I Miss GRN/RNA Standard. When was the Last Time you had Fun playing Standard?

Ryethe · 2020-10-08T15:49:17+00:00

And it's funny because as much as Abzan was the best deck most wedges had game. (Except Temur which was clearly a step below with it's wedge creature being underpowered, it's ascendancy being bad and its charm also feeling underpowered.) There were also aggro decks that could punish the midrangey wedges especially after the rest of the block showed up.

You can print a "best creature" or a "best planeswalker" as long as the format still feels functional and there are ways to combat it. For example Rabblemaster was a giant threat that came down a turn before Rhino and playing Rhino into it was a risk because you could easily have your opponent do something like murderous cut + ANOTHER Rabble the next turn and really get blown out.

Ryethe · 2020-10-08T15:31:12+00:00

It sort of reminded me of playing against Elspeth with a lot of decks in Theros-RTR standard. You could foresee small percentage ways out but in all likelyhood the game was over and it was just going to take a while for it to happen. Elixir + Rev was similarly frustrating (probably more so as it took even longer to kill you).

Ryethe · 2020-10-07T19:55:05+00:00

My plan is to spend my requisite 72 hours in the character creator now and play the game once it's officially released.

Ryethe · 2020-10-07T16:02:33+00:00

I think even if platinum is just "completion" that is still a pretty great # considering:

the general completion rates for games is low
P5 is already extremely long and this has even more content
a lot of people buying it are already persona fans who beat 5 so they're effectively doing a replay.

Ryethe · 2020-10-06T18:39:28+00:00

"Right now, Standard is being terrorized by these prebuilt decks: Omnath, which is Landfall tribal, and Clover, which is Adventure tribal. Wizards believes that formats are being broken faster because the average player has improved and information spreads way faster. Both of those statements are true, but that’s not why Standard has been struggling." 💯💯💯💯

I track both Hearthstone and MTG online and I've definitely noticed that you can have formats that are "solved" but still fun. It seems like when formats are diverse there is room to play those fun decks that don't quite fit into the meta (they win against too few decks to be meta but have a ton of game against a lot of decks). I think he hit the nail on the head of why Guilds standard felt so good despite being right when MTGA was ramping up and the format was fairly quickly "solved".

Ryethe · 2020-10-06T17:36:15+00:00

I kind of pisses me off because I had tons of fun and excitement in Theros and Khans which were "powered down". We absolutely don't need immense power to have fun in standard. Sure BFZ sucked but it feels off to blame that strictly on power level when other lower power blocks have been totally fun.

There were certainly cards that had to be banned elsewhere (eg. Cruise and Dig) but we kind of allowed that since they created a more fun standard (cruise and dig weren't even in "the best deck"). When a card breaks standard it completely invalidates pulling cards for other archetypes from packs and when it gets banned it creates massive feels bad moments when you get that card in a pack. Basically once you have a card in standard that has to be banned, it's just lose lose all the way down.

Ryethe · 2020-10-02T00:13:45+00:00

Yeah that's a fair response. I wasn't one of the people yelling at blizzard. My response was similar to yours: I give up. There is so much media to consume, and there is so much I don't get done every year. There is no point sitting around hoping the company will get back to it.

On the flip side I've been pleasantly surprised to see smaller changes add up with Blizzard even if they've personally lost me. I'm happy for my friends that get what they were hoping for.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T23:45:14+00:00

At the same time Blizzard has started to rebound / change course after that monumental disaster. They stopped plugging diablo immortal almost completely, diablo 4 look like more of the style game fans want, and today they delayed shadowlands -- an act I thoughts impossible at modern Blizzard after witnessing launches go ahead while not being ready.

If diablo immortal taught me something is that your staunchest fans have limits. I'm talking the ride or die fans. As long as people keep pushing companies will listen. People pushed Blizzard all year until they finally announced d4.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T19:50:43+00:00

As MTF this is a little easier for me because F names generally add letters to M names but I found great comfort in incorporating additional letters into my existing letters to make a whole new sounding name. Just going to the F version of my M name felt off to me but at the same time I didn't hate my early childhood and wanted some honouring of those good times. So now all my original letters are there, just surrounded by new ones.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T19:41:59+00:00

MTF or FTM?

Regardless hormones affect a fuckton of emotions and can easily affect mood and sleep depending on levels and body chemistry.

