Have these Kittens on me - The Lagrange Point Vol. I, Iss. 5.
I'm quite happy with the Ruska miniatures, even if they cost me an arm and a leg and are now, sadly, defunct. They represent a tantalizing "what might have been" for Rivet Wars.
Welcome to the fifth issue of The Lagrange Point! If you aren't familiar with this budding e-newsletter, you can find out more in this post here.
In This Issue
Distant Early Warnings
- It's anime con season!
Crafter's Corner
- Inquisitor 54mm - the Arbites squad
Rantables
- Transphobia is misogyny
And Lastly, A Word
- Short fiction - Deep Love
Distant Early Warnings
Upcoming releases and events of Canadian geek things
We've got cons, we've got comics, and we've got collections!
Tis the season for anime cons, and first up is Canada's premiere con, Animethon. The Edmonton-based event is in its 30th year (not 30th con; thanks COVID) and will be bringing in some stellar guests such as MYTH & ROID and Konomi Suzuki, renowned for their work on anime theme songs. The event runs August 9 to 11 at the Edmonton Convention Centre, and at this point, only single-day passes are available for each day 3-Day passes are sold out!
Heading west, Vancouver is also going to otaku territory with their annual Anime Revolution, the same weekend of August 9 to 11. Among their guests, they're boasting a trio of leads from Oshi No Ko: Yurie Igoma, Rumi Okubo and Megumi Han (who I recognize from Little Witch Academia as Atsuko Kagari). There are still some 3-day passes left for this one, including some premium options with merch!
Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly has their latest translation of the works of Yoshiharu Tsuge coming out August 12. Oba Electroplating Factory collects works by the legendary manga-ka originally published between 1973-74 with semi-autobiographical inspiration. These slice of life stories include things like "a wife teasing her husband about a former fling on a trip to the hot springs" and "a young cartoonist aghast at the cavalier conduct of his supposed betters."
And finally, Tyche Books' latest anthology of short stories arrives August 20. Carpe Noctem is a collection of works by 22 authors themed around things that go bump in the night. While promising not to be "for the faint of heart," this anthology also promises to contain "an exclusive solo-roleplaying game by Maxwell Lander to serve as your guide to this collection of nighttime tales." Whatever that means?
Crafter's Corner
Inquisitor 54mm - The Arbites Squad
I've written before about Games Workshop's failed Inquisitor game, so I won't re-hash the whole schpiel. But I'll say that there are many more of these figures to come in my collection, and I hope you don't mind me sharing them all.
This time, I've put together a compete squad of Arbites, the "cops" of the Imperium in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
First, we have a standard enforcer.
He uses parts from several kits: Barbaretta, the Arbites Judge, the Chaos Magus, Delphan Gruss, and the alternate Rogue Trader head. Overall I'm pretty happy with the result. I'm also pleased with the way my mesh over a flat base turned out, giving the impression of a grating over a tunnel or somesuch.
My second enforcer contains no conversion work at all, essentially, aside from using the alternative Barbaretta head. I think the Barbaretta kit was one of the best they did. She really has a strong sense of movement.
Likewise, her cyber-mastiff, which I painted last (you can really tell because I got tired and lazy), has had no conversion work done on him. Fun story: I didn't understand the pin system these models use to stay upright. Basically, they have a stubby bit on their feet that is meant to go INTO the base, helping support it. I clipped that stub off the mastiff, thinking it was mold goop or something. Luckily, I corrected my error by putting a pin in his foot instead. Otherwise, this guy would never stay upright.
The sniper of the group is deceptively simple-looking. She's MOSTLY Barbaretta, with just one arm swapped for the bounty hunter's rifle. The trick was bending and pushing these parts into the right pose, then basically building her a new arm with pinning supply and green stuff. It was a PAIN. But I like it.
Lastly, we have the judge, with no conversion work whatsoever. I confess I don't think he shows well on film, but I'm overall satisfied with him.
Rantables
Transphobia IS misogyny
WARNING: this section contains reference to transphobic and misogynistic comments from public figures. (click to expand)
Where do you even begin.
That's the general vibe after seeing the absolute trash fire of right-wing nutjobs latching on to the news out of Olympic women's boxing, wherein a tough Algerian woman, Imane Khelif, beat the snot out of Angela Carini, an Italian woman who apparently was unaware that boxing involved being hit in the face.
