#super hell (2004) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

therealbeachfox · 7 months

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!”

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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.

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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

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ms-demeanor · 2 years

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So I've been seeing some discourse around the No Fly List leak that looks a bit like "hey everybody, we can't make jokes about this, the list is racist and there are children on the list" or "if you're talking about identity categories instead of the list you're missing the point" and I think that we CAN make jokes about a trans bi lesbian catgirl owning the US government while also appreciating the gravity of the No Fly List but what I think is troubling to me is the way that these discourse posts are treating the blatant racism and inherently fascist nature of the No Fly List as news.

It is news that Maia Arson Crimew was able to download a copy of the No Fly List from an unsecured public server.

It is not news that there are 1.5 million people on that list, many of whom do not belong on it for any number of reasons, and it is not news that there are children on that list, and it is not news that the list is a tool used to deprive people of their civil liberties. That's why the list exists.

I'm aware that I'm getting older. I'm aware that there are entire adults of legal drinking age who were born after 9/11. I'm aware that it's not super common to follow up on foreign policy or national security debacles from when you were in kindergarten, but there are people who have been mad about this shit for twenty years and if you're just now hearing about how bad the list is for the first time, hell, maybe that's on us and we haven't been yelling enough (though when I'm yelling about how the TSA is security theater meant to make us accept encroachments on our rights, this is at least a part of what I'm yelling about).

The No Fly List is a list of individuals maintained by the TSA who are deemed a threat to security for some reason or another.

The TSA maintains the list, though they are given information for the list from the FBI, Terrorism Screening Center, and other entities. If you'd like to click this document, you can find 250 pages of FOIA'd documents about the No Fly List pre 2006. Much of this document is members of the FBI trying to justify why they need a copy of the list and lamenting that airlines have a copy of the list and they don't. This is very funny.

There have been issues with mis-identifications and false positives for the list for as long as the list has existed. You can click here to read through an infuriating 200 pages about a Pfizer employee who was stopped at least a dozen times at airports and who retained a law firm to hound the TSA/CBP/ICE clusterfuck of interagency buck-passing for nine months to try to get the problem resolved. One of the three documents at this link includes a complaint from the president of the Terrorist Screening Center lamenting the way that the TSA would refer obvious non-matches to be detained, including infants and the elderly.

At this point, the FBI/TSA/TSC/ICE/CBP claimed list was still relatively small, in the low thousands at most.

However a 2009 cost-benefit report by the Defense Technical Information Center found that in 2004-2005 30,000 people contacted the TSA to have their names removed from the list; 30k false positives suggests a list somewhat longer than a thousand names.

As long as the No Fly List has existed, criteria for being placed on the list has been subjective and selectively enforced.

As the Crimew leak shows, there isn't a tremendous amount of biographical data, but there are hundreds of thousands of names and it is enforced at the discretion of the TSA in each individual airport in the US, which is how you end up with duplicates and toddlers and 100-year-old men on what is functionally a filter to keep Muslim people out of the US.

The list has expanded every year that it has existed, and has been defended by republicans and democrats alike since it became one of the tools in our arsenal to fight "the war on terror"

And for just about that long, people have been talking about how it is unconstitutional, denies civil liberties, and also just doesn't really work.

It has never been transparent, it has always been a tool of surveillance, exclusion, and control:

And people have been documenting, protesting, and suing over the islamophobic nature of the list - and the security state's weaponization of the list as a threat - for two decades at this point because in the earliest days of the No Fly List it was OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGED that it was based on racial profiling and people made (shitty, cruel) legal arguments for why it should be:

THIS isn't funny. These are not the things that people are joking about when they choose to stay silly :3 in this conversation.

But these things also aren't news. Nearly everything I screencapped here was listed as a source on Wikipedia, and what wasn't was available as simple searches on Archive.Org or easily looked up on news websites.

All you have to do is just *look* at the sources on Wikipedia to see that people actually have been talking about it for quite a long time, very publicly, and that there has been a lot of public outcry about the list as it balloons and punishes innocent people with false positives:

And when you've been looking at stories like these for twenty fucking years it feels wonderful to say "holy fucking bingle" and celebrate that for once someone did something VERY COOL in order to shine a light on this massive (and apparently underappreciated problem).

#long post #very long post #tw islamophobia

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yanderederee · 11 months

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MeetMyGang

April25th, 2004

a/n: Please enjoy!!♡ // BajixTutor!Reader series // ct:fluff

lol lowkey inspired by this behind-the-scenes clip of the live action actors having a push-up contest!

before › now! › after

Just after the events of Rooting for You!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

“Bring her by next meeting,”

Mikey ordered.

Baji sweat under the intense seriousness Mikey was radiating.

“It’s really not what you think, M-“ Baji tried to disagree, but Mikey simply wasn’t taking no for an answer.

This was an order, not a request.

“I just wanna meet her!” Mikey pouted. “Anyone who can get You to stop on a rampage is worth meeting.” Draken agreed, smirking at Baji. “It’s not everyday we get to see Baji Keisuke shy,” Mitsuya shoved Baji playfully. “She’s got to be a saint of some kind to put up with your stubborn ass!”

Baji groaned, glaring at each and every one of the Toman founders, who were simultaneously grinning wickedly back at him.

“I said, no.”

He was determined.

Everyone went quiet, and soon all eyes landed to the ominous aura in the air: all eyes on Mikey.

Baji wasn’t budging.

“Fine,”

Mikey shrugged, outwardly appearing indifferent. “Not like I can force you.”

And that was it.

The meeting ended.

That was way too easy.

Baji didn’t have a good feeling, when the room started to file empty.

“Good luck,” Draken, the last person in the room, had sighed, before leaving Baji in a cold sweat.

— April27th, 2004

“Hmm~mh-mm~”

Whisper

“Who is that guy?”

“I’m not sure, be looks like he’s waiting on someone…”

“He kinda looks.. like a delinquent, doesn’t he?”

“Well he’s driving a bike, so…”

“Maybe he’s waiting on a girlfriend?~”

“Don’t joke like that! Who would even…”

Whisper

“Yyy/nn-chinnn~ y/n-chin~” Mikey whistled to himself, scanning the ocean of student heads while he wait leisurely on his CB250.

Baji was PISSED.

“What is that guys deal?!”

“Who?” You asked, behind him like a little duckling.

“No one!” Baji bit back full force, practically red, trying to hide Mikey from your window viewing pleasure.

Barely taken aback, if at all, you hummed casually before shrugging. “Guess I’ll go find out ~” you gathered the last of your materials before pulling your bag neatly over your shoulder and starting your way towards the door.

“Wait!” Baji tried stopping you, but just as he reached for your hand to try and halt you, you did a quick sprint to the door, avoiding his touch. You grinned wickedly, yet so sweetly, actually, wait, what was with that giggle? He was so caught up in how cute you looked giggling at his bewildered expression, that he lost sight of you completely.

“Shit, wait, y/n!! “ he yelled, trying to make quick work to catch up to you. His glasses slid, the frames blocking his vision only for a moment, enough to make him bump against the door way in his quick pursuit.

“Damnit, Chifuyu!” Baji yelled, and up popped Chifuyu’s blond helmet. “Yes sir!”

“Don’t let Mikey get ahold of Y/n!” He ordered, and just like a good subordinate, Chifuyu clicked his heels. “GOT IT!”

As Baji and Chifuyu both went different directions, Ryusei couldn’t contain his laughter. “What the hell is going on?”

Just outside the school entrance, you snuck to-and-fro between mingling students to make sure you went unseen.

You were just curious after all. Baji never wanted to introduce you to any of his friends, and while it wasn’t like you two were dating, but you were curious about Baji’s personal life.

About his super cool biker gang friends!

You peeked a spying eye out past the gate, scanning the area to spot the culprit of Baji’s stress. It didn’t take long, given the low rumbling of an engine.

Biking boots.

Loose black trousers.

A white belt.

An oversized white v neck, shoulders covered with another school’s jacket. Not the same Tokyo Manji uniform you’d seen just the other day.

And as your gaze wandered to meet the face of this lazily dressed delinquent, you made direct eye contact with Manjiro Sano.

Your heart stopped. What kind of presence was this, that you were feeling? It felt like the wind had been knocked right out of you. Your lungs deflated and suddenly you were lightheaded. Were you holding your breath? Why couldn’t you breathe? Why was he looking at you so intently? Like you were—

“Y/n!” Whispered Chifuyu, bringing you back to reality.

But just before he got his hands on you, so had Mikey.

“Y/n-chin!~ there you are, I was looking for you!” Mikey laughed happily, his bike’s kickstand having been shoved in the ground with haste.

“Too late, shit-“ Baji hissed, just making it in time to witness Mikey holding your hands in his with glee. “C’mon, before your boyfriend snatches you away,” Mikey grinned at you, then glancing at Baji, who seemed to hear every word.

“You low hanging bastard! Don’t you dare—“ Baji started, but it was too late before Mikey was pulling you past your restrains- over and onto his bike, sitting in front of him.

“WHAT THE HELL!” School be damned, Baji couldn’t hide the hot rage that came from Mikey’s overstepping. But even when he tried reaching the two of you, Mikey was already throttling the gas.

The last thing Baji saw of you was your mildly worried expression.

“Seee ya~” Mikey laughed, so so very clearly amused, before riding away full speed.

“Mikkkeeeeyyyyy…” Baji was boiling over, further and further as the day went on.

Couldn’t he just respect one thing? One? Baji said no, No, damnit!

“Baji, we should follow them,” Chifuyu spoke, as though there wasn’t all hope lost. “C’mon.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

“‘The hells your problem, knock it off!” Baji yelled.

Everyone was just surrounding you— trying to get a look at Baji’s Girlfriend. Or, that was the rumor.

