Rainy Day things

A collection of Geek culture. Cosplay and Mori Kei.

[saraten]

It's been so long since I was inspired to do fanart! The second image is a PNG so he can jump around your screen or be taken for a walk!

[bemusedlybespectacled]

this might be because I’m a family law lawyer and also an old crone who remembers when marriage equality wasn’t a thing (as in, marriage equality only became nation-wide two months before I went to law school), but I have Strong Feelings about the right to marry and all the legal benefits that come with it

like I’m all for living in sin until someone says they don’t want to get married because it’s ~too permanent~ and in the same breath start talking about having kids or buying a house with their significant other. then I turn into a 90-year-old passive-aggressive church grandma who keeps pointedly asking when the wedding is. “yes, a divorce is very sad and stressful, but so is BEING HOMELESS BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL PROPERTY, CAROLINE!”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

“oh, he thinks a piece of paper shouldn’t define your relationship? ASK HIM HOW HE FEELS ABOUT BEING ON YOUR BABY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PATRICIA.”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

“oh, sure, it’s all fun and games until your estranged parents are making medical decisions for you and inheriting all your property, TIMOTHY.”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

so, I’ve gotten this question and similar ones before, and I want to use it to go into what marriage actually is.

so, in law, there are a couple of legal assumptions made when someone is a close family member, like a parent. the assumptions are that this person knows you well enough to make decisions on your behalf in an emergency, supports or is supported by you financially, and, most importantly, that they are emotionally significant to you in a way that makes them different from a total stranger or a good friend. immigration law, for example, prioritizes families over people immigrating for jobs alone, because not getting a job doesn’t have the same emotional weight as never seeing your mom again.

the difference is that you don’t get to choose your family (outside of adoption and, uh, legally that’s not a bilateral decision). you do get to choose your spouse. the fact that you chose them is why they get priority for things like inheritance and immigration, even over your parents or your siblings or your grandma.

how does the government know that this particular person is someone you want to have as part of your family? you fill out a form and you tell them.

what happens if you don’t want them in your family anymore, and don’t want those assumptions made about them? you fill out a different form and you tell the government that.

the thing I think that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around – whether you’re a starry-eyed romantic or a pragmatic bitch like me – is that marriage isn’t an announcement of how much you love someone. that’s what a facebook status update is for. you do not need to be in love, or sexually/romantically monogamous, or be religious, or any of the other things people associate with marriage, in order to be married.

it’s a legal decision. it is choosing to get certain benefits (like taxes, because it’s assumed you’re financially supporting each other) in exchange for certain responsibilities (because it’s assumed you’re supporting each other, it stops mattering exactly who bought what after you got married, so divorce splits the whole pool of stuff even if one person bought like 75% of it).

you don’t get the one without the other, and you don’t get either if you don’t affirmatively say that’s what you want to have happen. it doesn’t happen automatically, or in every romantic relationship no matter how serious, because the choice is the point.

and, to be clear: if you do not want, or do not care about, the legal rights and responsibilities of being married, you should not get married. it’s a fucking legal contract that has serious legal implications! it’s not something you should be doing for funsies!

tl;dr: if you want all the shit that comes with a marriage, good and bad, you need to tell the government that’s what you want. if you don’t want it, then you don’t need to do it, but you need to also be aware of what you’re potentially losing (in exchange for what you’re keeping). that should be an informed decision, not one you make for emotional reasons like “I just want everyone to know I’m only having sex with this person forever” or “our love is so pure it transcends legal boundaries.”

[ida-backwards-intherain]

Is there any option other than marriage for telling the government you want this person to be part of your family? Like, can you draw up some kind of homebrew contract?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Short answer: No. If there was, queer people would have done it already.

Long answer: That’s a little like asking “can you become a citizen via contract rather than going through the immigration and naturalization process?” Marriage is a legal status: you either are or you aren’t. Can you cobble together very specific stuff, like advanced healthcare directives and wills and whatnot? Yes, absolutely. But anything that requires you to be legally married as a status cannot be contracted away: you can’t file taxes jointly or sponsor someone for a green card or get someone’s Social Security benefits if they die if you’re not married to that person.

