#not to say they’re all 100% good | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

therealbeachfox · 10 months ago

Text

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

#gay marriage #gay rights #gay history #gay

35K notes · View notes

fastsalad · 6 months ago

Text

they just don’t make t-shirts like they used to.

#why are they all flimsy and soft. even when they say they’re 100% cotton.#i used to be able to get pretty good quality gildan shirts for like 3 dollars at michaels but even the michaels shirts suck now!#and it’s still the same brand! it’s just worse!#literally the only shirts i can buy now are secondhand

0 notes

dobercorgis · 7 months ago

Text

Finally finished ffx-2 obvs didn’t get the good ending but I watched it on yt

Yuna and tidus are so cute it was such a feel good ending and the way the ending scene with yuna standing in zanarkand paralleled the opening scene of tidus standing there was just perfect. Also the way yuna said that she’s going home in that ending, and tidus says that he’s home in the good ending help I’m dying

A quick Google search told me that last mission is a roguelike with barely any story so I’ll prob just look up the cutscenes I’m not a fan of roguelikes 😅

#I will say that I do see why some ppl don’t like the good ending bc x-2 is all abt yuna moving on #I think the other ending is p good too with yuna living up her life #while they’re not my favorite cast I rlly do appreciate all the characters in both x and x-2 #playing x-2 made me realize how much I missed tidus and auron lmao #anyway x-2 was def more character driven but all the characters were enjoyable so i had fun #again not sure if I’ll replay it anytime soon esp since 100% seems like a slog #misu.txt

0 notes

fujii-draws · 7 months ago

Text

@s1nn0hh THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR THE UNWELL TAGS I WILL NOW ELABORATE ON IN MY OWN TAGS

Ultimatum

#there is a lot to be said about how genuine Dusknoir was to those two. and that’s because he was.#not all the time; no. but he did care.#and the fact he uses that to tell them that none of it mattered would mess Ribbons and Aimilios up #any new Pokémon they meet they’re weary of and trying to get a good read on them after the events of main game #it’s ESPECIALLY hard for Ribbons. because truthfully? Aimilios had it easy. he has a built in lie-detector.#Ribbons? She doesn’t get that. She doubts her gut feelings/instincts/trust in new Pokémon for a loooong time.#and she has Dusknoir to thank for that! teaching her that every new person she’ll meet might be out to get her ☺️☺️ isn’t it so nice of him #he knows she’s just as stubborn and resilient as her older brother.#So he does anything and everything in his power to rip her emotionally. get into her head #Aimilios might have a chance to fight back so he’s extra cruel with his attacks towards the Riolu; but Ribbons?#She’s just an Eevee. a small; stupid Eevee. That never meant anything to him #Like. I KNOOOW PARTNER CANONICALLY LOOKS UP TO DUSKNOIR #BUT HE ABSOLUTELY RIPPED INTO HERO DURING THAT ONE SCENE WHERE HE AMBUSHED THEM THE FIRST TIME #AND PARTNER/AIMILIOS’S DIALOUGE OF ‘Grovyle! Ribbons! Don’t give up!’#REAAAAALLY IMPLIES HERO GAVE UP IN THAT MOMENT TOO. god I can just Imagine the 100 yard empty stare Ribbons is giving Dusknoir #just slowly disassociating. detached from everything that’s happening around her.#and The Stoneship fight is where Dusknoir seals his fate by telling her just how worthless she was. and how easy it was to gain her trust.#he didn’t even have to lift a finger; they came to him.#And that in turn becomes the reason why she takes so much longer to trust him.#and Dusknoir has to sit there and watch as this once; bright Eevee. is now just a former husk of herself around him.#ANYWAYS SINNOH YOU ABSOLUTELY UNDERSTAND. I KNOW I KEEP SAYING THIS BUT YOU FUCKING DO.

