#tenderfacemeat

[0x5742]

15 questions.

[For @tenderfacemeat. This was previously "15 Questions 15 Mutuals", but I shan't tag anyone. Consider yourself lucky enough I ever finished writing these answers!]

Are you named after anyone? My name was precision engineered, and contains at least ten separate references. I could get out the red string and cork board, but I'd rather not. Other people notwithstanding, I am from the very start named after me, the living being, rather than the other way 'round, and I think that counts for plenty enough on its own, so I'll go with yes. Final answer.

When was the last time you cried? I don't exactly keep track of that on the calendar. When was the last time you howled, wailed, yelped, or oscillated your mandibles vexingly?

Do you have kids? No. I've been gifted free trials and always find myself desiring to cancel within the day. The whole experience seems remarkably unappealing.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? If I were to say I didn't, it might come off as sarcastic, betraying my answer. Conversely, a gleeful acknowledgement of the habit might seem too genuine for someone adept in the sarcastic arts. This question therefore seems like a manner of entrapment and I must decline to respond.

… Wait a second. I've been bamboozled. This is already an answer. Abort! Retry! Fail!

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Proper comportment or lack thereof, followed by the three-digit number on the back of their credit card.

What's your eye colour? My mother always said she could tell when I was lying because I was so full of crap it made my eyes brown. 'Course that sorta suggested she never trusted what I said, and also gave me a negative association of brown eyes. Hurrah for weird trauma about normal things!

Scary movies or happy endings? Give me something happy, life is rough enough. I don't mind being unsettled on the way, though. A little salt brings out the sweetness.

Any special talents? Watch, I can do this: gestures in a particular way

Where were you born? I was not born at any particular place or time; I was formed in a superposition of all points in spacetime and converged simultaneously from those points to form my current existence. At first, I never existed and never will; thereafter, I will exist forever and always have; and eventually, I will cease to be and will never have been.

Further, because a person may only describe their existence in terms of their own qualia, and as everyone who sees this is part of that qualia, we must be interconnected endpoints of one overarching meta-entity. I am you, and you are me, and we are all the same.

Alternate answer: Kaskaskia/Erie. Flyover land. Cornfields. 41-81, give or take a few. None of these are quite correct, but all of these are correct.

What are your hobbies? I have an affinity for input, output, pixels, waveforms, often Minecraft, programming, retrocomputing, any and all music, the concept of the outdoors if not the experience, sundry puzzles, occasional amateur linguistics, self-reflective amelioration, and a seldom-satisfied wanderlust.

Have you any pets? Two cats! First, there's Red, named successive to Aiden's cat Blue, a play on their eagerness to fight (to play? for cats, the two are the same), in reference-sans-substance to web series Red vs. Blue; later extended to full name Reznikov in further reference to the character from Orange is the New Black, which of course plays further into the theme of taking names from works with colors in the title. Red grew up on the streets, and Aiden and I met him in a train station. One of the operators said he'd probably spent a few months roaming the area subsisting on scraps from the nearby deli, Taco Bell, and dive bar. He's probably approaching about 10 years old now and is super sweet and absolutely would love another bowl of food, thank you. Hey. You haven't fed him yet. You were going to do that, right?

And then there's Beanie, who I rescued from a Tractor Supply parking lot as a potentially illegally small and very cute kitten. Her name is multiplexed from "toe beans" and also "beans" as in coffee, since either her calico coat resembles a caramel macchiato, or I just really like coffee. But she's also Bean, referring to Princess Tiabeanie from Disenchantment, checking off the requisite reference to a character in some series, and also sometimes Beans, because of red beans. (Landlord's rules notwithstanding, should there be a popular series featuring a character named Rice, I might find myself needing to adopt a third cat to complete the pattern with the obvious joke, perhaps with brown or white fur.)

What sports do you play/have played? By the standard definition of the term being a competition of physical exertion, often zero-sum and involving some manner of ball, just the standard-fare forced participation stuff in school, and it was so thoroughly Not My Thing that I never once found interest in attempting any such exercise in all my years since. Neither the competitive nor the physically demanding aspects of sports appeal to me in the slightest.

How tall are you? I am a tall glass of water, or so I've been told. I am a card-carrying Top Shelf Reacher.

Favorite subject in school? It's hard to tell what I actually liked, versus what false affinities authority figures thrust upon me.

Dream job? These are two entirely incompatible concepts. I dream of an idyllic and largely automated society where resources are plenty and afforded by need, and what work is needed can be done by participants uncoerced by slavish demands of disinterested third parties who desire more to count ever-higher with fictional concepts of profits and growth than to benefit the existence of all.

[quarkscooljacket]

15 Questions 15 Mutuals

tagged by @tenderfacemeat

Rules: answer the questions and tag fifteen mutuals.