“Baji-San has a girlfriend?!”

“No way! She’s just his tutor!”

“But he brought her here! That’s strange!”

“It’s unlike Baji to bring someone…”

“Shh he’ll hear you!”

“I didn’t say anything wron—“

“QUIT WHISPERING I CAN HEAR YOU BASTARDS!”

Baji groaned. This was the worst.

Chifuyu had good intentions, bringing you around to get a better understanding of who Baji really was, the side of him you didn’t know anything about.

And now here you were in the heart of it, and you looked amazed.

“Is that a real tattoo?” You asked one of the guys, peeking when the thug drew back his sleeve to show it off. “No, fuck off.” Baji pushed past, taking you away from the crowd.

“H-hey! Baji,” you tried to argue, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Don’t care, we’re leaving.”

*reader begins using Baji instead of Kei/Keisuke while in front of his friends, to avoid being seen as disrespectful*

“Woah woah! Where’s the fire!” Smiled a nice looking boy with short hair and a cross earring. “You must be the famous Baji charmer,” he opened his hand to you, to which you shook politely. “Name’s Mitsuya, Mitsuya Takashi.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance Mitsuya-san, I don’t much about charming, but I do my best to keep Baji on top of classes.” You giggled.

Mitsuya paused, starring at you for a while, charmed. Quickly, he looked back up to smirk at Baji. “Lucky bastard.” He almost soluted before giving your hand a final squeeze, and backed off.

But you were a popular guest star, it was only a matter of time before you were swept away again. Much to Baji’s dismay. In the crowd of delinquents, it was getting hard to keep track of where you were being taken.

“Chifuyu, I’m about to lose it.” Baji informed, ready to throttle the next guy who put his hands on you. Chifuyu gulped. “J-just, hang tight boss!” He groaned, dreading the turn of events.

“I-is THAT a real tattoo?” You gasped, the next time you were spotted was with Draken, who was crouching for your convenience and chuckling at your bright eyed excitement. “I-is it a dragon? How cool!” You threatened to trace the ink outline.

“Ken Ryuguji, nice to meet you,” Draken had introduced himself, now standing up to full height.

“Wow, even your name means dragon? That’s kind of bad ass, right?”

Draken laughed, like you’d just said a hilarious joke. “It is bad ass isn’t it!” He laughed even harder. “She’s great, you should’ve brought her around sooner, Baji!”

And while Baji was off fuming, you stood there happily content.

“Hey, yaknow, I’m like, way stronger than Baji, right?” Mikey grinned, leaning in for a fake flirty gesture. Stalking you like a shadow, Mikey’s been having you make your rounds, all within his own supervision.

Mikey did find you rather adorable, after all.

Mikey liked the way you handled yourself, composed and confident in a crowd of scary looking thugs. He liked the way you respected them and treated them in a friendly manner. But Mikey really liked the way you smiled, the lovesick doe eyed puppy that adored Baji. He knew you and Baji were in the process of becoming an item.

But you weren’t yet, so he thought it no harm to pseudo flirt before Baji could have a valid reason to tell him off.

“I saw the way you kick! I was really impressed,” you praised him with an admiration. “Considering Baji is the strongest person I know, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

This seemed to light a fire in Mikey. “Oh no, take more than just my word. Baji! C’mere so I can kick your ass!” He joked loudly.

Baji was almost thrilled when he finally found you again. And what made it all the better was the way you jogged over to be by his side.

Your presence alone was enough to allow him catch his breath.

When he looked down at you to assess your comfort levels, what with being pawned around like a shiny new toy, he was released to see your carefree smile.

“I’m also way stronger than Baji, by the way.” Out spoke Pah, almost startling you.

“Oh really? Maybe we should test which one of us is the strongest!”

“Stupid~, I’m just gonna win! Don’t even bother,”

“Now that’s a challenge I think I’ll take you up on.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys!”

…

And that’s how you ended up refereeing Toman’s first official strength and endurance competition.

Between Mitsuya and Draken, you made sure both of them seemed prepared enough for your the starting signal.

“… Go!”

And in traditional arm wrestling fashion, the twin dragons fought with all their strength, gripping for dear life to not be the loser.

They had a good few seconds of beefing back and forth, but soon became obvious it was Draken’s game.

“No fair! No one can beat Kenchin at arm wrestling! This is rigged!” Mikey yelled from the sidelines, not eager to be the one to follow up.

Next in the lineup, they wanted to try push ups. All ready in position, in a line so everyone was visible.

It didn’t take them long to tire themselves out— only a few seemed like they never would stop.

“Just give it up Mikey, I ain’t losin’ to you!” Baji huffed out, still fighting Mikey’s childish need to win. “You’re just sayin’ that cause you’re getting tired~ I could keep this up for hours!” Manjiro quipped back with barely a huff of exertion at all.

All that remained was Mikey, Baji, Draken and Chifuyu. Though, just as they rounded off to the fifteen minute mark, Chifuyu practically lost consciousness. And Draken honestly started getting bored.

“This is fun ‘n all, but don’t you guys have better things to do?” Out emerged another girl, with long blond hair. A wide smile bloomed over your features when you saw her.

“W-wow, you’re like, really pretty… Oh! Um, s-sorry, hi, I’m–“ you tried to introduce yourself, but Emma already knew. “Y/n, yeah, heard lots about you just from passing through.” She held out her hand to you, smiling in unison.

You shook her hand happily, “So, is it true?~ Are you and Baji shacking up?~” she whispered with a grin. Your face heated up dramatically at her question and shook your head. “No! No, n-not like that! We just go to school together!” You defended.

“Hmm~ if you say so.” She let off. “I’m Emma, by the way. Mikey’s my brother, if you couldn’t tell.”

You blinked a few times, turning the idea in your head. “Oh, that makes sense! You guys do look alike!” You nodded, and looked over at Baji and Mikey still squabbling on how to settle the score.

“Oi! Come on! We ain’t got all night!” Draken called to them, now that he finally had his fill of the excitement. “Just settle it with a good ol’ fashion fist fight and be done with it!”

Both Mikey and Baji huffed out some kind of reply, to their feet. “I’m so going to kick your ass.” Baji glared at Mikey. “Oho~ I’d like to see you try.” Mikey grinned back.

“Are they always this competitive?” You leaned closer to Emma in inquiry. “Yes, literally all the time.” She replied quickly, a unanimous nod waving over all else who heard the question.

That made you smile.

Overlooking the petty little dispute, you couldn’t help but feel warm inside. Before, you’d only ever seen Baji with a mild temper, holding his tongue and being the voice of reason in some cases. His thick rimmed glasses hid half his face, and you’d have never guessed his hair was actually as long as it was with the way he tied it back.

You began to fall for him ever since you saw the way he took such good care of the injured kitten, barely a month ago. You began noticing the cracks in the character he played up, and found it cute. The way he would stifle curse words, diverting his ever growing tempter.

Until eventually he began also showing interest in you as well. Meeting you anytime you asked for his presence, gradually asking you more about yourself, and reassuring you about things you couldn’t control.

This, too, was Baji Keisuke. Hot tempered, brash, snarky, confident, handsome… you knew you liked Baji before you knew how he really got along. He was a gentle person underneath it all. He loved animals, just as they loved him back.

Would you have feared him, if you saw this side of him before meeting him in school? Surely not, you’d been surrounded by delinquents for the last hour, and felt no discomfort whatsoever. That had to mean something, right?

“You got this, Baji-san!!” Chifuyu yelled out, snapping you out of you day dream. Everyone was cheering all around you as the fight was in full swing. Push after hard punch, they were fighting for blood. It took you off guard at first, the blood, but this was normal for them.

A swift kick to the side of the head, a block to counter, Baji looped his arm around Mikey’s foot to falter his landing. Before he could meet the ground, Mikey used his palms to push off, and send his uninterrupted foot under Baji’s chin to clock him in an undercut fashion. That definitely had to hurt.

Yet they fought on. In amazement, you starred. With everyone else cheering, the hype of battle began building inside you, until you felt ready to burst. “I believe in you, Kei!” You yelled out. In front row, he definitely heard you. It felt embarrassing having a girl root for you so explicitly, but damn did it work to fuel the fight in him.

Baji grinned wide, regaining his composure. His next punch really hurt, you could tell. Mikey’s expression was a dead give away of that. “Damn, you really pack a punch whenever your girl’s involved,” he teased. “Maybe we should bring her around more often.”

“Try it,” Baji bit back, taking the initiative. The two have sparred so much in their life, they could read each other’s moves easily. And Baji knew Mikey was losing on purpose.

Sure, losing to Baji left a bad taste in his mouth, losing in front of you tasted even more bitter. But at the end of the day, Mikey knew Baji really cared about you. He would have chances in the future to sweep you off your feet and let you reconsider who you liked best. But for now, he wouldn’t dare ruin the glow of excitement that lit up that cute face of yours.

“Winner! Baaajiii!” Draken’s voice rang with a roaring hoot. All of Toman hooted back in response, all in good fun. Mikey could afford losing petty fights in front of his subordinates every now and again. He was still The Invincible Mikey, and he’d be sure to whip anyone who actually questioned that standing.

You jumped in excitement at the declaration, clapping for your classmate. “Way to go Kei!!” You called out happily.

Baji knew he won by default, but he didn’t really care to rebuttal the outcome. Not when you looked so happy. He grinned at you and rolled his eyes. “Had it in the bag,”

“Mmhm~ good fight.” Mikey chuckled past the two of you. “Meeting adjourned!”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

“See you ‘round!” Called out another Toman member, zooming past on their bike. You waved back politely, standing back while Baji worked on getting his bike ready to go. “Y/n~!” Emma caught your attention, hugging you warmly. “Nice to meet you, make it home safe, kay?” She smiled.