Now, to be clear: some things that often require marriage do not always require marriage. For example, usually you need to be married to have someone unrelated to you be on your health insurance, but my job’s specific health insurance plan allows coverage for domestic partners, which they define as a single person who has cohabitated with you for six months or more and is in a committed relationship with you. So even though my fiancé and I are not married yet, he’s been on my health insurance for the past year and a half, because we hit the six month mark of living together right around when I had to re-enroll in my health insurance for the year.

But if we’d gotten married sooner, he’d have been able to get on my health insurance right away (getting married is a qualifying event that lets someone get on a health insurance plan outside of the enrollment period), but since he’s just a cohabitating partner, we had to wait six months for him to get on my insurance. And if he’d moved in with me a month later, we’d have to wait a whole year before he could enroll with me on my health insurance. Even though it’s allowed, it still doesn’t have the same standing as a marriage.

I guess technically adult adoption is an option, in that it is what queer people did for a while in lieu of marriage, but it’s a bad idea for a lot of reasons (not least of which being that you can divorce a spouse but you can’t undo an adoption).

[littledeconstruction-deactivate]

this, THIS is why QPR make me so fucking nervous. i’m not trying to shit on your beautiful poly aroace love affair, i’m asking you HOW WILL THIS RELATIONSHIP HOLD UP IN COURT. cause, news flash: it won’t.

if you have shared bank accounts and a house and a kid with someone who isn’t married to you, they can wipe you out – legally speaking – and you have no recourse. none. you will never see your kid again, unless you’re lucky and contributed half their DNA.

if they have a car accident and end up in hospital, you don’t have a legal right to see them. if they’re in a coma, their parents can pull the plug and adopt that child and you can do nothing.

queers wanted marriage equality not to Be Like Teh Hets, but because it is the most legal protection you can ever have against that bad stuff that comes (and it comes for everyone).

if you don’t have that stuff, if you’re relying on your partners to do the right thing forever and be perfect people and never have a business collapse or a messy family situation or an accident or even to get sick … you’re being really, really naïve.

[greyhairedgeekgirl]

Pre-legal-gay-marriage, I saw this happen.  I was on a parenting board and one day a woman we’d posted with for years told us her partner and one of their children had died in a car accident.  And because she wasn’t the biological parent of the surviving child – the child she’d been a parent to since conception – her ex’s parents took custody and took the child away and kept her from seeing that child.  Ever.

Because here’s the thing: children are not property.  Specifically, in estate law, children are not, and cannot be “Real Property.”  You cannot bequeath them like furniture, books, and bank accounts.   

“But my will states who I want as guardian!”  You say. Welp.  That statement is, in law, only a (strong) suggestion.  A judge still still have to rule on guardianship of your minor child, and you cannot, from the grave, dictate where they end up.  

Again: Children are not real property. If you are not their biological or legal parent, the state can remove them from your custody and hand them to someone more closely related, or not related at all but merely less gay, less queer, less “inappropriate” by your state’s legal standards.

The woman I knew back then was on good term with her not-quite-in-laws. Or thought she was.  Because as soon as her partner died, their tune changed 100%, they found anti-gay legal support, and they took that woman’s child from her.  Forever. 

That’s not my only “my outlaws are great and fine with us and its okay we’re not legally married” story, but it’s probably the most heartbreaking.  Though the image of a man who has just lost his partner of 25 years watching his ex-outlaws take ½ of his chairs, ½ of his pillows, ½ of his sheets, ½ of his napkins, ½ of his towels, ½ of his dishes, ½ of his books….. is pretty fucking close.  After they made him sit behind “the family” at his partner’s funeral.

[mierac]

My mother was a lifelong Republican, a very conservative Catholic. The thing that pushed her over on legalizing gay marriage was stories about people being in the hospital and their partner of 20 years not being allowed to see them, because they weren’t legally married. She thought that was wrong and unfair. 

