Purges

I'm looking through the notes; and predictably, there are a small number of posters acting as if the introduction of a canonically female Custodian character heralds the end of civilization as we know it.

Others have responded in-depth to their arguments regarding established lore (and the marketing decisions that precipitated said lore); so I will forgo doing the same.

Rather, I would like to focus on this particular sentiment:

"Retroactively changing lore is a surefire way to alienate long-term members of the fandom."

I'm a very long-term member of the fandom. I grew up near Games Workshop's headquarters, and made regular trips to their stores at the height of the Rogue Trader era. I have Jes Goodwin's signature on my Games Day program; and my artwork has been published in White Dwarf.

I'm not going anywhere.

For one thing: this is a storm in a teacup. There is no actual retcon here; for there was no prior prohibition on female Custodians. What we are witnessing is the exploration of a hitherto undocumented narrative space.

(Firstborn vs. Primaris Space Marines? Now that's a retcon!)

For another: it did not take long to determine that the handful of posters leading the charge against canonically female Custodes are also Americans with conservative-aligned views.

As you might imagine, it took some years for Games Workshop - a niche British company - to penetrate the US market. It is certainly not impossible that some of these people might own a cherished copy of the Rogue Trader Compendium; statistically, however, the odds are not in their favor.

I therefore question their qualifications for speaking on behalf of long-term members of the fandom.

It has also been my observation, interacting with American conservatives, they they frequently presume that their views are indicative of the majority.

(One could infer this not to be the case, given that Games Workshop opted to introduce a female Custodian in the first place; which is precisely why these same posters are quick to hand-wave this choice as pandering to the unsavory mob du jour (in this particular instance, 'gentrified lore tourists'.))

To end as I began: these posters are a vocal minority; but they must cast themselves as heroes, staying the hands of giants, less they perceive themselves as madmen, tilting at the windmills of progress.

Per Games Workshop:

You will not be missed.

YESSSSSS. UPFRONT CONFIRMATION

Ah, the Custodes superiority continues

Me

And the photoshoot results are in!

It's not often I do something like this - I'm still very self-conscious about my appearance - but it's nice once in a while to see how far I've come.

A year in review: 2020 edition

Looking back on my progress this year.

(To be fair, the first picture is from March of 2019 and really shouldn’t be included; but I was still so camera-shy at the start of the year there simply aren’t any pictures from that period.)

Unexpected HRT side-effect #1

There are the changes you expect from MtF HRT - breast growth, body fat redistribution; all that good stuff. And then there are the changes that are nobody ever talks about (because they defy easy description, or are simply inconsequential).

I noticed this one recently: I've been sleeping on my back. I never used to sleep on my back - only on my side. Maybe it’s because of the girls? Who knows!

Phone call

I had literally forgotten about this until tonight, when someone jogged my memory... but ten years ago, I got an obscene phone call.

It must have been three or four in the morning when the phone rang. I was, rather understandably, asleep at the time; and quite groggy when I answered.

The man on the other end sounded mid-thirties; had an American accent; and an inflection that I can only describe as “Poorly imitating the iconic Scream voice”. He wanted to know what I was wearing.

In my confusion, I thought that this person was a friend of mine; and told him to knock off this strange prank of his. But as he persisted with his request that I identify my clothing, it dawned on me that this was in fact not my friend. And then I hung up on him.

I don’t want to come across as downplaying the seriousness of unsolicited, sexually-explicit communication; but more than anything, I just found the entire event bewildering.

Two more tests

For the duration of my tenure with my current employer, there has been an IT Guy. He is older than me, and has twice as much practical experience.

Unfortunately, he is prone to failures of common sense. I know him as someone that chooses his tools based on his own personal level of interest (as opposed to their suitability), and frequently over-complicates each and every task in front of him.

It is not possible for him to be removed from the company; therefore he has instead been moved to a position in which his ability to disrupt IT proceedings has been minimized: that of company compliance officer.

For the most part he has left IT alone, except for occasionally requiring that we demonstrate our systems have various redundancies and backups in place. (This was spurred, in part, to mitigate against the possibility of a production system resource group being inadvertently deleted... after he did just that.)

A few weeks ago I walked into the kitchen to find him wearing a mask (uncharacteristic) and blowing his nose loudly. “Don’t worry!” he said, “It’s not COVID”! (Truly, confidence-inspiring.)

Well, wouldn’t you know it but a few days later both I and a fellow IT employee get hit with The Cold From Hell. So... I had to go get another test done. (Thankfully, no insane pipe-cleaner swab this time.) Fortuitously, it was negative.

All the same, my long weekend was ruined by the misery of illness. I return to the office, and have a talk with my boss about how our compliance officer - the man chiefly responsible for ensuring business continuity (i.e. that everything keeps working in the event of a crisis) - brought a transmissible illness into our work environment during a pandemic.