You smiled back. “I’ll be sure to do that! Make it home safe!” You waved her off when she hopped onto the back of Mikey’s bike. “Don’t be a stranger~” Mikey called back with a wide grin and a wave.

Baji rolled his eyes, and roared his engine. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back home.”

You paused, worried. “Don’t you usually drive home with Matsuno?” You asked. Chifuyu grinned and patted your back. “Sounds weird having you call me that, just call me Chifuyu, alright?”

“And second, don’t sweat it! I can walk home just fine.”

You gave a weary look. “Well, if you’re sure..” you said uneasily. “Hop on,” Baji encouraged, leaning the bike to one side so you could get on easier.

A few attempts later, you only managed to get yourself situated onto the back of the bike by using Baji’s shoulder for leverage.

Holy shit, Baji only just realized. You were so close. Way too close. Chest pressed flush to his back, you shakily gripped the sides of his uniform. He could feel you breath against the back of his neck.

Your legs felt weird being so close to the hot metal of the exhaust pipe, but Baji assured you it was probably safe.

(*please wear a layer of fabric to separate your skin from touching exhaust pipes/bike motors! It can in fact burn you if you are not careful!)

“Don’t worry so much, you’re fine. You rode on Mikey’s bike just a while ago, right?” He tried reassuring you when he started for takeoff.

“Y-yeah but I was sitting in front that time!”

“You want to sit in front now?” He joked.

“Can I?”

“No, that’s dangerous as hell.”

You laughed. “Then why’d you ask?”

“It was radical.” He rolled his eyes. “Rhetorical!” You yelled back.

“Whatever.”

#FragileDearest #<33333 #tokyo revengers #tokyo rev #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo rev x y/n #tokyo revengers baji #baji keisuke x reader #baji x reader #Baji Keisuke #toman #toman x reader #Mikey x reader #Mitsuya takashi #draken

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stereor4t · 8 months

Text

lesbian movies I've seen so far (review based on my tastes)

I'm going to give my opinion of the lesbian movies I've seen so far and I'm going to give them a score from 1 to 5 stars :3 it may contain some spoilers

Bound(1996)

For the year this movie was made, I was actually surprised by the END of it(fuck the obsession with killing the protagonist). I didn’t really have much faith in it by how it stars, but man, I was so surprised, I loved it, be gay do crime. ★★★★☆

Gia(1998)

God, this movie is my new roman empire, I didn’t know about Gia’s story, but the ending of the movie DESTROYED ME. the scene where shes talking with Linda and she says: now we have all the time in the world, I was so moved by it, I loved it. It’s currently one of my favorite movies.★★★★★

Lost and delirious(2001)

ugh shakespearean shit, this movie touches more than one of us when it comes to the experience of liking girls. I liked it but I felt like there was a lot of wasted potential that could’ve made it great, tbh i just wanted Paulie to be happy; the fact the Piper Perabo is in it helps the score too. ★★★☆☆

D.E.B.S.(2004)

ITS THE BEST FUCKING MOVIE IN THE WORLD, GOD. I actually hated this movie before watching it ‘cause I thought it was some dumb comedy, but god, when I gave it a chance it BLEW ME AWAY. If you want to see some lesbian spies enemies to lovers shit watch debs. ★★★★★

My summer of love(2004)

Personally, I HATED this movie kjj, I didn’t really get ANYTHING at all, like it felt like everything was just too rushed??? like when did they even fall in love lol? Gets points just for Emily Blunt. ★★☆☆☆

Imagine me & you(2005)

Piper Perabo again and Lena Heady THE WOMAN. This movie is ART, my fav movie, it’s beautiful, comfort movie af. The true don’t let your husband keep you from meeting your future wife. ★★★★★

Loving Annabelle(2006)

This movie was made for all of us who once liked a teacher or profesor. I liked it quite a lot, but I feel like seize it’s true potential. Personally, I choose to think that the alternative ending it’s the true one lol. ★★★☆☆

Bloomington(2010)

Again for us that like fantasizing about our teachers. I like this movie but again, I feel like they didn’t really make the most of it jskdja annoying af bitching about the same but yeah, it bothered me. Anyway, i liked the movie, and I didn’t like the ending at all,I felt bad for the poor teacher :c. ★★★☆☆

A perfect ending(2012)

I know a lot of people hate this movie and think it’s shit, but I personally love it lol. Idk I remember that when I watched it it got me super emotional and i liked it a lot, dont care what anyone says to me it’s a good movie. ★★★☆☆

The girl king(2015)

★☆☆☆☆

Didn’t like it at all, boring af, i didn’t really get it, idk, i was expecting more. ★☆☆☆☆

First girl i loved(2016)

Im fond of this movie, it was one of the first ones I saw, the ending just made a me a bit frustrated, but I liked it, Brianna Hildebrand with a wig funny as hell. ★★★☆☆

Disobedience(2017)

Rachel Weisz and McAdams DAMN. Great movie, I liked it in all aspects. Although the ending wasn’t what I expected I still liked it. ★★★★★

Tell it to the bees(2018)

Mmm I think this movie is kinda meh, like it’s okay but I feel like it lacks something for me to like it, tho I didn’t get the ending, like I don’t understand the decisions each one took. ★★☆☆☆

Ammonite(2020)

Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan!!!! I liked it but I didn’t love it, I never got to understand if Mary hated or loved Charlotte. The ending got me frustrated!!! ★★★☆☆

Crush(2022)

The kind of movie you gotta watch after Gia, I liked it I thought it was silly, like very much teenage romcom sort of shit, like the Kissing Booth but for lesbians. ★★★☆☆

You can live forever(2022)

I think this is a great movie, interesting story, I wasn’t expecting the whole ending sequence, what Marike says to Jamie destroyed me, in my head theyre the young version of the Disobedience ones. ★★★★★

Booksmart(2019)

GREAT MOVIE, very entertaining and funny, I liked it quite a lot, it’s perfect to watch it with friends. Gigi is just like me fr best character ever. ★★★★★

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argoscity · 1 year

Text

ULTIMATE SUPERGIRL READING GUIDE

since i've been asked a few times in the past for various reading guides for kara, i thought i'd compile them all into one post for the sake of convenience!

this guide has reading orders for supergirl comics in PRE-CRISIS (1959-1985), POST-CRISIS (2004-2011), NEW 52 (2011-2016), REBIRTH (2016-2021), and INFINITE FRONTIER (2021-present).

if you have any questions at all don't be afraid to shoot me an ask!

for each section bolded comics are required, italicized comics are recommended, and everything else is optional!

[PRE-CRISIS]

ORIGIN AND MIDVALE ERA (NOTE: you'll have to flip to the back of each issue to get to kara's section!) action comics (1938) #252, 258, 267, 276, 278-282, 285, 295, 309-310, 313, 317

STANHOPE COLLEGE action comics (1938) #318, 366-368, 372, 374 world’s finest (1941) #169 adventure comics (1938) #381, 386, 391, 395, 397

K-SFTV REPORTER — SAN FRANCISCO adventure comics (1938) #406-407, 410-415, 419-424

VANDYRE UNIVERSITY supergirl (1974) #1-10

STUDENT ADVISOR — FLORIDA (NOTE: every member of the superfamily has a story in the superman family (1974), so you'll have to flip through to find kara's section!) the superman family (1974) #165, 168, 171, 177 justice league of america (1960) #132-134 the superman family #183, 184-186, 187-189, 191-193, 196-198, 201-202, 203, 204-205

ACTRESS — NEW YORK the superman family (1974) 208-210, 211-214, 215-216, 217, 218 superman (1939) #373 (second story titled “an eye (and ear) on the world!”) detective comics (1937) #508-510 the superman family #219-222

LAKE SHORE UNIVERSITY supergirl (1982) #1-12 (cw: nazi imagery in the brief interlude in #12) supergirl (1982) #13-15 (cw: antisemitism, nazi imagery, depictions of the holocaust.) supergirl (1982) #16-23

LAST APPEARANCES AND DEATH legion of superheroes (1980) #300-303 tales of the legion (1985) #4-7 crisis on infinite earths (1985) #4-7

BONUS POST-COIE APPEARANCES christmas with the super-heroes (1988) #2 (last story titled “should auld acquaintance be forgot”) supergirl (1996) #49, 75-80 solo (2004) #1 (third story titled “young love”) convergence: adventures of superman (2015) #1-2

[POST-CRISIS]

ORIGIN superman/batman (2003) #8-13 (or you can watch superman/batman: apocalypse (2010) instead which I recommend! the art is a lot more tasteful and it's a very faithful adaptation of the comic so you won’t be missing out on anything.)

KARA WITH THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES supergirl and the legion of super-heroes (2006) #16-36

LOEB AND KELLY HELL ERA supergirl (2005) #1-5, 9-10, 19 (you don’t have to read any of this since it gets retconned anyway, but if you’re interested in kara’s early characterization, the beginnings of her friendship with cassie sandsmark, or her difficulty fitting in on earth then you’re welcome to read what i’ve provided.)

