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randombush3 · 7 months ago

Text

a sense of coming home

ona batlle x reader

summary: part two of this! ona and you are (frustratingly) still just friends

words: 6.5k (i have NO idea why i waffle so much but lets pls allow it)

warnings: there's like five secs of smut at the end

notes: this has been the most self-indulgent fic i've written because this is how i met my gf and so i am glad to show you a nice happy ending

again, the quote is from 'this side of paradise' (said gf's fav book - i don't recommend however because the protagonist is a twat)

also i didn't proofread bc i am exhausted and i am hungover and i am very ready to go to sleep (#globetrotting is not for the weak) x

There is something difficult about forcing oneself back to their toxic roots. Ona discovers as such as she presses her body into a temple of meaningless sex, but she does so because she is a driven person. Ona is determined to get over you, once and for all, except she’d quite like to stay friends (hence why she agreed when asked). She also thinks it would expose her to fall out because her feelings shouldn’t have existed anyway, so she technically shouldn’t be heartbroken?

Anyway, Ona rampages through Manchester! They appreciate her accent – some even ask her to speak to them in Spanish when she is three fingers deep inside of them, to which she obliges with little fanfare – and it isn’t like the city lacks queer women. It is a super solid way to keep her busy, to tear her attention from hungrily checking your Instagram whenever possible.

It’s also what lands her with coronavirus. She’s embarrassed to admit just how many people she has come into contact with when the club doctors ask her questions over the phone.

You send her a lovely message after hearing she is yet another fallen soldier.

Ona is at home, isolating, and you are apparently trapped in Spain, unable to get into Italy. You haven’t quite made it to your parents’ house since your flight was supposed to depart from Madrid. “How come you’re not on the phone to one of your ‘connections’?” Ona asks suspiciously, wondering why this call has lasted longer than ten minutes. “Surely someone knows someone else and they can get you back home.”

“I’m hardly out of my depth in my own country,” you remind her with a twinging sigh, pained that she has suppressed all memories of your childhood. “It’s not like I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Didn’t you get rid of it in your head to make space for Italian and English? Oh, and French too, right? That’s where the fashion weeks are.”

You laugh at her pride for knowing something about your job, but it is not to ridicule her. “I am speaking to you, aren’t I?”

“In Catalan,” she points out. “Forget Spanish, but don’t forget Catalan.”

“I can’t. It’s the language everyone uses to tell me about how fucked you’ve been lately.” You take in a deep breath, uncomfortable with Ona’s silence but knowing your piece needs to be said. “Are you aware of what happened a few months ago? Why I missed the wedding?” One of your friends met her dream man and he whisked her off to Menorca for a small ceremony. Only the people she loved the most were invited, which included your childhood friend group. “We were in New York, a whole bunch of us. It was late but the show had been a big deal so we went out to celebrate, and… these ‘friends’, these people, they aren’t the same as you and me. Most of them are English, you know, and they come from very fancy schools where addiction is normal. Two of them ended up in the hospital that night – the bag hadn’t even made it round to me by the time they’d dropped. I know it seems far-fetched, but all I’m trying to say is that addiction has consequences. Bad consequences.”

“So you’re not on my side?” Ona isn’t taking this too seriously. A few people have joked about her questionable new hobby, but no one has made it seem so dire that they have needed to get you involved. You who, of course, Ona will listen to.

“I am always on your side.”

That is her main take-away from the conversation, Ona chooses, when it ends an hour later. She swoons, meaning the last twenty women have been a waste of time, but she also tortures herself into ignoring the potential problem. Being a sex addict would be embarrassing, so she won’t be.

Though your subtle shaming for her abundance of quick-fix flings is hypocritical, Ona would also hate for you to see her that way. You can avoid commitment all you like, but she is determined to be different to prove to you that she is a viable candidate, should you wish to stop stringing her along. It’s probably toxic; it probably means that you are both clinging onto a friendship that should either end or be labelled something else. It probably is the push and pull that has kept you interested, Ona thinks, because she knows that you like the chase.

However, as much as she’d like to be freed of whatever game she is caught up in, she can’t seem to let you go like that.

…

The next time Ona and you have a proper conversation about something other than how your love lives have been stunted or how people back home are not as successful as the two of you is when most of the restrictions have been lifted.

You waited out the pandemic in Vilassar de Mar, much to your annoyance, but now that you can travel again, the first person on your mind to visit is your childhood best friend. You’re not as close as you used to be, having drifted further during even more years apart, but it does not dull your love for her, nor hers for you.

Ona has changed her mind about Manchester and is forcing herself to like it. It works enough for a visit from you to be the last thing on her mind, and so she slows her response time down until the next arranged date to see each other in person is all set for the summer before the Euros in England.

You’re not quite home but you are in the country, and, with the pre-Euros camp in two days, Ona is spending the final few hours of calm left before the storm in the comforting presence of her mum and dad.

And… you, apparently.

“You weren’t supposed to be here yet,” is Ona’s greeting when she opens the front door.

Your smile is wide and genuine, and you are holding a gift bag in one hand. There is a nice bottle of wine in the other. “Not even an ‘hola’?” When no reply comes, you swallow the emotions that have arisen; the ones that are maybe, just a little bit to do with how soft Ona looks with her hair down. And the slope of her jaw. And the ghosts of defined biceps that bulge even when she isn’t flexing her arms. “I’m dropping by to see your parents. I thought you were in Barcelona with your footballer friends.”

“You visit my parents?” asks Ona curiously.

“Of course.”

With that, you side-step her and call out to her mother, announcing both your arrival and your desire to hand them their gifts. Dinner is just about to be served, and Ona is soon tasked with setting another place at the table for you as though the last ten years had never happened and your friendship hadn’t lost its innocence.

Maybe it would be better for Ona to not know what it feels like to kiss you, to touch you, to – dare she think it – love you. It would certainly make things less painful, and would have saved her from catching at least one illness and spending a good amount of money on Ubers to escape from random apartments. It would make it easier to listen to you talk about your life in Milan, where you seem to exist in a bubble of incredibly attractive people who are desperate to hold hands and form a raft.

“Modelling can be brutal,” you agree, nodding at Ona’s father as you follow on from his concerns about your career. He voices them regularly; whenever you see him. Ona realises you have spent a lot of time with her parents without her. “It gets quite competitive between the girls so I’ve been somewhat avoiding them. They’ve brought in someone new, scouted from Germany, I think, and I’m a little worried that I’ll have to switch agencies if they start prioritising her.” You glance at Ona, wanting to know if she is listening, hoping she is. You wish that she were as good at suppressing her feelings as you are. You wish she didn’t look at you like you hung the moon, because you know that you have to tell her you have hung it for someone else. “I’d move tomorrow, to be honest, but I’ve started seeing this guy and he’s convincing me to stay in Milan.”

“The minute he is your boyfriend, you bring him here,” commands Ona’s mother in a tone she hasn’t yet used on her actual daughter (said daughter has never mentioned anyone before). “Show us a picture of him! Is he a model like you?”

He is, and if Ona holds her fork tighter after she sees the photo you pull up, that is her business. You secretly take in her clenched jaw and furrowed eyebrows, and this might be the worst thing you have ever had to do. To see her so defeated, so hopeless, is upsetting, especially since you are harbouring the same feelings. However, you are able to admit when it is time to throw the towel in, and you can no longer live like this.

