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.
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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.
An important part of being in charge of a mass is listening to what they say, and hearing out the public, clearly here you can see the looks, the held back smiles, and the disgusting ignorance of anything of what this woman is begging of them. And what it is you might ask? Something that should be a given. And it disgusts me truly that they can sit there all rich, all powerful and not even try to act like they care.
Something more personal, I am trans, I dream of being a man of fitting into what seems so right it's everything that I think of for the future, it's been a number 1 goal of mine for years, but it's very VERY clear that these people won't even look at me with a thought other than a problem.
So yeah look down in shame and look down at the floor as someone begs for your attention and begs for rights that were always supposed to be a given, think about the lives of millions, and that's not just a number each one is a person, a real person that has been completely denied from a life. I've never felt more sick.
It’s hard to say how Donnie would react in every circumstance, especially an AU, which ya know, is where I kinda live lol. But even with my EW Donnie growing up with different experiences, there are moments where i actively want him to be different, but moments i have to sit and think about how he’s still the same lovable purple guy.
Canon Donnie is such a people pleaser. Donnie’s love language is clearly acts of service/gift giving, creating inventions to make the family’s lives easier…and when they don’t, Donnie tends to either go into a denial mode, refusing any criticism, or fix it mode.
He can’t handle the idea of just dropping a project—not until he has no other choice. When Shelldon literally destroyed the lair and nearly killed them all, Donnie insisted he could improve him. When he saw the billboard for Purple Game 2, he was still 100% invested in getting that game, despite knowing full well how much damage his obsession caused, and that it was a ploy created by the Purple Dragons. When April went to Witch Town, instead of him, he took that as the highest insult to his talents. If Donnie’s got a worm in his brain for something, he’s not going to let anything stop him—sometimes even, to the detriment of his family’s health.
He loves them, obviously, but he can still be very self involved, and it often blinds him to how he’s hurting them. I personally think this comes from having Raph and Leo always there to be his safety net/older siblings. If something goes awry, they’ll take care of it, Donnie is the results guy, not the plan guy. I see a lot of fanon Donnie taking on everything— taking charge in a emergency—and I’m not ragging, I even enjoy seeing that trope of Donnie working himself to death, doing it all, when it’s written very well—but in canon, Donnie relies a lot on Raph and Leo as team leaders for support and guidance. I think if something were to happen to both of them, he’d need some time to panic and pull himself together. He trusts their judgment (only ever pushing back with a few follow up questions) and backs them up. They come up with the plan, and he figures out how to implement it, or just follows along until his intelligence (or sarcasm) is needed. The times we do see Donnie take charge, he has zero patience for it lol (see Mind Meld). He will stand back, if he doesn’t have much to do and snark about what’s going wrong.
If it’s a fight situation, Donnie’s usually not the one to charge in headfirst. In both Shredder fights (and a few others), he allows the others to go in swinging before he takes a go, and then right off the bat, he pulls out some pretty big final moves (whether they worked as final moves, well 😬) so I think Donnie tends to leave the super physical stuff to the other three, unless it’s a one vs one, or if he can see they need help. He IS a great fighter, that’s for damn sure, but I think if he can go last, and make it into a big show, he has more fun with it.
There is the attention seeking, seeing as he’s a middle child. This is where I get into heavy head canon territory…
We can maybe, safely assume from canon, that Splinter gives Donnie the least amount of attention. I do think the Splinter attention goes-> Mikey, Leo (tho most of that attention is negative from being reprimanded lol), Raph, then Donnie. And while Leo tells himself the negative attention he gets from being a little shit is the same as any attention, I think Donnie desperately needs positive attention, and someone to validate all his creations.
I hope any of that made sense. I’m not the best at writing down my thoughts on a character’s motivations and personality lol. I’m mostly going off vibes when I write.