A week, nearly two goes by; and I suddenly develop a sore throat (welp) as Omicron numbers soar. My spouse - who contracted the cold from me - is likewise experiencing chest symptoms. So off we go, again, to get tested.

The chief reason I keep returning to the same testing location is because they do not require appointments, they are quick, and turnaround on results is usually within the hour. Thus, imagine my surprise when I see that the parking lot is completely filled with cars, and learn that turnaround time is now closer to six hours.

This Omicron business is something else. Part of my would like to write in detail about how we’re (a) right back to square one in terms of required measures to prevent transmission (quarantine; mask mandates; public gathering limits) and how (b) absolutely none of these things are happening.

i will defer for present. I was so convinced this time around that COVID had caught up to us; because I have never experienced before a common cold that caused a sore throat weeks after initial sinus symptoms; and this revelation initiated a twenty hour-long panic attack. I am desperately trying to put such things out of mind at present.

Suffice to say: the tests were negative. I am in many respects glad; but also concerned (for the cold is doing a real number on my lungs, and I worry how that might compound an actual COVID infection). Such is life.

I’m not sure there’s any moral in this story; other than the general sense that we could have handled the pandemic far better, were it not for the widespread lack of common sense that my coworker typifies... And that I am very much fed up of having my bodily integrity violated with sample collection swabs.

For a friend

I finally completed a painting for a friend:

This person has done so much to help me in my transition; I wanted to do something in return, and commemorate her two wonderful cat sons.

The line art for the cats came together fairly quickly; but then I found myself stumped for months on end as to how to effectively transfer it to the canvas. (Ideally I would have projected it on to the surface and traced over the top; but that would require, you know, a projector of some kind.)

To complicate matters - the lines were inked with a fine point marker; but the canvas would not absorb the ink and the ink would not dry. It was in incredibly frustrating experience, constantly finding new smears and smudges. Next time I will try a permanent marker instead.

(That being said: I fully recognize that much of the issue comes down, as always, to my belligerent insistence on mixing mediums that simply don't belong together. This kind of canvas is really designed more for acrylic and oil paints; I'm the lunatic trying to apply ink and watercolor.

Spironolactone

A friendly PSA:

If you take Spironolactone in tablet form and your doctor and / or the instructions indicate it should be taken with food, TAKE IT WITH FOOD.

Studies strongly indicate that absorption of the drug is significantly higher when accompanied by food.

(This message brought to you by me, a girl that completely ignored the giant instructions on my pill bottles and took her Spiro on an empty stomach for months on end.)

The spackle technique looks great! The pattern scales perfectly; and the cross-hatching of the brush strokes reminds me of modern digital camouflage (and by extension, suggests that the Kroot received their cold-weather gear from their Tau allies).

This definitely seems like the direction to go in; and I'm very excited to see the finished result! 🙂

Work in progress shot of my first four Kroot.

Using Farstalkers as Carnivores simply because they have cloaks - my Tau are going to have snow bases, so the Kroot will match, and there is a limit to the amount of genetic cold weather resistance you can inherit by eating dire-lemmings, ice-ferrets and Valhallans.

Not at all happy with the snow camo pattern I botched onto these guys tho... Might have to go back to the drawing board.

Identity crisis

I came across an interesting article recently, of the “Ten signs your self-esteem is in the gutter” variety. My self-esteem has indeed been in the gutter these past few days, so it was certainly a topical read.

A major reoccurring theme was: “Self-esteem should be a function of how you see yourself; not how others see you”.

This makes a lot of sense: self-esteem is, by definition, the measure of the value we place on ourselves. However, only we can truly know what is in our hearts, our minds; each and every facet of our person; who we truly are.

This unfortunately poses a challenge for me; as I do not, in fact, know who I am.

A person in my orbit once told me that he felt as if he had a mask for every occasion; a performative persona that he would adopt depending on the audience. However, he could not discern the person behind the mask; and this troubled him greatly.

It’s a sentiment I can sympathize with. I feel as if my personal identity is not a unified whole, woven from many individual threads; but rather, a fractured collection of parts that do not interrelate.

Matters have of course further been complicated by my gender upheaval; because one of the foundations of my character was that of a man, a husband, a father. I am none of these things now; and while I have technically replaced these epithets with woman, wife, mother; I don’t feel as if I actually have the requisite underpinning of experience to claim them.

As my friend Abigail wryly noted: we are women, born yesterday.

For now, I default to a measure of self-worth familiar to many raised male: that of one’s utility. As I am stretched rather thin at present, this does not seem to be working well; and alas, brings us full circle: it is a function of how others see me; and not how I see myself.