#because sans means without

[abugidaithink]

i don't think the world would be the same sans undertale

#haha get it #because sans means without #that's where sans' name comes from #comic sans #sans serif #without serifs #i know font stuff #for i am of the autism #undertale #sans undertale #sans ut

[carlyraejepsans]

Do you enjoy underfell? I thought you disliked aus /genq

i don't dislike the concept of AUs itself, I'm just not a fan of like... the subculture that spawned around them in the UT fandom specifically and how it eventually took over almost all canon content (especially when it limits itself to the bros)

i like aus visually! i am an artist at heart after all. it's just that, if I'm going to care about them as stories and not just fun design ideas, my bar is uhh almost impossibly high the further you move from canon lolol.

#uf being one of those! the story is centered on certain characters (mainly asgore) behaving very ooc #so as a stickler for canon I don't have much interest in it #but there is a very clear visual idea and motif in the redesigns that ties every character together very efficiently #and also fucks like a rabid rhino #so i can appreciate its visual/aesthetic aspects instead #i mean you can't understate the impact that good *artists* specifically had on the proliferation of aus back in the day #good writing is almost inseverable from good characterization because dialogues and characterization ARE an integral part #of what makes writing good. while good art (as much as it too is tied to its own conventions) is free-er from the bounds of accuracy #as was as being easier & faster to consume. writing has to be read first. you can just look at a piece of art and go ''wow that looks sick'' #without thinking about logical details/accuracy #you can show a pic of sans to an artist who's never touched the game and they might draw you the most gorgeous piece of art you've ever seen #it's significantly harder to do for writing #swap aus are a fun design challenge to see how you'd incorporate different aspects of some characters visual signatures into another #it's a game of translation of sorts. but if you want to treat it like a story well... the matter becomes a lot more complicated #answered asks #au tag

[childrenofthesun77]

I know mahiru is often seen as not smart (his official stats from the guidebook give him a 2 out of 10 for tactics and I think the mental stat is more about mental stability?) and sure he's not a tactical genius like mikuni or touma (both have 10/10 in tactics) but mahiru is extremely socially/emotionally intelligent, which is an intelligence often overlooked in favour of "classic" intelligence (like being good at math or things like chess).

But unlike other characters mahiru knows when to stand his ground and when to lay low and change a person's view slowly over time.

Misono wasn't on his side in the beginning, even saying mahiru could be his servant when mahiru agreed to work with him, but mahiru quickly picked up on the fact that misono was lonely and offered to be his friend. Now misono trusts him completely and recognizes that mahiru's strength lies in gaining allies.

Shuhei openly hated vampires and treated them as things and mahiru responded by humanizing them, listing examples of vampires acting just like normal people, laying the first stone for shuhei to stop wanting to kill all vampires.

He was the one who proposed the idea that tsubaki would come to rescue lilac because tsubaki sees his subclass as family and he was right.

Neither lawless nor licht were overly impressed by him when they first met him, but by the time he asks them to rescue tsurugi especially lawless is one of his biggest supporters.

In C3 he understood that he wasn't going to be able to move if he opposed them and joined them instead, allowing him and the other eves to meet. He also correctly concluded that getting tsurugi on their side was key because he was central to C3's/touma's plans and in the end it saved his life and allowed him to stop touma.

Mahiru consistently trying to protect tsubaki's subclass might also come in handy soon. They might not like C3, but both lilac and sakuya can vouch for mahiru as a person they can trust not to kill them and to aid them in stopping tsubaki from destroying himself.

And stopping tsubaki by convincing him to stop is perfectly logical. A servamp can't be killed as far as we know. Combat only gets you so far. If C3 want to create a lasting co-existence between vampires and humans getting both sides to stop killing each other and to learn to forgive is the only way.

Trying to solve this conflict through conversation and not violence is neither shortsighted nor childish, it's the only reasonable solution.

