Things and Stuff

Same sex marriage was not federally legal in all 50 US states until 2015.

Many states still challenged it though, so we had to have the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.

Then in 2025, the creature known as Kim Davis tried to go to the Supreme Court to have it overturned.

In 2017, US and Russian relations were the lowest they’d been since the Cold War. US imposed sanctions on Russia and in response Russia drastically reduced US diplomatic staff and seized US diplomatic properties.

While Canada also had its issues with Russia, it also legalized same sex marriage in 2005.

Shane and Ilya met in 2008 and became a couple in 2017.

Scott's story is for all people who have been or are still deeply closeted. About the desperate, suffocating loneliness of that, the isolation. He's been living like this for more than a decade. Kip would have had to go back into the closet for their relationship to work. He'd have become isolated, too, would have been hurt so badly.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. This is reality for so many people. And Scott's story is about how fucking brave he is to step out of that closet. As the first player in the league to do so. And about how much of a difference it makes not only in his own life and Kip's, but the huge impact it has on others.

I find it incredibly difficult to talk about media that resonates with me as deeply as Rental Family did, so I'll keep my thoughts brief.

For the first bit of this movie, I wasn't really sure where I was being taken. Then there was one scene, a minor twist of sorts, that hit me so fucking hard that I knew I was meant to be in that seat in that theater.

I think I saw this movie at the precise time in my life that I needed to. It reached me at my core, reminding me that, despite all of the overwhelming darkness, there's still good in this world, and that good is a reason to keep going.

I mean it when I say this is perhaps the most feel-good movie of all feel-good movies. That doesn't mean the experience is not emotionally taxing, because it most definitely is. What I do mean is that you'll leave the theater remembering why, despite the inevitable, crushing pain, life is worth living.

Fascism thrives best in the cesspool of hopelessness. They want us so confused and hopeless that we give in. When you give in, you don’t fight back.

If you wait for life to look good to do the things that bring you joy; life will still be bad - you will just have less joy.

As someone who has struggled with my mental health a lot for the last thirty years, I know this struggle firsthand. And changing this belief system - the one where you spend all of your time expecting bad things so you won’t be surprised when they happen - it’s the hardest work that I have ever done. And I’m not perfect; I still have setbacks. I still experience really real fears about the state of the world and the US, in particular, because that’s where I live.

But I made a vow to myself that I will not let the choices of others ruin my life. When I made that vow, I was thinking of my parents - but it applies to the state of the government right now, too.

There are still flowers in my garden, and ripe tomatoes, and it’s almost pick-your-own apples season, and I have plans with my friends to go to as many cemetery ghost walks as we can find this October.

I still deserve to live. I still deserve to laugh. I still deserve to love. I still deserve to be as happy as I can be.

forever grateful to the code reviewers and testers who work tirelessly to maintain the site

forever grateful for the endless people who donate their hard earned cash so AO3 can continue to run

forever grateful for the authors who work and write and continue to produce work contributing to the 16 million fan works

forever grateful to the readers and the ones especially who leave comments, kudos, bookmarks, and encourage authors to keep on writing

If you don't like Timmy anymore or the choices he makes or the people he surrounds himself with then guess what? You can unstan. It's free! You can leave his tag, you can abandon ship. You don't have to follow what he does or anything about him ANYMORE. Wow oh my gosh I know! I can't believe it but it's just so factually true.

Not only did Billie Eilish donate $11.5M, she also called out a room full of billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg, directly to their faces, saying "If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but, yeah, give your money away, shorties."

The $11.5M she's donating is about 1/4 if her net worth. Imagine if a billionaire did that? If Mark Zuckerberg donated 1/4 of his net worth, it would be about $55 BILLION... and he's still have over $100 billion left.