#really apparent here more than ever

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

this game will literally tell you anything except acknowledge the thing that started morrigan's reputation. she's had more lovers than there are trees in the forest but she's NOT A HERO OF THE FIFTH BLIGHT OR ANYTHING.

[batsplat]

sometimes casey throws a like on posts about valentino's wins on four wheels, got me wondering how he really feels about vale's retirement life. back in the twilight of vale's career, casey was kinda sad seeing vale content with just hitting top five. but end of last year, he said he's happy for vale's new life vibe. (https://www.tumblr.com/kwisatzworld/735598710184165376/casey-stoner-talks-about-valentino-rossi-in-an)

but man, they're like poles... casey's rebuilding his storm-hit home on the gold coast, swinging golf clubs. meanwhile, valentino's still going full throttle—aside from a vacay in ibiza, dude's been all over the map this year with car races, bike races, tests, and coaching at his academy.

I'm gonna be honest, I have zero awareness of what any of these men do on social media... don't really keep up with them post-retirement in general unless they're literally at the races, giving interviews about their careers and whatnot. so whenever someone on here mentions something like this it's very... I didn't know that but it sure is interesting!! very sweet of casey lol (also link to the gifs)

though, quick note, I wouldn't say valentino was content back in the day with just being in the top five (or lower) - it's just the idea of stopping for a long time felt worse than carrying on. from that same giornale interview, -

And what is it like to live with the idea of ​​leaving? "It's difficult to accept. I didn't give up until the end. But you understand that at forty you no longer have those homicidal instincts that you had when you were twenty-five. But it was hard. At a certain point in my career, about ten years ago, I asked myself: do I stop when I'm on the crest of a wave and retire as a world champion, or do I race until I can't stand it anymore?" Answer? "I race until I can't stand it anymore. And so I did."

it's something he had to decide for himself... of course, both marc and casey have said something along the lines of how they could never have done that themselves, how for them it's only worth it if they're winning. and, y'know, there is something about that for valentino... for all that obviously he is obsessed with winning and desperately wants to do so... he really doesn't just thrive in a fight - he needs it. and it's so interesting, in a way, when you think about just how early in his career he was flirting with the idea of walking away... and then think about how long he ended up sticking around. sure, he was always pretty clear that he would have just done something else racing-related like f1 rather than retire, but still! and in a way, it's probably the fact that he started losing that made him so determined to stick around... the malaise was at its strongest whenever he was winning, or rather, winning too easily... a motogp without valentino might have made it likelier that casey would stick around for longer, whereas a motogp with casey made it less likely that valentino would leave

but yes, casey did say motogp would be better with valentino close to the top:

casey's opinions on what counts as 'good racing' are a whole other thing I'm not going to get into right now, but, I don't know! it's fun! it's fun that casey looked at the 2013-18 period and then what came after that and went 'yeah it'd be better if valentino were involved in this'! "battling it out with these guys" - not even casey stoner is immune to the good old fashioned joys of watching valentino getting himself involved in a dogfight! very compelling of him. I don't think it's just lip service either, not least since it's not like casey is massively inclined to shoot random compliments in valentino's direction (yes, even during valentino's swansong casey did have some rather less friendly hot takes he needed to get off his chest). and... y'know, before the feud really got going casey did talk about how much he'd enjoyed watching valentino, went out with his mates to observe valentino in all his sessions and all that... given you're generally not watching valentino oohing and aahing about him hooking together a quali lap, he must have also enjoyed watching valentino race! happens to the best of us I fear

a persistent problem for a lot of valentino's rivals is how closely associated valentino has become with the very idea of motogp, which, y'know, is the thing they've dedicated their entire lives to. now, for casey this is particularly gnarly and complicated and painful because he has a severely strained relationship with the whole sport, in some ways that come back to valentino and in some ways that go beyond him. and post-retirement, it's not like casey has completely eschewed that active connection to the sport - he was a test rider, he wanted to race again in 2015 as a replacement for dani, he's worked as a rider coach. so again *wiggles hand* complicated. fundamentally though, yes, two very different outlooks. valentino was desperate to race in motogp until he couldn't any more. whereas casey? he's not even missed the racing itself:

