#anyway!!! happy holidays to everyone here

[empoleon]

holiday clodsire. if u even care

[obsob]

once more around the sun!! :3

[khazure]

Let's GOOO HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY MIKU!! YIPPEE

[cerise-on-top]

Eating Jausn with König

A Brettljausn is just about the best thing out there. I wrote this back in November when my classmates decided to talk about Easter and Osterjausn, so the formatting is different. However, I thought it would work well with the Easter post, so I decided to post it now.

“Honey, what is that?” You looked at the wrinkly, dark colored thing in front of you. It might have been a sausage, on closer inspection. The plate was well filled with all kinds of meat and cheese. On the side were horseradish, eggs and pepper of all colors. On a small plate in front of you were small, sliced cherry tomatoes, the basket next to it held bread.

“It’s a Brettljause, it’s what we eat on special occasions, such as easter. But you don’t always need one to eat it. Just enjoy the meat, dear. It’s all from regional farmers as well.” König seemed rather content while looking at the food. You knew that Austrians loved their meats and sausages, he had told you about that before and you made fun of him for it, but you didn’t think he’d take it upon himself to prepare something like that. It seemed like that must have taken a lot of work. Must have been fairly costly as well. There was bacon there, it looked fairly good.

You took a piece of bread and picked up some meat with a fork. “And what’s this?”

“That’s Geselchtes. I call it Gsöchts, though. It’s meat that you put in salt water before smoking for a few hours. Before eating, you normally cook it. Don’t worry, this one doesn’t have too much fat on it, you can just cut those pieces off.” He put some gray-ish meat on a slice of bread, adding some egg slices and topping it off with some of the grated horseradish. Its scent wafted through the air, stinging your nose a bit. You watch him take a bite out of the bread, he locks his eyes with yours once he notices. “Is something the matter?”

“No, no, everything’s alright.” You looked at the pink meat on your fork, a bit hesitant to give it a try. König seemed to like this sort of food, he likely wouldn’t have prepared it otherwise. Besides, it was classic Austrian cuisine, apparently, it was only polite of you to try it, at the very least. Taking a bite out of the meat, you ran your tongue across it to give it a taste. You could definitely taste the salt, but it wasn’t too bad. It simply added to the flavor. The meat wasn’t very chewy, but you wouldn’t exactly call it the most tender meat either. It was actually surprisingly good. Instead of putting it on your bread, you simply ate the piece whole before picking up the same thing König had. “And what’s this?”

“Schweinsbratn.” He didn’t even hesitate to gobble up his bread, already on his second one. This time he put some bacon on it with cheese. Eggs and horseradish weren’t missing this time either. One of the tomato slices was lifted off the plate and put on his instead.

You followed his example and put two slices of the meat on your bread, topping it off the same way as him. That meat wasn’t too bad actually either, it was obvious that it was made of pork. With the horseradish being very fresh it was only natural for it to be spicy still. It didn’t disappoint, the taste somewhat reminding you of wasabi, even if your eyes started watering a bit. Your bread was gone soon enough and you opted for another one. There was no telling if König’s next one was his third or fourth one already.

“So, Schatzi.” He prepared another one. “Is it good? Do you like it?”

“Oh, it actually is. It’s pretty good.” Taking some of the red pepper, you put it on your bread with Geselchtem, gulping down a few of the tomatoes. You were sort of surprised this stuff didn’t come with a salad as well.

By the time you were on your third bread, the plate was already pretty empty, with König having eaten quite a lot. He’s always had a rather big appetite, and for that you were grateful, there was no way you could have eaten all of that on your own. You hadn’t tried the dark, cut up sausage yet. Of course, you had no idea what that was either. “What’s this? Sausage?”

König quickly chewed the food in his mouth before swallowing it down. “Yes, that’s Hoatwiastl. Hartwürstel, I suppose. As the name suggests, it’s a hard sausage. It’s very good, though, you have to try it.”

It was rather hard indeed, you were glad it was cut up into smaller slices. Biting into it whole would be another other ordeal. It was too small to put on bread, so you ate it along with it. Once done, you were completely full, incapable of eating another bite. There were still pieces of meat and cheese left on the plate, it was unbelievable. König didn’t seem affected at all, he simply got up and started putting everything away before returning with a bottle. If you had to take an educated guess then there’s a chance “Wein” might have been the German word for “wine”. “Would you like a  Spritzer? It’s essentially wine mixed with soda.”

