The Second Song Is Now Up For Preview From My Friend’s New Album, Sleepyhead. It Is By Turns Pretty,

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.

(Original from theavengers; via feed-the-roses.)

This Author notes that a combination of Unicode superscript numerals¹ and the ❮s❯² formatting sub-type may be utilized concomitantly to approximate the divagate³ authorial style of noted poet⁴ E. E. Foot (for whom the ubiquitous ‘foot note’ is so named⁵).

¹ The first three numerals are - for historical reasons - located in the Latin-1 Unicode block; the remainder may be found in the aptly-titled Superscripts and Subscripts block.

² Lit.: ‘Small’.

³ Meandering, digressionary; from the Latin verb, divigari (“To wonder”).

⁴ …And ‘poet of notes’, as it were! (It should be remarked that Foot was, by day, a dutiful, detail-oriented customs agent; and it is oft-theorized that this choice of profession strongly influenced Foot’s idiosyncratically particularized approach to prose).

⁵ This is, factually-speaking, a fiction; but fictionally-speaking, a marvelous fact.

Tumblr’s lack of support for sub/superscripts is killing my need for footnotes in my posts😞

And you: who never thought to question If this was how things were supposed to be... I convict your conviction. History is contingency, And things could always have been otherwise. (And still might.) And still might will end in time, All you held so perpetual. All you thought was supposed to exist, I only suppose to exist; And may not - One day soon.

Hybrid always excel when it comes to crafting a memorable opening to each album; but even by their standards, Flashpoint is something special. The initial spoken word segment - a poem by author James Scudamore - is particularly evocative; read in a chilling, almost accusatory fashion.

Flowers

One of the first additions to my all-new female wardrobe was a floral raglan shirt. I own multiple dresses adorned with flowers; and my most recent clothing purchase was a pair of floral-bedecked high-tops.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time drawing flowers. I loved laying out the stems and leaves in intricate, rhythmic patterns; punctuated by colorful collections of petals.

I’ve documented previously my experience with PTSD-type issues; and during one such episode, I opted to seek calm via art therapy. I immediately defaulted to drawing a collection of flowers; each one different; ever-overlapping one another.

Incredibly, it only occurs to me now - far into my transition - that I love flowers.

It is a powerful testament to gender norms - to the guilt and fear they breed; the warping effect they have on our view of ourselves and the world around us - that only now, decades after the fact, that I can acknowledge this love.

“We constantly battle the sins of the fathers, thought Guilliman. That is no less true on an eternal scale than it is within the history of a single world. We suffer because of those that have gone before.

Heaving a sigh, the Primarch resumed the protracted process of correcting his unruly VLOOKUP.”

- Guy Haley, Dark Imperium

It is kind of funny that the entire fandom have agreed that Perturabo’s nickname is “Perty”, when he in canon has a perfectly fine nickname.

John Walker in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.

Questionnaire

When I set up my MRI appointment, the scheduler needed me to answer a twenty-five point questionnaire. This is very understandable: an MRI machine is one of the most powerful magnetic devices an individual might interact with in their life; and if that individual happens to have in or about their person items that react strongly to a magnetic field, Consequences Might Ensue.

You can reasonably guess the sort of questions asked:

“Do you have a pacemaker?”

“Do you have any implanted electrodes, pumps, or catheters?”

“Do you have any artificial joints, plates, bone screws?”

Now this is all good and well - until we get to the use of contrast. Under some circumstances, patients can be injected with a special fluid that will highlight the inner workings of the area being imaged. This is generally harmless...

...Unless you a pregnant.

This is why the questions veer towards:

“Are you pregnant, or have reason to believe you might be pregnant?”

“When was your last menstrual period?”

I clocked pretty quickly why I was being asked these questions; and answered with “Definitely not” and “Never” in short order. “Never?”, responded the scheduler. “Yep; I can’t get pregnant and I’ve never had a period. Crazy, right?”

(I suppose I could have cited the time I had menstrual cramps; or perhaps the five days of rampant bleeding that followed the installation of a genital piercing during my younger days. I’m not sure this would have clarified matters any, however.)

Once everything was set up, my health system’s very fancy patient portal sprung into action; letting me know that I had... a pre-MRI questionnaire to fill out. I dutifully did so; trusting that providing a date of “N/A” was enough to get the point across.

Yesterday I had a phone call from a very nice scheduling person; reminding me that my appointment was coming up and covering a couple of last minute items. One of these was that she needed to know whether or not I might be pregnant; and if I happened to know the approximate date of my last menstrual period.

Again, I stated that the answer was “Never”, and she responded incredulously, and I gently explained that I was a trans woman and that as much as I would like to be the proud owner of my very own uterus, medical science hadn’t quite come that far yet.

I might come across as a touch bothered by the repeated inquiries in this area; but if so, it’s only because there seems to be a lack of communication inside the health system. (My medical record lists my trans status, but this data point isn’t taken into account when the questionnaire is presented; one can indicate that the question isn’t applicable, but this isn’t recorded.)

Truly, I would not be surprised if I get to my appointment and the very first thing they do is to inquire once again as to whether I might be pregnant...

There is however a silver lining in all this medical madness: every clerk, technician, nurse and doctor I’ve talked to in recent weeks apparently had no idea that I was anything other than a cis woman - and was surprised when it became necessary for me to inform them.

For someone that never thought she would pass, who still feels like she doesn’t pass: that’s kind of amazing.

Bioluminescence, by Dee Mac

8 track album

Dee Mac released her new album today. It’s amazing. She’s amazing! What are you waiting for? Go listen to it and shower some love!

1. You are most welcome! 🙂

2. It’s a great plan! (For instance: the damaged ruins make me think less of actual cover, and more of a ring of improvised defensive spines. I can’t wait to see how this develops with the addition of both further structures, and lots of greeblies!)

3. I wasn’t familiar with Scratch Bashing; but I’ve checked out a few videos already, and I’m sold! Thank you for the excellent recommendation.

@pamprinninja ty kindly! That's actually exactly the plan, good thinking - something between Howl's Moving Castle and a pine cone, heavily blended together with lots of greebles and pipes and plating etc, in the style of Scratch Bashing on YouTube. He's one of my favourite influences for things like this, I'd highly recommend him for anyone even tangentially interested.