can you imagine something more foreign to valentino than this... who loves nothing more than the thrill of the hunt, of the chase, of the kill... that is not a man who was showing up every weekend for the qualifying sessions. it's a way in which they could not be more different - and of course that's further reflected in what they've chosen to do with their time since retirement. valentino is so eternally restless, casey needed to ground himself again. valentino will not stop racing for as long as is physically possible, whereas casey is spending his days fishing... or swinging golf clubs apparently. wait a minute, you say his house was destroyed? by a tornado? ah

anyhow, that's the bit I love about them (not the tornado bit)... how they're both extremely similar and extremely different at the same time - that's the kind of tension through which the narrative juices flow... they're similar in ways you kind of have to be if you want to be very good at a sport, and very good in that sport specifically. in their commitment, their will, their passion for what they do. their competitive instincts, their need to win. how interested they are in preserving the 'soul' of their sport, how they were both firmly on the anti-electronics train for years and years... valentino being told about casey's comments in 2013 pressers and being like 'yeah I'm with him on this'... casey saying in 2018 that valentino is, and I quote, "like me: if it weren't for all these electronics that manage the bike, if the power was controlled only by the rider's right wrist, rossi would still be number one on the track". by the way, and this has absolutely zero relevance to this post, I do need to bring up this comment from the same interview because it makes me laugh:

so real, casey. I wanted drama too. anyway, that comment casey made about the 'stunning blood red' ducati being contaminated by luminous yellow or whatever - obviously in context it was anti-valentino, but it was also revealing that this is even something he cares about because he loves this sport... he wants it to remain true to itself... he regrets not having had the chance to ride the 500cc bikes that valentino was the last guy to be able to win a title on, which obviously valentino is also insanely proud of. there's little things that stand out when you cross-read their autobiographies - like for instance the deep preoccupation with the 'bike or rider' question, partly because they'd both been accused of owing their achievements to something else other than their actual ability (and of course, because they're funny like that, they do both absolutely do this to each other) (also to some extent literally every champion gets put through this, they sure do have a lot of opinions about it though). their thoughts on the importance of being honest to yourself and being honest about what you owe your success to... about not deluding yourself, of not blaming the bike when you are the one to make an error... there's plenty of interesting overlap in what they write y'know

they are both incredibly capable of holding grudges, they are both petty to a fault and will remember any offence you committed even if it was about seven years ago (genuinely casey might be even worse on this metric). and they use this to motivate themselves... they are both so so determined to prove people wrong. if they think you've wronged them, they openly admit that they use that as fuel to spur themselves on. it's the power of spite - yamaha rejected casey so he wanted to show them, nobody thought valentino could make the yamaha switch work so he wanted to rub it in honda's faces. they love to get even. they can be quite suspicious of others to the point of paranoia; there's a world in which they combine their powers to be extremely accomplished conspiracy theorists. they both have a temper - it's easier to get casey angry, but valentino is downright vicious when effectively provoked. plus, and this bit cannot be stressed enough, they are both insane. different flavours of insane, but, still, insane. if you spend enough time thinking about laguna 2008, this kind of becomes one of the key takeaways - because, okay, valentino's riding was. eh. but casey's riding? also very! eh! valentino started it but casey joined in! casey always talked about how much that race changed for him, how it taught him to be more selfish, to just race for himself... and even if it made him feel bad, the thing about casey is that he was willing to do that