Ona is too perfect for you. She is driven, hard-working, and funny. She likes to nutmeg little children on the street, and she likes to buy them an ice-cream if they slip a goal past her, slotting the flat footballs into imaginary nets and celebrating as though they have just won the Champions League. She knows a lot, more than she thinks she does. She cares about people, but sometimes it manifests in anger, in frustration.

Any aspect of her is an aspect that you could love, and that is reason enough not to. Because how can you allow yourself to taint such perfection?

But, in this unspoken rejection, the compliment is obscured from the recipient’s view. All Ona sees when you gush about how he buys you flowers and takes you out to dinner, is a burning, bright question. It flashes red and yellow, both as a warning and cry for attention. How can she compete if you don’t even recognise her as a competitor?

…

“--And then they proceeded to finish a film they were halfway through as if it were the most normal thing ever,” Ona rants the minute she hits the concrete of Las Rozas, walking into the facility with Aitana and the other girls who travelled with her from Barcelona. Only the midfielder has been gracious enough to listen to the entire monologue, but the others joke that that is because Ona’s emotional state has led her to spiral in her native language. It is forbidden for them to openly speak Catalan in the Spanish camp, according to Jorge Vilda, who loves to hurl a ‘we can send you back to where you came from in an instant’ their way if he so much as hears a ‘bon dia’. Naturally, Aitana doesn’t give a fuck about the rule, although Ona chooses to believe that she is listening because she cares.

“Are you done?” Aitana asks thoughtfully, sucking on her bottom lip as she tries to absorb her friend’s crisis and formulate a valid, sensible response. The two have known each other for a while now, and Aitana remembers a time when Ona was relentlessly teased by their older teammates for being in love with her best friend. It is clear to her that those feelings never ceased, though she has heard through the grapevine (Leila Ouahabi) that you are now a model and you live somewhere in Italy. You’re part Italian, is what Leila also claims, having professed your ethnicity to a small huddle of fellow gossipers one day in the gym at the Barça training facility.

“No! Nothing is ever done with her. It’s viscous and it continues in a horrid cycle that has me flapping around in circles like some idiot. I am one of her boys.” Ona groans dramatically, the sound perhaps a little too loud. A few of the girls in front of them turn around to see why a cat seems to have been strangled, but they quickly lose interest when they see it is just Ona and her disastrous situation. “Do you know how fucking humiliating it is to be one of her guys? I am a professional footballer! I play for Manchester United, one of the most historic clubs in the world, and I am about to represent my country in a major tournament. I am successful, Aita, and yet I am still not enough for her.”

“Maybe she only likes men.”

“A man has never made her scream like I have,” she bites back. Aitana blushes, but Ona is too far gone in her rage to hear her crudeness nor preserve her friend’s sanity. “She’s been like this since she decided she was gay! Isn’t that hilarious? ‘Ona, I think I’m gay’, she said. I know lesbian breakups can be hard, but there is no way my cousin fucked her up to this extent.”

“I can’t help you with this, Oni,” Aitana laments, sorry to have to confess this to her friend. “I think you need to talk to her about it. A proper conversation to fix long-term issues, not like the ones you obviously had when agreeing to stop having sex and things like that. Only she knows what she’s thinking.” It is definitely not the advice Ona wants to hear, but she cannot deny the midfielder’s wisdom. “But for now, we focus on winning.”

…

You are more than a little confused.

To start from the beginning, Ona’s cousin fucked you up. She broke your heart, and that first impression of dating girls was incredibly traumatising. With girls, you don’t just kiss and sleep with them, you get close – really close – and then when you break up, it is like you have lost both a girlfriend and a best friend.

Men are a lot simpler. Men like you and they aren’t shy about it. They can sometimes be just as cruel, but you have never felt invested enough to care too much.

Some nights, you don’t fall asleep, tossing and turning between your sexual identity, aware that you don’t need to label it but desperate to… discover yourself. If you don’t understand that part of you, how will someone else? How can you be loved? How do you even know who you want to love you?

For as much as Milan is great, it definitely doesn’t help you with your crisis. Girls in Milan like to do what they want. It is not uncommon for the models to kiss each other in clubs, in front of appreciative male gazes or not, and then reveal their engagement to their future husband the very next day. It’s easy to be drawn into such a bubble, but the minute you step out of it, you are hit with the real world.

It’s what makes the pandemic so distressing for you personally, because you are forced to live like normal people for some time. Your eyes are held open and the question is shoved down your throat, and it really doesn’t help that Ona’s cousin never moved out of Vilassar de Mar.

She sees you one day, saying hello from a suitable distance as you pick up milk as per your mother’s request. “I heard you’re modelling?” she asks with no agenda, no seductive glint in her eye. You notice the ring on her finger, and she feels the heaviness of your staring. “Oh, I got married a year ago. Did Ona not tell you?”

You realise that you and Ona try to avoid talking about anything other than the love interests you have. “No, she didn’t. Congratulations, though. She’s a lucky woman.”

“You don’t have to pretend you’re happy for me,” laughs the woman opposite you, amused and somewhat apologetic. “Look, I’m really sorry for how I acted when we were younger. I was definitely not the most mature person out there, and I know I hurt you.”

“I cried for months.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. You suck in a deep breath, trying to hold the memories of your pain at bay. “The first breakup is usually the worst but at least it gets better, as you probably know.”

She looks at you expectantly, awaiting your confirmation. It never comes.

“I haven’t dated another girl since,” you tell her, sounding rather detached from yourself.

Her eyebrows furrow and she is clearly frowning behind her facemask. “What about Ona? I thought you were together when you lived in Madrid. It takes more than a friendship to do what you did.”

You were originally going to go to university in England. It was your dream, and Ona wasn’t entirely aware of the situation because you hadn’t wanted to tell her you were leaving. Then she was sent out on a professional contract to Madrid, and it wasn’t like you were the only one leaving.

Ona’s cousin, years ago, had suggested that you go to Madrid if you wanted to get away from Vilassar de Mar. “You’ll be close enough to come home when you’d like, but not so close that you’ll feel as though nothing has changed,” she had said.

No one had known about your offers in England aside from your parents. And Ona’s cousin, who’d only found out because you had called her, drunk on celebratory champagne, because you had to tell someone.

“You gave up a dream for her because you didn’t want her to be alone.”

“I moved to Milan. In the end, she was alone.”

“You sound like you regret it,” she replies, nodding once at you to bid you farewell and then heading over to a woman who is standing with a puppy in her arms. You watch as she pulls down her mask and kisses her wife, her eyes shining with love and happiness, and your blood runs green with jealousy.

You hate Ona’s cousin for devastating you once more.

Do you regret it?

It’s unclear.

You try to make sense of it when you don’t hesitate to fly back to Italy the minute you can, going home to lick your wounds at Ona’s non-committal response to meeting you when you are in London the next month. It hurts that she is no longer at your beck-and-call, but you are somewhat happy for her. You know that lines have been crossed and that she has suffered for it. You know that you are probably the one at fault here.

This time in Milan, you don’t fight it as much. You kiss other girls and let them go home to their boyfriends; you submit to the thing you had convinced yourself you would never become.

As you drive yourself deeper and deeper into your stereotype, the thought of Ona gets pushed away and newer, more culturally-acceptable fantasies come to mind.

It takes a photoshoot for him to ask you out on a date.

It takes returning home and gaining the approval of Ona’s parents (who are far more open than your own) for you to agree to be official.

