jamoche

[jamoche]

I am your age and have believed "I'm not in category 1 with you, so it's none of my business, you do you" for as long as I can remember.

Think of the total number of humans you've interacted with.

Think of the total number of humans you've interacted with in such a way that either their genitals or yours were involved in those interactions.

No matter how much sex you have had, the second number will still be much smaller than the first one.

It is absolutely buckwild to me that people feel entitled to this information about total strangers.

Why do they care?

When I was growing up it was completely normalised that everyone knew whether you were a boy/man or girl/woman, but that's because I'm older than most people here and grew up at a time when inflexible gender based hierarchies were only rarely questioned.

Unless you are:

seriously contemplating an interaction with someone that you hope would involve genital contact

directly and immediately involved in planning someone's medical treatment for a condition in which this might be important

this information is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Outside of these situations, anyone who is determined to know more than your pronouns and other preferred forms of address and doesn't care whether the question makes you uncomfortable is a person who thinks this affects how well, and in what way, they should treat you.

That's a May Day in Moscow red flag warning.

If you find that not knowing someone's assigned sex at birth or genital configuration makes you uncomfortable even if you have never met them in person and/or rarely spend time in each other's company, that's a you problem and you need to figure it out.

It's fine by me if you don't want to fuck someone who does (or doesn't) have a penis, but if you can't stand being in the same room with someone without knowing whether they have a penis or not, you might benefit from some help thinking that through.

There are people who are paid to do this. Don't make your trans friends do it.

[jamoche]

Also damn y’all REALLY liked him huh

[jamoche]

At the time of Creation, Gabriel was as enthusiastic about the new project as any other angel. By the time of Armageddon, he'd changed. It took a memory wipe to remind him of what he'd lost and all that had happened in between. AKA the "Gabriel wasn't always a dick" fic.

[jamoche]

The Night That Changed an Angel (or, why does Aziraphale still wear that shabby vest?)

Mini-Meta Musing (#4)

I've been brooding for a long time about, of all things, Aziraphale's worn velvet vest and the long cream jacket he's kept in "tip top condition for over 180 years now." I love the sweet familiarity, but this is the same angel who popped across the Channel and almost lost his fluffy-topped head in 1793 for dressing like an aristocrat.

"I have standards!"

He's the height of elegance, extravagance even. A dandy. We've seen the same at the Globe Theater 1601, Edinburgh 1827, and even as a Knight of the Round Table in 527 Essex, where he's wearing a glorious pelt across his shoulders! However, sometime after Edinburgh 1827, Aziraphale's stylish extravagance ends. He adopts the dress of distinguished but modest gentility. No seamstresses strain their eyes for days hand stitching ruffles and trims for him any longer. When we next see him in 1862, his clothing is refined, simple, and serviceable. It becomes his uniform, with only minor replacements. Why? What happened to change him?

Edinburgh 1827 happened. And his encounter with tragedy ran over his sensibilities like a locomotive.

Aziraphale had, we were told, saved his earnings over time and had bought land, invested wisely, and became quite well off. He used real money, not miracles, to build the bookshop, paying the builders well and taking care of bills honestly. He built himself up to a more than comfortable lifestyle, from nearly nothing. And his clothes are real, not miracled from nothingness like Crowley's. (source: original showrunner)

Aziraphale's wealth allows him to afford luxurious tailoring and fancy shoes and ruffles and trims. He'll certainly pay the cobblers and tailors and seamstresses well for their labors. It will be a substantial expense for the era. (The linked post gives a wonderful perspective on 1793 lifestyles and costs.)

https://agoodflyting.tumblr.com/post/753227014283083776/why-aziraphales-white-satin-pumps-are-ridiculous

The angel's Edinburgh multilayered and trimmed top coat, soft leather gloves, matching scarf, jacquard vest, silk cravat, etc., look entirely out of place in the back alleys where the poor huddle. Walking the clean, gas-lit avenues with Crowley and Elspeth, Aziraphale is oblivious to the privilege he has in this world.

As he strolls along in philosophical banter with Crowley about the "blessing" of poverty, the angel spouts trite pontifications created by the rich to justify poverty. He genuinely believes Elspeth has more opportunities for goodness.  After all, look at Wee Morag.  He respects her goodness tremendously.  It proves to him his “rightness.”  And so he sabotages Elspeth’s attempt to sell the body she dug up in her attempt to support Wee Morag.  Dalrymple gets no body, Elspeth gets no money, and Aziraphale believes he’s saving her soul.

It’s a poignant moment, though, when Aziraphale cradles the jar containing a tumor from a seven year old child who died because there wasn’t enough medical knowledge to save him.  Turning point number one.  It becomes Real, not a philosophical debate.  Selling stolen bodies puts good in the world.  He’s all for it now, and goes back to encourage Elspeth.  Good heavens, he’s even willing to help this time!

