#dysmorphia ment

[dead-rat-time]

bro my scars from like last year-ish are still thick bumpy and redish, and they itch sometimes

they were only styros too 😭

lowkey i kinda like how they feel, i always run my fingers over the bumps to soothe myself or whenever im bored. but today i was alone in my room wearing shorts and i actually *looked* at them, and i don't know if it was the fact that my thighs are fat af and im disgusted at how fat i am or if i just gained some new self awareness, but they looked so ugly it actually baffled me for a second. but then not even like 15 mins later i was back to liking the scars??? dunno whats up with that. but for sure my scars will look even better once i've lost like 20 pounds

[androidboy]

blehh got weighed at the doctors & the ed thoughts are swarming

[thedomesticanthropologist]

TW: weight, body dysmorphia

Me: I am a fat and gross disgusting flesh golum that looks like a skeleton with globs of jello and playdough stacked onto it by a toddler with no artistic vision, but then it got maybe warm and started melting off so I'm lumpy and -

*Steps on scale* 161.4 lbs, 5'7.5 height

Me: ohhhhh I'm just mentally ill

[mudstoneabyss]

being self conscious/disliking a thing about yourself that's seen as a good thing/ideal in society feels so fucking stupid and invalid 😭

[i-am-the-quintessential-queer]

The urge to get pregnant and have a child and carry a child myself while also physically wanting to stab out my uterus at the thought of having sex to actually make said baby 🥲 I’m fine, I’m tooootaly fine 🫠

[biprotagz]

ozempic. shots for weight loss. driving past ads for weight watchers. calories on every box, container, or parcel of food in stores. weight loss transformations. body positivity being co-op'ed by non-fat white women. mass obsession with diet and fitness. body aesthetics. tip toeing around the word "fat" as if it's synonymous with ugly or not valuable. health being presented in thin, able bodied folks. exponential rise of ed and body dysmorphia. implicit understanding of fat bodies as incapable. normalization of calorie counting. the correlation between fatness and poverty, food desserts, and disability. the "obesity epidemic." the disabling socioeconomic condition of fatness. the politicized prison of a human body. body. body. body.

[sunhalf]

aika is absolutely never without her illusion magic / her glamour — she is wearing it constantly when conscious, and it's only not 'on' when she's unconscious because she physically can't maintain it then. she's terrified of being seen without it, as she thinks her natural appearance is ugly, and thus never sleeps over with partners or otherwise risks being asleep when another might see her. she hasn't had it 'off' in public since she was twelve, and nowadays she keeps it 'on' even in private pretty much all the time so that she doesn't have to look at herself.

her glamour is extensive, and the changes to her appearance are even more so. the most obvious difference is that her true form is absolutely coated with scars — and i do mean coated. most of these are the result of being extensively tortured at age thirteen, some are from self - harm, and a few are from fights she's been in. her actual hair is a short bob, but she typically makes it appear very, very long. while her skin rarely has blemishes aside from wounds, she has jarring dark circles she hides with her glamour as well. she has fairly severe body dysmorphia, so she tends to make her body appear smaller; her actual size is around a size 12 - 14, but she consistently makes herself appear closer to a 6, and when her body image is especially bad she may go even smaller.

she also often uses her glamor to fake a perfect face of makeup, change her hair colour when she's bored of one colour, and et cetera.

the only people alive who have ever seen what aika actually looks like are her father, her sisters alice and clementine, and her brothers renjirou and daiki. only alice has any idea what she actually looks like now. it take at least a year of conscious, focused attention to build her trust enough to allow you even a glimpse of her without her glamour, and it would take years to get to a point where she was willing to keep it 'off' around you regularly — and that could only come once she was willing to have it 'off' around herself.

[thedragonflycluster]

Birth control has made me feel like I'm going Actually Insane (I can't emotionally regulate), makes me feel disgusted with my& body/dysmorphia and I crave junk food so bad I get stomach aches after compulsively eating a shit ton at once.

