferably his engorged cock.

“Your pussy tastes divine,__. I could spend hours between your legs.” A wide lick up your inner labia punctuated his praise of your cunt. Then he went exploring, parting your folds to go deeper, to the parts of you no one, including you, had ever even thought to stimulate. Pulling apart your labia with his fingers, he tongued your urethra, digging at a hole too small to penetrate and a shock of forbidden sensation jolted through you.

“Taehyung! What are you—”

“Do you squirt, baby?”

You peeped down at him, your heaving breasts small mountains of obstruction to your line of sight. He grinned against your pussy, a mischievous glint in his eyes setting you on edge.

“N-no, I haven’t before.”

“Great.” He gave your cunt an open mouthed smooch. “Lets see if you can.”

With one thumb he pulled back the hood of your clit, exposing the sensitive bundle to his hungry gaze. Two fingers slid inside your entrance with a slick sound, thrusting in and out, making you clench yourself around his digits. Then the torture began.

He would lick your clit till you felt your high approaching, his fingers exerting the exact amount of pressure on your g-spot as he drove them in you in shallow thrusts. Just when you started spasming around his fingers, he would slow them down, a smirk on his face as he abandoned your clit for the tiny hole hidden deep in your folds. And a different kind of sensation would assault you, a pleasure-pressure you associated when you wanted to pee real bad but couldn’t.

“Tae! Oppa, I don’t- I wanna—“, you cried for something, you didn’t even know what. “Please!”

Then he backed off, and repeated the whole thing all over again. By the third time, you were a sobbing mess, tears running down your temples from the way he denied your orgasm multiple times.

Grabbing his thick hair in tufts, you made him look up at you. “No no. Tae please, let me come.”

He tsked, pouting. “I will, Ms.__. But you taste so fucking sweet I just can’t help delaying the inevitable.”

“You can eat me out anytime, alright!”, you almost shouted at his cavalier tone. “Just let me come right now.”

Taehyung brightened up at that, like you’d just handed him a trophy. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Ms __. Don’t think you can back off later.”

“Whatever. Just make me come!”

He happily dove back down, fucking you with his finger with a renewed vigour as he finally took your clit in his mouth instead of giving it teasing licks.

“Oh, fuck, yes!”

That forbidden, delicious pressure built again, peaking into a crescendo as Taehyung pressed your every right pleasure point, his fingers thrusting into your pussy with a rough speed that sent you to heaven on earth.

“Tae, I’m gonna— Oh my god!”

Taehyung pulled his head back at the last minute, watching with a delighted groan as your abused pussy gushed clear liquid in quick streams, drenching you and the carpet below as your hips involuntary lifted with spasms.

“Fuck, that is such a pretty sight. I knew I could make you squirt.”

Taehyung pulled his fingers out of you abruptly, rushing to shuck his pants and boxers. Evidently, he’d had enough of neglecting his own needs. He lined up against your well lubricated opening while you were still coming down from your climax.

He didn't give you a moment to breathe before he pushed inside. Seating himself inside you completely, bottoming out and stuffing you so full, you twitched when the smouldering embers of pleasure flared up in your core again.

"You're so fucking tight,__.", he exclaimed. Even after two orgasms your walls clasped around him greedily, making him throb inside your tight sheath.

"Baby.", he called turning your face up with a hand on your chin. His fingers smelled like your arousal. Desire reflected in both your gazes. "Keep your eyes on me while I fuck you.”, he commanded, slowly pulling his thick length out of you, only to glide back in with a satisfied grunt. “I want it rough, is that okay?”

"Yes, oppa." You clutched his back, your nails digging in as he increased his speed. Overstimulation making you more desperate, you moved your pelvis along with his, meeting each and everyone of his downward thrusts. It was frenzied attempt to reach the fastest route to the finish. He gripped your hips harshly, leveraging himself with his feet to fuck down into you with brisk precision.

Taehyung made sure to go in deep though, letting you feel the tip of his cock against your cervix with every drive of his hips, pummelling your cunt into complete submission.

Your foreheads touching, you breathed each other's air, never breaking eye contact.

"You look so beautiful underneath me, baby.", he grunted. "So wet yet so tight. You're gripping me so tight...", his words turned into incoherent, half complete whispers and sweet nothings. He thrusted in you with lightening speed now, both of you so close to finishing.

"I-I'm gonna...", you gasped feeling herself losing control once again.

"No. Wait for me. Together baby."

You wrapped your legs around Taehyung, clenching your core muscles to delay your climax. "Faster, oppa.", you moaned.

"Almost." He thrusted twice. "There." One more time. "Now, __.”

You let yourself go. At the same time you felt Taehyung come as he emptied himself inside of you. He groaned your name like a plea, slowing down.

You raked your nails down his back, aftershocks coursing through your every nerve. You felt like a limp noodle and you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to walk again.

Taehyung slumped down on top of you, his warm comforting weight felt relaxing. Lips moving on your neck as he leisurely gave you a few loving kisses.

After a minute he spoke.

"I hope you're on birth control."

Oh shit.

#bts fic #taehyung smut #bts smut #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts x you #taehyung x reader #teach me dirty

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buzzdixonwriter · 6 years ago

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Bill Clinton: The Agonizing Reappraisal

Friends, Americans, countrymen! Lend me your ears!

I come not to merely bury William Jefferson Clinton but to drive a stake through his craven heart, chop off his diseased head, fill his lying mouth with garlic, and bury the pieces in separate crossroads.

And if you think this is coming from a traditional anti-Clinton angle, guess again, Trump chump.

I’m progressive by default, conservative by nature. I didn’t move, the thrice-cursed GOP moved, and what they now refer to as the radical left or progressive liberalism is what used to be called “Eisenhower Republicans” back when conservatives held an iota of integrity, a shred of dignity, an ounce of compassion, a hint of civic duty.

So you fuckwits on the right can shuffle off and die for all I care.

This message is for my friends and allies in the progressive camp, of which a number are Democrats.

Folks, the time has come to publicly, formally, and officially dump Bill Clinton on the ash heap of history.

Alas, but extension this means assigning Hillary to Coventry as well; so be it. Lay down with pigs, get up smelling like pig shit.

Hillary Clinton is indeed blameless of the multitude of crimes, sins, and shortcomings the far right attempted to hang on her -- investigated and exonerated numerous times by her political enemies -- but if she wanted a public career she should have walked away from Bill Clinton decades ago.

She’s got the stink ingrained on her now, and not just the stink but toxic radioactive mold as well.

She can still be a help backstage, mentoring young candidates, offering valuable insight and advice but her public career is over, her time is done.

Period. Full stop.

If that pisses you off, direct your ire at the appropriate target: William Jefferson Clinton.

This fuckwit screwed the country over by not keeping his dick in his pants when he knew his political enemies were actively gunning for him.

Consider how badly screwed up that is: Imagine driving down the highway a mile or two over the speed limit when you see a police cruiser pull up behind you.

Do you: (1) Drop down to the speed limit, or (2) go faster and start zigzagging in and out of lanes without signaling?

It’s painfully clear William Jefferson Clinton suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder on par with Deplorable Donnie; the difference is Slick Willie could hide it better.