But, as we know, it all goes wrong.  Wee Morag is shot by a grave gun, and dies of her injuries.  Elspeth steals laudanum, and plans suicide.  Crowley drinks the laudanum, saves her in a compassionate Scottish frenzy, and is stolen away by hell because of his kindness.   And it is All. Aziriphale’s. Fault.

Turning point number two.  Another watershed moment where Aziraphale’s world changes again.

One of Crowley’s last earthly acts, before getting plunged into hell, is to have Aziraphale give Elspeth all of his pocket money.  What is pocket money to the angel is a fortune to her, one that can set her up for a better life.  I have no doubt that in the aftermath of the traumas of that night, missing and worrying about Crowley, Aziraphale thinks about all of this.  He considers all of the money he casually spends on fine clothing and expensive tailoring.  He wonders how many lives could change if that money was better spent on helping to relieve the poverty that surrounds him.  He wants to help, and to try to make amends for the harm he caused.  What would Crowley do, if he were free to be kind? And so Aziraphale changes.

I’d love to know the story of how it all played out.  Did he sell his fine clothing and donate the proceeds?  Did he become involved in charitable foundations?  Did he buy the clothing of a simple gentleman and decide to preserve it, however worn it became, as a reminder to himself of his past blindness and vanity?  We see in Season 1 how important it is to him to preserve that coat. (Sure, it's also a fantastic opportunity to flirt and flutter those angelic eyelashes... But, nonetheless!)

By Season 2, the angel who took too long justifying a life-saving miracle for Wee Morag, and who hesitated to give Elspeth his 90 Guineas, willingly and freely gave Maggie forgiveness for thousands of pounds of debt. I'd love to know what else he's done over the last 180+ years!

Whatever happened, it began that night in a graveyard.

[jamoche]

Even Miniature conventions! 1/144 scale ftw!

I went to the county fair and there was a doll sized quilt show happening in the fiber arts hall?!

[jamoche]

YOU'VE ALL SEEN BEARSKIN RUGS AND SHEEPSKIN RUGS BUT HAVE YOU SEEN

PINATA SKIN RUGS

[jamoche]

Janet Kagan's Mirable: a colony world so short-handed, they developed a a concept very like that to give kids the best upbringing and so that specialists in other fields could keep working in them.

So one day a dwarf is talking to a human and finally realizes that when humans say woman, they generally mean “person who is theoretically capable of childbirth” because for whatever reason, humans assign social expectations based genital differences. (What a fucked up culture, the dwarf thinks.) But hey, better communication! So the next time the dwarf introduces theirself, they say, oh, by the way, I am what you call a “woman.”

And the trade negotiations just stop. They just stop cold. The tall people insist on speaking to the man, they insist on talking to the lady dwarf about all sorts of irrelevant bullshit, like recipes and childrearing and perfume

so the dwarf goes back home, enraged

and is like “BTW guess what happened, we’re all just going to be men forever now as far as the tall ones are concerned”

and everyone is justly horrified at this barbarism but they all agree to do whatever  it takes to squeeze those tall bastards for all the resources they are worth

and the dwarves get surlier, and the trade agreements less generous

and the tall people are all “what a miserable and greedy race”

but really they’re just still nursing a grudge about how goddamn backwards and sexist the tall people are

because their best negotiator, one of their sacred cave people, got snubbed the instant she said she was capable of childbirth - and a mortal insult like that can never be forgiven

[jamoche]

died and came back right. there was definitely something wrong with me before? resurrection fixed me i think

[jamoche]

@cleverthylacine Also the idea that Kirk chased everything in a skirt, when he mainly did that when he was a prisoner or otherwise needed to manipulate the enemy.

The layers

[jamoche]

funniest adhd thing is when you're like ugh. doing this simple task would be too hard. guess i'll do a difficult one instead

[jamoche]

[jamoche]

Meanwhile, over on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamgleafer/status/1814808009169657995

Let's try something different

Good Omens meets Lucifer

To be continued...

Not responsible for for creative brain cell index

[jamoche]

And then there are the Grandmas - they hang out in indie yarn shops, especially the ones that are the yarn equivalent of cryptid Soho bookshops: primarily a place to store the collection, not sell it. You are assumed to have your own stash at home.

*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free

[jamoche]

looked at some lolita fashion and then this fell out of me

( adrien, marinette, ladybug, chat noir )

[jamoche]

I had to get the bear! He needed a matching scarf.

something so alchemical about build a bear...... the homunculus...

[jamoche]

this is making me dizzy

[jamoche]

I did my HS calculus homework during roll call. Study? What’s that? Did not do well in college - due to an administrative screwup, I didn’t get any classes in my major (software engineering) my first semester. Did very well in Silicon Valley, which runs on ADHD hyperfocus. (Also, female)

"i had straight As in high school i don't understand why college is so hard" get tested for adhd. if you were tested as a kid and they didn't diagnose you it was cause your grades were good then but you've since lost the routine and structure in hs that kept you on top of everything so go get retested. go get tested for adhd. go