White Lotus Herald

HUN / ENG post because this is some major news 🎉

HUN

Fordítóként elképesztően boldog vagyok, hogy fél évnyi előkészítés után leleplezhetem, hogy valósággá válik egy álmom, és megjelenik a Cemetery Boys magyarul, méghozzá d0ii_ eszméletlenül menő borítógrafikájával

Egy elég sötét időszakban futottam bele a könyvbe, és nekem segített túlélni a jogalkotók által összehozott poklot - remélem, most, hogy bár kicsit több a szabadságunk, de még van tennivaló LMBTQ jogok terén, másoknak is támaszt tud adni. És persze mindenkihez érthetően közelebb hozza a transz témát egy vagány urban fantasy YA sztori keretében :)

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ENG

Translator here!

I'm THRILLED to finally, finally announce after half a year of background work that yes, this is HAPPENING, Cemetery Boys will be out in Hungarian with a freaking fantastic cover art by d0ii_

If anyone attends Budapest Pride march today, if you see this flag, it's me! (Not the Shinsengumi one but the trans lol.)

Article 33 is what prevents us from being able to legally change our gender and thus first names.

It would take literally zero effort to eliminate it, I suspect it would be easier than making this flag.

I find the origin story of my flag hilarious, too:

First, I told a colleague about my idea. We brainstormed I should try the office's blue and red permanent markers on the flag's hem and after we'd cook up something based on the result. After coming home I tried out the markers, they looked good, however, I realized, I have a small flag of similarly nylon. Well, guess what, the permanent markers randomly bled, so then I asked AI then two cosplay enthusiasts what would work best, both advised acrylic marker. It was already 7 pm but the plaza closes at 9 so I hopped on the bus and tried to get my hands on acrylic markers. I got a specific brand recommended and I knew the shop has it, however, I could only find 3 other brands. I asked a cashier and turned out they keep it behind the cashier's desk lol. Came home, started designing the letters in Photoshop, played around with proportions, boom, 9 pm. Nevertheless, I printed and cut them out. They seemed a bit small, but I only have A4 printer at home. So I thought I'd start working in the office early and print it out there with bigger size.

Woke up at 4:30 am, didn't sleep well, walked all the way to the office (3 km) with my trusty flag carefully folded and tucked away. Arrived at 6 am, nobody around (Friday is chill anyway but most people start at 7 or even later). Uploaded the images from Google Drive to Onedrive, then visited our printer. And yeah, however I tried, it refused to use A3 paper. (It had enough loaded) Printed the first "3" on A4. It was too large some parts went missing. I was thinking maybe we could complete it by hand or print out each letter on multiple pages. Then it hit me that A4 actually looks a decent size? So I just resized everything for A4 paper and printed them. Then cut out everything carefully and placed them on the flag. It looked awesome!

Then the brainstorming colleague arrived. We just vaguely talked about making the flag previously and I didn't want to be pushy so I waited mentioning that I do have everything ready in the drawer lol. After lunch we talked a bit about our poor management. Then she asked "okay, when are we going to paint?" and we agreed this would at least look like a nice training meeting in the Outlook calendar...

So we basically spent the next hour in a meeting room in a mostly empty office building, creating this wonder and chatting about artistic endeavours.

And it turned out I couldn't have done this without help as the material is quite tricky and needs to be stretched by someone. So it was really a two-person project.

Two days later we finished with the red strikethough during another meeting and with another colleague joining lol.

Over the span of one year I did a full social transition, went through psychologist & psychiatrist evaluation, top surgery, starting HRT, changed my name and though not singlehandedly, but overthrew a bigoted, transphobic and homophobic government.

Everything is possible!

Today Péter Magyar sworn in as Hungary's new PM.

During the night of the election when it became obvious his party won, his to-be health minister Zsolt Hegedűs became viral dancing for Jalja's The Hanging Tree.

Today, in front of the Parliament Jalja was a surprise guest and Mr. Hegedűs could repeat his dance of joy - and invited his fellow party members to join him.

I didn't dare to hope my voice will be this good. ALWAYS hated it. Idk whether it will drop more but I don't even care, it's a LOT better than what I started with.

I started to do lousy workouts with two 3-kilogramm dumbbells a few weeks back and I already have visible biceps what the fuck.

My posture improved a bit. I've been hunching all my life so it's not easy to get rid of it despite having top surgery but I try to do my best.

So much for the good part lol

My muscles are rearranging themselves so every atom in my body hurts. I try to keep jogging but my Achilles tendon said no and it's been aching for two weeks now. Apparently it can hurt much more easily when hormones are doing their magic.

No facial hair yet ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ A few dedicated whiskers keep growing but their buddies are not very keen on awaking. However, if I don't shave once a month, I somehow still manage to look like a hobo due to my peach fuzz.