(This is doubtlessly due to their different class backgrounds: Clinton grew up lower middle class and hence acutely aware of his precarious social status; Donnie grew up with a silver service set shoved in his mouth and an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude of entitlement coupled with a complete lack of empathy and introspection.)

Clinton possessed enough political savvy to know that if he wanted to benefit from public office he needed to -- in a paraphrase from Full Metal Jacket -- “afford the voters with the common courtesy of a reacharound.”

When he kept this in mind, he and Hilary managed to do some appreciable good for the country and their party.

But “:doing good” does no good if you throw away your political capital by giving opponents the opportunity to undo what you did.

Knowing his enemies were gunning for him, knowing what was at stake for himself, his family, his friends and allies, his party, his state, and eventually the country as a whole, William Jefferson Clinton recklessly engaged in conduct that exposed him and others to needless risk and opposition even if such conduct was consensual.

THIS IS THE SIGN OF A PROFOUNDLY DISTURBED PERSONALITY.

No apologies, no sweet talking, no circumlocutions, no mansplaining: A profoundly disturbed personality.

…and one we as a nation and as progressive must walk away from forever.

Painful Truth #1: William Jefferson Clinton committed perjury and Congress would have been negligent to not impeach him.

Period. Full stop.

He should have resigned long before that.

The Democratic Party should have made him step down.

It would have ended the feverish anti-Clinton sentiment and made Al Gore the seated president in 2000 against GWBush – and doubtlessly given him the edge politically and morally in that contest.

Imagine for a moment how different the world would be on September 12, 2001 if American made a more proportional international law enforcement response to Al-Q’aeda as the criminal gang they were rather than elevate to Nazi-level quasi-statehood in order to launch the GOP’s long lusted after “war forevermore” that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about.

Imaging achieving the same real, practical goals without destroying three nations -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States -- in the process.

Imagine blocking far right efforts to deregulate banks, industry, and commerce in order to mercilessly prey on consumers, possibly preventing the housing collapse and stock market crash of 2008, or slowing the rapid out of control spiral of pollution and climate change.

We lost all that in no small part because William Jefferson Clinton, for God knows what perverse reason, refused to say he didn’t have sexual relations with Paula Jones.

Remember, what kicked off the Clinton fiasco was Jones being listed in a published article among women William Jefferson Clinton had sexual relations with, or whom he had “approached” (groped) for sexual relations.

Jones said said she went up to Clinton’s room, he dropped his trousers and asked for sex, and she fled.

In her lawsuit against those who published the article, Jones wanted Clinton to testify he had not had sex with her.

Now, a smart politician would never have gotten in such a position to begin with, but even a politician dumb enough to get caught with his pants literally down could still escape the situation by saying: “My recollection of meeting Ms Jones is markedly different from hers, but I will confirm 100% that I did not have sexual relations with her, that anybody who says we did is a liar, and I hope she wins her lawsuit against those who defamed her.”

And boom! -- it’s over, there’s nowhere to go with that story.

But instead Clinton denied meeting her and refused to sign an affidavit much less testify. Jones expanded her suit to include him.

The Supreme Court ruled he could be sued in a civil case while serving as president. Again, a savvy politician would simply refuse to answer the suit, claiming legal principle. The maximum default judgment at that time capped at $85,000 – a drop in the bucket compared to his subsequent legal bills -- and the matter would be closed.

Instead, Clinton fought.

Evidence of other affairs -- most notably Monica Lewinsky’s infamous stained dress -- came to light. He was questioned by Jones’ lawyers on this, he lied under oath, he got others to lie under oath, it was proven he did so.

Perjury: Case closed.

(Sidebar A: The end should have been “It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is”. Holy shit, that’s as despicably sleazy a move as anything Deplorable Donnie has pulled, and the Democrats should have kicked Slick Willie to the curb then and there. Fortunately, they seem to have learned from this mistake. Al Franken was a capable senator with a bright [and possibly even presidential] future ahead of him, but when he was caught inappropriately clowning around with a fellow performer, he resigned and the Democratic Party endorsed this as the appropriate response. The result? That avenue of inquiry has been forever blocked off, there’s nowhere for the GOP to go with it. Franken continues to aid and advise the Democratic party behind the scenes, but he’s removed as a lightning rod.)

(Sidebar B: Further proof of Clinton’s profoundly disturbed personality is that (1) after publicly confessing in 1992 to an affair while governor and (2) promising never to do it again, and (3) knowing his enemies would go over everything he did with a fine tooth comb, he nonetheless (4) didn’t instinctively think “This is a honey trap” and press the emergency secret service button when an intern snapped her thong at him in the Oval Office. That’s either brutal asswipe stupidity of the lowest order or a perverse thrill in dangerous behavior at the expense of others that might as well be brutal asswipe stupidity of the lowest order.)

Painful Truth #2: While the Democratic Party recognized the actual Lewinsky affair, however embarrassing, was trivial, their failure to take Clinton’s lies seriously proved fatal to their 2000-2008 goals.

“Put on our presidential kneepads” soured a lot of swing voters (and more than a few Democrats) from supporting Democratic candidates and fired up the GOP base.

It was a minor tactical skirmish that ended in an even-draw that led to a catastrophic strategic defeat, all in defense of a man undeserving of defense, a man worthy only of shame, ridicule, approbation, and condemnation followed by lifelong banishment.

Painful Truth #3: There is a very real possibility that William Jefferson Clinton is a child rapist.

The Epstein case will kick over a lot of rocks, exposing a lot of scummy vermin squirming underneath.

We know Epstein is a pimp who traffics in underage victims.

We know Clinton (and Deplorable Donnie as well; don’t worry, I’m not letting that turd monger off the hook) was a regular and enthusiastic habitué of Epstein’s parties.

We know Clinton to be an untrustworthy liar, a convicted perjurer stripped of his law license for his own perjury and suborning perjury in others.

We cannot believe any claims on innocence on his part.

Not only can we not believe any claims of innocence, we must presume guilt by association.

If you catch a previously convicted mobster associating with other mobsters as they commit crimes, you must assume their guilt as well. “I was in the room but didn’t participate” just doesn’t fly (harken back to Clinton’s own “I didn’t inhale”).

And by “guilt” I’m not referring to the strict legal definition -- it may indeed prove impossible to link him to a specific crime -- but the fact he willingly and eagerly associated with a known pimp at events where underage victims were sexually assaulted and raped requires us, demands us as Democrats, as progressives, as Americans to hold him culpable for the good of the party, the good of the movement, and the good of the country.

We need a symbol end to an era of bad faith politics, a door closed on a period of win-at-any-cost politics.

That generation has to pass away, replaced by a newer, better rank of public servants.

(I’m no pie-eyed idealist; I know sooner or later they will produce members who will disappoint. But right now they’re a breath of clean, fresh, disinfecting air and we desperately need them.)

Publicly passing final judgment on Clinton seals off that branch of the contagion. It demonstrates a willingness to confront the mess in our own house, and in dealing with that, the moral authority to deal with the mess Donnie is making.

Like Bill Cosby -- another infamous William -- Clinton must be forever shunned from the public sphere. He inflicted enough damage on the nation and the world through his perversely selfish and reckless antics.