OMG YES ALL THIS YES Donnie doesn't like to take charge he likes relying on his brothers more and in the episode, Donnie's gifts, it seems like he is the one taking charge and trying to make them a better team but when you look closer he even let them try what ever goofy stuff they were trying to do to fix the problem and then he GIVES GIFTS to specifically what they need so they can work as a team and lead (aka so he doesn't have to), like literally Raph gets a planning helmet, and yeah I think it's really cool to see well written thought out Donnie in charge stuff because it shows that he has had character development and is trying to help his brothers and his team in any way he can and that's just super cool
And with the head cannon stuff that's so real actually I agree because I mean why would you need to give a lot of attention to a child that's running your electricity, obviously he seems fine on his own and he won't get into a lot of trouble because he's just so smart, but that's where Donnie feels that loss of attention from and tries to make up for it in gifts, trying to please his dad but in the end it reassures splinter that his son is just so smart and doesn't need any more aid or attention than what he has now. Obviously don't get it wrong splinter loves all his children I mean he was set on letting the world be destroyed than let his kids go hurt, he has so much love for his kids he just gets so excited when he gets to teach them things but he has 4 of them and it's hard to handle he actually does deal with it well and tries his best to raise them obviously he's gonna give the youngest attention because he was younger than the rest and needed it and it just kinda kept going throughout that years because he's splinters little orange always and then Leo loves to get in trouble so he needs a lot of attention to divert his evil schemes and Raphs y'know the oldest he should be able to take care of his brothers and himself and not need as much help from his dad. It was easier to just let the oldest handle problems he was too tired to even try to look at so sometimes when it came to emotional problems with Raph he doesn't go to his dad because he's supposed to be strong and reliable so it puts so much pressure on him and splinter really sees it later in the show and realizes his mistakes.
Then theres the episode Mama's train that I think is really cool where you see Donnie get to fight more on his own without his tech and for some time without his brothers, you get to see him plan and what his ideas were, one thing that's prominent is he uses a lot of brute force with strategic planning like I thought it was funny when he just picks up a weight and throw it at the foot goons. I really thought the episode was going to be Donnie being amazing at the cool tech in the train like you could teleport anywhere on the cars but I actually was pleasantly surprised when it was more focused on his fighting. I don't remember some of the episode but I do know that Raph is the one to find the way to the front you could see that Donnie wasn't really trying to find it I don't think he really even looked at the button wall I don't think Idk actually I just don't remember him trying to get into all the stuff because he was distracting and fighting instead of his usually staying back and figuring out the train which is how it's kinda flipped they were all supposed to focus on different weaknesses and I think Donnie just had a lot of fun being able to learn on his own and not rely completely on his tech and brothers
I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.
Exactly! It's freaking annoying when I want to watch movies but I would have to subscribe to like 24 different services . Just to watch the shows that I like.
i like using streaming apps but there are waaaay too many and they're all stealing my data .i wish there was a secure and organized way to have millions of shows and movies available one one app. but alas. we've truly gone full circle back to cable + now it spies on you. its a real shame. i dont want to fill my device storage with tons of boring and stupid cash grabs.
i know, it's so annoying for everything to be paid nowadays, especially movies and tv shows. it would be perfect if i could watch them without getting infected by some virus or some shit. i'm fine with ads, they gotta run themselves somehow, but i want to watch stuff and .live! if they have to use different domains i'm okay with that too, because free media is .top dog either way.
for mobile users, it especially sucks, because you can't just use websites and you have to not only pay, but you have to download a billion apps just to find what the thing you wanna watch is on. it doesn't help that the streaming services take up...so much space. so much.
Hey! I know I don't really post my own things often, but this is important.
@coldobservationdreamer has been in communication with me about her cause for LGBTQ refugees in Sudan, and I asked how I could help, and she responded telling me that I could share the gofundme link for her cause.
If you can't donate, please reblog and spread the word!
LGBTQ community in sudan talking about situation we are passing through in Sudan , the country is full of wars, hostile people ,Bad weather conditions,lack of food, where to sleep, meditation and other basic needs e.t.c and the place is full of homophobic people , we have to much sunshine and in wet season the rain can be too much and destroys all the houses .
Look how things are destroyed in wet season due to much rain full
Look how LGBTQ people are being attacked by homophobic people in Sudan..Look how people sleep in strong sunshine even in heavy rain full because not being with houses and how people die due to much sunshine, heavy rain full, hash diseases due to no medication and food.
Look how LGBTQ people are being attacked by homophobic people in Sudan.
And some times , we feel like death is better for us due to the situation in Sudan..