My belly on the other hand starts to resemble my dad's lol. Also wtf why is my hair stronger on my thighs than on my arms.

My T levels. Ah yes, this was interesting. I started with 50 mg Androgel which elevated my levels nicely to a normal male range over the first three months (650 ng/dl). However, after five months the levels skyrocketed and my trough was 1100 ng/dl. My doc advised me to use cream instead - I can only recommend cream mixed by a pharmacist! Mine is base cream and sesame oil and smells a LOT better than Androgel with its ethanol content plus it's more skin-friendly and faster to apply.

The elevated T level also meant I'd been battling a lot with water retention and thus real bad ankle and thigh swelling... I hate aromatization, it's so funny but also cruel that you can actually have too much T which turns into estrogen and it works against transition.

No matter how I loved the cream, I started to feel off so I tweaked the dosage a bit - the doc said I should experiment whether 1 or 2 pumps feel better. I've been on 1 pump for a week now and despite I feel like shit, my trough level is currently 424 ng/dl. At first I thought it's way too low but looks like it's actually lower-mid male range, plus, it's trough, so this is my lowest. Maybe my body just needs time to learn that the extremely high level T was a temporary thing.

I'm kinda happy where I am currently - I was hoping I might win the genetic lottery and T will have a super fast effect but sadly I'll have to take the slower route like 99 percent of the people lol. Also, it's a miracle that at almost 40 my body reacts this well to T (that skyrocketing T level was a shock...). Despite my hopes I had fears it wouldn't work this well.

I'm not hoping for legalizing gay marriage any time soon but if they leave us alone and lift the most problematic bans that'd be enough for the short-term.

Zsolt Hegedűs, soon to be Hungary's minister of health

We may be once again a boringly normal nation!

I cannot believe this is happening.

Around 80 percent of the population voted, this is MASSIVE.

Apparently everyone had enough of this Nazi shit that has been going on for ages and we had a party we could vote for for a change.

I was truly, truly afraid I will need to pack up and look for a new home but now I'm hoping this country will once again be part of Europe and European values.

I cannot believe I see this tyrant, this regime, these monsters fall.

I'm crying.

Drowsiness is still very real. During the holiday season despite I had to work I had so little to do I constantly slept in. Still, I feel I could sleep for a month.

My joints ache. Idk if it's a "you're soon 40!" syndrome or T affecting every atom of my body.

I can breathe a LOT better during jogging! Like, I had run out of breath pretty easily in the past. I started jogging soon after starting T, not doing it for ages, and the first few times I felt like Darth Vader but then this problem miraculously vanished. I think this is something that can be improved by training no matter the gender but this difference that T makes feels truly unfair.

However, my joints and muscles still try to catch up with T and I have to fight my urge to train more. I have to take it slow not to hurt myself.

Push-ups! However pathetic it may sound, I'm proud I can do 10 very regular, very nice push-ups at a time. Three months ago I couldn't even do one lousy one!

My face and upper arms seem a tad bit different. Hope it's not just wishful thinking lol.

My voice cracked at week 5, I have a record on week 6 where I hit the lowest point so far, since then it sadly climbed back to a higher pitch. It's still deeper than on day 1.

While I diligently use Minoxidil, my peach fuzz is still refusing to turn into terminal hair. I have quite a few darker vellus hair in the moustache area but it still looks like hirsutism caused by PCOS. It's still early and I have to be patient so I think I should be happy how it goes so far?

Regarding body hair: My peach fuzz around my belly button got a bit darker. Leg hair sadly doesn't count. That area didn't need T to look manly lol.

Aaaand my first lab results are in. I have some worrying, elevated results but I want to believe those are caused by 1. me not being kind to my body this holiday season, sitting all day long, watching tv, eating like a pig 2. me not being kind to my body and forcing it to jog after years of hiatus 3. a mild, recurring inflammation which could've tweaked some data.

But the most important value: T. I started with 35 ng/dl (average or a bit higher female range) and currently I have 651 ng/dl (very much average male range). I use 50 mg Androgel transdermal gel daily, I had the test done before application to avoid any contamination so this is the trough level. Either my absorption mechanism is exceptionally good or applying it to different places, alternating between upper arms, shoulders and belly helped. Or maybe a suggestion that using body lotion 1 hour after applying the gel also enhanced absorption. (I believe it has something to do with giving the area a gentle massage plus hydration.) I'm a bit surprised this level elevated so quickly, it's a bit worrying, too, I'm happy I hit the male range but this pace may be a bit fast. I'm real curious what my doctor will say, gonna have an appointment next week.

2025 was a pleasant surprise, I did not have transition on my bingo card, wanted laser eye surgery and ended up with top surgery, HRT and name change lol. Also, most of my family now knows and accepts I'm trans. My friends and colleagues support me. This whole thing could've been catastrophic considering the propaganda in my country and yet I've only met with kindness. All doctors had been supportive as well, not judging me and my choices at all, which is also a miracle.