275 notes · View notes

thefandomexpert · 10 months ago

Text

alright i’ll say it. i don’t hate the new netflix atla

#first off impeccable casting #costumes good. sets fine.#cgi tolerable for a series #esp bc uncannyness is from sticking to animated character designs methinks #the one thing i truly don’t like is the tell-not-show thing they have going pn #‘i’m sad’ says sang because he is sad. etc etc #but i’m actually really enjoying the extra flashbacks and they’re using them to good effect!#they’ve cut a bunch of the og filler eps for time clearly #but that means they’re missing a bunch of character work that happens during those filler arcs #so they put some character work into the flashbacks instead #it’s great #the tone is markedly different #which is why i think it’s best viewed as supplemental material after having seen the original #every semi-adult fan loves to talk about how hard aang has it as this baby avatar dead for 100 years #that’s a major angst point in the show itself. it only comes up later #here they’re really digging into it. at the expense of his funney jokes tm. so if you’ve already seen the original show #and u know what animated aang is supposed to be like #all this stuff in the live action can be seen as supplemental character work #and i’m enjoying seeing bits and pieces we didn’t get to see before there #meg speaks #meg watches atla netflix #atla

0 notes

foldingfittedsheets · 8 months ago

Text

I’ve been fired exactly once in my life. In my early twenties I was working at a pizza place. The pizzas were artisanal, thin crust and personal. They’re a huge chain now but when I first started the company was in its infancy. It was the wild west of management, and the core investors would frequently stop by to check on things. One of these people was this round little man with rage issues. A knock off Danny Devito with no charisma at all.

His favorite thing to do was to come in on a Friday or Saturday night. We'd be at our stations: taking orders, making pizza, manning the oven, finishing orders off, running the cash register. He'd shove his way onto the line and start rearranging people. "You, get off orders and work the cash register, you come over and make the pizzas!" With a line of customers snaking out the door he'd throw off all our grooves and rattle us.

Then, inevitably, a mistake would happen.

When it did he'd call the person over and say, "Hey c'mere. You're fired." Just like that. No inflection, just a flat "You're fired." It was absolutely a power kink, and because of his involvement the average turn over was three months. You were a veteran at five months.

One night there was only three of us manning the front. I took an order than went to the cash register to ring them out before I made the pizza. This horrible man watched that then called me into the back. I didn't know if I was about to be fired. But I wasn't. In fact, he had one other move besides firing people. He yelled.

In the back he absolutely lost his mind screaming at me for being on the cash register. I'm talking veins popping, spit flying, red with rage, this man just started bellowing nonsensically about where I should be and how I was just such a failure. It was truly like his brain had shut off, nothing he was saying even made sense. I stood there in the face of this tirade for a minute and then set a record for being the first person to ever cut him short by bursting into tears.

He instantly stopped yelling and it was like Jekyll and Hyde. He was remorseful and consoling, deeply embarrassed by my display of emotion. All my male coworkers just took the abuse but faced with my weeping he about faced and instantly backed off. I went outside to cry and when I came back in he pretended it had never happened.

That was the state of things. The investors knew they desperately needed to keep this man out of the stores, but they couldn't just give him the boot. They needed to move him aside and fill his position with someone. The store manager was this lovely woman who had hired me on the spot at my interview. The entire staff adored her. She was the best fit to get this roided out investor out of the stores for good.

Her replacement was this man called Anthony. He was instantly loathed by the entire staff. Condescending, critical, and lazy he started off his reign by letting go a core lead who "back talked." He spent a whole morning berating the opening crew because the closing crew (who had sold 100 more pizzas than we were even supposed to have on hand) had forgotten to windex the doors. He left the entire crew to close without him while he flirted with a girl who wasn't his pregnant girlfriend. He hired his roommate to replace the lead he fired and even that guy hated his guts.

Our antipathy toward him made him paranoid and resentful and one by one he started finding excuses to fire the whole staff, certain that if he could clean house he'd be able to do the job. My time came, and he sat me down with his boss, my former manager. She cried as he announced I wasn't personable enough and used too many pepperonis.

I looked at her, the woman who had trained me on how many pepperoni to use, but she said nothing. What could she say? He was the boss now and had determined I was going to be let go regardless. Too many in this case was seven. Seven pepperonis on a personal pizza. The correct number was five according to him, which is one pepperoni per slice, and one in the middle.