You don’t ask Ona what she thinks. She’s busy, you reason, because she is representing Spain at the Euros. She won’t care who you are dating and she certainly doesn’t need it rubbed in her face.

There are many reasons why you go out with him.

One is that you do like him; he’s nice, he’s funny, he treats you well. (He’s not Ona.) Another is that rent is going up and him sharing the load is helpful. (He’s not Ona.) There is also that he is very popular within the agency, and your chemistry on camera is enough to keep your jobs rolling in and casting directors satisfied.

He’s not Ona. You know that.

That's the whole point.

If he were Ona, you’d be deeply in love with him. If he were Ona, you would never leave the house, never leave his embrace, never leave the little bubble created when it is just the two of you and no one else. If he were Ona, you would be excited about the conversations he gently guides you into; marriage, children, where you are going to live one day. You’d miss him more when he isn’t here. You’d care.

But you just… don’t.

Another year passes, more Ona-less than the last, and then she is suddenly coming back home to Barcelona, a medal around her neck and word of a relationship floating above her head.

You could ask her about it if you wanted to because she is still one of your closest friends, but the truth is, you really, desperately don’t want to hear it. While Ona has been falling in love with someone else, you have been proving your stupid feelings to yourself.

The act (your current relationship) lowers enough for you to go home for Christmas. You leave Milan as though fleeing from a hurricane, and you refuse to control the damage until you have entered the new year. Your parents aren’t entirely sure they want you moping about the house, confused how someone so successful can revert to a moody teenager the minute they are back in safe territory, and they heavily encourage you to accept an invite that was extended out to you a few months ago.

Your friends are going skiing in Andorra, and they’d like for you to come with them.

“Ona won’t be there,” one of them regretfully informs you. “She said she doesn’t want to make things weird. She has a girlfriend – or, I don’t know, a talking stage. She wants you to have fun.”

“But Ona and I are friends,” you try to explain, feeling exposed by the look of pity she gives you; the same look someone receives when they find out their ex has gotten married or something similar. As a defensive mechanism, you hastily pull out your phone and dial her number. Everyone watches you, now uninterested in their food as you dine and plan your holiday.

Ona picks up on the third ring, escaping her dinner with Lucy and rushing into the cool, nighttime air of Barcelona.

“Hi?” she says – asks – with raised eyebrows, wondering if you’re in danger.

“You’re coming skiing with us, aren’t you?”

Your friends hide their laughs behind their hands, surprised by how firm your tone is. You do not need it for Ona, because she does anything you say regardless, but they enjoy seeing this side of you. This is someone who has had to fend for herself in a foreign country.

Removing the phone from her ear for a moment, Ona sighs, disappointed in herself.

“Yeah, of course. I’ve missed you, you know.”

…

Skiing is not something Ona is really allowed to do. As a footballer, her legs are what pay her wage. Career-destroying planks of metal are not the best way to spend the dying embers of the year. She knows that. She does, she swears, but she is so eager to go that Jonatan cannot crush her dreams. He tells her, “if you get injured your contract will be reviewed, Ona Batlle,” and she promises him that it won’t happen. Nothing bad is going to happen.

It will be the first time she has spent more than a day with her childhood friends, and she is unbelievably excited.

Lucy finds it adorable and makes it known, helping her pack for her trip, versed in what to bring because her sister skis or something like that (Ona can’t really focus on her almost-girlfriend's monologue). Lucy likes Ona a lot, and it makes her stomach flutter when she thinks about Ona and her friends talking about them. She’s sure her feelings are reciprocated, and she cannot wait for Ona to return to her in the new year, all smiles and lingering hangovers, and ask her to be her girlfriend. Officially.

Your friends convene in the centre of Vilassar de Mar with two cars between you. There are ten people coming.

Someone, most-likely trying to keep the peace, instructs Ona into one vehicle and you into the other. The drive isn’t too long, but you suppose that the tension is uncomfortable for those who aren’t accustomed to maintaining a friendship despite the weight of it.

It’s five days, and you are determined to have fun.

Ona is naturally good at this, although she claims it is her first time. You, living in Milan, are just as advanced.

By the third day, the both of you agree that going off together to do some of the harder runs will be harmless. Spending the day together won’t feel like a date or a romantic holiday. Watching Ona glide over the compacted snow won’t be attractive, watching her cocky smirk as she scales the bumps along the side of the piste won’t do anything.

It won’t. (It does.)

And it just has to be the third day that someone pulls out two bottles of tequila and a drinking game that is going to ensure every single one of you is off your face by midnight.

In rooms opposite one another, you and Ona call your respective partners and tell them about how great a time you are having, actively avoiding telling them about who you spent the day with as though it counts as cheating. It doesn’t, technically. Nothing has happened. But, still, it feels intimate and secret; forbidden.

Then, there is a shout that rings through the house. Everyone comes to the table; the party has begun.

Ona finds out that she is absolutely terrible at drinking games, and loses in every way possible.

You find out that she is still just as touchy when she is drunk.

Your friends try not to comment on it, all having agreed upon yet another passive role in such an irritating situation. Their non-interference almost ceases by the time Ona climbs onto your lap, head turning as she whispers something into your drunk ears, making you laugh privately. In fact, someone has to hold someone else back before they shout at the two of you to make out or break up.

But it’s not really necessary, their prompting, because it hits a certain hour and… nothing else matters anymore.

Ona has been touching you the whole night and you have finally reached your limit.

Boyfriend be damned, you lead her to your bedroom.

She asks you many times if you still want this, and you cannot think of anything to say other than ‘yes’.

You’re not as drunk as she is, and you both know that, but everything feels so perfect and right.

When you wake up the next morning, your anger is more at yourself than the sleeping woman beside you, but she is an outward target for such a boiling emotion and it just makes things easier.

“Ona.” You shake her awake, not caring for her hangover. “Ona, I can’t believe we’ve done this.” She rubs her eyes, dazed and confused for a moment but coming to her senses soon enough. “I have a boyfriend, Ona, and… I don’t like you like that.”

It’s not true.

It’s really, really, really not true, but the fact that you have said it is enough for Ona to leave your room with the intention of never seeing you again.

She gets the train back to Barcelona, turning up at Lucy’s flat in floods of tears, and barrels straight into those strong arms with the intention of never mentioning what she has done.

…

You break up with your boyfriend a month later. Or rather, he breaks up with you, tired of being messed around, tired of your hesitation to fully commit.

The break-up is not the most upsetting thing you’ve been through, but your ego is a little bruised.

You try to make it look like you are having a great time in Milan, even though the agency has once again discarded your file and overlooked you for shoots you used to book in an instant. You try to seem like things aren’t falling apart, but it’s of no use when your father calls you and tells you that your mother is ill.

It isn’t cancer but it’s similar, and you know that you need to come home.

You pack your bags and leave without a second thought, because maybe Madrid was far enough. Maybe there is a reason Ona signed for her home club again and most of your friends still live relatively close to their parents.

Maybe you are not meant to be separated from those you love, because running away is futile if you are always going to end up together again.

In Barcelona, a modelling agency eagerly draws up a contract with you. Although you are from there, your career being based in Milan previously creates an international allure about you (or so they say), and you are assured that work is going to rush towards you as though someone has just knocked down a dam.

Your job is secured, your mother begins treatment, but there is something you cannot shake off.

It hurts to think of Ona, to think of how you left things, but it helps, too. Seeing her face in your mind is comforting. You hear her voice as you drift off to sleep, and you let it soothe you in your dreams.