but at the same time, of course they're both very different, in all the deeply obvious ways. their respective relationships to publicity, to media, to fame - valentino does struggle with it, does hate it a lot of the time, but at the end of the day he still shines in the spotlight and is an incredibly effective communicator. he's willing to play the game a lot more than casey is... although casey can play it too, if in a different way, when valentino forces him into it. casey's still willing to play it now, which is why you hear him constantly offering his commentary on that rivalry - he's selling a story, a narrative that he may genuinely believe in but that also is of course supposed to flatter him. at the end of the day, however, casey doesn't quite get why all of this has to be such a big part of the sport, why it's necessary to even have anything apart from the racing... whereas valentino has always understood why all the other stuff exists and why it's worth engaging with the public-facing side of the sport, even when he hasn't liked it

valentino loves the sport in its entirety, immediately embraced the entire circus of the paddock and found it endlessly exciting and exhilarating from the very first moment, whereas casey has often wished he could escape all parts of the sport that aren't the racing itself. valentino is someone who has spoken at length about the bonds of friendship with his team and how important they are to him, whereas casey is a man who has said his only friend in the paddock is his wife. the very strong but different connections they both have to their place of origin, and how meaningful those are to both of them, how important it is to their sense of identity... somewhere they'll always come back to. and of course there's a ruthlessness to valentino that is mostly alien to casey, if not entirely. valentino relishes the battle, whereas casey would prefer to avoid it. there are things valentino is ready to do, lines he's ready to cross, where casey doesn't even understand why you would do any of that. valentino loves having... if not an enemy, then certainly a target - and while casey is hardly a stranger to the motivating power of spite, he is more or less happy to complete his track times on an empty bit of asphalt. relatedly, he also wishes to believe that he is completely immune to any kind of psychological tactics... and sometimes he's more right than he's given credit for and sometimes he's wrong. casey is a lot more preoccupied with this rivalry than valentino is - and of course it has a far more defining role within his career than vice versa. casey walked away so much sooner than valentino did because he had grown estranged from the sport he had so loved. whereas valentino never stopped loving it, even when it hurt him, even when it could have killed him... and he never will stop loving it

this post is going to take a bit of a left field turn, sorry. but there's just something about. idk. athletes trapped in a rivalry that's so intense and so meaningful for at least one half, but that's also so about the kind of... gulf between them, the mutual lack of comprehension, where it feels like the divide is so big it might be unbridgeable... anyway, it always makes me think of a specific bit of andre agassi's autobiography where he talks about his rivalry with pete sampras. so here:

Walking up to the gate, who should I see but Pete. As always, Pete. He looks as if he's done nothing for the last month but practise, and when he wasn't practising, he was lying on a cot in a bare cell, thinking about beating me. He's rested, focused, wholly undistracted. I've always thought the differences between Pete and me were overblown by sportswriters. It seemed too convenient, too important for fans, and Nike, and the game, that Pete and I be polar opposites, the Yankees and Red Sox of tennis. The game's best server versus its best returner. The diffident Californian versus the brash Las Vegan. It all seemed like horseshit. Or, to use Pete's favorite word, nonsense. But at this moment, making small talk at the gate, the gap between us appears genuinely, frighteningly wide, like the gap between good and bad. I've often told Brad that tennis plays too big a part in Pete's life, and not a big enough part in mine, but Pete seems to have the proportions about right. Tennis is his job, and he does it with brio and dedication, while all my talk of maintaining a life outside tennis seems like just that - talk. Just a pretty way of rationalizing all my distractions. For the first time since I've known him - including the times he's beaten my brains out - I envy Pete's dullness. I wish I could emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration, and his peculiar lack of need for inspiration.