KELLEY PUCKETT ERA Amazons Attack! teen titans (2003) #47-48 amazons attack! (2007) #3 supergirl (2005) #20 amazons attack! (2007) #4 teen titans (2003) #49

supergirl (2005) #21-22 teen titans (2003) #50, 51-55 supergirl (2005) #25-33

Superman: Brainiac action comics (1938) #866-870

GATES AND IGLE HEAVEN ERA supergirl (2005) #34

New Krypton (new krypton is one of my favorite events and i recommend it in its entirety, but for the sake of brevity I’ll only be listing the issues relevant to kara.) superman: new krypton special #1 superman (1939) #681 adventure comics special featuring guardian #1 action comics (1938) #871 supergirl (2005) #35 superman (1939) #682 action comics (1938) #872 supergirl (2005) #36 superman (1939) #683 action comics (1938) #873

teen titans (2003) #66 supergirl (2005) #37-42

Friends and Fugitives superman: secret Files 2009 #1 supergirl (2005) #43 action comics (1938) #881 supergirl (2005) #45 action comics (1938) #882 supergirl (2005) #46-47

supergirl (2005) annual 1, #48-50

Last Stand of New Krypton adventure comics (2009) #8 superman: last stand of new krypton #1 supergirl (2005) #51 superman (1938) #698 adventure comics (2009) #9 superman: last stand of new krypton #2 adventure comics (2009) #10 supergirl (2005) #52 superman (1938) #699 superman: last stand of new krypton #3 superman: war of the supermen (2010) #0, 1-4

supergirl (2005) #53-57, annual 2, 58-59

END OF SUPERGIRL VOL 5 supergirl (2005) #60-64 supergirl (2005) #65-67

[NEW 52]

ORIGIN and SUPERGIRL VS THE WORLDKILLERS supergirl (2011) #1-7

SUPERGIRL and SILVER BANSHEE supergirl (2011) #8-11

SUPERGIRL and SUPERBOY superboy (2011) #6

SANCTUARY supergirl (2011) #12, 0, 13

H’EL ON EARTH superman (2011) #13 supergirl (2011) #14 superman (2011) #14 superboy (2011) #15 supergirl (2011) #15 superboy (2011) #16 superboy (2011) Annual #1 supergirl (2011) #16 superman (2011) #16 superboy (2011) #17 supergirl (2011) #17 superman (2011) #17

SUPERGIRL and POWERGIRL supergirl (2011) #18-20

CYBORG SUPERMAN supergirl (2011) #21-23 action comics (2011) #23.1 supergirl (2011) #24

KRYPTON RETURNS action comics (2011) annual #2 superboy (2011) #25 supergirl (2011) #25 superman (2011) #25

SUPERGIRL VS LOBO supergirl (2011) #26-27

RED DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON supergirl (2011) #28-29 red lanterns (2011) #28-29 supergirl (2011) #30 red lanterns (2011) #30 supergirl (2011) #31 red lanterns (2011) #31-32 supergirl (2011) #32-33

SUPERMAN: DOOMED (this is a whole storyline but I'll only be listing the issues that kara appears in!) superman/wonder woman (2013) #9 action comics (2011) #33 supergirl (2011) #34 superman: doomed (2014) #2 action comics (2011) #35 supergirl (2011) #35

FUTURES END supergirl: futures end (2014) #1

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED justice league united (2014) #1-5 justice league united (2014) annual #1 justice league united (2014) #6-10

CRUCIBLE supergirl (2011) #36-40

FINAL DAYS OF SUPERMAN (kara only appears in the issues i've italicized and bolded, but i put all the relevant issues if you wanted to read the full storyline!) superman (2011) #51 batman/superman (2013) #31 action comics (2011) #51 superman/wonder woman (2013) #28 batman/superman (2013) #32 action comics (2011) #52 superman/wonder woman (2013) #29 superman (2011) #52

[REBIRTH]

KARA IN NATIONAL CITY supergirl: rebirth #1

supergirl (2016) #1-8 batgirl (2016) annual 1 supergirl #9-12

supergirl (2016) annual 1 supergirl #13-20

world's finest: batwoman and supergirl #1-2

ROGOL ZAAR and THE SINS OF THE CIRCLE the man of steel #1-2, 3-6 supergirl #21-33, #34-36

LEVIATHAN and BATMAN WHO LAUGHS superman: leviathan rising special #1 supergirl #34-36 supergirl (2016) annual 2 supergirl #37-42

HOUSE OF KENT action comics (2016) #1022-1023 action comics (2016) #1024-1028

FUTURE STATE superman of metropolis (2021) #1-2 kara zor el, superwoman (2021) #1-2

[INFINITE FRONTIER]

action comics 2021 annual

WOMAN OF TOMORROW supergirl: woman of tomorrow (2021) #1-8

WORLD'S FINEST batman/superman: world's finest (2022) #2-6, 8, 12

A WORLD WITHOUT CLARK KENT and RED MOON (kara is featured in the back-up story! if you want the full context of this plot i recommend reading the full warworld arc in action comics [action comics #1030-1046, superman: warworld apocalypse #1]!) action comics (2016) #1044-1046, 1047-1049

DAWN OF DC action comics (2016) #1051-1053, 1055-1056 superman (2023) #1-3 power girl special #1 steelworks (2023) #1-3

KNIGHT TERRORS knight terrors: superman (2023) #1-2

DAWN OF DC (continued) action comics: doomsday special (2023) superman (2023) #7 hawkgirl (2023) #4 supergirl special (2023)

NEW WORLDS [this arc starts on action comics #1057—kara doesn't appear in that issue but I recommend reading it for context!] action comics (2016) #1058-1060 action comics 2023 annual

JOURNEY TO FERIMBIA powergirl (2023) #5-7

HOUSE OF BRAINIAC action comics (2016) #1064 superman (2023) #13 action comics (2016) #1065 superman (2023) #14 action comics (2016) #1066 superman (2023) #15

UPCOMING: a new arc from Mariko Tamaki in the back-ups of action comics (spanning #1070-1081) begins on October 9th!

#kara zor el #supergirl #reading guide #reading order #kara danvers #linda lee danvers #linda lang

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batsplat · 3 months

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your top 5 fave motogp races? or alternatively what races you’d show to a newbie to get them into the sport or smth

one of those things where it's painful to pick five, but at least this ask gives me the chance to hedge my bets and pick five different races for each category (most of these races will be featured in the recs lists; 27, 4+93, 46)

laguna '08: works wonders to bring both that season and the rivalry alive. delightfully visceral and vicious, there's few duels that tell you quite so much about both participants. I have lap-by-lap notes for this race. I have points tables assessing how much of a turning point it was in the season. I have read the bit in casey's autobiography about this race about a million times. how their expectations going in influenced the dynamics of the race, how the slower man won the race, what valentino was attempting to do to casey, casey's response... I could quite literally talk about this race forever

phillip island '17: idk I don't think this is objectively 'better' than the other two infamous dogfights of that era (pi '15; assen '18), but sometimes you just notice which one has the most rewatch value for you... I really like races where risk/reward calculation is a big deal, where at least one of the riders is having to actively judge how much they're willing to do to win... with the hard style of racing in this one, those calculations feel particularly present. phillip island is in such a perfect calendar spot for generating maximum drama

misano '17: maybe the quirkiest pick. marc is too good and too successful for me to ever really have been 'stressed' watching him in his prime, but bloody hell did he run me close here. something so satisfying about being so adept in wet/mixed conditions... love the spite element of this race, love the risk/reward calculations, how marc just needs to go for it in the very final lap, his dogged determination... a race where he doesn't have a massive margin over the field but just wants it so so badly that he goes for it. he's making a statement, bouncing back from a low point in the season, super compelling stuff

mugello '04: just love races that are kinda a mess! lots of twists and turns... bunch of riders fighting it out, the sete duel, the rain interruption, bunch of riders fighting it out but now on a way more slippery track... I don't know, there's just something charming about a race that has a bit of everything! of course it's also part of my beloved 2004 season, from which I could have easily included five different races (and if you're ever looking for a full season to watch, 2004 2006 and 2017 are the holy trinity - mix of title fight drama and banger races)

okay listen I'm gonna cheat here because I wrote out the word 'catalunya' and then had a crisis staring at this post. '07 I need to include because it's my favourite casey win and it's how he establishes himself as an all-round threat and is so important in the overall context of the valentino rivalry, but '09 is like... right up there with laguna as season lynchpin races and also somehow jorge has been left out from these picks... I love big momentum-switchers I love races that have so much meaning in the context of a rivalry AND season. I also love how they're connected! that valentino did the same move on casey (just not on the final lap) and had basically already rehearsed his coup de grâce two years in advance, before visualising it the week before the race... casey joking about it in the catalunya '09 presser, jorge knowing he kinda should have seen it coming, casey kinda ragging on jorge for not having seen it coming... idk!! I like this little legacy they built there together

for newbies

phillip island '23: you need to include something a little more current to give new fans a reason to watch now... phillip island races are reliably great - this one introduces you to two of the major protagonists of the current game in a way that kind tells you a lot about both of them, gives you a demonstration of one of the best types of races (the multi-rider dogfight), and it also is the most brute force way imaginable of explaining how tyres work in motogp. pedagogically pleasing! it's the kind of race new viewers will be able to enjoy in the moment, but have a lot of questions about afterwards - the sweet spot

assen '15: easily makes my top five rewatched races too, but I put it under the newbie header because again... tells you a lot! it's very likely this hypothetical newbie will have at least have SOME knowledge of who the two protagonists are and know they've fallen out, though I suppose it'd be funny to go in completely blind. obviously a great duel and a very nice introduction to the two big names plus their respective riding styles... what you really want is some late drama and a controversial finish that you can immediately have a hot take about

donington '05: we need a full wet race, not just mixed but wet wet... this one's got one hell of an attrition rate but also proper tussling between the different riders, rather than everyone just riding out on their own. it really gives you a feeling for how these kinds of races work... lot of riders wobbling around, saving near-falls, trying to get a sense of how much they can risk, riding behind each other to have somebody else test out their conditions... plus, the valentino performance kinda slaps

austria '17: got to be a marc/dovi duel in here, and this one has the clear edge not as much for the race itself but a) the novelty at the time, and b) the significance in the title fight. in dovi you've got somebody who is emerging as a threat and is providing a new flavour of challenge.... there's also that fun tension between how marc logically very much should just be happy to be there as a result of what a ducati circuit it is and he's simply supposed to be limiting the points damage... but he also really, really wants to win... actually either this or motegi 2017, almost want to change my pick. one of those two!!

