"He's a crook and a scoundrel." "I thought you liked him." "Oh I LIKE him just fine."
"{...} Indeed, I enjoyed my life as Stoker Blake and all the new little skills it has taught me. Excellent implement, the shovel. And as for the other stokers, I think I made friends there, yes, there was a acertain camaraderie among us. All said, a little holiday from the weighty business of hte city, and I dare say I might be predisposed to
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(And they would enjoy infuriating all the other nobs, who wouldn't be happy about having to defer to these two street kids.)
I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of things they'd enjoy doing. I also imagine that they have a place in Ankh-Morpork, and it's near the Vimes place on Scoone Avenue. Sybil was the one who recommended it to them, and Vetinari mused that "I daresay Commander Vimes would object" and Sybil just told him that Sam had approved because "it would be nice to have him nearby". What Sam actually said was "put him where I can keep an eye on him", but Sybil didn't think that part needed direct quoting. No doubt Vetinari worked it out anyway.
(I kind of want there to be like, a marriage revolution while Moist is in office, cause like, some same-sex/same-gender couples are wanting to get married and it comes to his attention and he's like "Well why can't they? Is it in the lawbooks?" And Slant is like "well, technically, it's largely a social issue, but in fact there was some unpleasant business with a sheep a few centuries ago and the Patrician at the time saw fit to define marriage as a union between man and woman." And Moist is like "well I'm the Patrician now and I can change the laws" and has marriage redefined as "any two* sapient beings who are above the age of majority for their respective species and are about to give consent freely and willingly, without coercion and with full understanding, may enter into a state of matrimony and receive all of the legal rights and benefits therein". The social side of things will have to be sorted out slowly but by legalizing the unions Moist can at least give them the opportunity.
Idk, I was just thinking about that earlier. I like to think that Discworld is a place where things are just a little more possible than they are here.)
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They would go to so many fancy events and loudly swap stories about their childhoods while everyone else stares at them in snobbish horror.
Aw, sweet!
I can imagine that if someone tried to make an official rule that both parties in a marriage had to prove they had different genders, there would be a lot of very angry dwarfs. (After decades of perfectly happy marriage, suddenly a bunch of humans are asking prying questions about their spouse's genitals, and threatening to declare their marriage invalid based on the answer?) So it's probably not much more than a thing that's "just not done" among humans, and I'm sure at least one of the hundreds of religions in Ankh-Morpork would be in favor of it, so it should be a relatively easy change.
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Also they raise their kids to treat servants and lower classes and non-humans like people, and not to act like just because they're rich and nobby they're better than them, and the other nobs hate that. They're employing them, sure, and they act like employers, but they act like employers who consider their employees valuable.
Oh yes, it was mostly about humans anyway, but Moist included the species thing just to make sure to cover the mixed marriages (which were already happening anyway) as well. No harm in making sure no one could make that a problem.
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Yes! I can just imagine young Sam showing the first whiff of entitlement, and his dad coming down on him strongly and seriously.
I'm thinking the different species would give him a convenient political angle - the people who are against it would only have been thinking of humans, but he's all "Surely, you can't suggest we demand dwarf couples prove their gender? That's a horrible cultural offense! And we have to take into account the free golems, who don't all have genders, and certainly don't have the kind of anatomy you're worried about. No, the only fair option is for everyone to marry whatever sentient willing adult they like, and any humans who object is free to not do it." Only more clever, so people who objected would end up being convinced that he actually did save them from mandatory same-sex marriage.
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It's not that Young Sam does it maliciously- it's just that he's been raised in privilege and around privilege and it seems natural. After a very stern but understanding talk Sam spends more time taking him out into the city and showing him the different ways that people in Ankh-Morpork live, and all the things that, being the scion of the Vimes name, he woudn't have been exposed to naturally. He wants Young Sam to understand that just because he's important and matters in such big ways, doesn't mean the other people matter less.
The part about "not coerced" also puts a stop to arranged marriages and crossbow weddings- because both of those things count as coercion, since the couple aren't consenting freely but rather to avoid consequence. Of course they still happen on the sly but it's a lot easier for the coercee to have a legal standing if they object.
(Do you think there are golems getting married then? That's adorable to think of. Golem romance. Quick, someone introduce Dorfl and Gladys. Never mind, they probably already know each other.)
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Yeah, Young Sam doesn't have to be malicious to imitate something he saw or heard from someone else, and to not think about what he's doing. And his dad is going to nip that in the bud while it is a childhood mistake.
Arranged marriages would at least have a blunted edge - there'd always be selective introductions and family pressure, possibly even some "You will marry this person you don't know for the honor of the family", but also the knowledge that if one absolutely didn't want to, one can refuse, and be backed up by the watch.
(I think it would be a while, because they don't have the same biological instincts, but they're showing all kinds of desires and personality traits no one expected before they were free, and "Promise an intense devotion to one particular person" is something they might reasonably value. And yes! Gladys!)
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Fortunately, he also spends a lot of time around Harry King's grandkids, who are about his age, and they're getting the same lessons, so they're able to reinforce them in each other (no need to save face in front of the other nobby kids). This also has the added benefit that because they're in the line of dukes, they outrank the other kids and they're the ones whose leads the other nobby kids have to follow, inasmuch as the kids follow anyone's lead.