obviously the specific details of the rivalry are very different, and the two rivalries don't map neatly onto each other at all. but I don't know, it's always felt a good way of summing up that! disconnect!! the whole world might want you to be distinct from your rival for narrative purposes and you're aware of how artificial the whole thing is... but sometimes it can still be true... casey's always talking about how he never got obsessed with his rivals, how he always treated them all the same, how it was all just externally imposed onto him... which, okay, we could perhaps question the supposed lack of obsession, but it still comes back to how you don't want it to just be about you and that other guy. always you and them, them and you - and maybe you can't actually escape it because it's the truth... it's your legacy, it's fundamentally interwoven into the fabric of your career, it's why you will never truly free yourself from that narrative. "the gap between us appears genuinely, frighteningly wide, like the gap between good and bad"... you're bound together in your shared passion for this sport, but your biggest rival is also somebody who you feel like you'll never truly understand

casey may feel alienated from valentino and in doing so feel alienated from the very sport itself. whereas for valentino, casey was just what he needed. having casey was something motivating, something exciting for valentino - however annoying he found that man, he always needs something to inspire him and for a while there that something was casey. it's a rivalry that wore away at casey while at the same time it lit a fire within valentino... the 'cordial' mutual hatred they exhibited towards each other, wrapped up in this sense of mutual estrangement, it weighed more heavily on one of them than it did on the other... all these similarities between the two characters that exist alongside the violence of the contrast between them. that underlying and inescapable sense of alienation. on some level, they were always perfectly clear on who the other man was when they were fighting each other - and tailored their approach to the rivalry accordingly. but knowing doesn't quite equal empathy, it's not the same as understanding, and the distance between the pair of them inevitably remained. hey, maybe a dinner will fix it, maybe casey can explain where he was coming from to valentino and get the chance to interrogate valentino on the same. because that's what casey's expressing there, right, when he's talking about telling valentino his 'challenges' from his 'point of view'... it's not even as much about understanding as much as it is about being understood. it's about getting valentino to comprehend casey's side of things. maybe even getting valentino to care. of course, more likely than not, the dinner hasn't happened and will never happen. more likely than not, that gap will remain unbridgeable. perhaps it's too much to ask for, to ever truly know your foil. perhaps it's even more impossible to expect to be known

[blizzardsuplex]

Nigel McGuinness versus Bryan Danielson from ROH Weekend of Champions Night 2, 04/29/2006 (for Ms. Drea @shes-a-voodoo-child <3)

[todayisafridaynight]

Since you mentioned it, what did you think of Speak No Evil? I was thinking of watching it myself :0

i really liked it ............ my friend scoffed at me when i told her i was watchin it so take my opinion with a grain of salt tho </3

[mymelodyisme]

Did I tell y’all it turns out my best friend and I both have a little crush on the same guy

[depvotee]

i will not stand green team in my house. i swear to god.

[wanderingandfound]

Second time in about 48 hours that I have gone into the search mines to bring out a specific pride flag for my blog only to be met with either long or thoughtless posts about how x flag is the most inferior or y flag is the most superior while shitting on other flag designs. Like, I am all for making as many flags as you want — the more the merrier no monopolies here. I would just like for people to keep in mind:

Which communities (including geographical and cultural!!!) specific flags come from and why they were created.

You do not need to be represented by every single stripe for the flag to be applicable to you.

If a flag is featuring a specific identity there's probably a reason for that, I don't care if it's ugly.

Please cite sources and inspiration! Flags represent communities and usually come from community involvement and influence.

Seriously unless a flag was made purposefully to demean or alienate others it's probably fine. You don't have to use it or prefer it and you can be annoyed with it but it doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

[artykyn]

Me: I’m going back to school and switching careers to programming

My coworkers who I had for 8 months: Oh :/ such a shame that you’re leaving tissue culture :/ it’s so hard to find people with good TC skills :/ why programming though?? So random

My previous boss at a TC company who I worked with for 4.5 years and who I still keep in touch with: Yeah that tracks. You’ll be great at that.

