#also now that I’ve come up with it the image of Alex wearing her medal while they fuck isn’t getting out of my head

[softnoirr]

bestie you once mentioned offhand an au of pdd where christen sleeps with alex and it has stayed in my head ever since - what would be the context! when! does tobin find out! hit me with your thoughts if you’re into it, I love a rare pair!!

I do vaguely remember saying that but I also cannot find it so everything I'm saying now could totally contradict what I said then but. I think like. if C's relationship to T (not with her but towards her) is based in feelings of grief and anger then her relationship to Alex is much more acidic. They do have a lot of history but most of it is just time spent in the same vicinity of each other, coldly ignoring one another, sharing friends and being jealous. So I feel like them hooking up would be a much more viscous overflow but also much less weighted for them.

Probably it would be one of them getting the role the other wanted in studio company and having sex about it. If it was an ongoing thing I could see it being a moment after a Grand Prix where one of them won and the other messed up—probably with a lot of goading and also I do believe in this AU Alex is the kind of character who would wear her Grand Prix medal while having sex with C in the hotel afterwards. I don’t think it works as well as a dynamic between the two adult versions of the characters but I can still see some level of that bizarre psychosexual staunch avoidance thing they have going on.

Body and your relationship to your body and your connection to other peoples bodies and peoples perceived ownership or entitlement to your body is at the heart of a lot of pdd and because C and Alex have both been basically raised in that environment I think them hooking up would be very much about acting out frustration in a way they both understand. Like; Move like this because you feel this.

Like I sincerely don't mean for sex in this story to be about power. It isn't—even when power is a dynamic within it—but it is kind of about a feeling of being present in your own body for the first time, manipulating your body for someone else’s pleasure while getting to be the object rather than the subject of that pleasure.

I think how Tobin would react to it depends on any number of factors which would change with the context. Like if C and T were sleeping together the way they are in the actual story I think it would probably mean the end of the sexual part of their relationship, at least for a while, because T feels very invested in what she does with C and it would feel cheapened by finding out about Alex. If it was something that happened as teenagers I think she’d be kind of weirded out by it but hey we’ve all had weird overly invested hate sex with christen press so. actually this makes tobin very feel normal and usual and regular and it’s fine.

[torentialtribute]

GB hockey star Danson banged her head laughing. It was a small knock but the repercussions were huge

Alex Danson can now laugh. She can also play a bit. A polite term, she says, but when she wanders around the field around her house, those short, slow steps feel better than just about anything in the world.

& # 39; Heavenly & # 39 ;, she calls it. "Freedom." And then a smile that is followed by a sigh because she knows it's progress and she also knows it's sad. She knows where she was and where she is and she can only hope for where she could ever return. She knows that the Tokyo Olympic Games are rising fast, only 11 months away, and yet the last 11 have been slow and painful.

& # 39; It was so difficult & # 39 ;, she says. & # 39; Sometimes the soul destroys. & # 39; But now she can jog and that is finally something closer to normal.

It's the everyday things that make Alex Danson's traumatic experience so shocking

For 10 months she could and could not. Just like she needed help to go to the bathroom for two months. Just like she couldn't go to a coffee shop or watch television for six months, or watch a screen to check emails for seven hours, and she couldn't stay a minute without a headache for nine years. They would vary between acceptable and unbearable, but they were always there, every minute of every day. Nine months.

Now there are hours that it doesn't hurt. Now she doesn't have to wear sunglasses or sleep 15 hours or faint on the bathroom floor or hit back when her brother laughs. No. That has all been improved. Slow, terribly slow, and there is still so much to do.

But it is better to get started. And so, this week celebrating the three-year anniversary of winning hockey gold in Britain at the Rio Olympics, she can almost grin the moment she laughed and bumped her head against a wall.

& # 39; It was on September 1 of last year – the detail is engraved in my mind, or maybe it should be the back of my head, & # 39; she says.

Danson, now 34, had just finished the World Cup where England, under her captain, had lost in the quarterfinals, just with her boyfriend, Alex Bennett, she escaped to Kenya for a vacation. had been kite surfing in Watamu when Danson one night laughed at her partner's joke. & # 39; I threw my head back and just hit it against a wall. It was about the height of my shoulders, so my head hit the top. No car accident, no fall, not unconscious. I just put my head on a wall.