“Is that really necessary? Do we really need to drink too?”

He chuckled a bit. “It’s a big part of our culture. Alternatively, I can offer you some Gösser or Puntigamer.” With an amused expression, he watched you weigh your options. You didn’t know what either of those things were, probably some sort of beer, thus making you better off with the wine, probably. König even got the two of you some wine glasses. They were fancy looking, but you weren’t sure if you could actually take a sip of that.

He really just put mineral water into some wine, drinking it slowly. With a watchful eye, he almost expected you to take after him, which you did eventually. It tasted exactly the way you’d imagine, sparkly wine with a bit less flavor. Not the worst you’ve ever had. The things you did to make your man happy.

You continued to eat for another few minutes, this time in silence, for the most part. The plate was certainly full at the beginning, you couldn’t believe your eyes when most of it was gone. Still, despite the culture being rather meat heavy, you had to admit, it was pretty good. However, it was very filling. You couldn’t eat another slice of bread, opting for the meat and sausage instead, eating some slices of cheese along with them. Maybe some mayonnaise would have been good with it as well, but you didn’t want to make the suggestion in case König didn’t like it.

After wiping his mouth with a paper towel, he sat back, letting out a content sigh while holding his tummy. Even he seemed to be rather full after the copious amounts of meat he had eaten. Not like you weren’t, however. He took another sip of his Spritzer before putting the plates away, with you helping him out a bit, naturally.

“Thank you for trying some of my food, I do appreciate it. Did you like it?” Cleaning the plates with a sponge, his focus was on getting the last few crumbs off it so he could put it in the dishwasher. You popped one last cherry tomato in your mouth before handing him another plate, giving him a hum of approval.

“Yeah, it was pretty good, but could we maybe eat something less meaty next time? This was quite a lot.”

“Don’t worry, Schatzi, next time we can eat Kasnudeln. They’re also very delicious!”

[doom-dreaming]

High Flakes Combat

“Blue Lead,” Linda’s whisper cuts across TEAMCOM, crisp and several degrees colder than the icy landscape. “Hostiles approaching your position.”

Fred, tucked behind the trunk of a towering pine tree, exhales a slow, measured breath. Waiting. Listening. Without his motion tracker, only the crunch of footsteps in the snow—and Linda—could tell him when their opponents were closing in.

There. Fifteen meters out. He motions to John, positioned behind an adjacent tree. On my signal.

…ten meters…

Cover me. Go high.

…five meters…

John nods. Fred tightens his grip on his weapon.

Now.

As one, they pivot, breaching cover. Fred drops to a knee, attacking swiftly, before their adversary has a chance to retaliate.

The snowball hits Ash directly in the center of his chestplate. Active camouflage flickers briefly, then recalibrates, as the young Spartan crashes dramatically to his knees before sprawling backward, motionless.

Fred doesn’t let the theatrics distract him. The other two had to be nearby and the round wasn’t over until— A snowball whizzes past his head, followed by a sharp curse—out loud, close. He catches a shimmer of white on white as Olivia leaps to find cover and “reload,” but John is faster.

The snowball hits her thigh before she can complete her maneuver and she slides to a dejected halt in a snowbank. “Dammit! Mark!” she calls out. “You’re on your own!”

Fred doesn’t hear a verbal response. He knows he won’t, Mark’s too good to give away his position— Thwap. Fred’s vision goes fuzzy and white as Mark’s snowball connects with his visor, splattering on impact. Fred groans and flashes a red status light across his team’s HUDs. He’d be out until the next round.

“He’s on the move!” Linda barks over the comms.

Fred folds himself cross-legged into the snow and wipes his visor clean just in time to see Kelly bounding over a nearby ridge, clutching a snowball in each fist.

“I’ve got him!” She goes streaking across the snow toward a barely-visible figure—also sprinting.

Mark wouldn’t be able to outrun Kelly—a fact Fred knew the S-III was well aware of—but he was certainly trying his best.

Kelly nails Mark with both snowballs, one in the shoulder, the other in the back. He stumbles just enough that Kelly’s momentum sends her into him at full force. The clack of their colliding armor echoes like a shot as both Spartans go tumbling to the ground, sending up a minor flurry in their wake.

“Aaaaaaaand match!” Roland’s voice rings out over the simulation deck, followed by a buzzer. “Blue Team takes the win!”