Also a reminder “get married” does not mean “have a wedding.” You can file the paperwork and get married in a courthouse or office. There doesn’t even need to be a ceremony, you just have to sign some papers. (Bonus: you get access to the legal privileges of marriage as well as the protections, AND you get to stick it to the billion dollar “wedding industry” that preys on us all.)

[sadhoc]

#this is also why marriage equality for disabled people is super important

[memewhore]

[gildatheplant]

Literally any other colour would’ve been a better choice guys.

[minty-mayhem]

I’d like to point out that the colour red has more positive than negative meanings.

[prescribedburning-deactivated20]

im sorry but this reply absolutely killed me

red can mean whatever the heck you want it to mean, that is never going to change that this straight up looks like they DRAGGED A BLOODY BODY ACROSS THE FUCKING FLOOR 😂

[elsegame]

Hi fun fact, colors do have meaning and there is a legit thing called color theory. Red does has more positive connotations than negative like the @mintymaiden said. Red is associated with more love, lust, passion than blood and death just like the chart shows you but If you want, here’s a link for you to check it out yourself. Also, check out “The Designer’s Dictionary of Color” by Sean Adams. Have fun learning something

Xoxo

-Designer

What is Color Theory?

What isColor Theory? Color theory is a term used to describe the collection of rules and guidelines regarding the use of color in art and de

[youngdiasporan]

I think y’all are missing the point here.

[forlovefromfear]

You can theorize to Nebraska and back but that doesn’t change my immediate reaction which is that someone is literally dragging a corpse around

[jhenne-bean]

I like that the presumption here is that “No One On Tumblr Has Heard of Color Theory, Let Me Explain in Depth” rather than simply acknowledging that the VISUAL EFFECTS of this particular color choice, applied in the manner it was, can still amount to “this is a hospital and that looks like blood”

like, color theory doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If your design of choice for Blood Red Paint is asymmetric splatters and sploches against the wall, or in this case, a snail trail on the hallway’s floor, an infographic won’t override the viewers’ instinct.

[eternal-dannation]

this post is the perfect summation of tumblr’s reading comprehension and critical thought abilities

[musicalhell]

Reblogging because there’s a lot of new people on here and you need some context for the jokes.

[trickster-archangel]

Help a newcomer, reblog Children’s Hospital Colour Theory

[kakuusei]

[pancakeke]

making a tree topper

[winter-rabbit-2]

Please take pictures

[pancakeke]

photo!

[ampervadasz]

[i-was-today-years-old-when]

i learned of “Box beds” – cabinets with beds in them and, sometimes, lockable doors – were used for privacy and safety in parts of rural medieval Europe before individual bedrooms were common. They became fashionable even in homes with bedrooms and remained in use in Scotland into the 1900s (x)

[sator-the-wanderer]

I don’t want a swimming pool, I want a box bed/nook bed

[headspace-hotel]

Ohhhhhhh man this unlocks Primal Instinct

Nest!!!! Cozy!!!!!

[ladylawga]

[agoddamn]

Hang on, why do people keep saying it's Hayden in the suit? Why would it be Hayden? Prowse was fucking huge, Hayden doesn't have the physical proportions for the Vader suit. He's also not a suit actor, and you're much better off using a suit actor for suit acting. It's like how famous movie actors are not necessarily good voice actors; different acting skillset.

[saraten]

Showbiz aside. Narratively it's kind of funny.

His original suit is Anakin sized. He faces off with Obi-Wan after 10 years.

Vader to suit technician: Make me taller.

Technician: wonderful idea and we can update your prosthetics, maybe make you look more realistic, more human.

Vader force chokes him. Turns to second tech: MAKE ME TALLER

tech: yep can do!

[el-ffej]

A brief appreciation of Peter Falk in Columbo, by Joe Dator in The New Yorker

[pusheen]

[skullchicken]

Random socializing tip: Tell people when they’ve had a positive impact on your life!

e.g.: “Hey, remember when I asked you for advice on X? That was really helpful, I tried it and now (insert what has improved)”

“You kept gushing about (insert series/book/movie/recipe) and made it sound really appealing, so I checked it out and I really liked it!”