“Ona has a girlfriend,” her mother tells you when you next visit them. Her frown is unexpected because all she has ever wanted is for her children to be happy and loved. “It’s not right, it doesn’t feel right.” You begin to shrug your shoulders and crawl into your shell, but she interrupts your thought process; “I think you should go see her.”

“Why?”

The woman rolls her eyes. “Just do what I say.”

You nod because she is so scarily sure about it, and you… It’s hard to believe, but you call Ona.

She picks up.

“I was sorry to hear about your mum.”

“Don’t worry. She’s fine.”

“Are you back at home?”

“Yeah, I am.” You pause. “Well, not quite. I’m living in Barcelona.”

Something fizzes in the air; pops, crackles.

“Need me to show you around the city?”

And it’s Ona, so how could you say no?

…

Your visit goes very well.

She takes you out to dinner and shows you around her neighbourhood. She introduces you when she runs into people she knows, and she is insistent about dragging you to her football match on the weekend.

Everything is seemingly forgiven and Ona is intent on integrating you back into her life.

She wants you to feel at home, though she knows you should already, and she wants to lessen the stress of hospital appointments and death and, if not death, then a difficult recovery.

You are sitting in her apartment – now devoid of all signs of Lucy – on her comfortable sofa, watching something together after a day of walking around and sealing up the cracks that formed in Andorra.

Sitting leads into cuddling and then into wandering hands that eagerly roam underneath layers of fabric.

Ona’s breath hitches as you brush the hard lines of her abs, your hands particularly drawn to them and just how strong she has become. “You must have only felt them on men,” she offers as an explanation. “How many have you slept with in comparison to–?”

And your hands stop.

“Sorry,” Ona mumbles, seemingly upset at her outburst. “I’m just curious. I can’t work you out.” She can’t quite look you in the eye, mainly due to the logistics of your position, but she isn’t sure she wants to see the truth attached to her statement.

You question if that’s a good thing, the fact she needs to ask; the fact that she has no choice but to communicate. It was going to happen sooner or later. “A few,” is what you settle on. Ona leaves it at that, carefully pulling the hair tie from your plait, unravelling it with one hand as the other rests against your stomach in an embrace. You smile. “You’re not going to ask who?”

Her fingers stop for a moment. “No.” She speaks so quietly, her voice almost a whisper in your ear. “I don’t care about them.” You relax into her more, feeling her against your back, feeling the softness of the blanket against your feet as it hangs at the edge of the sofa.

“Who do you care about, then?”

“You.”

Carefully, both her hands hold your hips and she sits you up, smiling as she does. You tell her she’s showing off, she replies that you are always showing off. To that, you brush those hands from your sides and lean down to kiss her, more decidedly for once; more in control. It’s a surprising feeling for both of you, the forcefulness. Urgency. Not unfamiliar, but unexpected for this time on this day.

The last time you kissed Ona, you had a boyfriend.

Your mouth goes to her neck as soon as she decides that she wants her hands back on your hips, pushing you down into her lap. It’s now a competition, you think. She’s quickly coming completely undone by your kissing and biting, but you are not ignoring the feeling as she makes you grind down, makes you need that friction. “Fuck,” you moan in her ear. She grips you tighter.

You start to pull off her shirt having had enough of the grey between you, asking if it’s okay, if she’s sure she isn’t too tired. Her reply is, “take it off, god,” and then the removal of your clothes that get thrown just shy of the wine glasses set out on her coffee table. Leggings aren’t the most practical for impromptu sex, but she’s quick and smooth and someone who has definitely done that before.

With your bare chest on display and almost nothing between Ona and you, she lifts you up for a moment with the intention of flipping the two of you, getting you on your back. You pause for a moment, trying to decide if she’s doing it because she wants to or because she thinks that’s the only way to do it, but her hands are moving now, up your sides, round the front of your chest and you relax. She laughs quietly, amused, because the tension dissipates, dissolving like sweet, sweet sugar in hot coffee as soon as your legs wrap around her back.

Ona asks before she does it, picking you up and laying you back down without needing to part her lips from your own. You watch her as she sits up, body in between your thighs. “You’re going to just stay there?” She shakes her head. “I can top,” you tease, a stark contrast from how it was the last time you did this. Ona doesn’t like being told she can’t do something. However indirectly.

“Yeah?” You nod, biting the smirk out of your lips. “I don’t care.”

You are in the process of rolling your eyes when her cocky mouth is put to good use. Your underwear was taken off at some point earlier — you hadn’t realised. Ona’s head moves between your legs, up and down, your hand that isn’t holding onto the sofa in her hair, the soft waves lacing between your fingers.

She’s good at it; thorough, practised. Her tongue circles your clit for a moment before dipping into your entrance. Something about the cockiness of her movements, her tongue, her hand rubbing between her own legs, makes everything more surreal, more blissful. She moans softly, lips kissing their way up your body, hands no longer focused on herself. Instead, they take the place of her mouth, two fingers inside you as quickly as it takes for her to ask if you are okay to carry on. Your reply (“yes”) is cut off quickly by her mouth on yours, tongue swiping at your bottom lip in another question of permission. You can taste yourself on her.

At her command, you sit up, letting her pull you back onto her lap as she sucks at your neck. “Don’t leave any marks,” you warn as her teeth pull a whimper from your supposed stoicness. “I don’t want the makeup artists asking questions.” It comes out too late, because you feel her teeth graze your collarbone quickly, not painful, no, but something that feels so, so good. “Ona.” She sighs in disappointment and adjusts where you are in her lap, so your legs are either side of her thigh.

You find yourself rocking slowly, letting her savour your breasts between her hands and her mouth. She whispers that she wants to see you come, that you don’t need to hold back – not with her, not ever – so you start grinding down, harder, faster. Her hands drop back to your hips, guiding your movements, forcing you to slow down when she feels everything building up. Each time, you let out a “fuck” and attempt to go against her grip to get that friction. “Not just yet,” she mutters, no longer touching you anywhere other than where her hands meet your hips and her thigh presses between your legs.

“Fuck off, Ona,” you breathe, frustrated. “When, then?”

She slows the pace even more. “Can you last a little longer?” You look at her face, brushing away the strands of hair that have fallen over her eyes, ghosting your fingers along her cheek, running your thumb along her lips. She smiles again, eyes creasing slightly.

As her hands drop to cup your face, you say, “you’re beautiful.”

Ona blushes.

You look down at her exposed cleavage, nipples pebbled against the sports bra that is unusually low-cut. It might border on intense staring as you begin to grind against her with the intention of actually getting off now. She laughs, saying her eyes are higher up than that, but going back to her trail of kisses along your jaw nevertheless.

For what seems like longer than a few seconds, the build up finally stops, the tower toppling over in a rush of pleasure. Ona’s hands move your hips as your head drops to rest on her shoulder. She talks you through it, telling you that you look so pretty, telling you that she’s so turned on.

And that’s when she whispers it.

It has taken years to get to this moment, many of them filled with unnecessary suffering.

It has taken years but it does not matter.

Ona tells you that she loves you and that is when you have finally come home.

#woso x reader #woso #randombush3 #barca femeni #woso imagines #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle #ona batlle smut

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tomorrowusa · 9 months ago

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Four years ago today (March 13th), then President Donald Trump got around to declaring a national state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration had been downplaying the danger to the United States for 51 days since the first US infection was confirmed on January 22nd.