Oh yes, they still find ways, but if a young person was like "no, I don't want to marry this person", they could go to the Watch and they could go to the law, and the law would be on their side.
(They spend all their time working, but when they aren't working, why shouldn't they seek out the same kind of companionship the other races do?)
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Yeah, everything will be set up for him to not make very many mistakes like that, and also be a good influence on their generation of upper-class kids. And I can imagine Sam Vimes being very proud when he overhears his son tell another other kid that if he can't be polite to the cook, he doesn't deserve the biscuits she worked so hard to make.
And as ugly as emotional blackmail can be, it's not as bad as straight-up threats.
(Yes, companionship, support, love, none of these things depend on sex.)
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And Young Sam also manages to do what his dad always struggles with, and that's treating them like servants without actually mistreating them. He understands that it throws them off when their nobs try to be chummy with them, so he doesn't, but he also respects them and listens if they have complaints and makes it clear that if something is wrong (as regards their employee/employer relationship) they're able to bring it to him instead of just hoping for the best or living with it because there are no better options.
(And Gladys has proved that they can feel romantic attraction, she just didn't have a very good first target. And then she starts talking to Dorfl, and they're both really interested in reading lots of human perspectives and learning how to decide who they want to be, and over time things grow, and it turns out Dorfl likes Gladys' massages, and she doesn't need to cook for him, and understands about how pleasing it is to work and be useful and thinks she looks very fetching in her blue dress, and next thing you know the first free golem and the first female golem are deciding to be the first married golems. The other Watchmen are quite pleased, and the counter girls at the post office have a lot of fun helping Gladys figure out what a golem wedding should be like ((because it shouldn't be just a copy of a human wedding, but should reflect the people getting married)).)
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He grows up with, so he's much more comfortable with "Listen to what they say and don't demand the impossible, but also don't hesitate to ask for things within their job description, and don't act like best buddies."
(Yeah, she made the classic mistake of someone who hadn't thought they'd have many prospects and latched onto the first guy who was nice to her. And yes, Dorfl and Gladys! So sweet!)
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That kind of reputation ends up making him a very sought after employee later on- he has a reputation for respect and treating his servants well, and he always pays and tips handsomely, too. He also puts into effect a lot of labor laws about the treatment of servants in general, giving them rights to protest ill-treatment and- again- have the law on their side. It might not do much to change minds, but it creates options. (And Angua will be Commander by then, but everyone knows she was trained by Commander Vimes, and his son is the one who led to the law to being put into place, so they know they can trust the Watch. Even though Sam is retired by then- or more likely dead but that's not something I want to think about so I'll just say retired- he still has a big impact on how the people view the Watch.
(I don't even know how Golem massages work, but I'm going to say that it, like, loosens the clay or something. As an aside, I always imagine Golems as poorly rendered video game characters and it's hard not to imagine them clipping through each other. It's the clay. It's very stiff and you can't imagine it being flexible.)
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Yes, having the young Duke of Ankh-Morpork throw his social and political influence behind treating servants decently makes a huge difference.
(Interesting. I was thinking that trolls, having different anatomy, would have less sensitivity to touch, and pain receptors that were calibrated around what was actually potentially damaging to someone made of silicon, so they'd have evolved to find the normal range of friendly human light touching nearly imperceptible, and things that humans would find damaging can be affectionate. Golems didn't evolve, but they would have been built with the sense of touch humans found useful - capable of delicate enough work to wash dishes without shattering them, not vulnerable to pain and therefore not able to be hurt by sticking their fingers in cauldrons of molten metal. So possibly intense pounding feels good mostly because they like touch and there's no pain to interfere with the preference for intensity?)
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Maybe there's a varnish that gives them a nice ceramic gleam that does as their equivalent of massage oil? Nothing wrong with making sure your clay looks nice, after all.
(Since social grooming is a thing, maybe the golem equivalent is helping each other mend any nicks and chips? Obviously they can take care of that themselves but maybe having your partner do it for you is the same as, like, having someone brush your hair or wash your back for you.)
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Ooh, I like all of that! Going over your loved one for any nicks, chips and cracks, then applying a nice coat of glaze (I'm thinking for ceramics, it would probably be a glaze?) seems like a good way to express love to a golem.
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Also, since Gladys reads a lot about women so she can figure out how to be a woman and a Golem woman at that, and having Dorfl there to talk about what she reads is a big help too! Because the counter girls are supportive but they're coming at womanhood from a different direction, and Dorfl doesn't have exactly the right lens but he has a similar enough one that he understands the unique problems Gladys faces specifically as a Golem. (Dorfl is very supportive of her, and whatever she eventually decides is the "right way" to be a Golem woman, he'll accept it.)
Yep! They don't really have a such thing as physical intimacy, but they decided they needed something physical to set their relationship apart from all their friendships, to mark it as clearly romantic, and a bit of reading turned up social grooming and they decided that made sense, it was personal and useful, too. (Being useful is very important to Golems, after all.)
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Now I'm picturing them developing a list of options for physical affection and intimacy and working down the list one by one all "This Is Unsatisfying For Me. How Do You Feel?" "I Do No Enjoy It Either" until they find one that works.
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