This is such a petty grouch, but my biggest "they would NOT fucking do that" gripe with the Critical Role fandom is Caleb and Essek would not get married. Getting married is, in fact, the worst possible thing they could do for their relationship and personal safety.
Marriage is official government documentation and public record of a relationship. It would be extremely foolish to document a relationship with a lifelong fugitive who needs to leave no trace of his identity to survive. Like, even if Essek got away, that's painting a huge target on Caleb's back and would very likely tear them apart permanently. And possibly undermine the legal work Caleb has done in the intervening decades if was revealed that he was a long term romantic partner of a traitor to the Dynasty and Empire who was involved in the Cerberus Assembly's crimes. Legal systems do not and cannot have that kind of nuance if they want to even try to be fair.
For what purpose? Uncertified relationships are no less meaningful. "Husband" is no greater an expression of love than "partner" can be. It's a shortcut to a bunch of legal and administrative rights, many of which can be accomplished individually if you're persistent enough, but none of which Caleb and Essek need because the risk of documentation is higher than the benefits. Is Caleb gonna try to put Essek on his health insurance plan at the Academy? Are they worried about not being able to visit in the hospital when they can just break in (or likely only use under the table doctors)? Is Caleb worried that no one will know what to do with his cool illicit wizard stuff when he dies when his friends can just smuggle out anything important? Does he need to leave property to someone who can't stay in one place?
There are so, so many reasons that marriage rights are important, and even a society that ended marriage as an institution would have to develop an easy set of forms to grant all those rights piecemeal. Disabled people not being able to marry without giving up what little stability they have is structural violence and discrimination. But I also think the old anti-marriage queers are right that people put way, way too much value in the idea of marriage and it's very amatanormative and heteronormative. Marriage started as a way to determine legitimate heirs for pregnancies that could only occur between people viewed as men and women.
There is not a linear progression of the legitimacy of love that's like friends ā lovers ā declared partners ā spouses. All of it matters equally and people may be in one phase and find a lot of personal value in it, but it's not more important generally, and no one has to "progress" to some perceived "higher state." This not The Sims. A couple who's been together for 40 years but never married is no less committed as uncertified partners than married ones. It's an incredibly insidious bit of structural amatanormativity that people often do not realize they've been primed to assume is The Way Things Are instead of a cultural construct to be let go of if we're ever going to achieve true relationship equality.
It's very tiring after a while. "Their love is so important they have to give themselves up to the cops and be torn apart forever to prove it! š" Hateful. They've got a good thing going right now, and there's no reason to screw that up for an irrelevant institution just to use different words.