[babieken]

I’ve had similar issues with weight loss (gained weight when i was sick then lost ~25% of what was my entire body weight) and now my girls have deflated 😔 One day i really want to get a lift done, maybe implants too, but it all kinda scares me. I can’t really feel my nips either (or a lot of my body — thanks neuropathy!) so I guess that’s one less thing to worry about 😂 I’m just gonna stick to saving for fillers/botox for my face in the meantime 😬

Hope your recovery keeps going well!! 🖤

Oh gosh... that's a DRASTIC weightloss!!! I can imagine😞😞😞

Okay imma be real with u, im super anti implants kdnddmdk (personal opinion ofc) Other than their fake looking results and the fact that you're adding weights to ur chest, the thought of having two giant external objects being shoved into ur body makes me wanna CRAWL OUT OF MY SKIN... But honestly who am i to tell u what to do 😌 if thats what u want u should totally go for it!!!

Oh i love botox <3 my beloved. I love living in a modern world with modern shit like this kdkkdkd

[bileroom]

we're going to have our own safe home again and then we can process the. aughh

[therealbeachfox]

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.

[fadetouchedsilk]

'fixed' is a strong word here, i think even if he'd stayed on board veilguard still would have been a soft 6/10 at Best just based on the nightmarish production cycle alone

i definitely don't want people to take this post as a defence of gaider lmao, to the best of my knowledge he still hasn't walked back any of his previous bullshit takes (which he's Definitely had more than enough time to do by now & instead just elects to sound vaguely smug/bitter when it comes up on bluesky so. not a lot of hope there tbh). the biggest things we're missing without him at the helm would definitely apply more to tonal cohesiveness & how the lore is generally treated. ea getting their fingers into things & having the game suffer for it was to be expected, but based on past games i still thought we would at least be getting compelling parts (i love dragon age, but i definitely won't go around saying it's objectively Good lmfao)

whether he stayed on or someone was brought in who functioned similarly where it mattered & made up for some of the real world-related shortcomings & blind spots (would have been the ideal in this situation), i think weekes was just Not the correct choice for taking the lead here. from the outside, i would assume the choice was made on seniority & previous experience working on the games which makes sense on paper. but the cohesiveness & maturity of the writing is just completely missing. it is so, so painfully emotionally shallow & it's glaring in the scant character interactions we get.

given how many people love the writing of da2, i don't even know if it would have been an issue of crunch here since we've seen it pulled off in a short period of time before (another point where having ea breathing down everyone's neck this time didn't help tbf). but a lot of that success can probably be attributed to having a lead who had a strong sense of the setting & would have been able to bring everyone up to that same level. apparently having the shorter timeline was actually a benefit to the da2 development, since there was less time to go back & forth with decisions.

anyway all that is to say, i think 'we got objectively better written games under gaider than we did with weekes as lead' is a pretty fair statement to make. i have no doubt that there are other people who could have delivered a Better game than either of them could too, and i honestly wish we were living in the timeline where that theoretical person ended up with the position instead

im definitely not a fan of this man on a personal level for several reasons but guys im starting to think da lost a load bearing wall when he left

[welcometogrouchland]

Had to leave the tag once I stopped getting GIFs and started getting ATJ thirst posts (no shade, just not my area of interest) but anyway. Fall guy good movie I think

[carebearbussy]

ᥫ᭡ thinking about heian era! sukuna having a heavy breeding kink, seemingly out of nowhere.

you bring up a mere idea at dinner, the conversation quickly turning normal, to you bringing up an idea he had never given a second thought to.

"do you ever want kids with me, 'kuna?"

you would ask him, innocently enough, a sickeningly sweet tone hidden beneath your words. but you would already know the answer to this question. he would look up at you, then back down at his food, annoyance pondering his mind. eating a slab of salmon sashimi, he took a bite, chewing slow enough to hint at his potential answer. placing down his chopsticks, he would look back up at you, scoffing to himself at your foolish inquiry.

