#Gold≠Silver≠France≠Paris

[blkmagicwoahman]

Simone Biles 🇺🇲

59.131 🥇

Rebeca Andrade 🇧🇷

57.932 🥈

Sunisa Lee 🇺🇸

56.465 🥉

Top 3 Champs of the 2024 Olympic Gymnastics Women's All-Around

[doublescribble]

Victor Wembanyama and Stephen Curry 2024 Paris Olympics

[wardrobeoftime]

Outlander + Costumes

Charles Edward Stuart’s golden suit, silver & golden vest and white necktie in Season 02, Episode 05.

// requested by anonymous

[voxpeople]

Returning USA Athletes Accused of Painting Medals Gold

American athletes who won medals for the USA at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games have been accused of painting lesser medals gold.

Suspicions were aroused when no American athletes returning from Paris were seen with a silver or bronze medal.

This may call into question the USA's place on the final medal table, where they finished first, and included high-profile victories for 100-metre champion Noah Lyles and LeBron James, captain of "The Team that Won a Gold Medal."

[7itch0zero]

[timmurleyart]

Paris Olympics 2024. 🇫🇷

[evilhorse]

Sacre Bleu! Ze world is fini!

(Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #10)

[alwayswonderingandwandering]

bust

[brasildaily]

Gold medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, silver medalist Simone Biles of United States and bronze medalist Jordan Chiles of United States celebrate on the podium at the Artistic Gymnastics Women's Floor Exercise Medal Ceremony on day ten of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on August 05, 2024 in Paris, France.

[agoodflyting]

Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)

A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)

I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.

HISTORY LESSON If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.

The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)

In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.

This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.

If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.

Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:

Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy

Having a noble title

Having expensive things

Wearing expensive, luxurious clothes (*cough* AZIRAPHALE)

helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above

a working-class person saying you were mean to them once

And then there's this bitch...

I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:

How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...

First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.

Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.

First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.

His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.

He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.

We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.

He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.

He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:

A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.

And then there are his shoes.

Oh god his shoes

I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.

Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.

So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.

The Affair of the Brioches

So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...

It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."

While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.

Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.

So let us recap.

Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche. How I imagine everyone looked at him:

It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.

I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.

I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.

YES YOU REALLY SHOULD SIR.

[memories-of-ancients]

Gold and silver sword pommel discovered in the Seine River near Paris, France, 9th-10th century

from The British Museum

[chic-a-gigot]

L'Art et la mode, no. 45, vol. 38, 10 novembre 1917, Paris. A la comédie-française: L'Autre Danger. Dessin de Meignoz. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Mme Bartet.

Robe en mousseline blanche sur fond de satin rose, garnie de broderie d'argent.

White muslin dress on a pink satin background, trimmed with silver embroidery.

—

Mlle Robinne.

Robe en satin "vert Empire", brodée "argent"; tunique de tulle "vert Empire"; roses rouges et girandole de perles sur les bras.

"Empire green" satin dress, embroidered "silver"; "Empire green" tulle tunic; red roses and pearl garland on the arms.

—

Mlle Maille.

Robe en satin "rose ancien", garnie de broderie "vieux rouge" et "or".

“Old pink” satin dress, trimmed with ���old red” and “gold” embroidery.

[doublescribble]

Breanna Stewart and Gabby Williams 2024 Paris Olympics

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Texas - Summer Son 1999

Texas is a Scottish rockband from Glasgow, founded in 1986 by Johnny McElhone, Ally McErlaine, and Sharleen Spiteri. They took their name from the 1984 Wim Wenders movie Paris, Texas.

The Hush is their fifth album. Released in May 1999, the album debuted at number one in the UK and spent a total of 43 weeks on the UK Albums Chart. It has been certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry.

"Summer Son" was released as the second single from The Hush. It peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart. In mainland Europe, "Summer Son" became one of the band's biggest hits, reaching the top five in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland, and Wallonia. It has received gold certifications in Belgium and Germany and a silver certification in the UK.

"Summer Son" received a total of 66% yes votes!

[the-cimmerians]

Queer and trans folk around the world often take an interest in the athletes from our community, and Outsports even collects a database of all the the out LGBTQ competitors. While JK Rowling and 99 percent of conservative media were harassing two cis women boxers, 195 QT athletes represented 26 nations and none, but we’ll get to that. That makes this the queerest Olympics ever, beating out the total of 186 out athletes in Tokyo and, if Queer Nation granted citizenships, would be the 14th largest national contingent at the games. That hypothetical Queer Nation would also have placed sixth in the medal count, tying the Netherlands with 15 golds but falling neatly between the Dutch and host country France on the strength of silvers and bronzes.

One happy bit of news is that in both golds and overall medal count, Queer Nation beat out every single country in the world that criminalizes same-sex boinking. The only bad news seems to be that people competing in the men’s events seem a little underqueered compared to the women. Can’t we at least get a few interested in the Greco-Roman wrestling? Yr Wonkette is just asking.

...

Sure, justice in silver and gold for badass bisexual Black woman Sha’Carri Richardson, excluded from Tokyo on the basis of smoking legal weed in Eugene, Oregon, was as sweet as sativa; it was fun to see Diana Taurasi go out on the queer top with her sixth Olympic gold in a row (team USA’s eighth consecutive women’s basketball gold); and seeing the shoulders on those women rugby players was a dream come true. But we want to speak about someone who didn’t represent any country at all: Cindy Ngamba.