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LGBTQ community in Sudan calling support and donations to donate on this link and we thank all people who donate, reblog, pin our situation on his or her profile , share our link and make posts about our situation in sudan..
Gofme :: https://gofund.me/bc71607a
We are requesting if you are not able to donate ,share our post so that reaches to those are able to donate ..
Thankfully
Frank Qum one of the member in LGBTQ community in Sudan.
If you are unable to donate, please don’t feel pressured. You can still help us by sharing or reblogging this post, or by spreading the word about our fundraiser on other social media platforms. Every share helps increase our visibility and brings us closer to reaching the people who can help.🌈🌈🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🎄🎄🎁🎁🎄 happy new year 2025..
We are writing to you with a heart full of gratitude and hope. Over the past few weeks, your support has been overwhelming. Together, we’ve raised an incredible €1,395 towards our goal of €5,000, and we cannot express how much this means to our community in Sudan and me. ❤️🌍
Life here in Sudan has always been filled with challenges, but the current circumstances have made it unimaginably difficult. As some of you know, our community has endured unimaginable losses – 20 of our loved ones were taken by the violence. 💔 Their memory is our driving force to keep moving forward, to survive, and to share our story with the world.
Your generosity – through donations, reblogs, and kind words – has shown us that even in the darkest times, there is light. ✨ Every euro and usd donated, every reblog shared, every message of encouragement has made an impact. You’ve helped us cover basic necessities, keep our spirits alive, and dream of a safer future.
🛠️ How You Can Help: Donate 👉https://gofund.me/bc71607a
🔄 Reblog – Share this post with your followers. Every reblog increases the chance of reaching someone who can help.
📢 Spread the Word – Talk about our story with your friends and family. Awareness is a powerful tool.
To everyone who has already supported us: Thank you from the depths of our heart. ❤️ Your kindness gives us hope and strength to face each day. You are not just helping our community in Sudan survive; you are reminding us that we are not alone in this fight.
Together, we can reach the goal of €5000, and with your help, we will. Please keep sharing, keep donating, and keep believing in the power of compassion. 🌈💖
Please do all that you can to spread and boost this! Frank and I have been in communication with eachother for a while now, and the donations you all have sent have legitimately been helping. She's a kind woman, and her and her fellow refugees in Sudan need all of the help they can get.
I know things are rough in the world right now, but if you can spare some money to donate to her cause, please do! If you can't for one reasom or another, share with others who can and try to boost her voice!
Everyone has an opportunity to make change in these people's lives, so please do what you can!!
Hold up… I slowed down this small snippet. Casey’s grappling hook comes out of his arm. Does he have a Genius Built bionic arm too?! That future Donnie built?! WAITAMINUTE! Tell me I’m not the only one that sees it…
It took me a while to see what you were seeing - the grappling hook seemed to just pop into existance, since it happened so quickly - but I think you're right!
Casey has this metalic piece on his right arm under the elbow with a slot in it. It is not on the left.
In the shot you've isolated, you can see it popping out of the arm - not just that, but you can see the mechanism doing the popping out (that little grey bar connecting the grappling hook apparatus to the arm), the now empty slot it came out of, and the size of the grappling hook piece, all of which serve to show HOW DEEP INSIDE HIS ARM THE APARATUS GOES.
Too deep, is the answer. At least, too deep to be a cuff or gauntlet. To go that far into his arm, he... can't HAVE a forearm, it takes up the bulk of that part of his limb.
Donnie said apparel. Casey did not. But that could be because Donnie didn’t see the arm, and Casey didn’t flinch when Donnie hit his arm so hard! And the tech could be referencing his bionic arm.
this is blowing my mind. And it isn’t far fetched for CJ to have lost The same side of his arm that Raph AND Leo lost too- I can imagine that future leo trained Casey with him dominant arm, his right arm, and that became Casey’s dominant arm too. Which immediately puts his right arm at a higher risk of being bitten/lasered/cut/etc off.
also notice how the grappling hook AIMS at Donnie, a potential threat? THAT is tech.
imagine poor Future Leo patching Casey Junior up, so young, cursed to survive in an apocalypse HE (feels like he) created. Perhaps he sees his own face in Casey, the same expression HE had when losing his own arm. SOB
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