From an ABC News article dated 25 February 2020...

CDC warns Americans of 'significant disruption' from coronavirus

Until now, health officials said they'd hoped to prevent community spread in the United States. But following community transmissions in Italy, Iran and South Korea, health officials believe the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a "significant disruption." This comes in contrast to statements from the Trump administration. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday the threat to the United States from coronavirus "remains low," despite the White House seeking $1.25 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange” Tuesday evening, "We have contained the virus very well here in the U.S." [ ... ] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the request "long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency." She also accused President Trump of leaving "critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant." "The president's most recent budget called for slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which is on the front lines of this emergency. And now, he is compounding our vulnerabilities by seeking to ransack funds still needed to keep Ebola in check," Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Our state and local governments need serious funding to be ready to respond effectively to any outbreak in the United States. The president should not be raiding money that Congress has appropriated for other life-or-death public health priorities." She added that lawmakers in the House of Representatives "will swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called the Trump administration's request "too little too late." "That President Trump is trying to steal funds dedicated to fight Ebola -- which is still considered an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- is indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren't taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be," Schumer said in a statement.

A reminder that Trump had been leaving many positions vacant – part of a Republican strategy to undermine the federal government.

Here's a picture from that ABC piece from a nearly empty restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. The screen displays a Trump tweet still downplaying COVID-19 with him seeming more concerned about the effect of the Dow Jones on his re-election bid.

People were not buying Trump's claims but they were buying PPE.

I took this picture at CVS on February 26th that year.

The stock market which Trump in his February tweet claimed looked "very good" was tanking on March 12th – the day before his state of emergency declaration.

Trump succeeded in sending the US economy into recession much faster than George W. Bush did at the end of his term – quite a feat!. (As an aside, every recession in the US since 1981 has been triggered by Republican presidents.)

Of course Trump never stopped trying to downplay the pandemic nor did he ever take responsibility for it. The US ended up with the highest per capita death rate of any technologically advanced country.

Precious time was lost while Trump dawdled. Orange on this map indicates COVID infections while red indicates COVID deaths. At the time Trump declared a state of emergency, the virus had already spread to 49 states.

The United States could have done far better and it certainly had the tools to do so.

The Obama administration had limited the number of US cases of Ebola to under one dozen during that pandemic in the 2010s. Based on their success, they compiled a guide on how the federal government could limit future pandemics.

Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm

Of course Trump ignored it.

Unlike those boxes of nuclear secrets in Trump's bathroom, the Obama pandemic limitation document is not classified. Anybody can read it – even if Trump didn't. This copy comes from the Stanford University Libraries.

TOWARDS EPIDEMIC PREDICTION: FEDERAL EFFORTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUTBREAK MODELING

Feel free to share this post with anybody who still feels nostalgic about the Trump White House years!

#covid-19 #coronavirus #pandemic #public health #donald trump #trump's incompetent response to the pandemic #covid state of emergency #2020 #trump recession #51 days of trump pandemic dawdling #obama pandemic playbook #2010s ebola outbreak #nostalgia for trump administration #republicans #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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Evidence is mounting that Europe’s far right will score better than ever before in the upcoming European Parliament elections on June 6 to June 9—and that the continent’s young voters will fuel its ascent. The young adults now gravitating to far right aren’t Nazis or xenophobic racists, but they may have a hand in an outcome that will, at the very least, shift the European Union’s priorities and accents to the right. A particularly solid right-wing finish—and cooperation across the hard-right spectrum—could rattle EU unity and throw a wrench into the bloc’s workings at a time when it is confronting acute crises on several fronts, not least the war in Ukraine.

Since new laws mean that even people under 18 will be eligible to vote in some countries—16-year-olds in Austria, Germany, Malta, and Belgium, and 17-year-olds in Greece—there had been hope that these new voters would put a brake on the populist surge engulfing Europe. The idea behind giving 16- and 17-year-olds the vote was partly based on their long-term investment in politics. The policies designed today will affect them for many decades, in contrast to their grandparents.

And in the 2019 European Parliament election, young voters showed great promise by turning out in record numbers, a hopeful sign that reflected their enthusiasm for the common European project. With the climate movement rocking the streets, their votes went disproportionately to green parties that championed strong climate protection and deeper EU integration—two sets of long-term interests. This landed green representatives from Portugal to Latvia in the Brussels parliament and prompted the EU administration to approve the European Green Deal in 2020.

But the democratic exuberance of voters in their late teens, 20s, and early 30s could boost a very different trend this June, as growing numbers of younger voters are siding with far-right populist parties—the very ones that want to scupper the Green Deal and rein in the EU. In recent national votes conducted in Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, and France, young people voted in unprecedented numbers for extreme nationalist and euroskeptic parties. (Though some observers have argued that reporting about these trends is incomplete or oversimplified.) And surveys in Germany show the youth vote becoming ever more sympathetic to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that has undergone a radicalization that makes it among Europe’s fiercest, hard-right electoral parties.

“There’s no doubt that these parties have been making inroads to younger voters,” said Catherine de Vries, a Dutch political scientist. “The parties don’t look so extreme anymore, as they’ve been around for a while now. And young people think that the mainstream parties have had their chance. The system still doesn’t work for them, so let the other guys have a try.”

A German study published this year by a team led by youth researcher Simon Schnetzer showed that a full 22 percent of the young people (in this case, ages 14 through 29) surveyed would vote for the AfD if German elections were held today—twice as many as just two years ago. The tally for the Green Party fell by a third during that time frame. A full quarter of those asked said they weren’t sure who’d they vote for—another all-time high result.

The grounds for the pronounced shift are vague: Researchers tend to cite a general unhappiness with the post-pandemic economic and political conditions. “It seems as if the coronavirus pandemic left [young people] irritated about our ability to cope with the future, which is reflected in deep insecurity,” wrote the study’s authors. The issues described by participants that most impact this insecurity included their personal finances, professional opportunities, the health sector, and social recognition. They expressed less concern about the climate crisis and more about inflation, the economy, and old-age poverty.

“We can speak of a clear shift to the right in the young population,” said Klaus Hurrelmann, one of the study’s authors and a professor at the Hertie School in Berlin. The AfD’s foremost campaign priority of stopping immigration and refugee relief plainly struck a chord: Compared to a separate study conducted five years ago, about half as many (26 percent) of the young participants (26 percent) in the 2024 study said they were not in favor of taking in refugees. But just as important as the content of immigration policies, the authors underlined, was the idea that young people feel unheard or involved in the political process.

The change in sympathy in many young Germans reflects survey results, elections, and the statements of other young people across Europe. In the Netherlands’ elections last year, the most popular party among people under 35 (at 17 percent) was the Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, a far-right populist with a long record of EU-trashing.

The explanation provided by many Dutch experts: It’s all about bestaanszekerheid, a Dutch word translated as “livelihood security.” This refers to having a decent and regular income, a comfortable home, access to education and health care, and a buffer against unexpected problems, de Vries told the Guardian. Young peoples’ leading concerns in the Netherlands are housing, overcrowded classes, and struggling hospitals, she said, which Wilders addressed in his campaign.