And should there be evidence enough to convict, then throw that lying child rapist behind bars for the rest of his blighted life.

He can share a cell with Donnie.

#politics #Bill Clinton #Bill Cosby #Donald Trump #Hillary Clinton #ethics #revealed-reviewed-reviled-revoked

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williamsockner · 5 years ago

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BEST 100 SONGS OF THE 2010′S

According to my excellent, comprehensive and highly-esteemed taste. For your listening pleasure, the entire playlist is available on: Spotify, Youtube, or MP3 download! Limited to one song per artist, must have come out either as single or on an album released between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019.

1. Sister Grotto - “I Don’t Want to Love” (2018) 2. Kanye West - “Runaway” (2010) 3. Katy Perry - “Teenage Dream” (2010) 4. Joanna Newsom - “Go Long” (2010) 5. Vienna Teng - “The Hymn of Acxiom” (2013) 6. Foxing - “Nearer My God” (2018) 7. Mark Kozelek - “You Missed My Heart” (2013) 8. FKA twigs - “Two Weeks” (2014) 9. Mitski - “Your Best American Girl” (2016) 10. Grimes - “Kill V. Maim” (2015) 11. Sky Ferreira - “Everything is Embarrassing” (2014) 12. Charli XCX - “Backseat (feat. Carly Rae Jepsen)” (2017) 13. Twin Shadow - “Run My Heart” (2012) 14. Lambchop - “The Hustle Unlimited” (2017) 15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - “I Need You” (2016) 16. Lana Del Rey - “Video Games” (2012) 17. Frank Ocean - “Thinkin Bout You” (2012) 18. Björk - “Saint” (2017) 19. Vince Staples - “BagBak” (2017) 20. Grouper - “Blouse” (2018) 21. Nicole Dollanganger - “American Tradition” (2015) 22. Carly Rae Jepsen - “Run Away with Me” (2015) 23. Perfume Genius - “Hood” (2012) 24. Laura Stevenson - “Low Slow” (2019) 25. Ariana Grande - “ghostin” (2019) 26. Azealia Banks - “212 (feat. Lazy Jay)” (2014) 27. Thundercat - “Oh Sheit It’s X” (2013) 28. Solange - “Losing You” (2012) 29. Sia - “Chandelier” (2014) 30. Empress Of - “When I’m With Him” (2018) 31. Robyn - “Dancing On My Own” (2010) 32. Torres - “Honey” (2013) 33. Sharon Van Etten - “Your Love is Killing Me” (2014) 34. Chumped - “Old and Tired” (2014) 35. SZA - “Prom” (2017) 36. Rihanna - “Higher” (2016) 37. serpentwithfeet - “four ethers” (2016) 38. Moses Sumney - “Rank & File” (2018) 39. Zola Jesus - “Remains” (2017) 40. Lucy Dacus - “Night Shift” (2018) 41. Kelela - “A Message” (2015) 42. Cam - “Diane” (2017) 43. Drake - “Hold On, We’re Going Home (feat. Majid Jordan)” (2013) 44. Phoebe Bridgers - “Smoke Signals” (2017) 45. Miya Folick - “Deadbody” (2018) 46. Pity Sex - “Hollow Body” (2013) 47. The Raveonettes - “Endless Sleeper” (2014) 48. Sage Francis - “Make ‘Em Purr” (2014) 49. Yeasayer - “O.N.E.” (2010) 50. Natalie Press - “My Baby Don’t Understand Me” (2015) 51. Sufjan Stevens - “Blue Bucket of Gold” (2015) 52. Beyoncé - “Partition” (2013) 53. Charles Bradley - “Lonely As You Are” (2019) 54. Soccer Mommy - “Scorpio Rising” (2018) 55. SOPHIE - “It’s Okay to Cry” (2017) 56. Slothrust - “Horseshoe Crab” (2016) 57. Rufus Wainwright - “Zebulon” (2010) 58. Future Islands - “Seasons (Waiting on You)” (2014) 59. Purity Ring - “Fineshrine” (2012) 60. Snakehips - “All My Friends (feat. Tinashe & Chance the Rapper)” (2015) 61. DJ Shadow - “Nobody Speak (feat. Run the Jewels)” (2016) 62. Kendrick Lamar - “LOVE. (feat. Zacari)” (2017) 63. Miley Cyrus - “Wrecking Ball” (2013) 64. Courtney Marie Andrews - “May Your Kindness Remain” (2018) 65. Kesha - “Praying” (2017) 66. School of Seven Bells - “Open Your Eyes” (2016) 67. Rosalía - “Malamente” (2018) 68. The Mountain Goats - “Heel Turn 2” (2015) 69. Gallant - “Bourbon” (2016) 70. Lady Gaga - “The Edge of Glory” (2011) 71. Julien Baker - “Sprained Ankle” (2015) 72. Shura - “What’s It Gonna Be?” (2016) 73. boygenius - “Me & My Dog” (2018) 74. Snail Mail - “Full Control” (2018) 75. Leonard Cohen - “Treaty” (2016) 76. Simone Dinnerstein & Tift Merritt - “Colors” (2013) 77. Marissa Nadler - “Janie in Love” (2016) 78. cupcakKe - “Fullest” (2018) 79. Emily Reo - “Spell” (2016) 80. Taylor Swift - “Getaway Car” (2017) 81. PARTYNEXTDOOR - “Come and See Me (feat. Drake)” (2016) 82. Hazel English - “I’m Fine” (2016) 83. White Lung - “Down It Goes” (2014) 84. Kississippi - “Indigo” (2017) 85. The Weeknd - “Can’t Feel My Face” (2015) 86. Bon Iver - “29 #Strafford APTS” (2016) 87. Tomberlin - “February” (2017) 88. Ruston Kelly - “Mockingbird” (2018) 89. Walk the Moon - “Shut Up and Dance” (2014) 90. Damien Rice - “I Don’t Want to Change You” (2014) 91. Nadine Shah - “Stealing Cars” (2014) 92. White Sea - “Stay Young, Get Stoned” (2015) 93. The Internet - “Special Affair” (2015) 94. Bat for Lashes - “Clouds” (2016) 95. Clairo - “Alewife” (2019) 96. Jidenna - “Bambi” (2017) 97. The National - “I Need My Girl” (2014) 98. Tei Shi - “M&Ms” (2013) 99. Spice - “Cool It” (2018) 100. MUNA - “I Know a Place” (2016)

#music #best of the 2010s #songs of the decade #best of the decade #listmas

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lady-hype · 6 years ago

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Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words, But This One Only Needs Three (Alana Kusuma x F!MC (Lia Park)

<< Set after the Perfect Match Book 2 finale. Everyone has gone back to their respective lives. Lia and most of the gang head back to New York while Alana is away on her new job. And since we don’t know what the hell MC does as their day job, mine will be a bartender. Also, a fair amount of story building so you won’t be getting the sexy Interpol agent right away. (I know it sucks, but I can’t write without giving context ;_;) >>

(I know I should be working on my Shreya x MC fic, but Perfect Match’s finale had me feeling all kinds of something)

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“Liaaaaaaa....” Nadia groaned as she sat on the cushy bar stool. At her cousin’s noncommittal hum, she sighed and sagged against the sleek wooden counter, “I need inspiration! My artistic tank has run empty and I need a refill.”

