More family surprises

Thanks to the COVID-19 silliness abounding, we decided to do a small, family-only graveside service, which happened yesterday, to be followed by a larger memorial service at a later date.  When my brother showed up, he had two children with him, as expected... except I only recognized one of them.  You see, I was expecting my niece and nephew to show up with him, and instead it was my nephew and some strange boy.  While I was trying to wrap my head around why my nephew would invite a friend along to a funeral, never mind why such a theoretical friend would agree to come along, somebody introduced them to the pastor as the nephew and niece in question... which initially made me think that the niece had made some changes in haircut, garb, and so on, in the name of simplicity while dealing with coronavirus isolation.  But the truth was verified during a post-funeral get-together of the adults, that they are now "trans", choosing a new name for themselves and all.

Now, this is the part where anybody that doesn't know me might expect some homophobic rant to show up, but that's (hopefully) not what I expect to happen.  In broad strokes, I don't have any issues with the vast majority of the whole LGBTQ+ "spectrum" (or whatever it's called these days), because most of it boils down to "you love who you love", and, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, that makes it None of My Business.

That "T" part, on the other hand, is a bit of a different matter.  I realize full well that being perceived as male or female has significant societal impacts, but that doesn't erase the biological underpinnings that social structure is overlaid upon.  Since I can practically hear the howls of indignation already, let me add that I don't care about any arguments to the tune of "it's not just XX/XY genetics" (since that's the preponderance, and anybody with unusual combinations is likely sterile, and should just be thankful that their cells are robust enough to survive), or any "if I can't bear a child, you think I'm not a woman" nonsense.  How you present matters, on a biological level, and to present otherwise is an attempt to deceive the senses of your fellow humans.

Mind you, that's not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it at all an unnatural thing.  Just as one example, here's a cuttlefish that can go "half and half" to both appeal to a female and not trigger a rivalry response from another nearby male.  But, since we're talking about humans and deception, the next place I have to go is motivation, and that's going to vary from one person to the next.  Some motivations I can understand and accept, some more readily than others... in the case of my niece, they had told my sister at some point in the past that they didn't like being a girl.  It's a bit of a step from that to "I'm going to be a boy instead", but it's not outside of the realm of reason, especially given the social advantages of being male in many situations.  It still strikes me as being something on the same spectrum as being Otherkin, but if they're willing to put in the work to pass for male, which they definitely are at the moment, more power to them.

That said, I have also seen a number of trans people who do a relatively poor job of presenting as the gender they want to be seen as, then get bitterly offended if you don't refer to them in the manner they expect and, frankly, demand.  To them, I can only say it's on you to pull off the deception... I don't care about the context, any time anybody comes to me and asks me "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" it's going to be my eyes, 100%.

So, having put all that down, where do I stand on trans people?  In the case of my niece, I know them, love them, and trust them, so, all else being equal, we should be fine.  Everybody else, well, I simply don't do unconditional trust, so, without knowing the why behind the choice, it's going to be more difficult.  We can still get to know one another, and the why of who we both are, but I know I at least won't promise more than that.

So, yeah, my mom died last night.

It's strange, how different this is from when my dad died 13 years ago.  Then, I was absolutely gutted.  Now, I'm still sad, and can still be brought to the verge of tears by pretty much anything that brings her to mind... but I'm basically OK with the whole thing, as far as I can tell.  Is it just changes in me over these many years?  Maybe it's because I couldn't watch her die, courtesy of COVID-19 restrictions at her nursing home?  Maybe it's because I was able to do a "window visit" with her at that same nursing home less than a week ago?  Maybe it's because her body slowly failed her, but left her mind pretty well intact up to the last straw stroke a few days back?  Maybe it's because, after the better part of three years, she doesn't have to endure the nursing home any longer, a hellish environment for anyone with an intact mind?  Heck, maybe it's just because I've had pets die on me in the meantime, helping to cement the "this is normal and expected" sentiment beyond just my rational side.

Well, whatever the reason, I'll take my current state, even if it means I have to work to silence the niggling guilt that I'm not grieving for her "as hard" as I was for my dad back then.  Adieu, maman.

Backlog progress

Apart from posting my disappointment about Star Wars IX, it's been a month since my last post.  That's how long it took me to play Diablo III start to finish in "campaign" mode, and I rather enjoyed it.  It might not have the flexibility of choice in setting up your powers that a game like Path of Exile has, but it does have a decent variety of opponents to slaughter, plus a storyline that can only be called epic.  It's also mostly-serious, but not entirely opposed to a little silliness... for example, the mage I was playing, earlier in the game, acquired a disco ball to use as a spell source, and much of the late game he was using a "pig sticker" for a weapon that actually squealed like a pig when you used it - annoying, but worth it for the stats.  In all, the only real weakness to the game was the selection of powers you could unlock, since the game's primarily-horde-tactics approach makes some choices inherently better than others... but, in the mage's case, that still meant I got to unleash my inner Palpatine with some chain lightning, so it's not all bad.

That's not the only game I played, though... I also picked up Clubhouse Games for my Switch, and got a few sessions in on that.  The games I've played are all pretty well done... but I'm hoping for a patch to help with network stability.  It's hard enough to come up with a 4-player game of Riichi Mahjong without weird slowdowns and players dropping out mid-game.

On the watchables side, I've gotten some use out of Disney+ outside of that one disappointing film, but I'll try to keep it brief.  Avengers: End Game was a fun romp, with plenty of action but not entirely so.  Onward is a lovely Pixar movie that I quite enjoyed, but then I'm also a huge D&D nerd.  A Wrinkle in Time suffers the fate of many book adaptations, compounded by the need to trim it to a "kid-friendly" viewing length.  Finally, I've dipped my toes into both The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars, liked them both enough to watchlist, but that's about it so far.

Next on the XBox One backlog looks to be Divinity: Original Sin.  As I recall, the main issue I had with that game was that it would have been better with a second human player, given the way it's designed... but short of re-buying it on Steam, then bullying someone into playing it with me using their "remote couch co-op" feature, whatever it's actually called, that's not going to happen, so, time to give it a proper go solo.