Are you named after anyone?

When I was born the nurse who helped deliver me was named Chloe, it was her first birth and she cried after. My mum wanted to make my middle name Chloe for her but my dad said no. But I changed my middle and last names a few years ago and so I changed one of my middle names to Chloe.

When was the last time you cried?

Hmmmmmm probably last week or the week before, pandemic blues.

Do you have kids?

no

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I do not know,,, maybe? maybe not? probably less than other people I don't know

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

I dunno. maybe if they seem interested in talking to me

What's your eye colour?

blue

Scary movies or happy endings?

this really feels like a chalk and cheese situation

Any special talents?

I can touch my nose with my tongue :~)

Where were you born?

Boon Wurrung land, babey

What are your hobbies?

writing (if that counts because it is a quarter-ish of my income), gardening, reading, animal crossing, ZINES. i've also just started to do this thing where i paint the cover of every book i've read in 2023 which is fun!!! (I just started tonight)

Have you any pets?

I have! two cats and two fish.

What sports do you play/have played?

I played netball at uni for the queer club, we were very bad, it was really fun.

How tall are you?

~175cms ish

Favorite subject in school?

Idk, I think maths because i could finish all my work early and then write

Dream job?

ZINES MAN. what i would like is an artists basic income so that i could fuck around and create cool and weird stuff. that said i do really enjoy my money job at the moment (children's bookseller)

tagging: @tideoftrash @drbuttox @so-spec-tac-u-lar @briarrolfe @grandmastattoo @gamling @hamthezombie @softest-punk @lizbukchoy

jesus christ trying to remember which of my friends are still here is Very hard

[creations-by-chaosfay]

@tenderfacemeat @vinceaddams and everyone else:

Never use compressed air!!!! It shoves all the fuzz and threads into tight and hard-to-reach areas. You do not want that! It can seriously damage your machine. What you want is to use something small, like detailed painting tools used for things like Warhammer miniatures, or even cotton swabs, to pull up and remove the fuzz and threads. There are little vacuum cleaners specifically for this kind of work. It's what professionals use for performing maintenance.

Never use compressed air!!!!!!!

When was the last time you cleaned your sewing machine? It's a simple task, and something I do between projects. Have you noticed your thread tangling or tearing? Stitches being skipped? A funky noise that shouldn't be there? Chances are your machine needs to be cleaned. Cleaning it will prevent it from breaking down and requiring repairs, and that can get very expensive.

[lil-king-louis]

the reviews are in, louis is A Dog

thanks for the comments @bizarrely-jude-harley @eyobis-andthe-bunnycats 💖

[r0b0tb0y]

@ohsilverplease l also love that they call it "your" black sails

@tenderfacemeat has probably spent more hours listening to me rave about Black Sails than it would take to actually watch Black Sails, for which she deserves accolades and reparations

blorbo and friends from your black sails

Send me a fandom and I’ll tell you my:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

James Flint, you never get over Flint

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

controversial choice here but Teach

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Eme!!!!!

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

I mean Black Sails is rotten with these but: Charlotte, Joji, Mark Read, The Appraiser

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

I mean Silver's not unpopular but he's the perfect problematic fave

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

I think everyone is justifiably tormentable in Black Sails but my answer is definitely Billy Bones

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

I mean again like all of them but I'll choose Charles Vane because superhell is gay

[victorylighthill]

i suspect i might be too late for the ama thing, but just in case i'm not: of all the guitars you've ever owned/borrowed/"borrowed"/jammed on in a store/coveted from afar/whatever, which is/was your favourite and why? [sorry if this more than once, tumblr weirded out on me]

never too late for ama! i may need to pass out from time to time and i may be a little more sober for brief intervals but at this point i’m happy to answer questions into eternity.okay so i’ve only owned three guitars, and of those two are base level $100 beginners pieces that really are ~not~ impressive. i really love my acoustic and i will never be parted from her but that’s a boring answer so i’m going to go find an image of this one guitar i’ve been drooling over against all odds for something on the scale of seven years now. great, inbox won’t let me add pictures. brilliant work tumblr!

[t3hsiggy]

tenderfacemeat replied to your post:My Hobby

corollary hobby: saying “exactly” and then giving a suspiciously round number

YES

[snappingthewalls]

tenderfacemeat replied to your post “Curious to know if I saw a dead man at Windsor station. Not sure if...”

probably trying to check if his myki was valid

you must touch off before dying

[lisaquestions]

tenderfacemeat replied to your post:tenderfacemeat reblogged your...

sorry to be the bearer of bad news! i’m starting to have to google name + michfest any time i listen to cis women artists these days :/

No worries. I'd rather know.