“Again,” Olivia grumbles, pushing to her feet and dusting snow off her armor.

“It’s three against four,” Ash reminds her, still lying on his back a few feet from Fred.

Olivia crunches her way over and offers him a hand. “Can we make Kelly sit out the next round?”

“If you’re not having fun, leave,” John quips.

“Or maybe you should switch Kelly to our team and see how it feels,” Livi bites back, helping Ash haul himself to his feet.

“Fighting over me?” Kelly rejoins the group with Mark close behind. “I’m flattered.”

Fred chuckles. It was good to see Olivia trading barbs with John. The Gammas had warmed up to him quickly—and he to them—and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Fred was sure the S-IIIs had given him some new streaks of gray hair, but at the same time, they made him feel younger. He hoped they were having the same effect on John.

“So…” drawls a familiar voice, raised just loud enough to carry, “this is the reason my fireteams can't train today? A snowball fight.”

Every Spartan in the simulated snowscape whips toward the entrance. Commander Palmer stands at the far edge of the scene, arms crossed. She looks odd and out of place, a lone figure in a techsuit against the stark white surroundings, but no less intense than usual.

“Thought we’d try something different from the typical drills, ma’am,” Fred coughs. He’s not sure why he feels guilty; they’d requested the time and blocked out the schedule and followed protocol…even if they hadn’t said precisely what they’d be doing…

Before anyone else has a chance to speak, a snowball goes sailing over Fred’s shoulder, on a collision course for Palmer. She’s too far away to hit, but the aim is dead-accurate and it lands with a wet plap several yards directly in front of her.

Even at this distance, Fred sees her eyes narrow. The vague guilt solidifying in his gut crystallizes into ice. He knows who threw that and he’s already, reflexively, preparing for the necessary damage control—and for Linda, no less. Kelly he was used to, but Linda?

Palmer shifts her weight and fixes the seven of them with a hard stare that lasts long past the point of being uncomfortable. “Don’t go anywhere,” she eventually orders, leveling a finger in their direction. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Without leaving any opportunity for rebuttal, she turns on her heel and swiftly disappears from the deck.

Immediately, Linda’s status light starts blinking rapid-fire green across Blue Team’s HUDs. Kelly follows suit.

“Really?” Fred grumps over TEAMCOM.

“Can you blame her if it worked?” Kelly retorts.

“Yes! You’re making an assumption and setting a bad example.” He switches to his helmet’s speakers. “Gammas, don’t throw things at your commanding officers.”

“Unless you’re sleeping with them,” Kelly adds, with enough tact to keep the comment on Blue Team’s private channel.

Another green light from Linda.

Fred willfully ignores both of them.

“...we’re not in trouble, are we?” Ash removes his helmet and shakes out his hair. “To be honest…I don’t know what just happened.”

Kelly seats herself on a tree stump, legs akimbo, smugness oozing from every seam of her armor. “Palmer’s getting suited up to come play with us.”

Ash seems unconvinced but Mark shrugs. “She’ll balance the numbers. We might even start winning.”

Only Blue Team can see—and appreciate—the red light John flashes in silent response.

**********

As threatened, Palmer returns exactly ten minutes later, fully armored aside from the helmet tucked into the crook of her arm. “Okay, here’s the official story.” She strides up to the group. “We’re running an unorthodox but fully sanctioned training exercise all day.”

“I’ve cleared the schedule and put out an open invitation,” Roland chimes in. “As requested.”

Palmer nods her approval. “Figured I’d let you have your fun on the condition that the rest of us could get in on it too.” She raises an eyebrow. “Sound fair?”

“Fair enough,” Fred answers, echoing the array of green lights on his HUD. “Alright. Ground rules—we’re running blind for this, Commander. No motion trackers.”

She looks pleased. “I like a challenge.”

“If you get hit, you’re out for the round,” he continues. “Once you’re out, you can’t help anyone still standing. Round ends when a whole team goes down.” Fred nods toward the ceiling. “Roland’s keeping score.”

“Huh,” Palmer hums. “So you knew about this, too, Roland?”

“I…was informed the exercise would require a scorekeeper instead of a handler,” the AI answers, somehow managing to achieve the verbal equivalent of tip-toeing. “And I volunteered a mere fraction of my copious attention to the task.”

Palmer just rolls her eyes.