#servamp #mahiru shirota #mahiru doesn't have to be a genius at tactics as long as he has enough of “smart” people on his side and gets them to exchange information #touma was kind of screwed the second mahiru got tsurugi to turn against him within a week or so #and even with 13 mikunis it looks like mikuni might be screwed #it might turn into a simple numbers game at this point #all the eves sans mikuni and almost all servamps sans jeje and lily are on mahiru's side #add to that the enterity of C3 including some people believed to be dead and tsubaki's subclass against tsubaki lily and mikuni #(I'm excluding jeje because he's captured right now) #that's a lot of people against a small group that didn't bother to gather people loyal to their cause #this isn't chess where both sides start with the same amount of pieces and you can whittle down your opponent #while mikuni played chess mahiru played shogi even if he didn't know it #taking pieces mikuni discarded and adding them to his own side #I'm not sure if superior skill/power in a few single persons means that much if you have a huge number of also skilled/powerful people #working together to stop you #even without literary knowledge that tells me that the heroes are going to win I would bet on mahiru's side #even mikuni's arguments trying to stop tsubaki's subclass from intervening are weak

[link-sans-specs]

Such... ly dumb. 🎶

This is dumb-hard. This is so hard when you're dumb.

How hard could it be to get here? I'm here and everything's hard for me.

Rhett & Link

We Spent a Day in 1984

#main channel vid #we spent a day in 1984 #you are here 🎶 #link neal #link sans specs #he is stunning #hey #just because you're pretty doesn't mean you're dumb #is this the lack of specs talking? #do the glasses give you more confidence in your intelligence?? #oh honey #you can be smart without them #😘😘😘 #my edit

[trouble-warning]

blorbo!!

Is it egotistical of me to say he's my favorite and that I also kin him? ;-;

Either way this is my version of the silly silly boy and yes I'm only gonna give these skellies three digits per appendage bc it's easier on me and also makes them look a little less human, the number of spine segments and ribs is still up for debate though XD

also his rainbow freckles when he blushes are always forgotten and that makes me sad so I made two lil doodles of him all happy and blushy :]

anyway I'm barely processing that I made this. I love it so much and like, my, my hands did this??? Are you, no you're joking because there's no way I was able to produce something that gives me so much dopamine and seratonin-

#digital art #undertale #helpme #mowmowmowmow #inksans #art #look at the blorbo #undertale aus #UTAU #silly #hims a creechur #I wish people didn't think of him as a bad person simply because he can't function without his drinks tho :[ #Like he has emotions he's not like flowey. He will not function at ALL when his paints run out he can't even move or speak #Just because he needs assistance to live doesn't mean his life and feelings aren't real :[ #i dunno I've seen people take Ink and demonize him simply because he's the antagonist in a story and I don't think that's fair #🙁 #anywho blorbo #I love this lil silly #sansundertale #sans the skeleton

[metaphorthejesterdraws]

(undertale spoilers but mostly just headcanons and stuff) I'm Not Quite Sure How This Got So Out Of Control???

(perhaps surprisingly, this one DOES actually have a very small amount of blood (as well as an off-screen death), so I'm slapping a warning here and in the tags. just in case. no massive violence, though.)

i set out to practice with word bubbles because i intend to make a full-length fancomic series one of these days, and i needed to figure out the word bubble tool.

i figured i'd just use this offhand idea i had about the King Papyrus neutral route and call it a day. well i'm not quite sure what happened but somewhere it went from "simple comic" to "5 pages of what the heck is this". somehow veered into angst again. welp.

(if you feel like reading my logic behind this whole thing here's the initial idea i wrote up like 2 weeks ago lol)

i was thinking about neutral routes (...again...) and i wondered, would the monsters eventually reach a boiling point? like, would they get so fed up with what they perceive to be papyrus' inability to run a kingdom/actually pursue getting a human SOUL that they turn on him?

sans of course would intervene, constantly reassuring everyone that papyrus was doing all he could (which would be the truth!), and even getting just a lil bit ominous and scary if he needed to.

...which got me to thinking something else. if they tried to overthrow him, what steps would they take? where would they stop? monsters' SOULs are made of love after all (and monsters rarely, if ever, show desire to harm another monster at ALL), but would they take a life if it meant freedom...?

which led me to:

#tw: blood #tw: murder #my silly undertale headcanons #sans #undertale #papyrus #art?? #PLEASE HELP THEM AAAAAAAA #oh this is Sad #“I'M NOT MAD!! I JUST...WANT TO KNOW WHY...” #“...HE SAID HE'D BE BACK BEFORE I KNOW IT...I D-DON'T KNOW WHAT HE MEANS BY THAT...” #“BUT HE TOLD ME NOT TO GIVE UP EITHER!!! SO I WON'T!! NYEH HEH HEH!!!” #Oof Size Large ! #no the missing crown in pages 3-5 was not a mistake :) #That Was Fully Intentional :))) #(Because He Doesn't Think Himself Worthy Of Wearing It Since Sans Perished Under His Rule :)))))))) ) #if it had been the other way around and papyrus was the one who was gone #sans would just straight up vanish without a trace to go hide somewhere and be miserable #UH ANYWAYS-

