something beautiful is going to happen

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

The Centaurs are playing in New York and Shane doesn’t travel with the team because of some, like, very minor injury, don’t worry, he’s fine. Scott asks Ilya to get a drink afterwards, but not at the Kingfisher, somewhere else, no reason. He is absolutely miserable to be confiding in fucking Ilya Rozanov about this, but he eventually confesses that he and Kip are getting divorced. 

He says that after he came out, there was all this pressure to make sure the story had a happy ending. He was with Kip when he came out, of course they had to get married! Maybe he didn’t really think about what it meant to actually be married, though. Everything just happened really fast. And, like — Shane and Ilya got married right after they came out. Does Ilya ever feel like they rushed into things? Did he feel that pressure to get married to make the whole thing more palatable? 

(For our purposes we are in book canon, Scott and Kip went from getting together to coming out in like six months and Scott doesn’t really know how long Shane and Ilya have been together.)

And Ilya is like, “Cool story, but my relationship has traveled more roads and suffered more obstacles than you could ever possibly imagine. One time Shane had to google because he didn’t know that the word for what he was trying to describe was ‘microagression’ and then he had to get out his Russian dictionary, but there’s no Russian word for ‘microagression’ so he kind of invented one, and then we could finally finish our argument about whether the Voyageurs were being a shitty team and also we were doing all of this over FaceTime because I was in Ottawa and Shane was in Pittsburgh. Actually getting married was a footnote at the end of the 200 page dissertation of things that we did to make that relationship work.” Because obviously a central tenant of Shane and Ilya’s relationship is that they do kind of think their relationship is better than everyone else’s and I don’t know, maybe they make some valid points! 

I also like the idea of Ilya being utterly baffled, like, “I have literally only ever made romantic choices that I knew would make the rest of the world unhappy, you’re asking me if I felt pressured to get married? And you think I would care about that? Grandpa, I cannot relate.” 

Here are some of my rambling thoughts are this:

Sports marriages are a subset of career-dominated marriages, where one spouse plays the supporting role to other's career due to its intensity, status, geographic mobility etc. And by spouse, let's be real - even outside male professional sports, in the vast majority of these marriages it's the wife that plays the supporting role.

Research about wives in sports marriages consistently highlights the power imbalance between spouses and the pressures on wives to both the household and the public image of the marriage/family so that the husband and primary earner isn't distracted. The uncertainty that comes with trades, bad performance or the risk of injury. Not being able to maintain their own career or form strong social networks. Being aware that their husbands have constant opportunities to cheat and could leave the marriage at any time and not be worse off.

I think it would be the thankless fucking work of a traditional patriarchal marriage but dialled up to 11 and with people constantly watching you, waiting to criticise any bad outfit or weight gain, while at the same time talking about how lucky you are. It's the worst parts of being a female celebrity and you don't even get to have your own career/money, just exist as an extension of your husband.

Now imagine being the first out male same-sex couple not only in your sport, but possibly in all of professional sport in North America (and maybe even further?). Who came out it very dramatic fashion on live TV? There's no hiding, no going back.

I think the pressure on Scott, both internal and external, to make this relationship work and be worth it would be incredibly intense. I think the pressures on Kip would be equally intense but coming from other directions and would affect him differently.

Thinking about this through the lens of respectability/equality politics vs liberation politics is so interesting! Marriage is a way to make their relationship more 'normal', less threatening in a homophobic culture. To conform and at least approximate the relationships around them. It's not to say it's not also about love and the very important legal benefits one gains from being married, but there can be multiple driving forces for a decision.

In theory, one of the great things about queer relationships is that you can do away with gendered expectations around household and emotional labour, caring duties, careers and so on. However, a career-dominated marriage of any kind could end up dragging you kicking and screaming into these dynamics. I can see Kip taking real issue with this as the one being dragged.

The research talks about how many women in sports marriages go from being excited and start-struck to struggling to bitter once the long-term reality sets in. Even the women with 'good' husbands who didn't cheat and who tried to be as involved as possible still had a hard time. All the love and best intentions in the world can't change the external stressors in these relationships, nor the amount of time and energy the athlete must dedicate to their career and therefore not have available for their loved ones.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/seven-part-pact

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/seven-part-pact

MET Gala 2026 looks as the locked tomb characters

(either what they would actually wear or just the vibe they give off)

taking in a man you barely know just because he needed a place to stay. noticing mel's loneliness and taking her out for a fun night, even offering to bring her sister along with zero problems. noticing an attempted suicide when no one else did, staying with him and talking to him and showing him that people do care, and life is worth it.

and you've been chewed up and spit out by life over and over again and you're not healed and maybe you never will be all the way but every day you try. you're making a life for yourself, making a career that you're fucking good at, starting to make friends, and if you fail you just keep trying. and you care about doing the right thing. you hide behind a shell but you fucking care. so much.