In Portugal’s March legislative elections, the far-right Chega party, which prioritized courting young people, raked in more of their votes than any other party. The meaning of chega, which can be translated as “that’s enough,” accurately describes many young voters’ motive for supporting it. Their gripes: “a very low average wage and an economy that cannot absorb educated young people,” according to political scientist António Costa Pinto in an interview with Euronews

“In the past, right-wing sympathizers accused immigrants of taking their jobs,” said Eberhard Seidel, the managing director of a Berlin-based nongovernmental organization called Schools Without Racism. “Now there are enough jobs but not enough housing for people who work. They still have to live with their parents.”

Observers say that the far right has excelled at grabbing the youth’s attention, not least with the social media platform TikTok. The recent German study found that 57 percent of young people imbibe their news and politics through social media. More than 90 percent use messaging service WhatsApp, followed by Instagram (80 percent) and YouTube (77 percent). TikTok stands at 51 percent; more than half of all 14- to 29-year-olds now use the app regularly, compared to 44 percent last year. The epiphany prompted an immediate response from German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who on declared in his first video on the platform, posted on March 19: “Revolution on TikTok: It starts today.”

Other opinion surveys show that young voters are diverse, divided, and undecided. A YouGov poll conducted in August 2023 showed that young Europeans are overwhelmingly concerned about the climate crisis and its likely effects, and more willing than older people to change behavior to mitigate those effects. Another poll, conducted in Germany, showed human rights violations at the top of younger people’s lists, followed by climate change, sexual harassment, and child abuse.

Younger voters still aren’t the drivers of xenophobia in the way that their parents’ generation was, Seidel said. A vote for the AfD doesn’t necessarily mean that they favor expelling immigrants from Germany or exiting the EU. “They take the basics of democracy and the social system for granted,” he said. “And they’re not fully aware of the implications of a rightward lurch in their political systems.”

Neither were Brexit’s voters, Seidel noted. And they found out the hard way.

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d-criss-news · 15 days ago

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A New Broadway Musical Asks: Can Robots Fall in Love?

“Maybe Happy Ending” had an initial Korean-language production in Seoul in 2016. Here are five things to know about the show.

Darren Criss and Helen J Shen star as outmoded robots who meet in a retirement home in “Maybe Happy Ending.” (Photo by Lanna Apisukh for The New York Times)

Hue Park was sitting in a Brooklyn coffee shop in the spring of 2014 when “Everyday Robots,” an indie pop ballad by Damon Albarn, floated over the speakers: “We are everyday robots on our phones / In the process of getting home.” What if, Park thought, there were a whole world filled with robots who looked just look humans? The result: a one-act Korean-language musical about a pair of abandoned robots who fall in love in Seoul in 2064. The show, which Park wrote with Will Aronson, a former New York University classmate, found success with its premiere in Seoul in 2016, and five subsequent commercial productions there. The New York Times critic Jesse Green, who saw an English-language production at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater in 2020, called it “charming” and “Broadway-ready.” Now that version will open at Broadway’s Belasco Theater on Nov. 12, starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen.

The story is about two outcast helperbots who meet at a robot retirement home and build a relationship while grappling with their own obsolescence, and Park thinks it is especially relatable after the coronavirus pandemic. “People have become so comfortable staying alone in their rooms and connecting to each other through a screen,” he said in a recent interview in Midtown Manhattan.

Shortly after previews began last month, Park, 41, a former K-pop lyricist who wrote the show’s lyrics, and Aronson, 43, who wrote the music — both collaborated on the book — talked about their inspirations and the different approaches to developing the show’s Korean and English versions. In a separate video call, Criss, 37, and Shen, 24, discussed the challenges of playing robots who look like humans.

Here are five things to know.

Shen and Criss star alongside two other actors in the musical, which is at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan. (Photo by Jeenah Moon for The New York Times)

The first draft was in English.

Initially, Aronson said, they wrote in English because his Korean — which he began learning in 2008, when he was hired to write the music for a Korean show — “was not as good as it is now.” Park, who was born in South Korea, then wrote the Korean lyrics and translated the script for the musical’s premiere in Seoul. When it came time to create the English version, for the Alliance production, “we went back to the English one we already had,” he said.

Two versions, worlds apart.

Unlike in English-language musicals, the lyrics in Korean-language musicals do not rely on structural rhymes, Aronson said. “A lot of English lyrics are very specific, things you would actually say,” he added. “Korean lyrics are more like poetry.” The English version of “Maybe Happy Ending” also spells out plot details more concretely, according to Park. He noted a scene in the Broadway production in which the former owners of the female robot appear as holograms and recount their relationship history. In the Korean version, which, unlike the Broadway iteration, has a six-piece orchestra onstage, the characters do not appear. Their back story is instead implied in a duet between a male cellist and a female violinist.

The actors have a unique challenge.

The script spells it out: Oliver (Criss) and Claire (Shen) are robots who look like humans (they are dressed like hipsters, circa 2010).

Criss’s robot is an older model, so he, Shen and the production’s director, Michael Arden, decided that he would be the more robotic of the two main characters. That allowed Criss to draw on his training in physical theater at the Accademia dell’Arte, the performing arts school in Arezzo, Italy. “The fear for an actor on a stage is to be like a cartoon character,” said Criss, who cited Kabuki theater, vaudeville and silent-film-era comedians as inspirations for his character’s movements and expressions. “However, because of the construct of our show, which is extremely theatrical and heightened, the more you lean into that, I think the more effective the piece.” As for Shen’s character, the group decided that, because she was a newer model, her movements would be nearly indistinguishable from a human’s. “It was interesting to get to work in that middle ground, that gray area,” she said.

Japan’s hikikomori were an inspiration.

Aronson and Park had read about the hikikomori in Japan, which are extreme recluses — mostly young men — who hole up in a home for six months or more, often sequestering themselves in a single room and rarely engaging with the outside world.

“There’s less and less interaction with other people,” Aronson said. “We’re all becoming more like shut-ins, disconnected.”

It has a majority Asian American cast.

In addition to Criss, who is half Filipino, and Shen, who is Chinese and grew up in New Jersey, the two cast members who appear onstage are Dez Duron and Marcus Choi, who is Korean American. “It’s exciting to have more variety on Broadway,” said Park, who mentioned recent shows like “KPOP” and the puppet-driven play “Life of Pi,” which featured many South Asian actors. “I hope ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ can contribute to that.”

#darren criss #the new york times #hue park #will aronson #helen j shen #michael arden #maybe happy ending bway #maybe happy ending #press #photos #nov 2024

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thewales-family · 1 year ago

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Special post ahead of Prince George of Wales's 10th birthday (3/4) : from 2019 to 2021.

•Prince George's 6th birthday on July 22nd 2019, in St Lucia on The Mustique Island, Carribbean Islands.

•King's Cup Regatta hosted by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on August 8th 2019, in Cowes, England.

•First Christmas Day Church service on December 25th 2019, at Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate in King's Lynn, England.

•Official portrait with Queen Elizabeth II, The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Cambridge to mark the beginning of a new decade, on January 3rd 2020, at Buckingham Palace in London.

•Support to the doctors, nurses, carers, and others NHS staff during the Coronavirus pandemic on March 26th 2020, at Amner Hall in Norfolk, England.

•7th birthday on July 22nd 2020, at Amner Hall in Norfolk, England.

•Message video with Sir David Attenborough on October 3rd 2020.

•Run Sandringham Half Marathon on June 20th 2021, in King's Lynn, England.

•UEFA Euro 2020 Championship final between Italy and England on July 11th 2021, in London.

•8th birthday on July 22nd 2021, in Norfolk, England.