Danson hit her head against a wall while smiling at a joke told by her friend Alex Bennett

& I laughed it a bit strange but immediately knew it wasn't right. That night I woke up every hour. That was the first sign. I had had a concussion three times before and thought: & # 39; Come on, not during my first big vacation in 18 years. & # 39;

& # 39; I made a mistake the next morning. I suppose it's a habit of sports people to pick up an injury, so Alex and I started running. I felt good, so I thought: "Great, no concussion". When we returned to the hotel room, everything turned around. And that was really the start.

We had five days left and I felt sick all the time, huge headaches. On the drive to the airport I kept my head in tears. Every time we hit a bump, it was terrible. When we arrived on the plane, a flight attendant asked Alex if I was even OK to fly. He said that I was fine, but you would not believe how it went as soon as we returned. & # 39;

Danson sits in a chair deliberately away from direct light in the beautiful house built by Bennett, a project developer, near the market town of Romsey, Hampshire. Her Olympic gold and bronze medals are wrapped in socks in a drawer and there is no memorabilia from a career that places her as England's most capped current player and the top scorer of a nation in London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Danson tells her story while she is sitting in a chair that is intentionally turned away from direct light light

That life seemed to be so far in the last 11 months and Danson wants her experiences with some mildly traumatic brain injury to be instructive for others who may suffer head injury. She does this interview, her first with a daily newspaper.

In summary, she says: & # 39; I waited until about the ninth day after the accident to go to a doctor despite constant headaches. That was another mistake, just like not reporting your symptoms enough, which I did. I was getting ready for an all-powerful crash and I had a few weeks after returning.

& # 39; I had missed hockey for a few weeks and the team from England was on their way to the Champions Trophy in November. I stated that as a goal, which was ridiculous because I had been in a terrible state since flying back.

& # 39; I would be in the house for 24 hours with dark glasses, in bed, sleeping for 15 hours. My head hurt every second. But I pushed to show that I could play, so I went to the specialist and did a Buffalo test as part of the concussion protocol – you walk on a treadmill when the ascent rate increases and you report how you feel. I reported too little and when I went home I was in pieces.

& # 39; The next day I cried and needed help from Alex to go to the bathroom. It felt like a chainsaw had gone through my mind.

Danson wants her experiences with what is a mild traumatic brain injury to help others

& # 39; Two days later there was a squad day, doing team building things, painting egg cups. I went and the wheels came off. The only thing I can remember was that I was with a teammate and when I started to say something, I suddenly realized I couldn't talk. I started to panic, but it was almost at the end and I just wanted to crawl away without making a scene.

I came home but my body suddenly became ice cold and then hot. The next thing I knew was that I had fainted in my bathroom. I called the team doctor and was rushed to the hospital. I had an attack there – the only one I've had – and they held me for a few days. & # 39;

Danson pauses. "I couldn't believe what was going on – a few months after I had led my country to a World Cup, I couldn't go to the toilet alone and I was in the hospital after an attack."

A scary aspect of Danson's injury and so much is that it has never been shown on a scan. There is a theory among her doctors that there may have been a bleeding, but no picture has supported this. Similarly, it is difficult to know whether Danson's post-trauma exercises have contributed to the severity of her subsequent problems.

The worst symptoms only started to decrease in the last eight weeks, nine to 10 months after the accident. .

Danson has been absent for 19 years from the sport she has contested at international level

& # 39; Light and sound have been particularly bad & # 39 ;, she says. & # 39; In the first few months, the sound of putting down a coffee cup made me physically unwell. My brother will not mind telling me that, his voice is deep and quite loud and so is his smile, and I remember begging him to stop talking because he made the headache worse.

& # 39; My body was constantly in fight or flight mode – it could no longer filter danger. If Alex wiped me when I slept, I would jump because my body just wasn't able to filter what was safe.