But even before JK Rowling and Elon Musk took to Xitter to do what they always do (namely, to spew hatred, lies and bigotry), there was trouble brewing.
Khelif, along with Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan, had been marked by the right-wing weirdo brigade even before they stepped into the ring. The reason for this targeted hate campaign? A thoroughly discredited and disbanded sports body, the International Boxing Association (IBA) claimed they had "proved they had XY chromosomes." The IBA, for what it's worth (which, by the by, is roughly two tarnished skee-ball tokens from Fun Land), has faced numerous allegations of corruption and bribery, and comes from that bastion of ethical standards, Russia.
Many, many, MANY people have already rightly pointed out that women can be born with XY chromosomes, but despite this, Rowling, Musk and the transphobic neofascist brigades persisted in attacking Khelif and Yu-ting, quite literally threatening their lives in at least Khelif's case, as she comes from ultra-right-wing Algeria, where being transgender is not legally recognized and non-straight sex is punishable by imprisonment.
Numerous users have also pointed out, in no particular order, that:
1) Carini was boxing like shit and did nothing to guard her face
2) Khelif and Yu-Ting are hardly perfect boxers and have lost to other women plenty of times
3) the Olympics is still disallowing trans athletes save for ONE non-binary person, Nikki Hiltz, and only because Hiltz is not undergoing any hormone treatment
But these facts simply do not matter to the hate-filled mob screeching its lungs out that tough women aren't women and blue-skinned Dionysus is a sleight against baby Jesus and the woke mob ruined anthems and flags and blaaah blaaah BLAAAAAAAAAAH.
One user, Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte, lamented into the void: "Is transphobia now so bad that even cisgender women cannot be women if they don’t comply with a certain woman ideal-type?"
And...YES, STUART. FUCKING YES. That's the whole point. That's been the point ever since this horseshit really started to gain traction as the chief talking point among the right-wing, ranking dead last in issues among the general public who just want houses and food and breathable air but first among ultrarich uberdouchebags with children who hate them and absolute pitch black holes where their souls should be.
To such people, anything that does not conform with an infantile, Stepford Wives vision of gender roles, wherein women wear skirts, play the role of a perfect little house waifu and bear more Christian Right spawnlings (there's a reason transphobes so frequently cite "childbearing" as the defining characteristic of womanhood, despite sterility, infertility, and hysterectomies being... y'know, things), is evil. That is why Trans people are the ultimate threat. They represent the ultimate in non-conformity: refusing gender norms.
Understand that this whole "women's sport" thing is a ruse. It's the "what about sex-selective abortion" of trans rights, a drummed-up wedge to try to push the broader, mushier, "centrist" public into allowing the right wing to stampede into power. Because really, applying basic logic to it, gendered sport is fucking idiotic.
No, really. You can talk about men outperforming women due to testosterone all you like, but the fact is, women can outperform men in a number of sports, too. Take target shooting, a breath of fresh air with gentle memes of hilarity instead of spite, mainly centering around Turkey's 50+ chad, Yusuf Dikeç, and South Korea's Millennial cyborg, Kim Yeji.
Here's the fun fact about Yeji's Gold Medal event, the 10 metre air pistol.
All of the women medalists scored higher then the men in their respective medal categories. All of them. Meaning women were just better than men.
There was a hilarious poll once that asked men if they thought they could score a point on Serena Williams. One in eight said yes. That's right. One in eight totally average, non-professional, potato couch slumming douchebags said they could take on ONE OF THE GREATEST TENNIS PLAYERS OF ALL TIME, and beat her.
This is the real truth behind sport: that your chemical balance, hormones, bone structure, muscle density, genetics, and a thousand other factors will enter into it, and some amount of training and discipline will help, but ultimately, those other factors are a freight train you're going to get smashed by. But we don't dare acknowledge that, because doing so would be to actually challenge the patriarchy that lets Larry the Cable Guy think he can take on fucking MEKA (put RESPECT on her name).
That's the real truth behind the transphobia. It is the last crie de couer of a right-wing world trying to reassert its dominance as the planet grinds slowly, painfully, past it.
So when you see people like Rowling or Musk or Chaya Raichik or Matt Walsh or any number of nightmare husks of humanity fueling ignorance and hate despite any amount of logic or common sense, understand that yes, it is deliberate, and yes, it will be bad for cisgender people too, because conformity is the point.