📷 (1, 5, 6, 7 & 10) : The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge/Kensington Palace.

(4) : Ranald Mackechnie/The Royal Family.

#prince george #british royal family #england #2023 #july 2023 #10th birthday #birthday 2023 #prince george's 10th birthday #2019 #2020 #2021 #official portraits #the wales #my edit

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months ago

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At-Large Marge. http://Newsday.com/matt :: Matt Davies

* * * *

The lesson of Covid

June 4, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

The United States suffered more deaths from Covid than any other nation in the world (1.13 million) and the highest death rate (341 per 100,000) of any large, high-income country. Those shocking facts suggest that a congressional inquiry is urgently needed to understand why the US fared so poorly compared to other industrialized nations.

On Monday, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing ostensibly designed to understand why the US response to Covid paled in comparison to the responses and outcomes by countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and Netherlands.

You will not be surprised to learn that the hearing did not devote time to understanding what the US could do better in response to the next pandemic. Instead, Republicans converted the hearing into an evidence-free attack on Dr. Fauci’s selfless, expert guidance through a pandemic that killed approximately 1 out of every 300 Americans. See, e.g., Newsweek, Dr. Fauci Testifies: Unvaccinated Americans Caused Additional "200-300k Deaths".

Led by Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, Republicans peddled baseless conspiracy theories that will kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans in the next pandemic—just as vaccine hesitancy and disinformation killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the last epidemic.

Convicted Felon Donald Trump broke the Republican Party when he elevated loyalty to him above belief in the truth. The disgraceful conduct by Republicans in today’s Select Committee hearing is the direct product of Trump's assault on the truth.

A nation cannot govern itself if it creates policy and passes legislation based on fever dreams and mass delusion. Truth matters. Lies matter. That may be the most important lesson of the coronavirus pandemic. It came at a dear cost: The deaths of 1.1 million Americans. We should never forget that lesson or the losses suffered by tens of millions of family members—or we may be condemned to repeat the tragedy in the next pandemic.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Robert B. Hubbell #COVID #Dr. Fauci #MAGA conspiracy theories #global pandemic #US House of Representatives #evidence-free attack

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theyknowthatweknow · 2 years ago

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I didn't see anyone talk about this, but Sam's storyline in Ted Lasso was heavily based on things that actually happened involving the British government and Marcus Rashford and eventually, since this episode was written before it happened, was a foreshadowing of what would happen with former player and current pundit Gary Lineker (who did make an appearance as himself in S2).

Some may remember this, but during lockdown Rashford raised a lot of money for children in poverty and campaigned for free school meals for poor children whose families couldn't afford proper meals and have free school meals provided due to having to do home schooling according to coronavirus lockdown procedures. This led to a lot of right wing politicians and people telling him to 'stick to football' and like Sam did on twitter on the show, Rashford also got into a heated exchange on twitter with a right wing politician regarding this. Thankfully, because of support for him and ordinary people and small businesses supporting him and choosing to help these families with meals, the government eventually had to give what he campaigned for, which was basically just to save face. Because of this, a murial was painted in honour of Rashford.

Something that was also happening at the time was the Black Lives Matters moment - every single club had their players start to take the knee before the match. And it wasn't just because of this movement, but because of the growing number of racism black players were receiving both social media and in the stadiums. Rashford himself was subjected to a lot of it. A lot of football fans even were booing players taking the knee, especially when English players were playing against opposition from other European countries like Poland and Ukraine, such as in the Euros. But tumblr with the fake workery were more offended by English fans booing national anthems of European countries, than actual ignorance to racism. Many other international teams in the Euros like Italy who tumblr was frothing over because they had some weird fetish for Italian men even refused to take the knee, despite Italian football having far worse racism than England and also being notorious in football for the horrific racism from Italian fans. On club level, it was already bad from football fans, but what happened after the Euros final was something else.

The final went to penalties and Rashford, along with other black players who took the penalties missed them. Almost any of us who are people of colour knew what was gonna happen - which was the horrific racism they all endured not just England, but internationally. Remember the line from Sam about how he is supported till he misses a penalty kick? That was based on this and also Rashford and other black players experiences of racism when missing penalties. I remember as well tumblr and especially Italian fans here and on other social media doing their fake wokery and laughing at these players, all whilst we were trying to ask them not to, when they were getting a lot of racism. But this was probably because Italians subjected Mario Balotelli to the same racism when they lost a final years ago and have been subjecting him to many years, to the point he's been reduced to tears and severely affected his mental health. The next day, it was discovered that the murial painted for Rashford was graffitied with racism. Remember how Sam's restaurant was also graffitied? A lot of people covered them up with messages of support for Rashford, but the man who painted it went back to get it back to normal - what made this more heartbreaking is that he was also black and saw the racism on it which he said made it very hard for him to do. Remember how the players helped fix Sam's restaurant?

As this happened, a right wing politician tweeted that if Rashford 'sticked to football' this wouldn't have happened - she received a barrage of criticism so had to delete the tweet. Also remember how Sam's exchange was with the home secretary of Britain? Well the then home secretary, priti Patel - who is a brown British Indian woman of immigrant background - was criticising the players taking the knee. When the racism happened, she decided to tweet in support which led to a black English player Tyrone Mings furiously (and correctly) responding that her words like her right wing peers has enabled this to happen and that she doesn't get to be a hypocrite and now decide to support them. Because not only did she criticise them, she was also using dangerous rhetoric against refugees - much like the home secretary in Ted lasso.

But just when we thought the worst had happened... Along came suella braverman, another racist brown woman with an immigrant background. She is actually way worse than priti Patel which we never would have imagined and is trying to pass laws that go against international law along with the current right wing government of jailing or deporting people seeking asylum who didn't come from 'legal routes.' Even though they've made it so difficult for them to gain asylum. A Jewish woman actually asked her to stop using the language she has because it reminds her of how Jewish refugees were treated during the holocaust, but she refused to listen and was very offensive. So very similar to the home secretary on Ted lasso talking about sending boats back. Just recently this year Gary Lineker, who himself has housed an immigrant, asked right wing government officials like her to stop using such dangerous language and have empathy which led to him being suspended by the BBC who he does football punditry for, to keep politics out. All of his colleagues then walked out on strike in support of him, along with other people in the country supporting him, which thankfully led to him being reinstated. However sadly, the current right wing government are still using dangerous language against immigrants and refugees and trying to push legislation against them which breaches human rights and international law. Just today, the current prime minister rush sunak - who is also a brown Indian person of immigrant background that has used his immigrant story to help him reach where he is - said legal migration is TOO HIGH - the same things which let him become the British prime minister.

An episode after this one, Ted was reading a story to his son Henry about a character called Marcus - that was a book from Marcus Rashford as he is trying to help improve reading literacy amongst children. Whilst these books were being released he was doing poorly but this season he has been doing AMAZING whilst seemingly taking a step back from the activism he's done. A lot of people, many of whom supported him have said he did badly because he was doing 'too much' off the field when they are ignoring the very obvious psychological effects of continuously being racially abused just before that season, had on him. There have been some changes such as football fans in England since the Euros being overwhelmingly supportive of the taking of the knee and being more supportive of anti racism messages. But support doesn't mean the problems have gone away.

#Ted lasso #marcus rashford #uk politics #sam obisanya

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covid-safer-hotties · 3 months ago

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Covid, +11% casi rispetto alla settimana precedente: preoccupa la variante Xec - 30 Agosto 2024

I'd love some help finding more international news for the archives! Feel free to post whatever you find (and include at least a google translation into English).