& # 39; Light has been very difficult, especially indoors. That is why I am away from the direct light that comes out of the window. Screens are also bad. I realized that immediately and even now I can't do long stretching exercises with a phone, TV or tablet without a big headache. & # 39;

In the midst of the limitations, Danson spent much of the past year in isolation, away from friends and the sport she has been contesting at international level for 18 years. & # 39; Heartbreaking & # 39 ;, she says. & # 39; Any injury that I had sustained earlier than planned. This time, the harder I tried, the worse I got.

& # 39; Eventually I learned to stop making short-term goals. That is not possible with the brain. You have to agree and that means having patience and being away from a team from England that has been my life. There is nothing mild about my slight brain injury. & # 39;

marked this week Britain's three-year anniversary that won hockey gold at the Rio Olympics

Rio's golden girls have been holding reunions in December since that night when they postponed the news at ten o'clock. Danson couldn't go last year – she was in bed.

The prospects are finally changing. This year she knows for sure that she will make it. Other things that were once impossible came into the picture. "After six months I got a cup of coffee, then I could start with television, a little screen time, gradually coming back into contact with the world."

Crucially, after 10 months, the headache began to diminish. & # 39; I still have them every day, but sometimes it can take a few hours between them and I can't tell you how nice that is, & # 39; she says, almost in tears. "There was a moment when I would settle down to live a life where I could just painlessly roam the house."

The goals are now moving. Danson knows that she is far from where she needs to be to play international sport – she has not been sprinting or waving a hockey stick for a year. And yet the mindset is determined.

& # 39; I will play again & # 39 ;, she says. For the UK? & # 39; I think so. & # 39; Tokyo? "That must be the goal."

It is an incredible target. But that is why the resumption of walking 10 months after the accident meant so much. & # 39; It's able to do something vague like what I used to do & # 39 ;, she says. "Compared to a training run with England, it's not even remotely the same – it's more like a truffle shuffle.

" It gives me a severe headache but I am jogging continuously for up to 20 minutes and it feels just so wonderful to do it again. & # 39; Bennett, her hero at reaching this point, has become her fiancé since the accident. & # 39; He did everything for me & # 39 ;, she says. They will marry next month.

& # 39; It would become the whole shepherd & # 39 ;, Danson says. & # 39; But we scaled it back. Something big and I may not have been able to copy. It has been another case that I had to manage my expectations, but we're getting married and I know it's going to be a great day. & # 39;

It remains to be seen whether there are more great days on the hockey field. But for now, the truffle shuffle around a field feels like excellent progress.

Alex Danson is an ambassador for Investec. Investec supports women's hockey from grassroots to national team. For more information, visit investec.co.uk/hockey cialis19459014 [cialis19459003cialiscialis19459009]

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[elisehu]

Covering curling with my friend Jonathan Cheng of the WSJ, who is now OBSESSED with curling.

It’s the final day of the Winter Games in Pyeongchang and Gangneung. Covering these games was crazy intense, the whole way through. I can’t reflect really well without hindsight, so instead, here’s a round of cheers and jeers.

Cheers

The sports. What I love about the Winter Olympics is how utterly death-defying all of the events are, maybe with the exception of curling. But for basically every other event (skeleton, anyone?), a mere mortal would DIE trying it. I am exactly the kind of person who cannot maintain my cool when watching things like figure skating jumps. I cringe and audibly react with an “OH OWWWWW” when someone falls on the ice.

Curling. There’s something so magical about the perfect stones and the special shoes (one glides, the other doesn’t) and the terminology like “hog line” and “hammer.” I have come to really enjoy going to see curling more than anything else. The best night of curling happened with WSJ’s curling aficionado and sportswriter Jim Chairsumi happened to come have dinner with us and came with me to catch some curling. He gave the play-by-play and context, making the whole experience that much better. Thanks, Jim!

The Garlic Girls, aka Team Kim. The breakout sensation of these Games are four girls from the sticks, a garlic-producing town called Uiseong, which charmed the nation with their improbable victories in curling over the world’s best. Friend Jon (from the WSJ) and I accidentally stumbled on these women when we went to curling with the aforementioned Jim. They were mesmerizing to watch, and interesting off the ice, too. They have nicknames based on their favorite foods (“Steak” is my fave), a skip who is stone-faced, which inspired hella memes, and an excellent curling strategist. That they made it to the gold medal game at all was in the face of 50-1 odds. Rock stars, pun intended.