[victorylighthill]

5

A song that must be played at maximum volume:HUM - Starsthis is coincidentally the song that resurrected my synesthesia after years of silence so it has a pretty safe/prominent seat in the Lauristic pantheon.seriously i'm not shitting around if that first sustained D chord wakes anybody else's syns i wanna know about it so everyone go listen as loud as you can~~

[t3hsiggy]

tenderfacemeat replied to your photo:Ooops, I went to reddit again and got this lovely...

"respect you and treat you like a human being" like do they even hear themselves

"tolerance" isn't really at all related to "respect", in my book

[transgirltumbling]

mirahimage answered to your post “What to tell people about my upcoming SRS”

How about "I'm going to Thailand for a hardware upgrade?"

tenderfacemeat answered to your post “What to tell people about my upcoming SRS”

"installing updates, this may take a while"

These are my favorite replies so far!  Then I could get a progress indicator in my office and get someone to randomly move it up and down each day.  I work at a tech company, so that could actually totally work.

[secondstringheroine]

tenderfacemeat replied to your post “So here’s what I’m being told this morning. There’s only one place in...”

further to this, i have heard that their surgical techniques are ancient, and their waiting list goes forever. me, i'm anticipating a trip to thailand.

Ditto here. I also hear orchi is hard to get in Thailand as well, as most surgeons will try to push for SRS.

[snappingthewalls]

tenderfacemeat replied to your post “Where does Metro find these announcers? The latest one along with all...”

probably not the best day to forget your myki

Just pretend you area dumb tourist. Sounds like that is how Metro wishes to view commuters. 

[0x5742]

I was doing some hefty research into transition several years ago, and ended up doing nothing about it then, basically because of three significant factors, from least to most impeding:

Fear of social backlash

Uncertainty

Andrea James

#1 is obvious enough and I don't think I need to elaborate.

#2 to an extent is prevalent in most trans people, but I believe the users of a particular terrible forum (which I won't name, but I'm sure trans readers can make an educated guess) made it more difficult for me because I found this forum in a rather vulnerable state, and they managed to pound into my head some powerful, harmful notions: that transition must involve Real Life Experience and therapy, that all the gatekeeping and hoop-jumping is somehow a good thing, that if you haven't been 100% sure of your gender since you were six, you're obviously not trans, and paradoxically, that waiting until you're 40 or 50 before actually doing anything is fine too.

Well, I've since learned better. Moving along.

As for #3... I will freely admit that I have several levels of personal contempt for Andrea James. Yes, I harbor an intense dislike for her recent actions and statements, but this isn't about that. I had already taken issue years ago with the "trans as commodity" angle she very forcefully pitches. Her propagandist website made me believe I literally could not transition unless I had large sums of money available to me. She offers a checklist, with estimated prices, of all the things you "need" to do for a "successful" transition. She provides a DVD for voice training that you "need" in order to pass. This wouldn't be bad at all if she freely provided these things, but she not only charges money for them, but she starts the DVD with a lecture. She even has the wherewithal to charge money for her checklist.

Andrea James instills a fear that failure to do all of these things correctly, a fear that��failure to pay her will get you killed. She pitches this as a "service" that she's providing to the trans community. I posit that if she had the slightest interest in actually helping the trans community, she would be giving her products away for free. This is not a service that she's offering, it's exploitation.

It wasn't until years later that I started looking at the statistics and demographics of trans people instead of going numb staring at some insanely expensive, impractical, and virtually unattainable list, that I started to grasp the reality of being trans. I've learned since then that all of these lofty expectations are of course a massive, steaming load of crap. Reality is a far cry from the picture painted by these first few websites I found: most transitioning people have menial jobs that barely pay the bills without even factoring in transition costs. Yes, being trans is inherently expensive, but there's no need to throw a bunch of extra price tags on top. (Her justification for all of this, if I recall, is something along the lines of "you're paying a lot anyway, so what's a little more money?")

Yes, it's extremely frustrating to think that I could in theory have gotten on hormones (or even T-blockers at the very least) years ago, but I didn't, because of two entities which I believe have been particularly harmful to the trans community as a whole. The social backlash to transition still exists and probably always will, and I have certainly felt it, but having support from a few close friends helps tremendously.

In reality, back then I was actually doing very well from a trans perspective. I had plenty enough money to kick-start my transition, get my face zapped, put towards hormones, and even pay for a couple therapy sessions if I really wanted, but I didn't.

(This started as a short reply to a post by tenderfacemeat and became not so short.)

[lisaquestions]

tenderfacemeat reblogged your post:i-like-to-obsess: petition to ban “i kissed a...

didn’t jill sobule play michfest last year?

Crap, did she? 

I'll just take that down, then. :(