- Monstrous Regiment, Sir Terry Pratchett

I... I get this now omg.

I mean, I am actually going through this. And I kinda hate it because it's going to get me into serious trouble at my job.

Because it's either the T kicking in or my very last ounce of liquid patience gone dry or I hate to see good people being hurt by our toxic bosses or maybe all at once and T just kinda tipped the scale.

Year 1 and 2 - I had been shy at this workplace, trying to learn everything I could as I knew full well I was like a fish out of water here, with my useless BA in English and my work experience at a random shitty company with basic office tasks. Here I had to work with meds, tried so hard to prove myself and actually got a promotion and I only started to talk back to my boss in my third year. (Just gave her some extremely mild criticism.) And she was fine with it, she was cool and might've even enjoyed it.

And now here I am, fourth year and I'm actually calling out my bosses being irresponsible and deaf and one's who cannot read the room and being fucking idiots for never listening to us. I got so worked up as in the past year the management has ignored most of our polite but very firm signals that things are going haywire, our team is falling apart and people have massive burnouts and hello what the actual fuck is going on??? (Another team got basically disbanded and reorganized after an incompetent leader fucked up everything there as well. So everyone could see what can happen under bad leadership. And building a new team should've taught a lesson.)

Anyway, now I have different bosses (there are more of them, all men), and I'm just pissed how they keep nodding and ignoring all diplomatically delivered warnings. Some people have already quit, some have breakdowns, others are dead tired. I'm also at my limit, already searching job ads. But when I see my colleagues getting more and more exhausted and frustrated and most are at a breaking point I just want to stand up for this team because I had seen how awesome we were under good leadership. We had ups and downs even back then but we were faring so much better!

And today after all the warnings, all the empty promises the bosses once again managed to pull such a shady move that I completely lost it and called them out in a real harsh tone in the chat. (Thankfully they had a gazillion meetings so we couldn't talk in person.) I also added I take full responsibility for my words.

Still, in hindsight it feels while my anger was justified, I acted like a drunk dude throwing a very loud and very aggressive tantrum after not getting his next beer served in time at the pub.

DROWSINESS. Still. It's annoying. I'm sleeping 10-12 hours each weekend and keep yawning in the office.

I have exactly three whiskers which decided to turn dark. Too bad they didn't tell the other 12813 soldiers to do similarly so now they stand out like a sore thumb. And only two of them are buddies, the third is a mile away from them. The threat of having patchy facial hair in the future is already here.

Ankle swelling. I have a hunch this was caused by T+Minoxidil. I switched from daily application of 1 ml Minoxidil to zero to 0.5 ml every other day. The swelling subsided real slowly, over a week after stopping the use, and hasn't yet returned. I hope it stays like this.

During the last week my neck muscles started to ache. At the fourth week's milestone I made a recording and I feel as if my voice dropped just a liiiittle bit but I'm not sure. I'm recording reading a passage from the same book at the same time in the same position weekly - not the best way to track it as reading is different than speaking but that's the only solution I could come up with. I experimented with Voice Tools app too, but that didn't work as well as my own recording.

Nothing really changed except my health lol

I attribute a few things to T though!

Massive peach fuzz growth. Like. Some hairs are like 2 cm long?? Wtf? Okay, I also use Minoxidil which may help. It definitely dries my face so much I'll probably need to skip it once a week.

DROWSINESS. This is so annoying. Though I had some rough nights before my journey to Vienna to get the gel prescription, I've never slept this much within a week. Like, one day I slept 12 hours and had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. Just for good measure. I constantly yawn. From 7 am till 3 pm I'm a mess, I can't focus, I can hardly cope with anything. Coffee doesn't help.

Night sweats. I've had once or twice, possibly due to hormonal changes so this is nothing new but the fact I now had them for 4 nights in a row means I can surely blame it on T.

Chills or hot flashes, most probably hormones playing around. Sometimes I feel as if I have fever when I don't.

That feeling of having a high BP. Okay this may be due to the weather. I feel as if my pulse and blood pressure is skyrocketing when it doesn't.

What I've also learned is that applying a gel is like a fucking make-up routine I've thankfully never had. I need to apply the gel, let it dry, then an hour later I need lotion to avoid dry skin or irritation. I also use silicone gel on my top surgery scar and Minoxidil on my face. The whole thing is like a messed up ritual lol.

And I wish I could skip this part where nothing really changes spectacularly but the hormones already fuck up my routine. I've never been this unfocused before. I can hardly keep up with my daily tasks thanks to being sleepy during the good part of the day.

I'm just real tired and real happy and I cannot comprehend what the fuck happened