“Thank you for letting me vent recently, telling you what bothered me really helped me to work through it / helped me see it from another perspective / gave me the courage to address it with the person I was talking about.”

It helps people see their own strong points, it deepens your relationships, it makes the people in your life feel appreciated and special and it can give you warm fuzzy feelings!

Win/win all around!

[prokopetz]

More inadvisable ways to introduce a new player character mid-dungeon, bait and switch edition:

A new character with almost but not quite identical stats and appearance comes hurrying up to the party, insisting that you’re the real [name], and the [name] everyone knew was an imposter; when informed that they died just before you arrived, cryptically remark that this isn’t the first time they’ve pulled that trick  

A character who nobody recognises speaks up from the party’s midst, acting like they expect to be familiar to the party; if questioned, claim that you’re the deceased character’s personal assistant, and that you’ve been here the entire time, then digress into a rant about how nobody every notices the help  

Following the next encounter, the party discovers a large, ornate treasure chest, which proves to contain nothing but your character, bound and gagged; once released, any complaint regarding the lack of gold and jewels should naturally be met with dramatic indignation at the implication that you’re not treasure enough  

The target the party has been sent to slay unexpectedly greets them warmly, explaining there’s been an awful misunderstanding: you’re not the true master of the dungeon, you’ve just been mistaken for the prophesied Lord of Evil, and you’d very much like to make your exit before the monsters figure it out  

[Spellcaster only] Your original character is revealed upon death to be a fraud with no magical powers, who had merely been impersonating a member of their ostensible character class; any spell effects you seemed to produce in fact originated from a heretofore-unsuspected accomplice: your horse

[fashion-runways]

SIMONE ROCHA Fall/Winter RTW 2022 (part 3) if you want to support this blog consider donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

[vaporize-employers]

btw… important PSA: cutting off the mold on the surface of food does nothing. you can only see the spores on the surface, but mold itself has spread and grown roots into the food. by the time you can actually *see* the spores, that piece of food is completely full of it. youre still eating mold. 

many of which are poisonous and have been shown to cause cancer. youre not even supposed to sniff it, because that can get spores into your lungs. like if you look up the health and safety guidelines for mold they barely stop short of telling you to put on a hazmat suit. 

like produce is okay as long as you cut around it at least an inch, but cooked foods? you gonna die. stop eating mold people 

[khattikeri]

does that include bread

[vaporize-employers]

yes

[vaporize-employers]

[doomgeneration1995]

Here’s the USDA mold chart

[thehugwizard]

VERY IMPORTANT INFO FRIENDOS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kamorth]

“What’s anyone going to need Home Ec for anyway?”

[saraten]

Please do not shame people for this. Food waste is a horrible source of anxiety and guilt among the poor and those that grew up poor. It's a horrible habit to break and lack of education doesn't help.

[lipstickleatherdyke]

automatic sliding doors are so butch. i am charmed and romanced by the experience of them every time. it just senses my presence and opens up..... like wow i am really being taken care of rn 😳

[lipstickleatherdyke]

automatic sliding doors see me in the grocery store with my silly little femme outfit on and say do you need any help with those groceries princess 💪😉

[lipstickleatherdyke]

femmes are getting it where we can in these trying times

[bird-goddess]

actually automatic doors are cringe because i cant open them for femmes. every time the machine takes this from me i want to bullcharge it. but alas, it would simply open, owning me severely...

[lipstickleatherdyke]

okay see this is the dialogue we SHOULD be having. fucked up, robots r stealing jobs from hardworking lesbians everywhere ...... it’s so sad, “like” if you agree

[saraten]

Oh but you just need to borrow some dad joke energy, bow and say to them "Allow me" and wave your hand in front of the automatic doors so they open. You can still be chivalrous and feel like a Jedi.

[ot3]

it’s been long enough i’m making an executive decision that we all need to go reread the tgi fridays infinite mozzarella sticks article

[ot3]

still just as good as i remember it

[jelloapocalypse]

This is genuinely one of the greatest pieces of journalism I’ve ever read. Please read it.