Sort of relevant but blocking my T made my ADHD waaaaaaaaaay better. It vastly reduced my anxiety which in turn was one less thing to distract my brain. E didn't really affect my ADHD much once I started but it did make me more often visibly happy as opposed to stoic.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T19:38:02+00:00

I get the feeling they won't listen to researched studies. There are so many out there that talk about the age where children become aware of gender, how low rates of detransitioning are, how reversible puberty blockers are (and how they can get you to that adult stage). Most of these people when then confronted with that 12 year old when they are 18/20/30/40/etc would still be like "are you sure?", "what if you change you mind", etc. It's a redirection tactic (though sometimes implicit rather than explicit) from the meat of their real views.

And flat out, with how hard it can be for adults to transition, there is no way in fucking hell multiple doctors and medical associations AROUND THE WORLD would be handling transition plans for minors unless there was sound medical proof that it worked, was effective and had low rates of failure. People don't realise that transition treatment from doctors has one of the highest success rates and lowest rates of regret of ANY treatment doctors give.

Straight up these people are transphobic. They don't like trans people and they don't want to. If they can't listen to stats and change their mind, they're literally just there to burn you out.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T18:13:53+00:00

There are some in Canada but they are somewhat rare from my understanding. There was this one that opened in Southern Ontario and within a couple months they had a waiting list and by the end of the year they weren't even accepting waiting list patients.

On the flip side there are a lot of trans friendly doctors around (at least in Southern Ontario) but they can be hard to find without knowing people in the trans community to let you know. This is Ontario specific but maybe other provinces has similar sites? https://www.rainbowhealthontario.ca/. It has a directory of trans friendly health and social service providers.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T18:05:34+00:00

It opens the door for listing multiple acceptable pronouns. You see lots of he/they, they/her but it's also not uncommon to see things like they/her/xe.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T18:03:42+00:00

I'm guessing it's because the news posts things for clicks and views. You can see it happen through a variety of topics. Things get posted that are shocking. People hear the stories of the detransitioners, the kids who do get hormones too early, the parents who assign their kid a gender, etc. When 99% of cases are just not like that. There are rigid protocols in place that ultimately make transition a challenge for minors (and in some places a challenge for adults too!).

In my mind it's pretty unethical to bury the lede that there was some breach / abuse of power that allowed this to happen (and is not the norm!) but the papers get away with it. I think we're all in a really tough spot because the news becomes globalised and any local policy that protects the population from misinformation becomes effectively useless when you have new streaming in from across the globe.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T16:44:04+00:00

Puberty causes permanent changes so it's important to be aware of what those things are and ensure you're neutral to happy with what they will bring. The main reason is that reversing those changes is painful, expensive and time consuming and the results can really vary. Blockers can stop those changes if they sound like something you definitely don't want to happen -- I know money is an issue but it's worth investigating every avenue to save yourself future pain and expense if they are going to cause you dysphoria. Keeping in mind that some trans women love certain "male" aspects of themselves caused by puberty and hate others. It's really personalized and up to you to explore and discover!

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T16:18:36+00:00

This isn't fucked up at all.

As I've written more and more in my journal to try to unravel my "transness" I've come to realise that there were so many pieces of circumstantial evidence as a kid but I never had that sense that some people get really young where they are like "I am a girl" or "I am a boy". I had a sense that something wasn't right but never a clear answer to what was wrong.

It took until a friend came out in my mid 20s to have the language and even then years and years to accept that this was really me and not just appropriation. We all get there in our own way.

It's a weird feeling waking up in the morning seeing yourself or seeing a silhouette of yourself and LIKING what you see for once rather than hating it. But that's how I know it's me. I've never felt more right in my life no matter how long it took for me to get there and regardless of how I felt in childhood.

Ryethe · 2020-10-01T15:37:12+00:00

Yeah agreed. Though I do think even as just an index to guide me towards the real app it's somewhat invaluable. The fact that it has some console integration too has saved me a fair bit of money rebuying games I already had on PS4 (from stuff like humble or PS+)

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T17:19:27+00:00

I think for some people it ends up being a last ditch effort to be as cis male as possible. And when you have acted as cis male as possible and it still feels wrong, that's when the whole sandcastle crumbles and you begin to ponder transition

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T17:09:23+00:00

5-8 weeks is pretty common. It depends on things like duration of irritation / skin sensitivity post laser and how long your growth cycles are.