"those small, annoying humans that require too much attention for their own good? no thank you, i have better things to attend to."

he says, focusing on the meal before him. but his thoughts soon get the best of him. and now that he thinks about it, he will need an heir eventually. and not only that, but what would you be like? as a mother specifically. you would require more attention than most of the time. which was something he secretly enjoyed indulging in, despite his negative reasoning towards infants. how would you look?

you would be more swollen than usual, you stomach would grow larger by day, your breasts will most definitely become more full by the day. the bigger picture, which was you, enticed him in a way. something about seeing you round with his child really had his head going.

and so thats how you ended up here, you knees tightly locked against your stomach, as sukuna absolutely plows into your already stuffed cunt.

this was the seventh time? eighth time? at this point, you couldn't keep track. but he had came wayyyy too many times more than an average man should be able to. it was excruciating, really, the whimpers leaving your mouth, his hands bringing your knees closer to your chest with every move of his hips.

his seed was leaking out of you, glop by glop, dripping down your bottom even more, as he kept going harder and rougher. splashes of your juices paired with his cum stained the bed, the squelching of your pussy becoming deafening with every smack of his heavy balls against the rim of your ass. and the tight grip he had on your locks wasn't helping his case.

"hah, you're gonna give your king his offspring? yeah? r' you gonna be a good little mother f'me? make me an heir?"

he asks, your head barely able to focus on anything other than trying to stay sane. you felt sooo full, but this apparently wasn't enough for sukuna, or his heavy urges to breed your sloppy cunt. you nod eagerly, not wanting him to go any harder than he already has. but with the way he kept abusing your womb, it seemed like you were enjoying it, as sukuna relishes in your facial expression, your eyes rolling back, your mouth hung open wide enough to stuff two of his free fingers in.

"you'd be such a good mother, so obedient too. you wanted to rile me up, didn't you? i'll give you what you want, woman."

moaning into his fingers, you swirl your tongue around his digits, making him hum contently. you try to focus your vision onto his eyes, but the way he pushed his chest further into yours, had you practically cross eyed. hitting a new angle, you felt yourself completely let go, officially adding onto your list of orgasms you had previously had that night.

he released his fingers from your mouth, a coat of your saliva stringing upon release. he ceases to pull out of you, instead letting himself nuzzle nicely into your warmth, releasing yet again inside of you, earning a whine of complaint on your behalf. he playfully slaps your cheek with his wet hand, trailing it down to your pussy, playing in the ring of his semen around his cock. you squirm slightly, as you watch him then bring his cum coated fingers up to your mouth, pushing them back inside your mouth, making you taste his seed, some of his cum pooling around your lips.

"does that taste good? i bet it does, since you seem to love my seed so much. i cant wait to see you so full, besides from right now, of course."

[thinkinonsense]

FANTASIZE❦

old!logan howlett x fem!reader

*mdni

cw: cursing, nsfw, age gap (reader is twenty-five)

wc: 1k+

a/n: i have no idea where this came from. i was supposed to be working on something completely different but apparently, this needed to be written first instead. yes it is inspired by the unreleased ariana grande song.

⊱ ─── ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ ─── ⊰

Logan couldn't read minds. He never longed for the ability or power; he was better off not knowing what others had going on in their heads. He only wanted to peek into someone's mind when he caught your twinkling eyes lingering in his direction. Luckily, he could still read your mind even without the mutation because your fantasies were written all over your face.

It was obvious to anyone caught in the same room as you and Logan, that there was tension. You burned holes all over his body with your intense gaze. If Logan was in the mood to entertain your little crush, he could compliment you in a way that was sure to make you blush.

"Good form today, kid."

"Lookin' pretty today, sweetheart."

"Lemme fix that lipstick, dollface." That one left you with an ache in between your thighs as his thumb brushed your lower lip. "Can't have you walkin' around here a mess, now can we?"

Logan wasn't sure if he would ever make it to heaven but seeing your lip tremble with need was close enough for him.

If he saw you in a dress with a pair of mary-jane's, he would try to catch a glimpse of your underwear in the reflection of your shoes. It didn't always work but it made him feel young again.