Ash clears his throat and steps forward. “If you wouldn’t mind, ma’am, we’d greatly appreciate it if you joined our team.”

“They’ve been wiping the floor with us,” Olivia adds, somewhat ruefully.

Palmer looks back and forth between Blue Team and the Gammas with a hint of a smirk. “Well.” She slips her helmet on. “Allow me to level the playing field.”

**********

And indeed, the tide began to turn. Quickly. It wasn’t that the Gammas couldn’t hold their own, but Palmer was a different flavor of ruthless and even numbers did make a difference.

Kelly, as Blue Team’s sole survivor, was in the midst of a valiant stand, but she was up against Palmer and Olivia and they were going in for the kill. Up to this point, Kelly had been relying on her speed to evade them, but Fred doubted that would be able to carry her any further.

Palmer and Livi split around the back of the snowbank Kelly had hidden behind, falling into synchronized step with each other, timing their paces perfectly. Palmer’s boots fall heavier and louder, covering Olivia’s near-silent glide around the other side.

The strategy is obvious, at least from Fred’s position of passive observation—Palmer would draw Kelly’s attention, Olivia would come up on her flank and take her out. And it would work, too…on anyone less observant than Kelly. Fred has a feeling she’ll see right through it. But one of them was going to hit her either way, so it didn’t really matter as far as the outcome was concerned.

Surprisingly, a third option presents itself. Fred realizes after a few seconds that he’s been holding his breath, expecting Kelly to explode out of the snow and make a run for it, but…she doesn’t.

Palmer reaches the other side of the snowdrift and slows, confusion evident in her body language. She paces around the area, making sure not to stay still for too long, obviously reluctant to let her guard down completely. Fred can see the hazy mirage of Olivia’s SPI suit still moving in with careful deliberation.

There was no way Kelly could have moved. She hadn’t had enough time. More importantly, she would’ve been spotted if she’d tried to flee, so why couldn’t—

Palmer disappears. One second, she’s standing on the other side of the snowbank, visible from the waist up, and the next second she’s gone. Fred can’t see much of anything, but there are sounds of a scuffle and the blur of camouflaged armor as Livi sweeps in to assist with whatever the hell had just happened.

Barely a breath later, Roland announces the end of the match. “And Gammas-Plus-Palmer emerge victorious! …or should I say Olivia, specifically, seeing as she is the last Spartan standing. You know, you really oughta come up with a better name for your team—”

There’s a burst of indignant exclamations and flustered cursing from Palmer. She reappears only to rip her helmet off and kick some snow back in the direction from which she’d escaped.

Olivia removes her own helmet; Fred is surprised to see her laughing. “She got you good!” There’s a giddiness in her voice that Fred’s never heard before, but she seems to remember who she's talking to a moment later. “...ma’am.”

Kelly pops up beyond the ridge. She remains helmeted but Fred knows there’s a shit-eating grin on her face just from her posture alone.

“What happened?” He shouts the question out loud.

“She buried herself in the fucking snow and pulled my legs out from under me,” Palmer growls as she trudges over.

“And then I hit Kelly point-blank in the face!”

Olivia’s gleeful comment is backed by Kelly’s laughter over TEAMCOM. “Worth it.”

“Hey!” A different voice cuts into the conversation, once again pulling everyone’s attention toward the entrance. “Heard there was some kinda free-for-all goin’ on in here?” Gabriel Thorne stands flanked by the rest of Fireteam Majestic, all in full Mjolnir. “Got room for another team?”

Palmer waves them in. “Come on up, Majestic. We’ll get you briefed on the rules.” She sighs and fits her helmet back on. “Hope you’re ready to get your asses kicked.”

**********

An hour later, after Majestic had carved out a few victories of their own, Crimson shows up. Rules are recounted, home bases are realigned, play resumes. Within another two hours, there are four more Spartan fireteams on the field. Alliances are formed, both openly and secretly. Several hours are devoted to building snow forts. Play evolves. Forts are defended and captured, sabotaged and reinforced.

And then Lasky arrives.

“Captain on deck!” Roland bellows.

The silence that blankets the simulation deck is instantaneous and absolute. Nobody moves. If the snowballs already in flight could have frozen in midair, they probably would’ve. Instead, they land in a chorus of muffled thwumps.