Ngamba is a middleweight (75kg) boxer originally from Cameroon. At 11 years old some family members fled to the United Kingdom as refugees, and brought Ngamba along. The family maintains it had the proper approval for Cindy, but that when her uncle returned to Cameroon it was lost. The UK Home Office has been threatening to deport her since the age of 16, when she was accepted to university and realized she couldn’t produce her visa for her college paperwork.

Despite the threats, Ngamba fought and won many times in the UK’s amateur boxing competitions, having started as a hobbyist in the local Bolton Lads and Girls Club program. She also went on to get an undergraduate degree with honors, all while threats of deportation hung over her head. After winning a UK national championship, she met then-PM Theresa May celebrating her win and the efforts of the Lads & Girls Club where she trained. One might think that the UK might eventually forgive an 11-year-old girl for not keeping track of her paperwork herself, but the Home Office has remained resolute denying Ngamba regularized status.

What makes all this both horrifyingly inhumane and also relevant to this article is that Ngamba is an out lesbian. She has been consistently denied a path to citizenship or even legal residency, only escaping deportation because of her ability to document horror after horror inflicted on queer residents of Cameroon. International law prohibits sending a refugee back to their nation of citizenship or previous residence if they would face persecution and risk of great harm, a crime called “refoulement.”

“If I was sent back, I can be in danger,” Ngamba said. “So, I was given the refugee status to be safe and protected."

Unable to represent the UK and unable to compete in qualifying competitions in Cameroon, Ngamba got an opportunity that no other stateless athlete had ever shared before 2016: she was named to the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. So far that team has only been allowed to compete in the summer games, and only in Rio, Tokyo, and this year in Paris. (They will be allowed to compete in the Winter Games for the first time in 2026.) Given the incredible barriers most refugees face, it is perhaps not surprising that no Refugee Team member has ever won a medal. But while Ngamba has faced incredible legal problems and a ruthlessly anti-immigrant government her entire time in the UK, she at least had better training facilities in her local Lads & Girls than most refugees can dream.

And the dreams paid off. Team Refugee got its first medal ever when Ngamba took home middleweight bronze. "I just want to tell every refugee out there, whether they are an athlete or not, to never give up,” she said after being asked to carry the Olympic flag at the opening of the games. When she won, the whole refugee team took to the internet to celebrate:

“The Refugee Olympic Team is incredibly proud of Cindy Ngamba, the first EOR athlete and the first-ever refugee medallist at the Olympics,” the team posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Today, we are speechless. Cindy did it. Refugees did it!”

Yes, yes you did.

[edenfenixblogs]

Me: I think I’ll catch up on the Olympics. I’m a former gymnast who loves gymnastics. Let’s see what’s going on there!

Me: Awesome! Way to go team USA and Simone Biles! What an achievement! I’m so proud of them. How cool that two women of color from the USA take gold and silver in the individual all-arounds! And Simone got a record breaking number of awards Olympic medals and took gold at age 27!!!! That’s unheard of in gymnastics!!!!

Olympic YouTube Video: Here is cool stuff about Team USA and Brazil.

Me: this is a hard time for Israelis. I’m so glad we have these Olympic Games—an event specifically about putting aside politics and celebrating individual humans regardless of where they’re from. I think I’ll do a quick search to see if any Israelis are competing in any televised events this time! It’ll be nice to see some apolitical stuff about Israel. I love that Brazil placed, too. And team USA was cheering them on! What good sportsmanship!

YouTube Search Result Video 1: Israelis play SOCCER??? In France???? When GAZA IS GETTING BOMBED???? Sounds like Jews love the GENOCIDE-lympics am I right????

Me: …um. Did you want the athletes in Israel instead? Actively involved in the bombing you said you don’t like? Isn’t it good that young, talented people are here in Paris using their strength and talent for something other than war???

YouTube Search Result Video 2: This is a news report about Houthis threatening to attack Israelis as the Olympics and Israeli olympians needing increased security. Some have had their data breached and also faced threats from Iran.

Me: This is definitely normal and not at all a terrifying memory of the time a bunch of Jews were attacked at a previous Olympic Games.

YouTube Search Result Video 3: Israeli athletes report feeling isolated and threatened at Olympics to the point that they require 24h security.

Me: EverythingIsFine.jpg

Youtube Search Result Video 4: Israelis booed at their soccer game. Protestors shout “Heil Hitler!”

Me: Hmmm, something about the fucking HITLER part makes me think that perhaps this is less about supporting Palestine and more about hating Jews.

YouTube Search Result Video 5: Algerian Olympian refuses to compete against Israeli Olympian in Judo.

Me: …so…he gave Israel the victory in that event? In protest of…Israel? Placing him on the podium? With a bronze medal? After waiting his whole life to be in the Olympics? …that sure will show him…something?

Official Olympics YouTube Channel: There is no war in Ba Sing Se, and I have never heard of this place you call Israel.

Me: (heavy sigh) of course not

Official NBC Sports YouTube Channel: umm???? Israel. Israel? Israel you say? Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell. Are you sure they make athletes there?

Me: Yes.

NBC Sports: Did you mean you want to see Simone Biles?

Me: No, I saw Simone Biles already.

NBC: How about Suni—

Me: Let’s assume I’ve seen all of team USA gymnastics.

NBC: Katie Led—

Me: No, that’s US swimming. Which is very cool. But I have run a search for Israeli Olympians please.

NBC: Ugh. Fine. Best I can do is a video of Qatar winning at volleyball. That feels related to Israel, right?

Me: Not…really what I was going for. But thanks, I guess.