It is twenty-six years to the day since I found this image. I don’t know what the weirdest part of the whole thing might be.

That the file-mod time is right, that I managed to keep it across many different HDs/machines/OSes, or that a simple outline illustration of a stylised Sputnik spoke to me back then as it speaks to me now.

It was several years later that I discovered it to be the logo of Space Corporation Korolev, and that was probably around the time I thought that I would rather like it as a simple blackwork shoulder tattoo. Perhaps with a Mr Smiley or a Mr Horsepower (the logo of Clay Smith Cams) to match it on the other side.

It was several years after that when I thought I wanted a semi-cartoon version of it looping in front of a 3D effect trans logo - the sort of thing you’d see in either a Stakker or Sisters video, because 3D rendering had hit the right sort of cool/affordable point that made it the ideal sort of material for popular music videos likely not destined for much more than three viewings on the Chart Show.

And then thankfully the people who I’d contacted first about that declined to be arsed with their email.

So here we are.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the various parts are absolutely on-brand: trans-femme, retro-tech, and cyberpunk-adjacent.

I think the weirdest thing might have been for past-me to try to understand. After all that thought and not-doing because of Reasons, I started describing what I wanted to the Amazing Francesca, and after about thirty seconds of scribbling on her iPad I stopped her, going ‘That. That’s it.’

Later, on the day, the laser printer in the tattoo place didn’t want to co-operate, so she freehanded the thing with a sharpie. Good, isn’t it?