brno '03: sneaking in an old race as a gateway drug, and I think this one is quite 'accessible' to the uninitiated. I considered other ones like phillip island '01 (valentino's first premier class matchpoint race, classic dogfight) or welkom '04 (first yamaha race and one of the duels) - but I think you don't need much context to get absorbed in this one. the race commentary already gives you the most important information... valentino's struggles that season, the criticisms he was facing from the italian press, how badly he wanted to win, the haircut, all of it... and then you get to see the post-race prisoner's celebrations, a flavour of the proper classic camp dramatics

slightly silly number of honourable mentions, each of which I was extremely tempted to include: motegi '10, jerez 2005, misano '19, laguna '11, jerez '10, assen '04, catalunya '04 '05 '16, mugello '05 '06, sachsenring '06, assen '04, phillip island '04, le mans 2005, qatar 2005, suzuka '01, thailand '19, austria '19, qatar '18, silverstone '19, sachsenring '10, qatar '15, mugello '16, sepang '10, assen '07 (and ones I did already kinda mention above: phillip island '15, assen '18, phillip island '01, welkom '04, motegi '17)

#almost died making this. if i made this tomorrow they'd be completely different races #race rec tag #motogp #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #is phillip island 2017 actually that good or do races get rewarded in my mind if I wake up early and they make it worth it #best lil sequences of races are '19 [austria silverstone misano] '04 [mugello catalunya assen] '17 [motegi phillip island sepang]#'04 [qatar sepang phillip island] and 2015... y'know #that's what it's all about... little runs of back to back fun races that are also narratively compelling

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vidavalor · 11 months

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hi there 👋 i love reading your good omens metas. i'm wondering if you have any thoughts on aziraphale's line to crowley in 1967: "i can't have you risking your life, not even for something dangerous". this always sticks out as odd to me. obviously he doesn't want crowley risking his life for any reason, so why this weird qualifier?

Hi @mybelovedismine Thank you so much. :) I am so sorry it took me awhile to get back to you. Love me some 1967 Crowley & Aziraphale and this question is great. Cheers.

1967/Holy Water Era/some S2 Aziraphale meta under the cut.

If you go back-- and I mean way back-- to the very opening bit of GO 1.01, it opens with what seems at first like it's just a quirky, funny scene introducing God and her sense of humor and the show's sense of humor. It is all of that but it also contains what I think is a really important piece of information-- especially with relation to the 1967 scene-- which is the date that Earth began in the GO universe. Crowley and Aziraphale don't know exactly when the end of the world will come but they know "about" when-- and that is a ticking clock running in the background for them for millennia.

The date that God gives us for the creation of Earth at the opening of S1 means that 6,000 years exactly would math out to October 21, 2004... but we also know that they don't know if it's going to be *exactly* 6,000 years. It could have been 5,900. It could have been 6,500 or anything in between. It winds up the super-cruel 6,004 years, beginning in 2008 in S1. What is clear to Crowley & Aziraphale is that their experience is closer to that of humans in a way because even though 6,000 years would be a very long time to humans, it's "nothing", as Angel!Crowley put it in Before the Beginning, to Crowley & Aziraphale... and there has always been a very good chance that it's all they will ever have together.

Their relationship is like someone turned over an hourglass on the wall at Eden and it's been dripping sand steadily in the background this whole time. It's partially why their relationship accelerates a little faster over the last few centuries, imo. There is a chance they're running out of time together. Armageddon means the Great War between Heaven and Hell and they are an angel and a demon. Whatever side wins the war is the one who will live on for all of eternity. The other one won't survive it-- or, even if they did, they won't be able to be with each other. Not to mention that Armageddon means that, regardless of who wins the Heaven and Hell war, Earth will be destroyed and their life on it together will be over.

Aziraphale always thinks Heaven will win. He always thinks it's him who will have to spend eternity alone. Part of this is because he has to tell himself that Heaven is still the side of good, even if it's flawed, because he can barely deal with the guilt over being part of the machine that's caused Crowley so much pain. Aziraphale also thinks, though, that maybe when the time comes, they can find a way out of it all, somehow.

In close to 6,000 years, the best plan they've got for dealing with this is Crowley's plan to just run away to Alpha Centauri and hope that no one notices that they're deserters. (So, not a great plan, but also they're up against the will of God here so kind of hard to try to work out a way around that.) In S2, Aziraphale is so desperate-- SO desperate-- for a way to not have to lose Crowley that he is willing to entertain the idea that he can trust The Metatron's word and beg Crowley to come to Heaven with him and be an angel again just so that they can be together forever. Aziraphale doesn't need Crowley to be an angel to know he's good and to love him-- he already knows and feels those things. He loves him so much that he can't bear the thought that he could lose him. He's never been able to bear that thought.

In 1967, they were running out of time and it's something that became increasingly intense for them the closer the years got to 2004 and the day they would hit 6,000 years since the Earth's creation.

In 1967, they were down to 37 years until 6,000 years were up, so the end of the world was, to them, a moment away.

It's not hard to see how Crowley wants to carpe diem and go for broke, in case it's all they'll ever have. He wants to be a little less careful. To try for the things they haven't been able to give each other while they've had to be a secret for so long. 'Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', right? And they have loved, do love, are loving in 1967... but Crowley feels the time slipping away and his anxiety is dialed up to eleven under that cool exterior and Aziraphale knows him like he knows the back of his hand and he can see where this is all going... and it's not where either of them want it to go.

Think of this from Aziraphale's point of view...

Aziraphale is an angel. His soul is saved. He is meant to survive Armageddon. That, to him, is actually something of a curse at this point because it means that he'll live for eternity. For *all* of time. An absolutely incomprehensible amount of time. Neverending time. The kind of amount of time that would make 6,000 years feel like less time than it took you to blink while reading this sentence. And if everything goes according to what they know of God's Ineffable Plan or Great Plan or Whatever The Fuck It Is lol, he's going to live through all of this time alone.

Without Crowley.

Forget even the end of Earth and humanity (and that's hard to forget lol), Aziraphale is slated for a post-apocalyptic return to Heaven and a celestial cubicle and spending all of time with Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon and no food and no books and no music and even all of that, he could stand, if only he could just have Crowley with him and he can't.

Because Crowley's a demon. He's fallen. He's eternally damned. Heaven has socialized angels to believe that the war between Heaven and Hell that Armageddon triggers will be the big triumph of Heaven over Hell. Aziraphale tells himself he believes it but he's honestly more *terrified* of it than devoted to the idea. Heaven triumphing over Hell could kill Crowley. It's what Aziraphale is *supposed* to want as an angel but it's actually *the exact opposite* of what he wants. He adores Crowley. He will never-- in all of the infinite time to come-- ever get over Crowley and he knows it.

Even if Crowley somehow survives The Great War 2.0, Earth will still be gone and Crowley's fate is eternity in dark, cramped, literally painful damnation in Hell. There is no way for them to be together without thwarting the will of God and Aziraphale is an angel-- his entire purpose as a being is to serve God. It's what he was made *by God* to do, as far as he's been taught, and he mostly believes it... it's just that he also thinks he was made for Crowley.

This isn't just what Crowley thinks. Crowley isn't wrong that this is a mutual feeling:

Aziraphale felt that then, too, and he's never stopped feeling it. It blends sometimes with his faith in God-- something that, ironically, he sometimes thinks Crowley somehow has more of than he does. If God made him and God made Crowley and if God made them for each other, then it can't really be just to take them away from each other after such a short time, can it? Maybe they're meant for some other purpose in all of it?

But this is the same God that Aziraphale knows can be cruel...

Aziraphale has gone up against the will of God countless times over the years now and he is, for reasons he doesn't understand, somehow still an angel.

It seems unjust and honestly pretty profane to him that *he* is the holy one when Crowley's been through--quite literally-- Hell, for thousands of years, and his biggest sin is being curious. It is very hard to be told that you were created for the purpose of representing the side of good in a war against good and evil but to then, over and over and over, find yourself believing that the good guys are maybe not so good... all the while falling deeper in love by the day with a being your side calls 'demonic' and 'evil' but whom you know to be a sweet, romantic, smart, gentle, funny, kind cinnamon roll. Crowley is a demon and he's the best angel Aziraphale knows.

Now imagine you've all those conflicts and you're running out of time and staring down the end game of all of this and when you've got maybe, if you're lucky, a century and a half left or so worth of sand is still in the top half of the hourglass (mid-1800s), Crowley starts to pull away from you.

He's honestly never done it to this extent before. He trusts you with a surprising amount of himself and has since early days and, in recent centuries, you were happy together-- as happy as your situation would allow and that was more than you ever thought you'd have. This is the same being whose willingness to push through his fear of being vulnerable to have something honest and intimate with you has had you in awe of his bravery since you met. He taught you how to do that and now he's putting up walls you can't scale and slamming shut every open door.

You were happy together and then, you went on a date in Edinburgh in 1827 and suddenly, the centuries of peace and of getting away with it all ended in a literal second when Crowley got dragged to Hell two feet away from you. Hell didn't find out about the two of you or about Elspeth-- they were pissed about the human grave guards that Crowley accidentally sent to Hell for shooting Wee Morag-- but Crowley comes back a couple of weeks later and it's like it's all over already.