Lia smirked and threw her small towel onto her shoulder, “Let me guess..something boozy, sugary, and brightly colored?” Though, she didn’t even need to bother asking, because her bubbly cousin asked for the same drink every time these “artist blocks” came up. Nadia’s knowing grin only made Lia chuckle, pondering how her taste buds handled the drink every time.

Lia made idle chit-chat with Nadia as she looked around the bar. A fair amount of her regulars had come in that Friday night, the quiet music being drowned out by excited chatter. She smiled to herself as she poured the bright green beverage into its glass, adding candy garnishes. Lia’s mind started to drift off, relishing in the calm that was in her life again. The fight with Eros had been long and grueling, making everyone weary and tired. At one point, she wasn’t sure if she would ever have normalcy again. But everything had, thankfully, worked out in the end. Lia and her friends were heralded as national heroes, being given eternal gratitude from President Thompson.

“...then Steve made the worst joke about armadillos!” Nadia finished, unaware that her cousin had spaced out. She waved her hand in Lia’s face. “Hellooooo? Earth to Lia!”

“Huh?” Lia’s eyes refocused and she looked back at Nadia.

“You forgot the little umbrella!” The artist grinned and gently tapped the rim of her glass. “Also..you doing alright?” Concern knit her brow as she gently touched Lia’s hand.

Lia smiled sheepishly and stuck a little umbrella in the sweet-smelling drink before squeezing Nadia’s hand, “Yea I’m fine. Just..thinking about the journey we went through. I know it’s been a few months but it seems like just yesterday we were at that gala saving the president.”

Nadia sipped her drink quietly, lost in her own musings before speaking up, “I get what you mean. I sort of miss the whole gang. But Khaan and Sloane are busy revitalizing Eros, D is working again, and Alana is who knows where.”

“Yea..but those two computer whizzes are making amazing progress! And Damien is finally joining us in this technological age.” Lia’s typical optimism failed to rein in the thoughts that followed after. She stared out into the small sea of people, mumbling to herself, “I--...I mean, WE haven’t heard from Alana in a while.” Her slightly embarrassed smile didn’t go unnoticed by Nadia, who was now sporting a shit-eating grin.

“Speaking of hot Interpol agents..” Nadia began whilst running her fingers around the rim of her glass, “Did you two ever become a thing?”

The quizzical look she gave Lia silently pried the bartender’s heart open, slowly letting out the feelings she had been trying push to the back of her mind. Her voice was barely above a whisper before she spoke, “I think so?” Lia frowned as she thought of how she should word it. “It was before she left for her next job. I took her to the airport during Hayden’s housewarming party. It was a bit..emotional, to say the least. I could still sense some apprehension.”

“What do you mean?”

Lia bit her lip at Nadia’s question before slouching down and resting her chin on her palm. “She’s one of a kind, Nadia. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. Her freedom is immensely important to her. She was afraid that I wouldn’t want that. She might have thought I wanted to chain her down. But..I told her that part of her was something I never wanted to change. After that, things seemed to be alright. We never really put a label on what we were. But..hell do I miss her.” Despite their conversation seeming to have gone favorably, there was still a hint of sadness in Lia’s eyes.

There was an audible silence despite the laughter of Lia’s patrons. Nadia could almost hear the gears turning in her cousin’s head. She hadn’t gotten to know the Interpol agent well throughout their travels, let alone speak much volume with her. But it was quite obvious that Lia was undeniably smitten with Alana. There was this dreamy look about the bartender that made Nadia chuckle a bit before thinking back to the uncertainty that seemed to cling to her cousin.

“So you don’t know when she’s supposed to be finished with her job?” The artist inquired before frowning at the shake of a head. Nadia sighed and drank more of her insanely sugary booze, deciding that it’d be best to drop the subject for now. “Do you have any plans after work?”

“Sloane and Hayden invited me over for documentary night,” Lia said as she cleaned a glass, “and Sloane insisted on looking at the stars after. She’s trying to pack in as much as she can on her day off.” Her mood was starting to lighten up as she thought of her two best friends when it instantly soured, hearing loud angry voices. She knew that the argument would break out into a fist fight if she didn’t step in soon, so she strode over to the source of the commotion. “Hey, knock it off or I’m going to have to throw you bo--”

Lia stopped in her tracks when her eyes met familiar brown ones. Her breath hitched as she realized that Alana Kusuma was in front of her. The Interpol agent that took her breath away was here at her bar, sporting that damn smirk that did things to her.

“Hey babe.” Alana said with such familiarity that one wouldn’t think the two hadn’t seen each other in months. “I was just telling this chump I’m not interested in whatever they have to offer. For the third time.”

The aforementioned patron pointed a wobbly finger at Alana, slurring their words, “And for the third time, I told you I can offer you more than this place can back at my apartment!” The perverted grin that accompanied their statement only made Alana roll her eyes in disgust.

“I highly doubt that because the bartender is here and she has a better chance at making me feel good than you ever will.” Alana’s snarky attitude was lost on the tipsy customer, but the unabashedly suggestive statement was not lost on Lia, who was blushing more than she should have been.

Shaking her head and sighing, Lia walked around the bar and stepped in front of the offending customer, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. The lady said she’s not interested.” She straightened up and squared her shoulders, seeing how the glazed-over eyes staring at her slowly began brewing with hostility.

“I can do whatever the hell I want! You ain’t the boss of me, girlie.” They rolled their eyes and scoffed, leaning heavily against the counter. They reeked of alcohol and it only added to the disrespect they were showing everyone who now had their eyes on the disruption.

Alana was about to take a step forward and clock the rude customer when Lia stepped into their space and gave the meanest glare. The Interpol agent recognized that look and she could only smile. The bartender wasn’t the woman Alana remembered. The whole battle with Eros certainly gave the raven-haired woman a “zero tolerance for shit” attitude. And quite frankly, Alana found that incredibly attractive. She smiled to herself and leaned against the bar as she saw the drunken patron visibly cower in the new intimidating presence.

Lia put her hands on her hips and spoke in a surprisingly calm tone, “Don’t disrespect my friend. I asked you nicely but you didn’t listen.” She let her hands fall to the side as the offender awkwardly stood up to protest. “Get. The. Hell. Out.” Her bravado seemed to do its job as the bumbling mess of a customer stumbled out the door, cursing under their breath.

The Interpol agent looked Lia up and down, giving an appreciative grin. She made her way over to where Nadia was, who watching them with curiosity. After settling on her bar stool, Alana slid some money across the counter and met Lia’s welcoming gaze, “Give me the best whiskey you got, neat.”

Lia nodded and poured the drink, placing it on the counter space in front of Alana. Nadia had a million questions swirling in her head, but with how her cousin looked, she chose to nurse her drink instead. Lia kept opening and closing her mouth, words failing to surface every time. Nadia had been around her cousin long enough to know exactly what was going on in her dear friend’s mind. The slightly creased brow and the hidden turmoil in her eyes always meant the same thing: “I missed you.” But the bartender knew there was a time and place for that, but it wasn’t here. The artist heard a sigh of resignation before seeing her cousin resume making drinks.

