#if they can do it i can do it

[lemonhemlock]

i know i've converted my blog into asoiaf meta for the most part, but now that the champions league is back and madrid are set to face liverpool again next week, i remembered this article and just... with all this talk of meta-narratives and arcs and symbolism... can you feel nostalgic for something that happened just last year??? this is going to be super indulgent but i am most definitely feeling thoughts & thinking feelings right now !!!

so for anyone who has no idea what i'm talking about, how about i introduce you to a tale of uncanny resilience in the face of the impossible? not just of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but of the over-praised, overachiever, drenched in privilege and exposure, that the rest of the world learns to despise, bc they become sick and tired of their (supposedly manufactured) success? what happens when you're the villain in everyone else's story and the world is rooting against you anyway but you also just kind of stop performing for whatever reason?

do you just lay down and take it? accept that your luck has run its course and endure the critiques and the slander with gritted teeth?? once you reach that level of transcendence, is there truly any going back? are you even of this earth anymore?

so that is how madrid dragged itself through the champions league in the 2021-2022 season. the undisputed queen of europe, with an unequaled (then-) 13 titles under her belt, the team that had achieved the impossible feat of winning 4 titles in 5 years, now became the team that everyone wrote off. cursed with the most onerous bracket in the history of the knock-off stages, doomed (blessed??) to face-off the most nefarious avatars of modern footballing culture - first paris saint germain, a PR-sanitizing tool for the crimes of the qatari political elite, then chelsea, a team owned by a russian oligarch with a similar function - also the acting champions of europe, to boot.

four difficult matches that no one expected madrid to survive and nearly took us out so many times. until they didn't. until we opened our eyes each time after the final whistle and there we were, still standing. and there they were, gone, vanquished. a nightmare you wake up from, disoriented, asking for the date, time, place, context. what year is this. is it safe to come out? is this real? have we done it again? what are the odds to us, other than mere suggestions, foolish calculations that only heretics give credence to?

Against PSG they had come down from 1-0 down, 2-0 on aggregate to win 3-2, gifted a way back and scoring twice in a minute, three in quarter of an hour. Against Chelsea they had gone from 3-0 down on the night, 4-3 down on aggregate, with 10 minutes left to win 5-4 on aggregate. It had been extraordinary that they were even standing, but this is the team you have to kill a hundred times. If not, know that they’re coming for you.

the whole world knows that you never, absolutely, under no circumstances, let madrid worm their way into the final, because that's as good as surrendering the title to them and calling it a day. as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. if divine intervention is needed, it will come. inexorably. real madrid are god's team, baby.

so the world throws the hardest hurdle at us for the semi-final. the greatest obstacle. the best chance at making us fail. pep guardiola's manchester city. another such propaganda toy, this time for the UAE, a soulless, plastic club. the embodiment of manufactured apathy. but who's counting. the first leg ends 4-3 for them. the goals didn't stop coming, so i remember asking myself why were they both dressed in blue. light for man city, dark for madrid. what a peculiar choice. what a peculiar year.

In Manchester Real Madrid faced 16 shots. They were beaten 4-3, but celebrated that almost as a victory given how overrun they had been, aware that the difference could have been far greater; rarely can City have felt more like they had lost a game that they had won.

but it is in the second leg that they remembered who they were. we had just forgotten, you see!! a momentary lapse of judgement. it is just before the finish line when you muster up that last ounce of strength and command your feet to press you forward. undaunted visionaries violently upturning any kind of logic or common sense! what was supposed to happen candidly did not happen. it's that easy. it's that simple. flippantly refusing to capitulate!!! our white flags don't mean the same thing as everyone else's! how silly they were to think... !

There were 39 seconds left and Real Madrid needed to score twice or they were out, halted at the gates of the final, their luck running out at last. Eighty-eight seconds later they had done, collective madness taking everyone. Somehow, they had forced extra time; soon, they had the winner, which by then you knew they would. Look in the top corner of your screen. It had shown 89:20 RMA 0 – 1 MCI (3-5). Look again and it showed: 94.13 RMA 3 – 1 MCI (6-5). And it had taken a few seconds to update the score.

delusion that becomes truth itself??? because you make it so???? sometimes seeing truly is NOT believing, you need to re-make reality in your image and according to your own hallucinations of grandeur!! sometimes you are pygmallion and that scoreboard is your galatea goddamn it. you're not lying to yourself, you're prophesizing what you will create out of this world!

The champions of France, Europe and England all eliminated at the Bernabéu.

What happened was the most ridiculous resurrection of them all: even more implausible, the margins finer, the race against the clock more frantic, like they were watching that video back again only on fast-forward, everything flashing by.

There was something mystical at play; some fate, some force that means that the more you fight it, the more inevitable it becomes.

liverpool surely hate our guts. two lost UCL finals against us, the first fraught with enough controversy to last a generation. i don't know what's going to happen next week. we might as well lose & forfeit this season. but, even so, we'll always have something other teams don't. that bright, celestial belief in our strength and our resolve, that vision that only we can see and deliver forth, even in the face of the absurd, of the hopeless.

and i think that there's inspiration in that. i think it's a neat reminder that we have so many stories of our own to tell and there's a power we wield in fleshing them into existence.

The players knew: they had seen the video that proves it.

so go forth and be brilliant!! bring around your own remontada!

“We’ve come back, we’ve come back!” he shouted, leaping about celebrating. There’s something about that “we” that stuck in the throat. He wasn’t alone, some fans turning and trying to get back in. Had they learned nothing? Do they not know this team they support? Of course you have come back, you fool.

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[everythingwasnormalhere]

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

[teathattast]

[time-woods]

Accessorize ! Accessorize ! Accessorize !

based off of how my dad got his ears pierced))

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[mikufanclub]

glados miku ^_^

[intercrusher]

this is their foreplay

[soaptaculart]

Postcanon Farcille indulgence

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[thelaurenshippen]

watching bridgerton and obviously there were a lot of things wrong with the way socializing has worked in the past, but honestly the idea of a "calling hour" is so appealing. office hours for friendship. you can show up unannounced at my home between 1 and 3pm. you must leave by 3pm. I may give you a pastry. lets bring that back

[sabertoothwalrus]

BRING BACK THE BEAR!!! 🗣️👉🐻

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[artsymeeshee]

Felt a need to draw hugs (thinking about sea grunks has made me extra emotional :’))

[trisarahtops-sketches]

Just dragon girl things <3

[donnieisaprettyboy]

can we stop pretending like it’s so super easy for trans men to pass. “oh just put on a baggy shirt and cut your hair-“ it literally doesn’t work like that and I refuse to believe you actually think it’s that easy