[shrikeseams]

I don’t understand this idea that Finwë is forcing Miriel into staying dead forever because he wants to get with Indis - the text makes it very clear that he tries for years to get Miriel to come back, and she consistently makes insists that she’ll never return. Why should Finwë stay alone forever for the sake of someone who never opens on coming back? The story even says that she doesn’t even consider coming back to life until until he dies himself. I don’t see how Finwë, and especially Indis, did anything wrong.

It's late and I'm tipsy, so this may not be my best effort, but here goes, and if you want clarification/further response you'll have to reply or reblog:

TL;DR: I have no issue with Finwe's remarriage. My issue is that his remarriage was conducted in such a way (by both finwe and the Valar) that a) functionally left Miriel facing all of the long-term consequences while Finwe got just what he wanted, and b) was conducted in unseemly haste for a species that is LITERALLY IMMORTAL. THERE IS NO REASON FOR FINWE TO BE IN A RUSH. HE HAS THE ENTIRE LIFETIME OF ARDA. And also, c) Finwe ultimately proves faithless to Indis as well, which (to me) suggests that this is a finwe problem. If he had just gotten a divorce and severed his fate from miriel's, I... would still not have a high opinion of him. But I wouldn't want to beat him with a 2x4, y'know? The real issue here is that true divorce is a positive social good, but that in its absence Finwe and the valar chose a course of action that only benefited one party.

TLDR-er: Just because miriel wasn't healed when it was convenient to finwe does not give him the right to steal her right to reimbody if and when she does heal. Even the act of asking is, to me, unforgivable. I don't think he was obliged to stay marrived to her, but what he actually did was to functionally ask her to die for his comfort. (Indis's only wrongdoing was bad taste in men. 😔)

TLDRest: I actually think it's worse to ask somebody to die/stay dead for eternity than it is to ask someone not to have a wife and more children! I kinda thing finwe should have looked into adoption and maybe joined a bowling league! The absence of his wife is not, in fact, Doom him to be Forever Alone!

TLDREST FOR REAL THIS TIME: Miriel's right to live (and therefore to eventually reimbody) supercedes finwe's right to remarry for any reason. And his willingness to compromise that makes me doubt his moral character.

Firstly, let's acknowledge my personal bias. Every time I think of miriel, I am thinking of her as if she were one of my friends. That is by basis for looking at the miriel-finwe-indis relationship: how would, personally, view finwe if he were the spouse of a friend? If you can't at least partway accept that premise then I do not expect that this will be convincing.

and because I know this approach isn't universal, my baseline reading is that miriel is suicidally depressed, in a situation where even a completed suicide does not release her from the pressures of her husband, society, and religion.

Now. Let's shift the circumstances a little, to a more real-world version. Let's say that Miriel just has extreme postpartum depression, and she's gone to a facility for inpatient treatment of her own choice. And then, because she isn't any better and still needs that extra support, she stays in that facility for years.

What would you think of a husband who repeatedly pressured her to leave inpatient care? What would you think of a husband who pressured his wife to leave medical care specifically because he wants more kids (the thing that put her into care in the first place)? Would you think well of him for using his political power♧ to functionally get a legal exemption for bigamy, under the condition that his first wife can't ever leave inpatient care (even if she heals)?

Now, take whatever emotional reaction you had to that scenario (which could be different from mine!) And bring it back to Arda.

And when you do that, please remember that 1) elves are immortal and literally have the option to wait for a spouse until the end of the world if they so choose. But ,y understanding is that the longest Finwe ever waited to remarry in a draft was Feanor's early adulthood. So you have a literal immortal who can't give his wife a few millenia of grace to heal. and also--

2) Finwe and miriel lived in a society where that was, in fact, the expectation. That was the deal they made when they married. That was the choice. Even if they married in Aman with expectation of eternal paradise, they both made the journey, and had lived in the real world, and presumably had at least some cultural scripts for the death of a spouse.