As I said, it is hard to know where to begin to deal with this. But we know it does not end with trans people. If anything, they're just getting started.
You deserve a basket of kittens for making it through this. You're awesome.
And Lastly, a Word
Short fiction: Deep Love
Deep Love
By Tim Ford
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Wilma Browning had purchased 15 Glengarrison Pier with a thorough and comfortable understanding that the house would shake.
It was, after all, a floating house, and as such, was bound to sway and bob with the gentle movements of the ocean, even in a port as calm as Afton Rock.
But as they sat down to Sunday brunch, and the eggs jostled about with vibrations of a rather more persistent, rhythmic nature, they couldn't help but feel they had been led astray by their sales agent.
“Rental opportunity,” said Joseph Browning, staring into the black heart of his bitter, resentful coffee as it rippled with in time with the distant, thumping pulse. “Legal suite. That was what he told us.”
“And that was what we got,” said Wilma Browning. “And what we put in the advert.”
“We both know this is not what we had in mind.”
“We also both know that we need the income to make this work.”
“Income,” Joseph snorted. He picked up the soggy brown envelope off the table between them and waved it at her, its contents gently clinking inside. “Pearls. Absurd. Whoever heard of paying rent in pearls?”
Wilma sipped her orange juice and gazed pointedly away out the porthole, staring deeply into a grey sky with clouds that looked positively inadequate compared to the storm brewing in their kitchen. “Every time you take them to the Pawn shop, you always settle on exactly what's owed us,” she said. “American dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Pounds, Rubles, pearls, who cares what we're paid in, so long as we're paid?”
One of the plates vibrated towards the edge of the table as if it were making to commit suicide (and who could blame it?). Joseph caught it with one hand and crunched some bacon. “I just wonder,” he said between bites, “come tax time, is the government going to take one look at our file and slap the cuffs on us for these mysterious cash deposits I get from those Pawn shop visits?”
“The government doesn't care about us,” Wilma said. She looked him dead in the eye. “They have bigger fish to fry.”
Joseph scowled. “Why did I marry you?”
She smiled petulantly at him.
A new song picked up and another dish made a run for it. Joseph reset it back to purgatory at the centre of the table and stood up. “I'm going to have a word with the tenant,” he said.
Wilma sighed. “Don't lose your temper, you won't get anywhere,” she said.
“Just a word.”
Wilma sighed again.
Joseph stepped out of the kitchen and into the tight, tiny hallway that led to the stairs, front door, washroom and maintenance room of their little floating home. He reached for the maintenance room door, but something out of the corner of his eye stopped him. He straightened his glasses and took a second look, towards the front door.
Someone had drawn something on it.
It was a pattern of some sort, yellow-blue in colour, varying slightly in shade. The shapes that formed the pattern were almost tear-drop shaped, with a tapered point at the top and a wide, semi-circle bottom. They were laid out in a perfect square, measuring about 10 shapes high and 10 wide. The whole pattern measured about an even square foot.
Joseph ran his hand over the pattern. Whatever it had been painted or drawn with, it had had time to dry and adhere to the wood in the door.
“Wilma!” he shouted.
“Yes?” she called back from the kitchen.
“Did you paint this thing on the door?”
“What thing on the door?”
“This...” Joseph grasped for the right words. The pattern certainly reminded him of something, but he couldn't exactly say what. “This...thing.”
“That sure helps narrow it down.” Wilma peeked her head out into the hallway. “What thing?”
Joseph pointed.
“No.” Wilma popped back into the kitchen.
“Did the tenant?”
“How should I know? Ask him yourself, since you're going to bother him about the music anyway.”
Joseph frowned. “I suppose I will,” he said. He jerked open the door to the maintenance room. The endless buzz-thump of electronic dance music grew louder in intensity. Joseph stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
Inside were all the utilities their floating home needed. The water-proofed breaker box, the sewage filtration system, the water collector and purifier, and the floor hatch that peeked into the flotation structure of the house. Joseph went to this last feature and flung the hatch open, letting in a blast of synthesized beats.
“Excuse me,” Joseph yelled down into the mix of water and poly-plastic structure. “Excuse me!”
The music cut off abruptly. A thick foam of bubbles formed on the surface of water beneath the hatch, burbling about in quiet fury. And then a wide green face with a wide green mouth, and eyes spaced wide apart broke out of the water and goggled upwards at Joseph indignantly.