After the silence stretched into awkward territory, Nadia spoke up, “So Alana! Welcome back! It’s good to see you again. It’s been like..five months?”

Alana took a sip of her whiskey and set her glass down, resting her elbows on the counter. “It would seem so. I just finished up my job so I’ve got some time to kill before the next one’s lined up.” She said with indifference as she watched Lia shaking up some cocktails, fulling grasping how much the bartender seemed to have changed both mentally and physically.

The woman in question had a new air of unspoken confidence, not quite cockiness. When patrons asked what drinks she recommended, she spoke her mind on what was good and bad, but she always remained down-to-earth. Lia had earned herself a reputation of being an insanely talented and charming bartender. Alana could definitely see that the raven-haired beauty was in her element, fully invested in creating the best drinks for the best experience she could offer for her patrons. Lia’s updated appearance struck Alana in an indescribable but good way. Her hair had grown out long enough to a nice layered shoulder length and there was the smallest bit of a new tattoo peeking out from under her rolled sleeves. Her frame was also a bit more filled out, giving suggestions that the bartender had been working out.

Alana was pulled from her thoughts when a melodic voice reached her ears.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lia asked while sporting a smirk that Alana returned in kind when she looked up.

“A penny wouldn’t be enough for what I got on my mind.” The Interpol agent said with a slight tone of indifference.

Lia raised her eyebrow and leaned against the counter, “Care to enlighten me?” Her teasing tone was evidence to the fact that she had picked up on the ever-so-slightly flirtatious tone in Alana’s previous statement.

“Well, you aren’t worth that little so...” was all Alana said before trailing off with a wink.

Once the bartender had caught on, her eyes became unreadable. Deciding to take a leap of faith once more, she quipped back, “I understand. You’re worth so much more to me, so..yeah, I get you.”

Nadia instantly recognized this atmosphere, so she opted for moving away from the pair and beaming, seeing Lia look happier than she had been just moments ago. She decided to take her leave and chat up some friendly patrons at a community table.

The rowdiness of the bar seemed to fade away as Alana and Lia’s eyes met again. No more playful grins or witty retorts; just the two of them relishing in each other’s presence after being apart for months.

Deciding that the silence had drawn on long enough, Alana reached across the counter and gently grasped Lia’s hand, “When does your shift end?”

Lia looked down to their joined hands before looking back up at Alana, turning her hand up to give the brunette’s hand a gentle squeeze, “In an hour, but I actually have plans..” The raven-haired woman spoke, but stopped shortly after when she saw hope flicker and fade into disappointment in Alana’s eyes. “Hold that thought.”

Lia took her phone out of her pocket and texted Hayden and Sloane.

(Booze Ticket): Hey you two..sorry, change of plans. I won’t be able to make it to documentary night tonight.

(Indescribably Cool Girl): Aww :( What happened?

(Orion): ???

(Booze Ticket): Alana’s back in town.

(Indescribably Cool Girl): That’s great! Tell her we say hi!

(Orion): Be safe! Use the appropriate protective measures.

(Indescribably Cool Girl): Sloane..I know we said we’d both be supportive, but..not what I had in mind.

(Orion): Woops.

Lia chuckled before slipping her phone back into her pocket, being greeted with a curious look. “Well Alana, I changed some things around. So tonight..” She leaned in slightly, inviting the brunette to do the same. Whispering ever so quietly into a waiting ear, she murmurs, “I’m all yours.”

As she withdrew from Alana’s space, she saw a quick flash of something in the Interpol agent’s eyes. Hope. Wonder. Hunger. Lia couldn’t help but smirk, noting how she was able to catch this new side of Alana. Not entirely vulnerable, but much more open and accepting of being able to fall into her feelings.

Finishing her whiskey, Alana stands and turns to leave, throwing a grin over her shoulder, “I’ll see you then, Lia. Don’t be late heading home.”

Lia could only beam as she had a lot more to look forward to after her shift was over.

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

Riddled with exhaustion, Lia stepped out of the elevator to her apartment floor. Though, it instantly vanished upon seeing one Alana Kusuma leaning right outside her door, who turned to smile at her. Seeing the one woman she missed the most was like a breath of everything refreshing. She had spent so long pining for Alana, missing the headstrong and sexy agent. And in a matter of moments, Lia would have the brunette in her arms with no intention of letting her go.

Having enough of this distance (no matter how small it was), Lia walked up to Alana and looked into warm expectant eyes. “I missed you...” She spoke softly as she held her arms out, reaching out to Alana slow enough just to see if it was something she wanted.

But before her hands were even halfway across the small gap, Alana pulled Lia close and wrapped her arms loosely around the bartender’s neck. Slender fingers slowly combed up the back of Lia’s head, sending shivers up her spine. There was no hesitation in her eyes, no stiff nerves in her embrace; only relief and adoration. Alana gently pressed her soft full lips to Lia’s, kissing her sweetly before pulling back, “I missed you too.” Alana gave a quick smile before stepping out of the embrace, tilting her head towards Lia’s apartment door, “So, you gonna let me in or are we doing it out here in the hallway?”

“Alana!” Lia playfully smacked the agent’s arm before unlocking her door, letting both of them in. “I’d rather not broadcast my sex life to my neighbors.” She leaned against the locked door and shot Alana a glare before dropping her bag on the counter. “Besides..I didn’t know where we were regarding that.”

“I know we didn’t really discuss it. I just thought it would have been a funny way to get your door opened faster.” A throaty chuckle came up from Alana’s chest as she looked around Lia’s apartment. “Nice place, by the way.”

Lia smiled and leaned her back against the counter, deep in thought as she looked at the object of her affections. “But is that something you want..or that you’re ready for?”

Alana pursed her lips for a moment before breaking into a smile, “Are you kidding? You’re hot, Lia. Who wouldn’t want you?” She tried to power through the charged atmosphere with flirtatious bravado before biting her lip slightly. Leveling her gaze with Lia’s, she spoke up once again, “But for real, yea. Since we’re in a.. relationship,”Alana drew in a shaky breath, “I want to have sex with you. It’s natural since I like you as much as I do.”

The nervous smile that graced Alana’s lips made her seem too beautiful for words. Showing that kind of vulnerability was terrifying for the agent, but she knew the woman in front of her would still welcome her with open arms. Lia could only beam at Alana, moving forward to wrap her arms around Alana’s neck. Affectionately tugging the brunette’s hair, Lia spoke softly, “Hey, don’t be scared. I feel the same way. I’ve thought about that: you here and taking me.. “ She tilted her head slightly to kiss the agent, “Every. Single. Day.” Every word was punctuated with a kiss, each one lasting longer.

A quiet moan rumbled from Alana’s chest, making her breath hitch when Lia made her desire known. The brunette wrapped her arms around her future lover’s waist and kissed the bartender deeply. Alana’s hands slowly slid down to the small of Lia’s back, tracing her fingers around in circles before a smirk set on her face. She moved her hands around to the front of Lia’s pants and looped her fingers under the raven-haired woman’s belt, tugging. She gently guided the two of them towards Lia’s open bedroom door.