And keep in mind what finwe's remarriage isn't: it's not a divorce. It leaves miriel bound to death and finwe free to remarry. The only benefit to miriel was that everybody stopped pestering her to be healed already.*

With all that in mind--are you comfortable with finwe's choice? If Finwe were a friend of yours, would you think he had done well by his first wife? Did he honor his vows to her? Did he act in justice?

And does that answer change when he later abandons indis of his own free will?

♧ do you think finwe's petition would have gone anywhere but the garbage bin if he (and indis) weren't royal? Because I don't.

*i think this is technically a tangential thought but: is it ethical to ask a suicidally depressed personal, who literally already killed herself, to stay dead forever for someone else's benefit? Because to me, if she were healed enough to answer that question with a clear mind, then the situation itself becomes irrelevant. This is only relevant if you read miriel as depressed/ill in some way, I suppose, but there's an inherent catch-22 there that I feel like the valar and finwe handled in an intrinsically unethical way.

#Tolkien #Friends don't let friends date finwe #But also: divorce is a positive social good #And without it you have to really fucking mean it to marry forever #And not just until it's no longer convenient to you #(Because finwe ditched *both* of his spouses! His failure to honor his marriage to indis even in less stressful circumstances #Just... I just... finwe's probably a fine guy who's just not suited to marriage! That is not a bad thing! #But he's still responsible for the promises he made!) #San shoots the breeze

[iruma-samaposting]

#i feel happy when i see poro-chan #because they disappear for a long time #i forgot that they join the six fingers side #i wonder who would won? #i mean its already established that sullivan is one of the strongest demon alive #but there are not much know about poro #aside from that they are really close with delkira and help in one of the war i think (?) #(i think i should reread the manga) #but between poro and sullivan we didnt really know who are stronger #there are also kalego #and many teacher also opera-san #i think they wont just do their plan without thinking about that #they must be confident with their ability to attack in a school with many strong demons like this #i wonder what their plan is? #mairimashita! iruma kun #sullivan #amduscias poro

[akkivee]

part of the 8th live dual division look backs abema has been posting has been a segment where the seiyuu guess the top nine most memorable things viewers thought about from their lives (and had guessed with varying degrees of success lol) so here’s what we got so far!!!!

🔵mtc🔵

embodies the characters very well

cool outfits

the vibe differences between their free talk parts and music

they never smile during their songs

strong pyrotechnics

dangerous appeal

shooting up the crowd

cigarette kiss

overwhelming sex appeal

🟠dh🟠

sweaty leader

cute choreography that’s easy to imitate

live rap quality is as good as the studio version

bright and energising

smiles all around

a comedy trio

could tell they’re good friends

performing at 100% from beginning to end

acting drunk performance

⚪️mtr⚪️

hayami-san’s dancing

could tell there’s mutual respect between them

live talk part was adorable

insane vibe differences between the songs

cool adults appeal

hifumi’s solos are really hype

camera and lighting effects matched the songs well

stable singing throughout

the props were fun

🟣bat🟣

a lot of eye contact

explosive force

performers growth with each live

the mic stand during moonlight shadow

complete character possession

the vibe differences between their free talk parts and music

it’s a lot but it’s fun

takeuchi-san’s dancing

familial trinity

#this is vee speaking #the best part of the abema programs tho is the segment where the seiyuu need to guess the song based on how badly someone is singing lol #ig abema be finding anybody on the street or something because they got a bunch of foreigners and i think told them to sing a hypmic song #but sing like they forgor the words lmao #like one dude was so fcking good at not sounding good #i was genuinely impressed that iwasaki-san was able to tell wtf they were attempting to sing lol #i got the bat related songs tho LMAO 😌 and an mtc song too lol and it happened to be one of my most listened to songs last year lol #takeuchi-san stans mtr music (always fine taste) and it showed lol he got every single mtr song lmao #anyway???? geez lol???? #idk how to translate ‘治安の悪さ’ without being really ethnic about it lmao #so i settled on ‘dangerous appeal’ lol but essentially because it’s mtc the venue vibes were dangerous #not because the venue/crowd itself was dangerous!!!!! that’s just mtc!!!! lol like that #‘a comedy trio’ is ‘manzai trio’ jsyk lol #and ‘it’s a lot but it’s fun anyways’ isn’t a negative point lol bat just has a lot going on all the time but that’s what makes them fun #is what that means lol #i’m posting this to hold myself accountable next week this falls on jyushi’s bday #so i can’t forget about bb fp because i’m souped up on jyushi day lol i’m not allowed to forget because then the lives happen and bruh lmao #c: seiyuu stuff