“What?” the huge fish croaked.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Joseph said. “It's just, well. It's just that it's Sunday brunch?”
“Is this a social call?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.”
“Well,” the fish tilted its head and fixated one eye on him. “If it's official business, you'll have to post a notice. That's part of our rental agreement.”
“Hold on now, I just want to talk to you about the music,” Joseph said.
The fish stared at him, cold and unblinking as only a fish could. “What about it?”
“Like I said, it's Sunday brunch, and my wife and I-”
“What does Sunday brunch have to do with my music?” the fish interrupted. “Do humans eat with their ears?”
The fish's voice was like a garbage disposal backing up, and set Joseph's teeth on edge. “No,” he said as calmly as he could. “But we like a little peace and quiet while we eat.”
“Is it...” the fish turned its head the other way to give Joseph a look at its other eye. “Overpowering your conversation?”
“Overpowering...?”
“To the point where you cannot hear each other speak.”
“Well, no, but-”
“The rental agreement clearly stipulates that if a conversation can still be had at normal volume that this does not constitute a violation of quiet enjoyment. Anything else?”
Joseph sputtered. “But, but-”
“Anything else?”
“No, but-”
“Good day then.” The fish made to dive.
“Wait, yes, there is one more thing.” Joseph was determined to come away with something, anything. “Did you...paint something on the front door?”
The fish stared him down.
“Like a...like a pattern of something?”
“A pattern.”
“Yes. Teardrop shaped. Kind of. Actually...it sort of has the same...colour as...” Joseph leaned over, squinting through his glasses.
“The front door is not part of the lease agreement therefore I would not intrude on that area,” the fish said. “Moreover I lack paint, brush, and, oh yes, you may have noticed, the ability to walk on land. Good morning, landlord.” The fish dove back underwater, and the music flipped back on.
Joseph glared at the rippling water. “Good morning to you too.” He slammed the hatch shut and went back to the kitchen.
Wilma was washing the dishes. “How did it go?” she said, her back to him.
“You can hear it for yourself,” Joseph said. He caught himself. “Sorry. I didn't mean to...I can help with that.”
“It's already done,” Wilma said, still looking away.
Joseph awkwardly fidgeted in the doorway. “I can get going on cleaning up the spare room, then.”
“I did that two days ago while you were smoking out on the pier,” Wilma said, turning to face him at last. “Yes, I know you've started again. You think you can wash the smell away with mouth wash, but it gets caught in your moustache, too.”
Joseph threw up his hands. “Fine, you caught me,” he said. “But what do you expect? The stress-”
“So kick him out then,” Wilma said. “Kick him out.”
Joseph opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I can't,” he said at length.
“Then you have no one to blame but yourself.” Wilma turned away from him and idly scrubbed at the countertops.
Joseph reached out for her, unconsciously, then drew his hand back. “Fine,” he said. “I'm going for a walk along the pier.”
He slammed the door as he left, but the sound was lost among the thumping music from below the house.
* * * *
Glengarrison pier was deserted as always. Afton Rock had been small town to begin with, a lonely place on a forgotten jut of land on the East Coast of Canada. But when the fishing industry really went downhill, most of the town went with it. Joseph and his wife had the run of the pier; most of the remaining ships and boats moored at Friedland Pier, several blocks away. Occasionally, a smaller craft would pull in and dock for maintenance or for other needs. But increasingly, these brief drydocks had become permanent, leaving behind rotting wood and broken hulls, the skeletons of a bygone age of ships and sailing.
Joseph kicked at some of the decaying boat carcasses as he strolled by, venting his empty frustrations. He still remembered the first time he saw Wilma, standing on the dock as his boat came in. A crowd of people had gathered to celebrate the return of the first official catch under the banner of Blue Sea Fish Fingers. She had bright red hair back then, and he remembered catching her up in a hug, his muscled arms scooping her up with ease and spinning her about.
Blue Sea Fish Fingers had gone first. Then the muscles. Then the red hair.
Now he wasn't sure what would go next.
To be concluded in Vol. I, Issue 6!
That wraps up the fifth issue of The Lagrange Point! If you enjoyed this little e-newsletter, please consider subscribing, or, if you're already subscribed, sharing it with a friend or family member!
I can't grow this e-newsletter alone. I need lots of mouths spreading lots of words about why people should read The Lagrange Point.
Until next Monday, thank you for reading!
-Tim