I sat there for a moment, taking it in. I smiled at my old manager, obviously miserable. I looked back at him and said, "You're a terrible manager, you're doing the worst imaginable job." I outlined some of the things he'd done so she could hear them, then I stood up and left. I made it to the back room before I started crying.

I found out later through a bus boy that he replaced the whole staff with college kids who had such limited availability that the store couldn't run, then quit three months later leaving the whole place in shambles. Most of the old staff returned, but I'd moved onto the sex shop already and was enjoying a job with significantly less risk of being fired on a whim.

However I do have to disclose on job applications if I've ever been fired. I always says yes and list the reason as, "Excessive use of pepperoni." It has never failed to get a laugh from my interviewer.

#ramblies #ffs foibles #funny #story #writing #pizza #fired

6K notes · View notes

mossy-paws · 5 months ago

Text

my sanity says 1 but my heart says 7

(OOC: someone in the Phighting Parody Hub shared this and I loved it so Tumblr can have it too lol)

#1 is the only right answer slingshot Zuka and sword I feel like would be so actually nice to sit by #One probably has plenty of baked goods they’re willing to share #the other would probably not say anything at all and would just mind his own business #and then the last would maybe chat a little bit but would 100% obey plane rules and be super kind and polite about it

144 notes · View notes

5sospenguinqueen · 9 days ago

Text

Espresso | Max Verstappen x Singer! Reader

Summary: Despite going back to his relationship with Kelly, Max can’t stop thinking about you. Every night. It certainly doesn’t help that you keep cropping up in the McLaren garage.

Warnings: softcore angst? Swearing. A pining man

Requested: yes by many of you on the previous part

Facelaim: Sabrina Carpenter (she was used on the last one and yes, she's used a lot but I stole her song and her job so I'm also stealing her face)

F1 Masterlist

prev. || next.

this will end up having 4 parts total. they're planned but not fully written

━━━━ ༻𖥸༺ ━━━━

yn_ln just posted

liked by mclaren, oscarpiastri and others

yn_ln what do you do when you get woken up at 2am and can’t get back to sleep? write a song espresso is out now

16,331 comments

user1 is this what the kids call a soft launch? is she seeing someone?

user2 okay but who is the guy reflected in her sunglasses? a new beau perhaps?

alexandrasaintmleux i don’t know what’s hotter. the song or the body

→ francisca.cgomes the men in the video

→ pierregasly i can see this

user3 at least we know this new guy is dicking her down good

user4 why do i feel like this is about max?

→ user5 why tf would it be about max? it’s a fun song about fucking all night

→ user4 because it feels teasing. like, he’s with someone else but can’t stop thinking about yn

→ user6 i’m with user4. maybe she’s trying to throw us off?

landonorris the sun looks bright in that pic

→ user7 uh oh. norizz is alive and well everyone

user8 does this mean max keeps contacting her?

user9 max is 100% messaging her at 1am saying how he misses her

user10 i need a camera in max and kelly’s house when they first heard this

━━━━ ༻𖥸༺ ━━━━

yn_ln just posted

liked by redbullracing, kellypiquet and others

yn_ln i know i mountain dew it for ya (although, most of these had vodka) tagged: alexandrasaintmleux, francisca.cgomes

17,094 comments

user11 she looks like a hot librarian

→ user12 i‘d let her help me with my homework

user13 red bull admin is a canon yn stan

francisca.cgomes hot girls do bottomless brunch

→ alexandrasaintmleux maybe they shouldn’t. i still can’t find my left shoe

→ yn_ln i have it

user14 i bet the debrief was piping hot

→ user15 oh to be in a gossip sesh with yn, kika and alex

charles_leclerc stay away from my girlfriend. she came home drunk ranting about how much she loved you and the colour of your hair

→ pierregasly and mine wouldn’t stop talking about how pretty your eyes are and how good you smell

→ yn_ln i have unbelievable rizz

user16 i’d let yn step on me

→ yn_ln and i won’t even charge you

user17 max fumbled so bad

landonorris who’s that cute blonde?

→ yn_ln oscar isn’t in this post??

→ user18 i don’t think he was talking about oscar, hun

→ yn_ln why would he publicly embarrass his boyfriend like this?