He's badly shaken. They hurt him. He spent time in Hell not sure if they had found out about you or if you were still alive. The anxiety, depression, and PTSD he has from being cast out of Heaven and a lifetime of trying to survive being a demon of Hell goes into overdrive and you don't know what to do. You've always been good at helping him. Nothing works. The bookshop-- your home but his, too, in your mind, the safest space he can go to to get away from Hell and get some rest-- isn't enough. He's not coming around the way he used to. He doesn't want to talk about any of it. The connection between the two of you-- emotionally, sexually-- feels like it's eroding. It hurts more than you want to admit. Your relationship de-evolves for almost 35 years as you watch the spark seem to go out of him. You don't know how to fix it and you try everything you can think of. You can understand how the ticking clock makes it all hurt more and you don't want him to be in any pain-- ever-- and you'd go away entirely if it was what he really wanted but neither of you know how to say goodbye because you both know that neither of you actually want to.

He's your best friend. He's the only one like you in the universe. You're both miserable and lonely without each other and it seems stupid to spend the last years you might ever get together apart but it also seems impossible to ever get back to where you were. Then, one day, after *years* of this, he asks you for the one thing that can *kill him*...

In the moment, all you can think about is that he wants to die because he's seemed like he does for decades now. All you can think of is that he is in so much pain and he wants nothing from you but the means by which to end it.

He's your lover. Imagine being told by the being with whom you've spent countless pleasurable hours in bed that all he wants from you now is a suicide pill.

He used to laugh. He used to be silly and hilariously dry-humored. He used to flirt with you and gaze at you from the couch on the bookshop, all pretty yellow eyes and lounging limbs, and now he's spine-straight stiff, like the pain is what's holding up. He arranges meetings in the park instead of coming over. He wears his glasses, all the time. You can't remember when the last time you saw his eyes was.

All of it says to you that you aren't enough and then he asks you to give him a suicide pill and you're broken-hearted-- you're just broken, period at the thought of him in so much pain-- and you're angry. You're furious. How dare he do this to you? You've been in love for millennia. He is your best friend. How dare he shut you out and leave you alone when you are going to be alone without him for the rest of bloody time?!

You're so in your feelings about him shutting you out that you know you have been failing at caring for him and not really helping the situation for awhile now. Your defenses have been up for awhile. Years, probably. You're caustic and, frankly, pretty bitchy in your bitterness. It's a little twisted but you've tried everything else and maybe if you could even just make him angry, it'd at least be something. He's barely spoken above a whisper in thirty years and sometimes you think about him off his head on laudanum in Edinburgh, drawing you to him magically by your bow tie to look at you over his glasses, inches away, and how you didn't know that was going to be the last time he ever really flirted with you.

So, when he asks you for holy water in 1862, you do your best to piss him off, since he won't accept anything else from you lately. You used to be wildly compatible and now you're broken and you're angry because God was always going to break your heart by taking him from you but he was never supposed to. He was supposed to love you-- those things neither of you say-- to the end.

You did get him angry. You both got angry. So angry that it felt over.

It wasn't. You saw each other again in the interim and it didn't just magically heal itself, like you wished it would, because you regretted how you reacted to the request for holy water but somehow talking about it felt too much.

Because you thought you might have understood it more afterwards.

Because you began to understand that he felt vulnerable. That he needed to feel like he could defend himself and, if it came to it, you. That maybe he didn't want to die-- maybe he wanted to live. That this was him asking you to help him figure out how to feel safe again-- something you've actually always been good at-- and you were so afraid, too, that you handled it badly.

Maybe one of the things you were afraid of in the moment was the way he talked about it going wrong, going pear-shaped, about him wanting insurance... about how there wasn't a way to reframe that in your mind to not mean that he meant he was willing to kill a demon in your defense or his-- which could kill him. It could send a legion after him and destroy him. There was so much that could go wrong. No matter what Crowley wanted holy water for, his death felt like it was the end game. You would throw yourself into Hellfire before you did anything that could cause him harm.

He had been pulling away for years but there he was saying I would kill for you. I would die for you. and that was the closest either of you had ever come to saying I'm in love with you. and you weren't sure what was more dangerous: saying those truths you both knew and felt or holy water.

Crowley didn't bring it up again and neither did you. You're useless without one another so you saw each other again within the next couple of decades. The Old West in America. Back in London in the 1920s and times in between. Neither of you ever discussed the Holy Water fight or what it meant. You secretly learned to drive, for the future, just in case, when he turned up stupidly in love with a car in 1928. You would die for that dumb car if only because of how Crowley smiled when he turned up to take you for a ride.

Over time, Crowley seemed to get a bit better and your heart burst just looking at him, even if it also ached with the knowledge that you had made it harder and hadn't known that time how to help when he needed it.

Then, 1941. The Blitz. Bombs raining down over London and the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation and maybe, just like the humans, you both thought this might be it. Time slowed to surviving each night and every moment felt like it could be the last and maybe that's why you both wanted a different ending.

Crowley always did prefer the funny ones.

In the middle of it, Crowley joked about holy water-- the first time either of you had mentioned it in 80 years-- and you heard it there, woven into his quiet, coded but undisputable, confessions of love. It was for you, it was about you, it was to keep you safe... it was because you were two feet away from me when they took me and I want to be with you to the end and it's the only thing that can help me keep you safe from them.

He doesn't ask you for it again. You know why. Things are good. He doesn't want to fight. He doesn't want you to reject him again. He doesn't want to admit again that he feels unsafe. You think about giving him some after 1941 more than once but you are now afraid of what it might say to him if you do.

Because you could both be almost out of time, if everything goes pear-shaped when the clock runs out on about 6,000 years, and Crowley wants to try for more.

You both want forever. You both aren't sure that you'll even get tomorrow. The world is speeding up in 1967-- has been for decades now-- and you think Crowley is caught up in it. You both live in London, in SoHo, you'd be as safe as you could be. You'd blend in enough. It's too dangerous, though. It's not the humans you're afraid of, really-- not that the human world has ever been safe for your and Crowley's kind of love and you aren't sure that it will get there before it's all over. What you're afraid of is that you'll get caught by Heaven and Hell and you'll lose him before the about 6,000 years is up-- and then you will have no chance at all, whatsoever, of forever.

Crowley doesn't think he'll make it. He doesn't say so but his actions say so and his situation suggests it. He wants to go faster. He doesn't demand it, doesn't pressure you, but he periodically gently asks and you have to let him down somehow, you have to get him to slow down. It's not that you don't want him. If there were no risk to him, you'd never try to put up a speed bump. It's just that you are hopeful.

Ironically, you're hopefulness-- your optimism-- it comes from him.

He's brilliant. He's clever. Maybe, somehow, the two of you will find a way out of this.

You don't want to watch the world burn. You don't want to watch billions of humans and a whole planet and a whole solar system-- Crowley's nebulae-- destroyed for no reason and as much as you should be willing to go along with the Almighty's will, it's fucking ineffable and you secretly aren't sure if you believe in a God that would do this. You struggled during The Flood. You struggled over Job and Sitis' kids...

...if you are honest with yourself (and you are more than you care to admit), you struggle to be faithful to a God who has caused Crowley so much pain.

You think that, somehow, when the time comes, you and Crowley might find a way around it. How? You have no idea. None. But you think there is a chance that you could figure it out and so long as there is a chance-- even one, single, tiny, chance-- that somehow you and Crowley could survive it all and be together forever, you are not going to let him do something stupid and get himself killed trying to be together now.

You are not letting your far-sighted lover trip over his snake legs and go head-first into a faunt of stolen holy water that you could have given him safely 105 years ago, when he asked for it, and you fucked it all up...

You make him some. You use your powers and your essence and your body and turn water into a weapon for him. The real thing. The holiest.

You understand what it is to him now. It's not death; it's life. He doesn't want either of you to be in pain. He doesn't want to be left alone. He wants to feel safer. To be able to protect you from what Hell put him through and worse. He doesn't want to leave you. He wants a chance in Hell at surviving what's to come and an out for if it all goes pear-shaped and you want him to live and not to suffer and only you can give that to him.

You understand that now. It was never that you didn't trust him. It was that you didn't trust yourself.

You put it in a tartan thermos that silently says your anxious, emotional ass best thing of me before you ever decide to use this.

It also says this is for you to keep and it is of me and I know that's a risk if you ever get caught with it. I trust you to keep it hidden, like you do us, and protect me. This is for you and it looks like me and you know when the tartan started and why... you know it was because of our night in Edinburgh in 1827... you know it was the night they took you and I didn't know if I'd ever see you again and you know I've been wearing this pattern of us for 140 years and that I always will.

It's just that you also can't let him think that giving it to him is an assent of sorts. If Heaven or Hell ever found out you did this, they'd destroy you both.

So you rushed over with holy water, your tie undone, catching him before he can go any further with his scheme to pay humans to steal him some and you waited for him in the safety of The Bentley, one of the only places the two of you can actually talk with some expectation of privacy, and when he asks, you have to talk him out of it. You have to break his heart a bit. You have to disappoint him. You have to try to protect him from himself a bit or you'll lose him.

You tell him that you're giving him the holy water because you can't let him risk his life "not even for something dangerous." Dangerous is trying for more between you than there already is. You aren't rejecting him outright and he knows that. You never have, really. You see each other in secret. You have been for more years than either of you can count. You rely on each other to help each other to the right speed.

You need him to tempt you into giving yourself permission to do what you want and need but aren't sure you can or should. He needs you to help him keep from spiralling from anxiety.

He gets you to go a little faster-- not too much, at a pace you feel comfortable with. You get him to slow down-- gently, tenderly. You are both able to trust each other with your vulnerabilities and that's why it works.

He's blinded by the world changing in ways both exhilarating and also terrifying, by it breaking apart at the seams increasing his fear of running out of time.

You've been together for thousands of years.

You don't stay the night; you've never had breakfast together. You've never risked taking each other's hands in public. You've never directly said I love you.

If you can get him to see how dangerous it all still is-- because it is-- then maybe you can keep him alive long enough to have a shot of neither of you ever having to worry about losing each other again.