Both Italian and English versions below the cut

In crescita i numeri di Covid in Italia. Salgono a 15.221 i casi registrati dal 22 al 28 agosto, +11% circa rispetto ai 13.690 della settimana precedente. In aumento anche i decessi, che superano il centinaio. Sono 135 i morti Covid nell'ultima settimana, il 36% in più rispetto ai 99 della rilevazione precedente.

Questi i dati dell'aggiornamento settimanale su Covid-19 in Italia, pubblicato oggi sul sito del ministero della Salute. Risultano in crescita anche i tamponi eseguiti a livello nazionale, 94.171 rispetto ai 72.266 della settimana 15-21 agosto. Il tasso di positività si attesta al 16,2%, era 18,9% nel bollettino precedente.

Andreoni: “Situazione epidemiologica preoccupante” "Certamente i numeri in crescita del Covid, compresi i decessi che nell'ultima settimana sono arrivati a 135, sono motivo di apprensione perché siamo in un periodo dell'anno in cui la circolazione del virus non è mai stata particolarmente rilevante. In vista dell'autunno occorre un cambio di rotta, la circolazione del virus sarà più importante e la situazione epidemiologica preoccupa perché la campagna vaccinale per il Covid non è ancora decollata". Così Massimo Andreoni, direttore scientifico della Simit, Società italiana malattie infettive e tropicali e professore ordinario all'università Tor Vergata di Roma.

Pregliasco: “Attenzione alla variante Xec” Il Covid purtroppo è ancora fra noi, con un andamento ondulante in funzione anche dell'insorgenza e della presenza delle varianti. Questo rialzo" che si osserva nei numeri del virus in Italia "potrebbe essere l'effetto dell'ultima variante Xec", new entry che è in ascesa a livello globale, "e ha una capacità diffusiva e di immunoevasione che sembra essere alta".

I dati, almeno per quanto riguarda il numero di casi, "sicuramente sono sottostimati". Molti di questi "sono banali, e ci sono magari anche tanti asintomatici che mantengono quella che è la catena di contagi".

È l'analisi del virologo Fabrizio Pregliasco che commenta l'andamento del contagio da Sars-CoV-2 nel Paese.

"È vero - sottolinea il direttore della Scuola di specializzazione in Igiene e medicina preventiva dell'università Statale di Milano - che questa è una patologia nella maggior parte dei casi è banale, che per un giovane può essere approcciata con antinfiammatori. Ma lo vediamo dai numeri in salita dei decessi, è un problema per le persone fragili. Il messaggio è dunque per loro e per gli anziani: in presenza di forme respiratorie, anche dubbie o aspecifiche, facciano comunque un tampone, almeno per loro, per poter fare gli antivirali. Oggi esiste il Paxlovid che evita gli effetti più pesanti per le categorie fragili".

Questi dati in crescita, conclude Pregliasco, "servono anche per ricordare l'importanza del richiamo vaccinale in autunno, sempre e soprattutto per gli anziani e i fragili, sia per quanto riguarda l'anti-Covid che il vaccino antinfluenzale. Oggi insomma è ancora il momento dell'attenzione rispetto a quelle che possono essere situazioni di rischio. E, soprattutto, preserviamo i fragili".

Ciccozzi: “Andamento a cui dobbiamo abituarci” A commentare i dati dei contagi è anche l'epidemiologo Massimo Ciccozzi: "Contagi e decessi per Covid-19 in aumento? Tutto normale, è questo l'andamento a cui dobbiamo abituarci. Alla base dei numeri in crescita i maggior spostamenti di italiani e turisti in transito nel nostro Paese. Chi parte o torna dalle vacanze lo fa viaggiando in aereo o in treno, di conseguenza c'è una maggiore circolazione del virus. Unico presidio contro il contagio è la mascherina che, purtroppo, nessuno indossa più".

"Fortunatamente i sintomi sono meno importanti ma - avverte Ciccozzi - non per anziani e fragili che sono più vulnerabili e fortemente debilitati dal caldo e che vanno protetti". L'epidemiologo non ha dubbi: "Ad ottobre occorrerà fare il richiamo vaccinale per il Covid e l'influenza, soprattutto per over 70 e fragili", conclude.

Covid, +11% cases compared to the previous week: Xec variant is worrying

Covid numbers are growing in Italy. The cases registered from August 22 to 28 rose to 15,221, approximately +11% compared to the 13,690 of the previous week. Deaths are also increasing, exceeding one hundred. There have been 135 Covid deaths in the last week, 36% more than the 99 of the previous survey.

These are the data from the weekly update on Covid-19 in Italy , published today on the website of the Ministry of Health. The number of swabs carried out at a national level is also increasing, 94,171 compared to 72,266 in the week of August 15-21. The positivity rate stands at 16.2%, it was 18.9% in the previous bulletin.

Andreoni: “Worrying epidemiological situation” "Certainly the growing numbers of Covid, including deaths that in the last week have reached 135, are a cause for concern because we are in a period of the year in which the circulation of the virus has never been particularly significant. In view of the autumn, a change of direction is needed, the circulation of the virus will be more significant and the epidemiological situation is worrying because the vaccination campaign for Covid has not yet taken off". Thus Massimo Andreoni , scientific director of Simit, Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and full professor at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome.

Pregliasco: “Beware of the Xec variant” Unfortunately, Covid is still among us, with an undulating trend also depending on the onset and presence of variants. This increase" that is observed in the numbers of the virus in Italy "could be the effect of the latest Xec variant", a new entry that is on the rise globally, "and has a diffusion and immunoevasion capacity that appears to be high".

The data, at least as far as the number of cases is concerned, "are certainly underestimated". Many of these "are trivial, and there are perhaps also many asymptomatic people who maintain the chain of contagion".

This is the analysis of virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco who comments on the progress of the Sars-CoV-2 contagion in the country.

"It is true - underlines the director of the School of Specialization in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine of the State University of Milan - that this is a pathology in most cases is trivial, that for a young person can be approached with anti-inflammatories. But we see it from the rising numbers of deaths, it is a problem for fragile people. The message is therefore for them and for the elderly: in the presence of respiratory forms, even dubious or non-specific, do a swab anyway, at least for them, to be able to take antivirals. Today there is Paxlovid which avoids the most severe effects for fragile categories".

These growing data, concludes Pregliasco, "also serve to remind us of the importance of the vaccination booster in the fall, always and above all for the elderly and the frail, both for the anti-Covid and the flu vaccine. Today, in short, is still the time for attention with respect to what may be risk situations. And, above all, let's protect the frail".

Ciccozzi: “A trend we need to get used to” Epidemiologist Massimo Ciccozzi also commented on the infection data: "Infections and deaths from Covid-19 on the rise? Everything is normal, this is the trend we have to get used to. The basis of the growing numbers is the increased movement of Italians and tourists in transit in our country. Those leaving or returning from vacation do so by traveling by plane or train, consequently there is greater circulation of the virus. The only protection against contagion is the mask that, unfortunately, no one wears anymore".

"Fortunately the symptoms are less severe but - warns Ciccozzi - not for the elderly and frail who are more vulnerable and severely weakened by the heat and who must be protected". The epidemiologist has no doubts: "In October it will be necessary to get a booster vaccination for Covid and influenza, especially for over 70s and frail people", he concludes.

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