USA Women’s Hockey Team Beating Archrival Canada was the most exciting hockey game I’ve ever attended and maybe the greatest Olympics hockey game ever, according to veteran sportswriter Christine Brennan. It was sort of a fluke that I wound up covering it, meaning not only did I get to enjoy it, I got to file my first (and probably only) hockey results piece ever.

Reunions. The last time I was in the same place as Nigel Robertson I was 24 years old and he bought me a Wonder Woman shirt for my birthday that year. We have celebrated one another’s successes from afar for years and his energy is infectious. NIGEL is at the Olympics. So is Friend Juliet, who I haven’t seen since we moved away from Washington, Friend Alex, who I haven’t seen since the Nieman thing in Boston in 2013, and so many coworkers who I really never even worked with before, like our sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Getting to laugh with these folks makes the Olympics really special.

Jeers

Overheated buses. We constantly go from standing in subzero temperatures in a fierce (sometimes as fast as 50mph winds) to buses heated like they’re in the inside of a Korean sauna. One time my colleague Bill got into a bus that was actually heated just the right temperature and he decided to ride it to wherever it took him just to stay on the bus and not get stuck on a different one.

Wind. Wind gusts reached Cat3 hurricane speeds, destroying pop-up food stalls, security screening posts and wreaking havoc on the alpine schedule. For those of us who had to walk around in the wind, the big problem was trying not to be picked up by a strong gust. Also debris. I ended up having to irrigate my eyes numerous times after specks of gravel flew up into my peepers.

Food that tastes like despair. I feel it’s a travesty that the food in the concessions and tents here is so bad, given that there are such culinary delights across the rest of the country. Breakfast is sad, concessions which consist of “nachos without cheese” or “sandwich” (no details about what’s in it) taste of despair. Even things you can’t screw up, like fried mandu, aren’t served with condiments, so you can’t adjust anything. No hot sauce or soy sauce for you! Outrage.

The schedule. It is nonstop grinding-it-out, around the clock, since we work our daytime, and then by nighttime we begin working America’s daytime. The result is my alter ego comes out. Her name is Denise and she is a bitch. Denise has been making regular appearances in recent days, being all sorts of grumpy, uncompromising and picking fights. My mom thinks I’ve gone temporarily insane and told me I should not make any decisions right now, to which I responded by hanging up on her. Blame Denise, she’s horrendous.

Media Village Housekeeping. The apartments didn’t have do not disturb doorhangers so I’d often be awakened by or disturbed by the loud electronic voice of the teched-out apartment bell, which yelled, “YOU HAVE A CALL. YOU HAVE A CALL.” The other issue is that they bring you fresh towels every day, but never put them in the bathroom. So you’d come out of the shower or finish handwashing and have to trudge over to the bed to dry off. Because of language barriers, this situation could not change. I end my Olympics tenure supremely annoyed by this. Or is it Denise being annoyed? Hard to tell.

We were there.

Curling became my responsibility real fast.

Covering Alpine skiing with our sports reporter, Tom Goldman.

Canada house

WSJ dispatched five reporters to a women’s curling match.

Team NPR at Pyeongchang!

Yongpyong, for the alpine skiing events

Garlic Girls after a victory

USA v CAN women’s hockey was a highlight.

We were sooooo anxious during the crazy overtimes in hockey

So many North Korean cheerleaders all the time

Friend Alex! Gaaah I love this woman.

Pop-up McDonald’s in Gangneung Olympic Park

US women’s hockey team forward Hannah Brandt, wearing her gold medal she had just won.

GOLD!!! USA women’s hockey team.

With the North Korean cheering squad.

North Korea’s only elite athletes — Ryom Tae Oak and Kim Ju Shik

Every time we went inside the gates of any venue, we’d get scanned and our images would show up on giant screens

A defeated Mikaela Shiffrin

Wearing the Olympics fad “long padding” for a shoot with photog Jun Michael Park.

Pyeongchang Winter Olympics: Cheers and Jeers It's the final day of the Winter Games in Pyeongchang and Gangneung. Covering these games was crazy intense, the whole way through.