[askcharaandfriends]

SANS! I AM YOUR DOOM INCARNATE! I AM YOUR GRIM REAPER! YOU OWE ME! AND YOU SHALL PAY YOUR DEBT RIGHT NOW! so can you give me your autograph like pretty please? T_T

Sans: WOW, WHAT A GENUINE FAN! TELL YOU WHAT, HERE IS A BONEFIDE SANS AUTOGRAPH. ;)

[*He handed you a blank piece of paper and smokebombed away...]

#get it? #because sans means without?

[cherry-shipping]

watching star trek with sans soooofun^________^

#this means im watching star trek and im clutching onto my sans stuffie for dear life #because. well you see im watching the episode where spock gets drugged by sex pollen and gets all giggly and cute like a highschool girl #and puts on silly overalls and fucking climbs trees and stuff #and talks about how much he loves the creepy girl sorry i immediately forgot her name even though ive seen this episode before #and well you see. that does stuff to me #ive talked abt spock on here before hes everything to me hes my 2nd biggest blorbo after U Know Who #if he wasnt gay and in love with kirk id be in love with him is the thing #so anyway whenever spock is being cute i go insane because hes my babygirl and stuff and i need my sans stuffie to hold onto #and im also simultaneously daydreaming about watching star trek with sans for realsies #you know how you do that with your fave f/os. like you just imagine youre doing whatever it is youre doing with them #like ill be in the kitchen getting milk or on my way to school or something and my brain is like #ok now pretend sans is there too #and without thinking im like ok sir yes sir. hey sans do you wanna hold hands #its the same now i think wed both have a lot of fun with star trek bc we both love science fiction (''ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS REAL!'') #and ive posted this before but i like imagining my f/os getting either very silently flustered when i gush about my favorite characters #(i.e. f/o sitting next to me getting silently worked up because i just spout pet names about my favorite character) #or that same exact thing except they get a little itsy bitsy teeny tiny jealous about it instead #OR they just think im cute when i get super excited about stuff #i like thinking about all of those like simultaneously with sans #cherry chats #bf (bone friend) #i kinda forgot what i was talking about near the end there somethings been wrong with my head lately i keep getting dizzy all the time #like every 30 seconds i just get hit with this intense wave of dizziness and lightheadedness and then after 1 second it goes back to normal #its like migranes except it doesnt hurt its just like my brain is a fish tryig to get enough momentum to jump out of the water (my cranium) #i thought it was low blood sugar but...... no matter what i eat or how much nothing changes #and it happens all the time too even when im just laying down #its sort of annoying and just a little bit unsettling but anyway as you can imagine it gets worse when im super excited like i am right now #so if im not making a lot of sense thats probably why. um. i forgot what i was doing #GOING BACK TO STAR TREK NOW BYE LOL!!!!!!!!!! sans is with me and were having soooo much fun

[carlyraejepsans]

Ok so your free from the game. Congratulations. To be honest I think the person who’s writing out your responses and controlling you universe, they are a lot kinder in some ways so I suppose a win is a win. you did know about them right?

yeah we just got back from taco tuesday.

(a.n: can i say hi?)

sure

(a.n: you will die on 31/06/2075)

biscia says hi.

#weren't you gonna move this to a sideblog? #(a.n: that's enough character author interactions for today. this isn't 2012 anymore) #then why are you still writing #(a.n: because you would do that lol) #fair enough #as sans #(this goes without saying but no he doesn't know about me in the rp canon) #yeah. i mean can you imagine the implic(ok that's enough) #answered asks #utdrp

[therealbeachfox]

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.

00000

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.

00000

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.

00000

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.

00000

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.

00000

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!”

00000

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.