“Come on hot stuff, I think it’s time we catch up. Thoroughly.” Alana murmured, her voice thick with want. She glanced over her shoulder and caught Lia staring at her with lustful eyes, her teeth gently biting her lower lip. Once in the bedroom, the brunette spun them around and slowly backed Lia to the edge of the bed, matching the burning gaze that was being leveled at her. “Come on babe..you’re in for the ride of your life.” With those words, Alana pushed Lia back onto the bed and began to ravish her waiting partner.

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

Moonlight filtered in through the cracks of the curtains and onto the bed where two naked bodies slept. Alana was the first of the two to wake up, brown eyes bleary. She reached left and groped the nightstand, picking up her phone to check the time. It was only 4 A.M. in the morning but Alana felt herself waking up more when she took in her surroundings. She sat up and soft blankets pooled around her hips as she took everything that was now sinking into her head. She couldn’t help the shudder that coursed through her nude form. There was a part of Alana that was still a bit fearful that Lia might change her mind and want her to settle down like Damien wanted her to. But she hadn’t felt such a strong genuine connection with someone like Lia for as long as she could remember. And it was evident that the dark-haired beauty was more than okay with Alana’s life. So, for her to feel so strongly about the slumbering woman beside her again, Alana couldn’t help but feel both scared and elated. She looked to her right and smiled, seeing Lia’s peaceful face as she slept. Blankets draped down the bartender’s waist, giving full view to her bare chest which caused Alana to grin at the memory of their tryst only hours ago.

The agent’s eyes then scanned the room and eventually fell to a set of pictures framed on the dressed across from her. Various photos adorned the piece of furniture, each one with Lia’s smiling face among familiar faces. A couple featured a younger Lia in graduation gowns, while the remaining depicted fun times with Hayden and the others. Alana recognized a few of those places, one being Berlin and the other being Paris. But what caught her eye was a lone photo taken on the familiar beach in Indonesia, where her relative’s beach house stood. There Lia was, sitting on the beach and looking to the sunset wistfully. Something tugged at Alana’s heart as she stared at the picture, something that that crept up her throat and caused a lump to form. She didn’t want to think too much into it, but it was too late. All the previous photos showcased happy times with friends, but this one picture made it obvious that Lia was longing for something..or someone. Like the night on the rooftop in L.A., Alana was hit with another realization that took her breath away.

Her eyes seemed to prickle, then a familiar sting chased the sensation. Tears started forming in her eyes and blurred her vision. She sniffled quietly and wiped her eyes, hoping to rid herself of these tears and heading back to sleep. But despite her best efforts to retain her strong facade, more tears ran down her cheeks. This realization hit her like a truck and it was almost too much. But was this too much for her? She was Alana Kusuma for crying out loud. She was a certified badass. An amazing Interpol agent and all around amazing fighter. She’s stared death in the face and came out the other side. She helped saved the POTUS’ life. But here she was, silently crying her heart out.

What Alana failed to realize was that her lover had woken up from the first sniffle. Lia gently touched the brunette’s bicep and sat up, speaking with such love and care that it almost instantly wrapped Alana in a verbal embrace, “Hey...what’s wrong?”

Alana inhaled quietly and her trembling shoulders came to a halt when she felt her lover’s soft touch. She looked over to Lia with wet eyes and cheeks, biting her lip before gazing into warm chocolate eyes. The moonlight seemed to almost reflect off the tiny golden flecks in Lia’s eyes. The bartender’s hair was tousled and there were tired bags under her eyes, but Alana thought she never looked more beautiful. She couldn’t help but feel waves of happiness wash through her as she cracked a lopsided smile. Her voice cracked slightly but she was never more sure of anything as her next words, “Nothing’s wrong Lia..I promise. I just realized..” Alana trailed off in thought, breathing in deep before speaking with unwavering conviction, “I’m home.”

Lia’s eyes widened slightly before she broke out into a huge grin. She took Alana’s face in her hands and gently pressed her forehead against the brunette’s, pressing a gentle but meaningful kiss to Alana’s tear-stricken lips before murmuring the three words Alana had wanted to hear for so long..

“Welcome home, Alana...”

#choices stories you play #pixelberry #playchoices #choices #perfect match #alana kusuma #alana x mc #fanfic

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justinehudock · 6 years ago

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Student Nodding Excessively in Class Actually Just Had Water in Their Ear

At 9:15 this morning, Binghamton University was overrun by a hail of first responders and daytime news heavyweights after a student reported what seemed to be, at the time of incident, a Level 10 security breach and repeat of a scenario that’s become a source of national partisan turmoil and depressed enrollment rates felt throughout the country’s higher education system.

“I sat down in the back of the class and was immediately like, God, fuck.”

Jeremiah Winters, a senior Political Science major, believed himself to be one case among thousands that emerge each school year: students who unknowingly pick their semester seat behind the section Nodder.

“I thought the dude was, you know, one of them,” Winters recalls, scratching at a freshly sprouted hive on his upper cheek.

“All through the professor’s syllabus presentation, he kept nodding his head; just kept signaling his comprehension physically. I was only following campus safety procedures by dialing 911.”

“‘A ‘nodder’ is any student that nods excessively to communicate their overpowering, acutely chemical grasp of what a lecturer has to say,’” quotes Dr. Hannah Davis, LCP, from the term’s entry in the university’s Policies & Union Agreements.

“The Nodder wants their professor to know, ‘Hey, I’m absorbing this information; these other motionless chumps might be a gum-blowing gang of ragtags that shoot bath salts into little girls’ pigtails on school nights, but I can follow your drift all the way to a Master’s degree.’

“It’s like catching a middle-aged guy on the train seat next to you Super-Liking eighteen-year-olds on Tinder,” Dr. Davis continues, popping an Ibuprofen at the apparent trauma-flashback.

“Not something that should be happening, and definitely not something you should be forced to watch. In a case like Mr. Winters’, for instance, just because you happened to sit behind the incarnation of a Dippy Drinking Bird.”

This tier of recognition overcompensation has come to vogue in Western medical journals since the discussion surrounding report reprisal and victim-blaming erupted onto the domestic stage.

Determined by a standard metric of smugness, cross-defined with the accepted degree that elevates “encouraging” to “just… pretentious”, general opinion concurs the Nodder falls on the overcompensatory scale above the guy announcing that he’s running on three hours of sleep, he was just so bogged writing a midterm paper last night; and just below the student that eggs on their Free Speech in the Modern Age professor like Dr. Hanaway’s actually a member of the Queen’s Guard, royally barred from countering abuse.

“Yeah, so it turned out the kid just had a little water in his ear,” Winters clarified, visibly embarrassed, in a follow-up press conference hosted on the Quad.

“But, that doesn’t mean I’m leaving my post as a Mandatory Reporter of Campus Nodders. We will not rest until every student is safe from their obtrusive, intolerable posturing.”

The incident and Winters’ televised words have reportedly increased MRoCN League membership threefold.