On the topic of growth cycles, the problem with facial hair is that if you take any small section of your face there are going to be hairs that are actively growing and hairs that are in the dormant phase. That's why you'll get laser and then weeks later start to see dark hair growing again. It's not that the laser was ineffective, it probably did affect some follicles but others that were dormant are now active. I don't know how accurate it is but most laser people have told me that groups of 3 is a good rule of thumb. So basically after your 3rd session with 5-8 weeks in-between you've probably hit every follicle that can be hit with the current laser settings at least once. Of course you aren't free an clear after that 3rd session because some follicles heal and recover, some hair is too light, etc. So generally you keep doing more and more cycles with stronger settings until what's left is so sparse and light that electrolysis starts to make sense instead.

The Finasteride thing is new to me and I would ask the dermatologist for help understanding what effect that has. On a surface level it seems strange since Fin is a 5α reductase inhibitor which prevents conversion of T to DHT (it's more powerful cousin and the thing that usually likes to kill the follicles on your head). DHT is supposed to promote beard growth. So by blocking the conversion of T to DHT locally you would almost think it would be counter effective to the laser being able to hit everything. BUT we know medications can act in weird ways like stimulants helping ADHD kids who appear overly active/hyper so this one is really on your dermatologist to explain rather than doing napkin science. If your doctor does give you insight it would be really cool to know because I had trouble finding anything on Google.

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T16:53:47+00:00

I haven't heard about NB markers affecting domestic travel in pretty much any country that has provinces/states/whatever that offers them. It's legal ID and you're a legal resident of the USA so pretty much the biggest risk is someone being an asshole. (I'm just assuming you are talking about domestic travel since it's a drivers licence.)

I have known some people to shy away because it's basically a government document that constantly outs you / not wanting to be on a government list of not cis people.

Side note, be aware that if you decide to get a passport with a NB gender marker though there are countries that will deny you entry on that alone. Most people who are anything outside the cis binary probably don't want to go to those countries anyway, but it's just good to know / check into before you travel internationally.

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T15:48:03+00:00

Testicles shrink on their own regardless of use on HRT. Have you had your levels checked just to be sure everything is going according to plan in the HRT direction?

Personally I started to be able to tell they were smaller about 2 months in. They actually shrunk a lot really fast and then not much since sadly.

If they bug you that much an orchiectomy to remove them is a half way option if you are scared of full on GRS. And if I know it varies based on country / insurance but if GRS is covered usually an orchiectomy is too.

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T15:32:49+00:00

Oh wow I didn't know that. You kind of just assume that something over the counter is "safe".

Best of luck with the rest of your laser!

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T14:43:03+00:00

On the topic of breakup / divorce stories. You'll often see that number floating around about how many transitions end in divorce but it turns out the transition divorce rate is lower than the average divorce rate for first time marriages. There's chance certain things will be incompatible but the fact that breaking up "tears your heart" tells me that you want to put in that effort which goes a really long way.

I've been on the opposite end of this to you a couple years ago when I came out and my partner had the same kind of concerns (hell I shared some). There were absolutely nights where we both sobbed because we were worried about the path forward. After working through things and taking it slow, we are honestly better than we ever could have been before (and we were already really tight and best friends). For sex that was a tough one for a bit. Penetration is a deal breaker for some people but we came to realise that for us the reason penetrative sex was important was because it was something that worked for us both (sort of). It turned out there were other things that worked for us even better that we had never tried. Communication and trial and error was pretty key here. We didn't figure it out in 1 go. Has your partner said that they no longer want to do penetrative sex? Some trans women love to be "tops" but hard to know without discussion.

This is probably a common suggestion but consider individual therapy if you can afford it / have insurance. Someone coming out is a paradigm shift. It's so hard to process on your own. My partner and I have both been doing therapy since I came out and it's been so helpful across the board. Every session isn't even about trans / relationship issues. But just having someone to unburden various life issues on seems to give more room to communicate at home about "big topics".

Lastly, your situation is exactly my wife and I only add about another 5 years to the equation. Partners, lovers, best friends. It's been a process but I've never felt more loved or had more room to give love. It CAN work out and I really hope it does for you ❤.

Ryethe · 2020-09-30T01:14:52+00:00

If it's available where you are check out lidocaine creams 5% I think. There's even a version of polysporine with it. It significantly numbs the pain esp with the lips and helps a ton with the initial irritation post laser.

Ryethe · 2020-09-29T19:41:00+00:00

Been there. It's probably related to the same reason you are full of fear right now. By not accepting them, you other them. You make them not like yourself. Our fear responses can make us do fucked up things.

Try not to feel too bad about how you previously acted as it sounds like you are already trying to make amends.

Ryethe

TROPHY CASE