00000

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

[insipid-drivel]

Baby Boomers had a cinnamon challenge they won’t talk about that may be the reason why toothpick-chewers in classic movies are seen as cool

My mother is 65 and right bang in the middle of the Baby Boomer generation, but she’s very cool and does her best to be and stay woke, keep up with shifts in vernacular, and takes care to do things like make sure she’s strict with getting pronouns correct, etc. Her meme game is a little lagging, and she only just discovered the cinnamon challenge. I was surprised to see her... not surprised. If anything, she seemed a bit pleased and said, “Yep, kids are still kids.”

I stared at her for a while. “What do you mean?” I asked her. She’s seen other ancient memes like planking and never had that reaction before. Seeing the cinnamon challenge was downright satisfying to her.

She looked me dead in the face and said, “Sweetheart, I grew up in a time when you could get crystal meth over the counter at the pharmacy. They were called diet pills then.”

“Whaaaaaaat.” I knew that Nazi Germany passed meth around like candy, but that was in the 30′s and 40′s. I had just figured it had been prohibited already in America by the time my mom was growing up. “Did you have a cinnamon challenge or something in school?” I finally asked.

She half-nodded and half-shrugged and said, “Similar. You couldn’t have candy or gum in school when I was growing up. It was about 1969 in San Francisco and parents were starting to limit cigarette smoking to kids under 18, too, so a lot of my school friends were squirming all day long with nothing to at least chew on.”

“What did they do instead, mom?” I asked suspiciously, because she would not bring this subject up after I had explained to her that the cinnamon challenge was dangerous because of how horrible it is to accidentally inhale it into your airways.

“Well... Back when I was in school, you could get cinnamon extract from the pharmacy. It was just cinnamon suspended in canola oil, and you could use it for cooking or treating a skin fungus. Stuff like that,” she explained. “So the boys at my school would take toothpicks and dip them in the cinnamon extract. That’s why chewing on a toothpick was so common back then. If you were trying to quit smoking or couldn’t have chewing gum, you could carry a little bottle of flavor extract about the size of a bottle of nail polish in your pocket and dip a toothpick in it. Then you’d have something to chew on that the teachers hadn’t banned, and you could hide them in your cheek easily.”

“So what did the boys at your school get into, mother?” I asked again. We were still on the topic of ridiculous memes. This had to go somewhere.

She smirked. “Well, after a while, the boys started noticing that the cinnamon extract from the pharmacy was spicy. It burned. So it started to get to be a challenge to see how many cinnamon toothpicks you could hold in your mouth at once. It got so bad that kids would get blisters and burns on their mouths from it, and you could tell if someone had a few of them tucked in their cheek in class because their face would turn red from the neck up like a cartoon.”

“Why have I never heard about this?”

She wasn’t done. “Finally, the teachers figured out what everyone was doing and it became a pretty big deal. Cinnamon extract started getting banned or restricted to adults. Then they banned toothpicks for sale to anyone under 18, too. That’s why it was a sign of being cool, particularly among guys, to walk around with a toothpick in your mouth. It either meant you had a fake ID or that you were 18.”

I stared at her for a long time. “Mom, why didn’t they just use hot sauce? It was California. Didn’t you have peppers?”

Without missing a beat, my 65-year-old mother replied, “Honey, we were white as fuck.”

#baby boomers #classic memes #prehistoric memes #cinnamon challenge #memes #white people things

[shrikeseams]

You know that one quote about Feanor having brief intense passions for various crafts/projects and then getting distracted and not quite leaving them finished?

I think he got that from Finwe. Except for Finwe it's interpersonal relationships.

(Please know that I don't necessarily meant that this is an inherently negative trait. I know I tend to follow a similar pattern, as does my dad, and it's not a major problem, in no small part because we're not immortal elf kings struggling with a degree of inherent incompatibility with our culture's mores around marriage etc etc.)

#tolkien #san shoots the breeze #allegedly intense relationships finwe had and did wild things for and then abandoned: #elwe (followed orome with him but later left him for lost and dead) (arguably most permissable under the circumstances) #miriel (some versions where she's one of the impetuses for going to aman. leaves her for dead as well.) #indis (he challenged cultural and religious orthodoxy for her but then he--you guessed it!-- abandoned her.) #i think it would also make sense for him to treat his kids in a similar way #where he's super engaged and supportive while you're in front of him and have his attention #but the kids can't trust him to follow through without a lot of reminders and follow-ups #in which case feanor gets the most attention because he's the most willing to seek it out. he's the squeaky wheel. #(indis's kids learn early that her attention is steadier and more reliable. they get tired of chasing after finwe. #especially when it means competing with feanor.) #...actually this could have interesting implications for finwe's politics if I take it as a true character trait. Hm!