_________

(for the Binghamton B.U.T.T., January 2019)

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raindropcascade · 8 months ago

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what an embarrassing indictment of American politics that this insensitive clown with his rictus grin is a viable candidate for office

#disgusting #the disrespect #the callousness #fuck trump #trump is a chump #republican assholes #maga morons #arlington national cemetery #el paso mass shooting #magats assault cemetery staff #republican hypocrisy #heartless #clueless asshole #trump 2024 #is this really what you stand for?#embarrassing #you should be ashamed

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andylynes-blog · 3 years ago

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Amber and Rye by Zuza Zak

What’s the USP? Touching on the cuisines of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Amber & Rye seeks to open up the food of the Baltic nations to chumps like you and me, who are frequently a little embarrassed by how little we know about the area. Who wrote it? Zuza Zak is something of an expert is Eastern European cooking. Her first book, Polska, was something of a hit in 2016 and explored the food of…

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#Amber and Rye by Zuza Zak review #Baltic cuisine #Zuza Zak cookbook review

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hamiltoncopyright-blog · 8 years ago

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covers and performances of Hamilton

As with fanfiction and fanart, Lin has been pretty supportive of fan covers.

For instance, the official Hamilton account on Twitter encourages covers. So even if covers are technically copyright infringement if the cover artists didn’t first seek permission, these are generally not pursued. The Hamilton producers have not yet pursued any cases over unauthorized covers, and aren’t likely to.

But if you want to be especially safe from copyright law, you should transform the work in some significant way. For instance, a political parody of a Hamilton song would be extremely safe, since it transforms original elements of the song to comment not only on the original work, but also something politically significant. (Lin has even done his own political parody.)

Copyright law (as well as first amendment law) in the U.S. was formed with deliberately strong defenses for political works (thank god), so make your Trump parodies without fear (i.e. “An open letter to a fat, arrogant, anti-charismatic national embarrassment known as President…”)

In summary, transformative covers like parodies or political commentary are fair use and not copyright infringement; copyright-infringing covers are pretty much ignored by Hamilton creators, unless they actively praise them, so you’re probably totally fine.

More complete performances, resembling the musical rather than a stand-alone song, are not nearly as safe. To perform actual portions of a show, you need a license.

(This does not apply to those solo performances you do in your car every day. Carry on.)

Shows are generally made available for license several years after they premiere. Lin currently has two shows you can license and therefore perform: In the Heights and, more recently, his short play 21 Chump Street (otherwise known as the introduction of internet darling Anthony Ramos, seen in this clip.)

This high school cast got ahead of themselves, performed way too much of the show, and got themselves in legal trouble. Given how chill Lin and the producers are with covers in general, they had to have performed a considerable amount of the show, not as covers, but as an actual play.

Seriously, the law is firm on this. You’ve got to wait to perform this show until after it’s available for license and you’ve obtained that license. I know, it sucks, but this again gets at the purpose of copyright law: to protect artists and bring more art into society to make us better. Y’know, ‘cause lawmakers are aware that art actually does improve society. Despite what CERTAIN PEOPLE IN THE WHITE HOUSE may believe.

Side note: This is a cover blessed by Lin, and it’s not Hamilton, it’s “Shiny” from Moana and I just love it a lot. (For my copyright professor, this song is also written by Lin. He’s a busy guy.)

#hamilton #hamilton covers #hamilton cover #hamilton copyright #copyright law #copyright #fancopyright #lin manuel miranda #lmm #hamilton parody

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lettersfromn0where · 5 years ago

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So I’m writing an ATLA hospital AU. And it sucks. So I’m going to give an excerpt from one of my Zutara week oneshots instead. This is a short excerpt from my Day 5 oneshot (Hesitancy), in which our favorite duo dances around their burgeoning feelings for each other after the Agni Kai:

iv. rice

“Katara, this is humiliating.”

Zuko’s arms are crossed, his posture challenging, but Katara doesn’t back down. She’s perched at the edge of his bed near his knees, holding a bowl of rice and a spoon because it seems to be best to stick to bland foods for now. And she’s smirking a little bit, enjoying this moment of utter mortification more than she should.

“Hm. That’ll teach you to take care of yourself,” she says sweetly, lifting a scoop of rice from the bowl and holding it out to him. “Now take it or I’ll make you.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” It’s the truth. He doesn’t want to eat, and he’s not going to make this easy for her.

“Fine, then.” She pushes the spoon closer to his face. “We’re doing this the embarrassing way, then.”

“Katara, I am the Fire Lord.”

“Yeah, and I’m the chump who almost got you killed, so I’m not letting you starve.” She gestures with the spoon for effect. “Now take this or I’m going to force-feed you.”

Zuko wonders if there’s a single other person in all four nations who could get away with force-feeing the sovereign of the Fire Nation, and he realizes there probably isn’t, though Iroh comes close. What does that say about how I feel about Katara? He wonders.

(That, too, is an easy answer, though he’s not about to admit it even now with her face inches from his.)

So he opens his mouth, but closes his eyes, because he’s not sure if he can take the sight of her triumphant smirk right now.

This girl has entirely too much power over me, he thinks, and he wants to groan. But he doesn’t, and Katara’s not going to stop until he’s eaten every grain of rice in the bowl, so he puts his head down, takes the bowl from Katara before she has the chance to properly humiliate him, and finishes.

“Happy now?” he asks grumpily when the bowl’s empty.

“Mm-hm.” She leans forwards and kisses his forehead for his trouble. “Bet you won’t make me do that again.”

Oh, yeah. Entirely too much power.

Thanks for the tag, @dayenurose! Tagging @zanykingmentality @thewhiitelotus @hiniwalay @sofileall @marypoppinswasmyfatherbitches

WIP Whenever

I don’t know if anyone of my followers reads “To the Edge of your sky” but I swear I have not given up and I am working on Chapter 3. It is still far from done due to real life troubles, but it will arrive. Until then, here is some unedited interaction between Cassandra and Alexander!

He nodded in gratitude and cleared his throat. “Speaking of protection, Josephine mentioned the other day that Nevarrans challenge to duels those who won’t take at their word,” Alexander mentioned with a serious face to distract himself from his contemplations.

“What?!?”

“According to our Ambassador, it’s a matter of honor among the Nevarrans.” He urged on, hoping to get a reaction from her.

She didn’t disappoint.

“Ugh!” Cassandra groaned loudly and covered her face with her hands. “Josephine is disappointed because I am not living up to her standards of the Nevarran princess, but it doesn’t mean I am some hot-headed brute with no manners that challenges people to duels!!!” Cassandra was fuming now, pacing on the forecastle, waving her fists.

Alexander shifted to watch her and tried to conceal any grimace that could give away his delight. She finally stopped moving and stood opposite him.

The absolutely wonderful @whatsherfacewrites tagged me (Go read her work!) so I tag @jehilew @ludi-ling @applejacks1552 @cajuncajole @ashkaarishok and whoever wants to play!

#tag games #wip #zutara week

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esprit-de-corps-magazine · 5 years ago

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ON TARGET: Senseless Spinning on the Challenger Jet Purchase

By Scott Taylor

On Saturday, June 6 the Department of National Defence made an announcement that they were purchasing two new Challenger Jets for the RCAF. This was a sole-source acquisition worth $105 million to aircraft manufacturer Bombardier.