No one was brave enough to address it due to him being twice your age. Despite being twenty-five years old and already having graduated from the school, it was still considered taboo to some. If anyone asked Logan about it, he would brush it off as a schoolgirl crush that you would eventually grow out of.

It was truly harmless he thought. You got the attention you craved and Logan got to see a pretty young woman squirm in her seat because of him. It never went further than flirtatious comments and lingering stares.

❦

Today might be the worst day of your life. You and Logan were being sent out together on a mission to find a mutant that lived two hours away. It wasn't the mission that worried you; it was being stuck in a tiny car with only Logan for one hundred and twenty minutes.

"Why aren't 'cha talkin', dollface?" Logan asked, almost teasingly.

For almost twenty minutes, he was aware of your eyes watching his hand hold the wheel. Logan was also incredibly aware of the effect it had on you. A little broken sigh escapes you when his hand clenches tighter around the leather, making his veins pop even more.

"Too busy fantasizing 'bout me?"

No matter how much you tried to find someone your age to be with, your heart always went back to Logan. He treated you differently than anyone you've ever met. Sure, sometimes he made you feel like a kid but he also knew you could handle your own. Logan wouldn't let anyone underestimate you; that kept you crawling back to him.

"Maybe I am." You shrug, fed up with his games.

"Oh, yeah?" He says, taking a deep inhale of your sent. "What's goin' on in that pretty head of yours, hm?"

You were used to Logan's overly confident personality that he tried to use to intimidate you; and make you stumble over your words. It wasn't gonna work this time. Logan wanted you just as much as you wanted him, but you needed him to admit it first.

"Us in the backseat of the car." You admit, biting the inside of your cheek nervous for his response.

"Really? And what are we doing back there?" He asked, cocking his head curiously as his eyes remained glued to the road.

"You're on top of me, makin' me feel good." Your words were coy but that was the point. Logan liked being the tease; having all the power.

"Keep talkin', dollface."

There it was. You had him right where you wanted him.

You pretended to think about it for a moment before shaking your head and telling him, "No, I shouldn't"

"Why not?"

"Because an old man like yourself can't keep up with me, right? At least that's what I heard you tell the Professor."

Logan couldn't believe you had heard their conversation earlier this week. The Professor was the only person who knew the truth of how Logan felt towards you. When Charles asked him what was stopping him from pursuing you, all Logan had to say was, "I'm too old for her; can't keep up with such a young thing like her".

Which was far from the truth.

"So obsessed with me that you're listenin' to my conversations now?" He growled, pulling the car over.

"Stop acting like you aren't obsessed with me too." You smile at him. "I know a few pairs of my underwear 'mysteriously' disappear from my hamper. I know that you can hear me through the walls late at night, panting your name."

With each sentence, you inch closer to him. Logan could only compare you to the snake in Eve's garden; encouraging him to give into his temptations.

"I also know that you want me." Your eyes were dark with desire, making his pants tighter. "So, if you can't get it up or claim that you don't want me then that's fine with-"

Logan fumed with irritation and lust. Not thinking twice before slamming your lips into yours. He tasted exactly like you imagine; tobacco and mint. You were addicted; no one could ever compare to him.

In a rush, his rough hands pulled you into his inviting lap before one cupped your jaw and his other made its way up your skirt, toying with your lacy underwear. He wasn't going to give it to you that easily.

"L-Logan, please," You moan against his mouth, trying to create some friction on his lap. "Need it."

God, he's waited a long time to hear that; to see you so desperate in his arms. When he pulled back to look at you, Logan couldn't be more pleased with the image in front of him. Your eyes shut tightly, face scrunched, trying to concentrate, and lips pouty with annoyance. Logan removes his hand under your skirt; causing the prettiest whine to escape you. He thought you might be what finally kills him.

"We aren't done, sweetheart." He groaned in your ear. "Get in the backseat because you are gonna tell me every single one of your fuckin' fantasies."

[kaibattle]

//