→ oscarpiastri i hate you

f1wags just posted

liked by verstappencom, shortnsweet and others

f1wags not even 6 weeks after reconciling, max verstappen and kelly piquet were caught arguing

3,330 comments

user1 can they just stay broken up this time??

→ user2 i love max but i’m fed up now

user3 yet you’ve not got any pics of it? why all the old lovey dovey pics of them

→ user4 the pics are all over twitter. i think f1wags chose not to post them because max looks like he’s trying not to cry in them, and f1wags has always been nice towards the drivers

user5 why is no one talking about the fact that both verstappencom and shortnsweet liked this???

→ user6 the fact that their teams are so desperate for them to be together that they’re publicly rooting for kelly’s demise

user7 i’ve seen the clip on twitter and i wanna know why she’s yelling at him so aggressively

→ user8 i bet it’s cause he’s been all up in yn’s likes

→ user9 yeah but so is she

→ user10 you’d think their relationship would be strengthened by their shared obsession with yn

━━━━ ༻𖥸༺ ━━━━

mclaren just posted

liked by lilymhe, flavy.barla and others

mclaren papaya party it wouldn’t be a maiden win celebration without some celebs. guess who got to hear espresso live

7,814 comments

yn_ln why is lando’s hand like that? he’s not a ken doll

→ landonorris i’m the barbie. you’re the ken

→ yn_ln you wish you were the barbie. you don’t have barbie energy

→ oscarpiastri i’m confused

→ yn_ln you’re an alan

→ landonorris you take that back!

→ user11 does this mean lando and yn saw barbie together?

→ oscarpiastri yes and they left me back at the mtc

user12 not all the wags liking a mclaren post

→ user13 it’s the power of yn

user14 lando and yn’s interactions give me life

user15 i love how mclaren’s engagement has increased since yn started commenting on everything

→ user16 they’ve become more enjoyable since she became a fan

user17 okay but she looks so good in orange

→ redbullracing except she was meant to be in navy

user18 her and lando make such a cute couple

→ landonorris ew no

→ yn_ln ew no. besides, you guys told me she was with oscar. i can’t break that up

→ oscarpiastri @/mclaren can we ban her from the garage?

→ lilyzneimer no!

→ mclaren no!

→ landonorris @/yn_ln i know i said no but why did you say no?

user19 guys, max liked and unliked this

user20 mv1 fans, i think we’ve lost her

landonorris posted a new story

yn_ln replied still serving cunt though

maxverstappen1 replied is that yn?

━━━━ ༻𖥸༺ ━━━━

requests open

coming next; oscar piastri. rivals to teammates to more

tell my why i lowkey feel bad posting this after the pregnancy announcement. i mean, i still don’t like kelly but i wish them every happiness for a safe and healthy delivery.

there will be NO lando x yn in the next two parts

tag list

@peachiicherries @rosecentury @c-losur3 @heavy-vettel @evie-119 @raizelchrysanderoctavius @lilorose25 @sillyfreakfanparty @justaf1girl @omgsuperstarg @seonghwaexile @alejandrablacklupin @nina-or-anna-or-nora @shelbyteller @raynetargaryan2 @astroniii @jxnellat @seasonswinter @casey1-2007 @chemiru @strengthandstay @ivanag1rl @chaoswithus @ivegotparticulartaste @kiyoke3xe @pookynknowntranger

1K notes · View notes

innerfare · 4 months ago

Text

Sex Toys - Part 1

Summary: What are their opinions on and how do they use sex toys? Mostly just them using vibrators on afab!reader, mentions of a few other toys.

Characters: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Ace, Sabo, Law, Kid

Genre: pure smut

CW: NSFW // lots of toys

———

Luffy: Finds your vibrator while rooting through your things one day (privacy, what’s that?), has no idea what it is until you sheepishly explain it to him. Laughs hysterically, is so excited, immediately wants to use it on you. He’s pulling your panties off before you’ve even gotten over the embarrassment of him finding it; you won’t even make it to the bed, he’ll just pull you onto the floor and have at it (a common occurrence with this man). His new favorite thing is to tongue fuck you with a vibrator against your clit. He’s open to butt plugs and nipple clamps, but they’re not really his thing. Doesn’t like you using toys on him, though, claims a cock ring makes him feel like he’s wearing clothes (and Luffy hates wearing clothes).