[buckyalpine]

Imagine shy beefy Bucky being the little spoon. He feels like he should be the one cuddling you since he’s so much bigger but he loves when you hold him instead.

However.

There’s this one thing you do that always makes him blush and flustered and he just doesn’t understand it.

You love rubbing his tummy.

You hold him from behind, peeking over his shoulder because you love how peaceful he looks when he sleeps. You know he's not actually asleep because his abs are still tensed, worried over how you'd feel with the beefiness that covers his muscular body.

He’s self conscious when your hand slips under his shirt, rubbing his soft but firm tummy up and down; his skin is so warm and you love how plush he is. He’s still getting used to the fact that he isn’t as trim as before. Not that he’s unfit. Quite the opposite. He’s a thick hunk of muscle mass. You can feel the iron like hardness that runs under his skin whenever you're pressed against him. He's so large and perfect to snuggle up with; your grabby little hands love finding their way to his stomach.

"Doll-" He whispers with pink dusted cheeks, holding your wrist away when you sneak over his waist, stroking your skin, "Doll, I- I'm not-" He struggles to get the words out, embarrassed he's not lean like Steve, "Baby, I-

“Shhh, I love you like this” you coo, kissing his shoulder. He shrugs, still not believing you. You tell him how much you adore him every time but he can't help but think back to the time where he was pure muscle without any pudge.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to pretend, I wish I was-"

You shake your head, pressing your lips to his to stop his spiral.

"But you're my big boy" You pout, shuffling over till your straddling him, forcing him to lay back. You huff, pulling his shirt up exposing him, shimmying your hips down so you can curl up on top of his bare torso like a little kitten. You let out a content sigh, pressing your face into his stomach, peppering kisses all over before peering up at him.

"I love your body so much baby" You say sincerely, kissing just below his belly button again for emphasis. "You're so warm and soft and strong, my perfect bear"

Bucky can't help but melt over the way you melt into him, your smaller form using him as a pillow to your hearts content. If you liked him like this, always kneading away at him or trying to burrow yourself into him, who was he to say no?

Cause imagine how fucking hot he'd be when he finally embraces how good he looks with a lil beef. Imagine he stops trying to cover up with large hoodies and henley's. He works out shirtless more.

You're not the only one who drools over him anymore.

All the other trainees can't help but swoon whenever they see him at the punching back or pumping with weights. You have to claw them off him from trying to climb up his legs, desperate to have Sargent Barnes carry them with one arm with ease.

Even the other Avengers can't help but cat call at him because he looks fine af.

Sometime he lets his hair out or ties it half up along with his scruffy cheeks and Tony's taken to calling him a man slut for walking around like that.

"Tony, I don't think thats what slut mean-

"I know what it means. You're telling me he's flaunting all that around and he doesn't know he's hot while doing it? He doesn't know he's getting all this attention?"

Bucky snickers to himself while you coo over your handsome boyfriend, wrapped around him like a koala while the others watch in amusement, your hands skimming all over his body and scratching his beard.

"See? Told you you're perfect like this, big boy"

Imagine he knows you find comfort in him and he no longer feels conscious over it. Whenever your sad and in need of cuddles, he holds you nice and close, usually sans clothing, all skin to skin contact.

He knows you're a little pervert and he'll give into your puppy like eyes, sometimes letting his towel drop after a shower while you grin, shamelessly watching him.

"You're staring again, you little creep" Bucky snorted while applying lotion, dropping his hands when he felt yours paw at his back to take over.

"Just a creep for you, handsome" You quip before continuing your journey exploring his body, moving your hand to his front, deciding to wrap around his co-

Anyway, I love this beefieee babieeee

#bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x f!reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #beefy bucky x you #beefy bucky fluff #beefy bucky barnes fluff #beefy bucky x reader #marvel fluff #bucky barnes fan fic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky imagine #shy Bucky Barnes #cuddly bucky #bucky Barnes x fluff #fluffy bucky Barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky fan fics #beefy Bucky fanfic #beefy bucky barnes #beefy bucky #beefy sebby #bucky barnes x reader fluff #bucky barnes x f reader