Somehow, it's not much different now than it was before the beginning. He's always been like this. Optimistic, progressive, free-thinking. Innovative. It might get you both out of all of it yet but it won't in 1967. He is caught up in the emerging new, human world and it's a heady cocktail when mixed with his existential terror. He's going to get himself fucking killed. You know better, just as you knew better before The Beginning. You know that too many questions, too much risk, will draw a metaphorical sniper's bead to his head. And you know that, on some level, he knows he needs you to rein him.

It's an era of freer sex and free love and wild, progressive music and art but... it's also an era of war and violence and assassinations... and Heaven and Hell are so far removed from Earth that it would take another 6,000 years to get them anywhere near close to this.

Crowley knows this, intellectually. You know he knows. He just feels the sand trickling faster and faster and there's hardly any of it left now.

You know how that feels-- you feel it, too. Every time you look at him. Everytime he slips away out the backdoor of the bookshop with a soft kiss and an even softer g'night, angel and you wonder if that was the last time.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

Crowley sees All You Need is Love but you can see December 8, 1980 coming at some point down the road. You've both been on this planet long enough to know what they do to the first ones who break away, to the ones who go against the grain, and the humans are no different from Heaven and Hell in that way. You cannot tell him yes or you will be killing you both.

You put it on yourself a bit. He goes too fast for you, you tell him. It's not untrue. He does. It's just that if it all were different, you'd never refuse him anything. You hope he hears it as your issue, not his, though you doubt he will. It is so hard to look at him and tell him no when all he is saying he wants is the chance to love you more.

God, there are days when you think he might kill you if he were to love you any more than he does. You don't know what you ever did to deserve his love. You don't know how you survived before you met him or how you are supposed to if you lose him.

"You go too fast for me" is what you say and you know he understands that it means:

You'll burn us fast and bright and it will be amazing but it will *end*. They will catch us. They will kill us. I can't lose you. If I thought all we could ever have would be just a short, few years, then I wouldn't deny you but I think we could find a way to have forever. Somehow. I have hope for that. I get that hope *from you.* I need you to slow down because I can't watch you get yourself killed. I'm not strong enough to lose you. I need you to let me pace this for awhile...

You want him to know you understand, that you feel it all, too. So, you tell him of the things you'd like to do, if it was safer, not knowing if it ever will be. The things you choose are of all of these holy water years. A picnic-- one implied to be in the daylight, in this future you're both imagining, this world you hope to one day see emerge. He had tried to take you on a graveyard one at midnight in 1827. You know that had been what that would have been had you not ran into Elspeth. The two of you sneaking around in the dark, as always, but together. Alive. Maybe, you tell him now, you could one day have that picnic together under the sun. You think you can see that world. You have no idea how it arrives but he's not wrong. You can see some things changing here and there's always hope that things could change with Heaven and Hell. He has taught you to keep the faith in how he's survived the worst and remains optimistic.

Maybe, one day, you could be angels dining at The Ritz. It is intentional that you reference World War II. It is a way-- the only way you can right now-- to tell him you love him, as you both did in your own ways during The Blitz. It is saying:

I love you. I would love that life with you. I won't give up on the idea of it-- of having more than a short burst of it. That is why I need you to slow down and stay safe. It's too dangerous for more right now. Take the holy water and take a breath. You're okay. You have me. We keep *each other* safe, remember? Slow down. I need you with me forever.

#ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #you go too fast for me #good omens 1967

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haveyouseenthismovie-poll · 6 months

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End of month update - March (+ April 1st)

Hello, all! Sorry that this update is a day late, I didn't get around to posting it yesterday.

This is the end-of-month update, where I post Tumblr’s current top four films that have received the highest percentage of “yes,” “no,” and “haven’t even heard of this movie” votes.

As of today, the top four films with the highest percentage of “yes” votes are:

Finding Nemo (2003) | Shrek (2001) | Monsters, Inc. (2001) | The Lion King (1994)

Next, the top four films with the highest percentage of “no” votes are:

Sausage Party (2016) | Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014) | All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) | Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

This top four changed through the new additions of Sausage Party (2016) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), which replaced Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015) and Scarface (1983).

Finally, the top four films with the highest percentage of “haven’t even heard of this movie” votes are:

Monica and Friends: Bonds (2019) | Monsturd (2003) | Heroic Losers (2019) | Death Trance (2005)

This top four changed through the new additions of Monsturd (2003) and Death Trance (2005), which replaced Mahana (2016) and Capernaum (2018)

Currently, The Incredibles (2004) is the still only film to receive absolutely zero “haven’t heard of this” votes.

That’s it for March’s end-of-month update! Remember that you can view last month’s update by clicking here. Additionally, you can view the full ranked Letterboxd lists of movies that have come up on this blog by clicking the following links:

This list is ranked from highest-to-lowest percentage of “yes” votes.

This list is ranked from highest-to-lowest percentage of “no” votes.

This list is ranked from highest-to-lowest percentage of “haven’t even heard of this movie” votes.

#end of month update #text

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saturngalore · 1 year

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brandi nichols for @kashisun’s simblr office

head of records management + info below! <3

26 | pisces sun, virgo moon, aquarius rising | queer

she’s the new head manger of the records management department! although, she prefers the term archivist more (she just got her masters degree in archival studies!)

98% of the rest of the office employees has never heard of records management because it’s in the basement where hardly anyone visits

brandi doesn’t mind it because nobody really bothers her and she can wear or do whatever the hell she wants (she occasionally brings her emotional support cat with her (dulce!!!) to work and nobody minds or just haven’t noticed yet 🤫)

her favorite line to say while training interns and new employees: “this is not how you suppose to do it but this is how i do it”

due the lack of windows in the basement, she’s prefers to eat her lunch outside in the office’s gardens which other employees hardly know about

is constantly wearing her signature headphones and blasting either old or foreign music (there are definitely noisy ghosts in the basement but she claims she wears them because music is her life(!!!)…yeah right girl 🙄)

unfortunately, she’s never hears when someone visits her office and ends up always being scared to death (often screaming or jumping in fright) by the other employees who eventually do to come to visit the records management office to check out some old office files or need access to some super secret company files

likes to go thrifting for vintage clothes, spending time with her cat, discovering new restaurants and food trucks in the area, and making extremely niche historical-based zines in her free time

knows a lot about the juicy office’s secrets and past scandals and legally, she’s not supposed to tell other employees or visitors about them due to company policy

but that doesn’t stop her from occasionally telling the interns, janitors, security guards, and even her pet cat about some of them tho! (the higher ups have tried firing her but who else wants to be in that dusty and haunted ass basement?)

“have y’all heard about the former ceo’s embezzlment and fraud case back in 2004? no? well girl…”

really only goes to company potlucks and parties to people watch and to stuff her purse with all the food she can get away with without being super suspicious (the janitors have definitely noticed and don’t care).

“im leaving here with something, ya know what i mean?”

#the simblr office #ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #ts4 edit #black simblr #black simmer #🪐#brandi nichols #happy tuesday!!🤸🏾‍♀️#is she me? maybe…🤫

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bisupergirl · 2 months

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oh sorry, also are there any comics i should avoid completely because the gp recognises them as being completely ooc or just not a sensical comic for supergirl?

and i was thinking of collecting the series of graphic novels that start with supergirl vol 1 - reign of the cyborg supermen. is that a good comic run? i have no clue when it comes to kara haha.

also, one last thing i promise! what is kara's true personality? like as kara danvers but also as supergirl. do they contrast each other? is she a geek or is she still just as powerful but in different ways when she's kara not sg? if that makes sense

again im so sorry for all the questions, kara is a character that really intruiges me and i really want to know the canon version of her. (unfortunately i loved the cw version of her, no matter what any one says) but i know that's nkt exactly correct.

im so sorry if ive bothered you, and i will be eternally greatful if you manage to answer my questions. thank you so much!

YES THERE ARE. Anything you see written by either Jeph Loeb or Joe Kelly should be avoided at all costs. This includes Superman/Batman (2003) #8-13 and Supergirl (2005) #0-19. Basically anything written between the years 2004 through 2007 should be avoided like the plague. The early 2000s was truly an evil era for Kara... she was oversexualized to hell and back and really didn't have any sort of characterization beyond "sexy teenager". The only thing that I think is somewhat worth reading from those years is Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes (2004) #16-36, but even that isn't super necessary if you don't want to slog through it just for her.

Aside from that.... this is just my controversial opinion, but I REALLY dislike everything Mariko Tamaki has written for Kara. This includes Supergirl: Being Super (2017) and the Supergirl Special (2023). I've just found that she has a very boring and uninspired take on Kara... Nothing she's written gives off the vibe that she's actually read any of Kara's comics. Being Super specifically irks me because it's literally just "what if Kara... was Clark!", and that's just not remotely interesting to me... Obviously nothing she's written is on par with the truly heinous shit that Loeb and Kelly were doing with Kara, so I don't want it to seem like I'm putting them on the same level! A lot of people DO like her Supergirl comics, I'm just not one of them.

Steve Orlando's run of Supergirl (2016)—which includes Reign of the Cyborg Supermen—was written specifically to appeal to fans of the CW show, so I imagine that if you like CW Supergirl, you'll also probably like that comic. I don't necessarily want to say that you shouldn't read it (since you like CWSG), but it's not something I recommend since the way that Kara's characterized there is quite different than any other comic version of her—past or present. If you do want to read something from Supergirl (2016) I recommend Marc Andreyko's run! It's spans from #21 to #36 (although I don't suggest reading past #33) and is collected in Supergirl vol. 1: Killers of Krypton and Supergirl vol. 2: Sins of the Circle.

As for her personality:

Kara is very headstrong and stubborn—she doesn't back down from her beliefs even if it means coming into conflict with her authority figures (like Clark, her mother, her employers, etc.).