Given the weekend release of this news and the fact in this era of pandemic bailout, spending $105 million now sounds like chump change, the Challenger purchase caused nary a ripple in the media.

This did not stop senior DND officials from laying down a barrage of pre-emptory deflection. In her comments on the Challenger acquisition, Jody Thomas the Deputy Minister of DND noted that the RCAF’s existing Challenger fleet had been used to deliver medical supplies to battle COVID-19 in remote regions.

For his part, Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance posted social media messages outlining how Challenger jets have “proven themselves time and time again while supporting humanitarian missions and helping during COVID-19.” It was also pointed out by DND that a Challenger had recently been used to deploy the flight safety team in the wake of the fatal April 29 Cyclone helicopter crash in the Mediterranean Sea.

Glaringly absent from the official equation was any mention of the Challenger jets primary function which has always been VIP transport. The procurement documentation for the two new jets clearly states that these are to be ‘VIP aircraft’ to be used for VIP transport.

For anyone even remotely aware of the aviation world, the Challenger jet has become the iconic brand name associated with executive VIP aircraft. It is like the Kleenex of tissue papers. Everyone knows what they are so why the official attempt to spin the Challengers into some sort of air-ambulance, utility delivery plane?

Most Canadians would not object to our political and military leadership having access to such VIP transport. After all we are a G-8 nation and it would be a national embarrassment should our Prime Minister arrive at a world leaders summit via a commercial flight. Similarly I do not think we want to see our Chief of Defence Staff stepping off a Greyhound bus with his attendant staff officers.

We get that there is a certain amount of prestige and privilege afforded to those who hold high office. Therefore, it is not the use of such an asset that causes the government embarrassment. It is the abuse of these executive jets for non-official personal travel that causes the public outrage.

Who can forget the occasions when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used a RCAF challenger jet for trips to Costa Rica, St Kitts and to the Aga Khan’s private Island?

In these instances nobody questioned the fact that the RCAF owned and operated Challenger VIP transports. What angered them was the perceived misuse of a national resource for personal purposes.

Former Defence Minister and current candidate for Conservative Party leader Peter MacKay was accused of taking such abuse of privilege to new heights back in the summer of 2010. While at a remote fishing lodge in Newfoundland, MacKay’s office requested a RCAF search and rescue helicopter to fly him to nearby Gander Airport. When word of this flight broke in the media the opposition parties called for MacKay’s resignation.

Now we have come full circle. First it was MacKay using a federal rescue aircraft as his own VIP transportation and now we have Jody Thomas and Jonathan Vance telling the Canadian public that our Challenger VIP transport planes are really just medical assistance planes.

The fact is that nobody is going to chastise senior leaders if they properly use the resources to which they are authorized to employ. However, if they abuse that authority we have every right to call them on it.

Some free advice to the DND public affairs brain trust: If you want to avoid a media crapstorm, stop spinning and simply tell us the truth.

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whereareroo · 6 years ago

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THE WALL GAME

WF THOUGHTS (1/8/19).

The shutdown continues. We're at Day 18. Crazy. Stupid. Embarrassing. The greatest country in the world should never be shutdown.

In the last post, we reviewed the legislative chronology that led to the shutdown. Today, let's focus on the real life issues that led us to this shameful place. What's really going on here? What's the fight really about?

Let me start by listing two things the the fight is NOT about:

1. The fight is NOT about the $5.6 billion.

2. The fight is NOT about fixing a national security problem or any crisis at the Mexican border.

This is not a money fight. In the context of overall federal spending, $5.6 Billion is peanuts. It is about one-tenth of one percent (.1%) of the federal budget. Shutdowns do not occur because there is a fight about chump change. This fight is about something else. It is not about the money. (For added context, consider that over the next 50 years we'll be paying $857 Billion to partially upgrade just one unit of our fighter jet fleet. That's meaningful money.)

For decades, knowledgeable experts have been discussing issues related to our immigration and border security problems. The issues are complicated and multi-layered. It takes focus, and a brain, to understand the issues. No credible expert has ever suggested that a massive wall, somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 miles long (Trump has never provided the details), is part of the solution. No serious expert thinks that such a wall should be built. Everybody knows that the Wall will never be built. The Wall is a nothing.

If the shutdown is not about money or about seriously addressing immigration/border issues, what is it about? I'll tell you. It's a sad story.

If we didn't have a Wall issue, the funding package would be law and we wouldn't have a shutdown. Why do we suddenly have a Wall issue in 2019? We've been a country since 1776. We've had a border with Mexico for a very, very long time. Why didn't we have a Wall issue with Reagan, H.W. Bush, or W. Bush? Why has a non-issue suddenly become the issue in the White House?

The answer is that the White House is now occupied by the least qualified and most immature president of all time. The Wall issue is nothing more that a Trump campaign slogan that got out of control. As the campaign unfolded, some experts tried to teach Trump the intricacies of immigration and border security. It was too complicated for Trump to handle. Trump would stop the lessons and shout: "Build A Wall." One day at a rally, Trump shouted "Build A Wall!" The folks in the crowd, also ignorant about the complexities of the subject matter, took up the chant: "Build A Wall, Build A Wall." Trump loved the adulation from the crowd. He played the Wall "game" at every rally. The crowds screamed even louder when Trump added another crazy idea: "And Mexico Will Pay For It."

Sadly, that's how we got into this mess. The Wall has nothing to do with smart policy or smart thinking. Verbal bumper stickers never have anything to do with real issues. We've been hijacked by a dopey campaign slogan.

Why don't the Democrats just end the stalemate and give Trump the piddling $5.6 Billion to start a Wall? That's a valid question. Some argue that the Democrats are making a mountain out of this molehill. Thoughtful Democrats would say that they must hold their ground, and oppose government-by-bumpersticker, because:

1. It's wasteful to spend $5.6 Billion on this. The Wall will never be built. The whole project will cost about $100 Billion, and that's never going to happen. Spending $5.6 Billion is like pouring money down a drain. That money could provide Medicaid for 1.4 million people, increase public school funding by 30%, or double federal funding for substance abuse and mental health.

2. If we start funding the Wall project, this issue will never go away. More funding requests, and more Trump games, will follow.

3. Most importantly, building walls around our borders would violate basic American values and principles. We are not a country of walls. America has historically welcomed people from all over the world. America has historically been a place of refuge for those seeking a better life. We need to improve our border security, and we need to improve our immigration system, but building walls should not be part of that process. We are Americans! We lead the world! We don't hide behind walls.

The stalemate continues. Throughout 2017 and 2018, for 2 full years, the Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House. Despite all that Republican power, Trump couldn't get a penny for his Wall. Why? The vast majority of Republicans know that it is a dumb idea that was born as a chant at a political rally. That's why, right before Christmas, the Republican controlled Senate passed a funding package that excluded the Wall. The new House, controlled by Democrats, has now passed the package created by the Republicans in the Senate. The problem is we have a third grader in the White House, and he's using his potential veto power to act like a King. He wants a Wall around his kingdom. Sooner or later, the forces of democracy will end the stalemate. This King is in trouble on many fronts. Kings don't win battles in America.

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