Zoro: Initially opposed to the idea of toys, doesn’t really understand the point when you have two perfectly good hands. He doesn’t even really like the idea of you using a vibrator on your own (“What, do I not get you off enough?”). He eventually warms up to it, especially once he realizes he can have you hold it to your clit while you ride him or while he fucks you from behind. Ends up having so much fun with this. Always uses a vibrator on your clit if he puts his cock up your ass. Gets pretty into butt plugs, really enjoys seeing the girly pink one that’s shaped like a heart inside your ass while he fucks you from behind. If you propose nipple clamps, he'll happily pull on the chain between.

Sanji: Low key the sort of man to get jealous of a sex toy. That being said, he really enjoys watching you masturbate, and when you tease him with the idea of using a vibrator on yourself while he watches, he can’t get it out of his head and finally decides he just has to see for himself. Far too gentle of a lover to use any sort of paddles or clamps on you, and absolutely despises the idea of you using a dildo, though he wouldn’t be opposed to some handcuffs, granted they’re fur-lined if you’re going to be the one wearing them. You might be able to convince him to try out a cock ring, but only if you’re sure to inform him it will bring you pleasure, too.

Ace: He’s such a pleaser (service dom, 100%) and he worries deeply that you’ll get satisfaction elsewhere while the two of you are parted, so he buys you a very discreet vibrator necklace to wear. That way, you’ll never have to find another man in his stead (it doesn’t matter how many times you tell him it’s not necessary, he’s convinced he has to make you cum three times a day to keep you nice and satisfied, and if he’s not there to do it, he’ll make damn sure you have the tools to do it in his name). Expects you to tell him all about it when he gets back. This eventually turns into him watching you use it on yourself, and then you showing him exactly how you do it so he can take over. He won’t tease you with it, but he does fully expect you to say please and thank you.

Sabo: He’s a kinky little fucker, that’s for sure, and he has a little bit of a sadistic side. His absolute favorite toy is a remote control vibrator. He feels like God himself when he ramps the power up and watches you nearly crumple on the other side of the room, some members of the Army asking if you’re alright while Koala shoots him suspicious glances. Even when you’re alone, he is going to tease the fuck out of you, edging you so many times you threaten to break up with him if he doesn’t just let you cum already; naturally, bondage goes hand in hand with this. He also has a special paddle to spank you (though he does prefer his hand) and handcuffs, which he’ll happily allow you to use on him so long as you promise to suck his cock. Won’t turn down a vibrating cock ring.

Law: He actually starts out pretty vanilla, but gets progressively kinkier throughout your relationship, meaning the slow introduction of more and more toys. What starts as the two of you sharing stolen glances in the hallway turns into you making out in the lab and ends in you tied up on your stomach while Law holds a vibrating wand to your clit. He’s also such a spanker. You two basically never have sex without him spanking you at least once. Law has most definitely used his belt on you before. Likes a butt plug on occasion but not too into it, also enjoys metal handcuffs but will not submit to being the one in them. Also, he thought he would enjoy gagging you, but the first time he did, he quickly realized the only thing worse than you arguing with him during sex is you not arguing (brats, hit Law up).

Kid: Puts metal bracelets/anklets on you, uses his devil fruit ability to hold your limbs wherever he wants them, has most definitely used this to practice the range of his devil fruit ability by leaving you bound and naked somewhere on the ship and seeing how far away he can get with the metal remaining magnetized. When he uses a vibrator on you, it's a wand- none of that little bullet shit. Anytime he doesn’t have your nipples between his teeth, he has them in nipple clamps for sure. Definitely the type to put a collar on you if you’re willing, would prefer something that could pass as a choker necklace so you can wear it in public; would really like one with a bell. Literally down for any type of toy. But he does have times when he wants no toys at all, just the two of you, skin to skin.

———

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want more, you can check out my masterlist here!

1K notes · View notes