She's also incredibly compassionate and protective—even in her early days as Supergirl when humans would reject her, she wasn't directly scornful of them and she'd still go out of her way to use her powers to keep them safe.

Relating to that, she's also very empathetic—there's been multiple storylines where Kara sees herself and her experience in the person she's helping, and it inspires her to do whatever she can to help them.

She's often driven by her anger and devastation of what happened to Krypton. The fury and nearly inconsolable despair that she feels for the mass death that was caused by Krypton's destruction is such a huge driving force for everything she does.

In regards to her interests: they change pretty frequently between continuities, but Pre and Post Crisis Kara was depicted as being very artistic in a lot of different areas! Kara used to have a passion for acting: she went to drama school, starred in two films, and went on to star in a soap opera. She was also very into fashion and used to wear so many cute outfits :'). Additionally, in Post Crisis continuity, she was a painter and even contemplated joining the Art Guild on New Krypton just like her father did. Recently she hasn't been shown to be that artistic and instead has an interest in history (Kryptonian history, that is). Before Krypton's destruction she was invited to study at the Society of Historical Science, and she actually preferred history to applied science. She does have a lot of scientific understanding (both because she's apart of the House of El and because Krypton is so scientifically advanced), but I've always loved that she's shown a consistent interest in the humanities rather than science!

As a quick aside, Kara has had a couple different human identities over the years: she was Linda Lee Danvers (sometimes just referred to as Linda Danvers) during Pre Crisis continuity, and that was her most fleshed out and meaningful identity imo since it lasted for around 26 years. During Post Crisis she briefly went by Linda Lang, and then in the Rebirth continuity she'd go by Kara Danvers to match the CW show. All that to say, she really doesn't differ that much in personality when she's in her human identity than when she's Supergirl! Aside from pretending that she doesn't have powers, she's still just as incredibly headstrong and compassionate and protective when she's [insert human ID here] as she is when she's Supergirl.

Okay now I'm just going to drop a few reading guides / comic recommendations that I've made here if you're interested!

Ultimate Supergirl Reading Guide Supergirl Storyline Recommendations Pre Crisis Supergirl Recommendations

#asks #kara zor el #i already said this in my last answer but i promise asking me about supergirl doesn't bother me at all!#i love yapping about her <3

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reasonsmandy · 1 year

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Gold dust woman

Eddie Roundtree x Fem!Reader

✧.* requested by @accidrainonme — if you made one based off of gold dust woman by fleetwood mac i’d go insane omg

✧.* summary — Eddie has been dealing with a lot lately, and after getting his heart broken he goes in search of the only person in the world who brings him peace: you.

✧.* warnings — Heartbroken Eddie :(((

✧.* word count — 1.5k

✧.* 🎸 — Eddie's masterlist

✧.* mandy's notes — I tried a lot to do something faithful to the music, I don't know if I succeeded but I really liked the result. Hope you like it too :)

Eddie had been through the hardest week of his life, Billy as always was being the biggest asshole in the world and the fact that he didn't solve things with Camila only made everything worse. The bassist had been in love with her for many years and that day seeing her so wonderful, looking stunning next to someone like Billy had made everything worse.

After a show they were all celebrating in Daisy's room, Warren looked super excited singing the song in the background, Graham was having fun talking to another group of people, and Karen was dancing with Daisy.

Roundtree couldn't stop thinking about the frustration he felt seeing the woman he loved next to the person he hated the most, he didn't understand how someone like Billy had everything he wanted.

And now he found himself isolated from the others, sitting in a chair while trying to hold back his tears. The conversation he had with Camila earlier tore his heart apart, all he wanted was to show her that he could make her happier, but that wasn't what she wanted so there wasn't much he could do, despite watching her from afar.

Watching her dance with him made him want to throw chlorine in his eyes, and when he couldn't take it anymore he decided to leave that place. He gets up still with the same beer in hand, going down the stairs with the intention of walking aimlessly around, he didn't know why everything cooperated for him to feel so insignificant, he started little by little to believe in all that.

The bassist took a sip from his bottle as he walked down the dimly lit street, and while he wandered in his thoughts, he remembered that a few blocks away you would probably be lying on your couch watching some random show. So, thinking of relieving his mind of all the chaos that surrounded it, he starts walking towards your apartment.

On the other hand you were having an extremely generic night, nothing new had happened in the last few hours so you decided to spend the rest of your time doing a movie night. You were ready to prepare some snacks and lie down in front of the television so as not to get up until the next day. As soon as everything is ready you sit on the couch and almost automatically your doorbell rings, you arch an eyebrow and bring your gaze to the clock... You sure as hell weren't expecting anyone at ten o'clock at night.

Leaving your bowl of snacks on the sofa, you head towards the door, opening it to find a crestfallen Eddie. You were immediately concerned, you had known Eddie for a few years and you knew that lately things weren't great for him - which broke your heart - You cared a lot about him and knew he didn't deserve what life did to him.

"Eddie love, what happened?" You say holding his hand, and pulling him inside the apartment.

"I'm exhausted Y/N" he says, bringing his hands to his face in frustration. "I can't understand how he gets everything he wants! He is literally the most selfish person in the world and nobody seems to notice it."

"What happened?" You say, hugging him.

"Cami, she…" He can't hold it anymore, he starts to cry. "Am I that insignificant? She discarded me like I was nothing"

"Of course not Eddie" You say, wiping the tears from his face. "You deserve so much more, and if these people don't recognize that, they're crazy."

"I can't understand" He looked very exhausted, you knew how much he charged himself for all this and you couldn't stand to see him in that situation.

"Maybe you need a change..." You say, catching the man's attention. "This whole environment, even though dear to you, is not good for you, my love."

"I can't just…" he starts to say, but the urge to cry invades him again. "I can't just leave them"

"I know it's hard, but it doesn't mean it'll be forever." You say calmly, patiently waiting for him to calm down. "You don't have to disappear from their lives, you just have to respect your time. You must understand that you have the right to be upset about all this, you have feelings too…"

He remains silent, so you decide to continue.

"I see that it hurts you so much, and yet you keep trying to give it all a chance." You approach him, holding his hands. "I understand your love for them and that it can be really hard to let go of something so important, but it's costing you your happiness."

"I won't make it without them" He looks at you with puffy eyes, being honest with everything he kept to himself. "I'm nothing without them, I feel like everything I ever thought I was good at was a grand illusion."

He closes his eyes, letting a few more tears fall.

"I thought when she gave me that chance that night, for once things were going to work out."

Roundtree watches you intently, as if he wants to believe your words more than anything else. Seeing him in that situation broke your heart, even more so when you knew you could love him the way she couldn't. Eddie had become an extremely special person to you throughout your friendship, you have never stopped talking since he arrived in LA and from the beginning you knew what a great talent that man had, and how music was his passion.

When he called you telling you that Billy had changed every moment of him on the album you couldn't believe it, you couldn't understand how someone could be so selfish. You called him to your apartment so he could stay away from Billy during his time off until the tour started, and that's what he did.

Eddie and you spent that time sharing your apartment, most days you watched movies, danced to the records you had, cooked whatever junk food you wanted, and some days you even invited Warren to spend time with you. That time brought you much closer together, and it also contributed to increasing the passion you felt for him.

Talking about talent for you was like talking about him, it was impossible to imagine someone more talented and passionate than Eddie Roundtree, you always knew how dedicated he is to his work, and the sparkle in his eyes when he talked about it was priceless. And that's exactly how you wanted to see him, you wanted him to link his work, his music with that passion and joy that he conveyed. But over time, all those frustrations made that sparkle in his eyes disappear, he didn't talk with joy about it, he wasn't proud of himself anymore.

You knew about his love for Camila, and you also knew about the affair they had that day. You knew very well that she was very special to him, after all, they basically grew up together and he nurtured that love for her for years. He still hadn't told you what she said to make him like this, but you were sure she had broken his heart. It was really hard for him to open up to someone like he did to you, he hated looking vulnerable anyway, so you were kind of speechless when he started crying before he even spoke.

"You know I consider you the most talented person on earth, right?" You smile, brushing a few strands of hair out of his face. "I don't know what she told you, but you need to know that you are so much more than a replacement…"

"I wanted so much to believe in you" Frustrated he replies, letting out a sigh. "I love her, Y/N"

"I know my love" Your heart clenched as you saw his eyes fill with tears once more. "But do you understand that love doesn't have to hurt like that?"

He looks at you, silently waiting for you to continue.

"Eddie, love has to be something that makes you feel fulfilled, happy, that doesn't cause you any frustration or anguish." Your hands hold his lovingly, and your eyes go down to your intertwined fingers. "You know you can count on me, right?"

"I don't know what I would be without you" He says letting out a sigh, letting go of your hands he lays on your lap. "I'm so broken, why would you want to deal with me?"

"I'm always here to help you to pick up your pieces" You reply, ruffling his hair. "You can always come home, my home is yours my love."

"Home is wherever you are" He mutters, closing his weary eyes from crying. "Thanks for so much, really"

"Don't mention it" You whisper, noticing his body relaxes under your touch.

Eddie Roundtree: I don't have words to describe how important she is to me, but I can assure you that after that day she completely changed the meaning of love for me.

...

Hi, I hope you enjoyed it... If you wanted to ask for something my requests are open, and if you want to ask and don't have any ideas check out my prompt list :) xoxo

Want to be tagged when new stories come out? REASONSMANDY'S TAG LIST

#daisy jones and the six #djats #djats x reader #eddie x y/n #eddie roundtree x reader #eddie roundtree #eddie x fem!reader #eddie x you #eddie x reader #eddie loving #josh whitehouse #sebastian chacon #djatsedit #daisy jones and the six fanfic #daisy jones #the six #the dunne brothers

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