Lasky stands there for a few seconds, small and unimposing by the distant doors, sporting his trademark expression of beleaguered amusement—presumably at being called out. “Don’t stop on my account,” he eventually says. “I just wanted to watch. …unless there’s a team looking for a liability,” he jokes with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Everyone on the field exchanges glances and shrugs. A sea of status lights blink across Fred’s HUD—most amber, some green. Finally, someone from Crimson waves Lasky over. “We’ll take you, Captain!”

He seems genuinely surprised by the invitation, but begins the trek across the snow. “Try not to kill me, alright?”

That draws laughs from most of the Spartans, but it’s John who actually banters back. “No promises, sir.”

[xskyll]

Page 15, for the second time! Apologies to those that saw the version I posted last night with the typo. My days lately have been busy, so sometimes I feel a bit brain foggy. A couple of people left comments on either here or Twitter and it killed me to delete everything. ;_;

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First

[quailsprout]

all i want for christmas is--

[bookishjules]

you ever think christmas and christmas decorations are more about trying to reclaim the joy we had as children, the love and the hope and the wonder that we associated with christmas but have such a difficult time accessing anymore, than about the actual decorations themselves? are we excited for holidays and merriment, or are we taking every effort to try and give our inner child something to be happy about..

[clumsyclifford]

“We’re not gonna die today, though.” “No, we’re not.”

a demigods!malum moodboard inspired by Win or lose I’m screwed by my sweet betrothed and recipient of my holiday edit exchange edit @cringeycal

[lillyosaurus]

IS THIS THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU’VE EVER SEEN

AURORA BOREALIS

CRUSH MANKIND?

[avalencias]

man the weirdest thing about 2024 so far is my nyquil induced dreams this time meant I dreamt about lexa. in the year of our lord 2024!!!!!!

[honeyedlashton]

Santa Baby

by Honeyedlashton ~6.6k

Bottom!Luke Hemmings/Top!Ashton Irwin One Shot

Porn with plot, daddy kink, voyeurism (kind of)

“Hello, Santa, baby. What's your name?” The glittering blonde asked like he hadn’t just used it before the break ended. Luke fixed his heavenly gaze on Ashton once again and the man felt his body warm—probably the stage lights. “For the audience.”

“Ashton.”

“Ashton!” Luke’s perfectly colored lips formed the name the way he imagined a beautiful model would eat an ice cream cone. “Isn't Ashton handsome, everyone? Give him a round of applause if you find him as scrumptious as I do!”

The audience roared to life again. “Ashton, baby, are you familiar with the concept of the game, ‘Christmas Catalog?’” Luke's warm hand rubbed his shoulder blades over the velvet Santa coat.

“I can't say that I am, Lukey. Mind tellin’ me?”

“Well, it's a pretty simple game. I show you all sorts of prizes from various price ranges, and you have to guess what the sum total of everything is.” Luke’s sweet explanation was like the cooing of a dove. He swore he could see the little fake wings flutter a little. Like a giggle, that winning grin curving across glossy lips.

“That seems easy enough to understand. Even for a guy like me…”

Or

Ashton is on his dream game show at Christmas time, and the grand prize is better than he even thought it would be…

[blueberry-beanie]

Don’t try to hide it, no, don’t try

[prettymuch-charliespring]

a winter’s nap

i see a forest blanketed in white

and i can’t help but dream

i am too old for tragedy

too young for closure

but i run anyways

heads don’t turn

running turns to jogging turns to stumbling

a labored treck

six feet of powdered snow

thick and heavy and viscous

naked trees

bearing the weight of december

a soft pillow of white

laying the world to rest

plunging chaos into silence

i trudge on

a trail of red

a wounded animal, they’ll say

and so the snow wins

a surrender

a willing stumble

knees buried

forehead bowed

defeated

and so i lay

and lay

and lay

a piercing gust of january air

six feet of snow

shrouding my limp body

veiling my pale face

and i stay

blood sauntering to molasses

solidifying in my veins like snow candy

i’m not cold

not afraid

i’m simply frozen

numb

peaceful

cars don’t stop on the highway

deer don’t stop to sniff as the tramp by

a cloud falls from the sky

solid and cold and light 

i am no more than a fallen log

or an autumn leaf

buried

blanketed

and when march stumbles in

and the snow turns to rain

and the ground to mush

so will i

and when may ambles in

and the flowers bloom

and the sun returns

so will i

[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.

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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.

[rust-spark]

Merry Christmas!! Hope everyone’s having an awesome day!