Yeah I don't think I can keep up w it anymore. I'd rather find some other option than deal with this mini hell. ☘️

[alexcaninnit]

Headcanon that;

Berdly has facial dysmorphia and issues with people touching his face after getting plugged

Noelle bites into her ice cream

Susie likes her steak rare (when she can get steak)

Ralsei is really good at piping and frosting cakes

and Kris used to like hanging out by the cemetery a bunch.

[thus-spoke-lo]

i know i don't owe anyone anything, but i also know i've been sort of absent from dash in terms of original content, haven't been responding to messages often, etc so I'm just sort of sharing where I'm at (cw for mental health, very mild weight/body dysmorphia ment. and physical health discussions under the cut):

I've been lucky I suppose that I have depression more or less all the time to some degree that I haven't really ever suffered from seasonal depression, at least until this year (surprising since I grew up in a snowy climate where that's incredibly common). Since about mid-October (you know, right as I was trying to finish Kinktober lol), I got hit with a pretty severe bout of it, and adding in PMMD, along with some other health issues, unexplained weight gain that's exacerbating existing body image issues, and helping my partner through something of a mid-life crisis the months leading up to it, I'm kind of at a low like I haven't been in probably close to 10 years.

Writing is still fun, but at the moment, it doesn't really bring me joy like it used to; even silly little self-ship stuff has kind of fallen by the wayside. It doesn't mean I'm not writing, but it's less of a passion project and more like, "Hey, you should keep doing things you like so you don't just stop liking them completely." I'm doing all the "right" things (taking walks in the sun! contacting my GP to discuss temporary meds! petting my cat!) to try and mitigate my uncooperative brain chemistry, but there's no real solution other than I just gotta wait it out.

And I'm sure plenty of you understand, the most frustrating part is knowing exactly what is happening to me, and how irrational it is, but not being able to do much to stop it from happening.

I want to be clear, I'm not disclosing this because I want pity or sympathy or whatever, I just know I was writing and posting and responding on a way more regular basis for most of the year, and I've sort of just dropped off, and this is why. I don't have any plans on taking a hiatus or anything cuz it's not really necessary, I still like hanging out here at the virtual water cooler, and I will be totally fine eventually--I always am after low lows. But in the meantime, thanks for sticking around, and for reading this far if you have lol. <3

[effyeffa]

every day i look in the mirror and go cute. but what if didn’t have tits

[the-bloody-masquerade]

Bloodlines 2 - They/Them Pronouns and Trans and Asexual Representation

There has been some discussion recently regarding information that was presented in a recent podcast interview given by Bloodlines 2 writers Brian Mitsoda and Cara Ellison. I think it is important to know what was and what was not said and understand it in context so I would like to provide a transcript to the passages in question for us to reference as we continue to have discourse around the issue.

I also want to try to give a little more insight as to why they/them pronouns were not able to be added to the game as there are some substantial programming concerns when it comes to adding conditional content that cannot be accessed in versions of the game where the language used only has two pronouns instead of three.

This comes from episode 22 of The RE:BIND Podcast. Published on June 22nd, 2020. The interviewer is Emily Rose, the interviewees are Cara Ellison and Brian Mitsoda, lead co-writers of Bloodlines 2 (Mitsoda having been the original Writer on Bloodlines 1)

Character Creation and Pronouns (passage starts at 1:14:45)

Note: [...] denotes a false start or when they start their sentence over a couple times.  

Emily: In Bloodlines 2, how is character creation being handled in terms of gender?  

Cara: Oh, character creation. So, one of the major problems we have is, and actually this is not unique to us, but the entire industry, is that localization severely limits the way you can write characters and we’re actually coming up against this problem now even though we have made a bunch of decisions on like how you refer to the player character and the characters in our game. But like, a major problem that we always have in video games is that English has a way to refer to people who don’t want to have a gender. And a lot of languages around the world, don’t have that.   

Brian: Currently, there’s like, movements in some languages to get that.  

Cara: Right like, so if your Quebecois, there’s a term that’s like generally recognized as being ‘they’ that you can use, but a lot of languages might have people who for example are agender, but the terms that they use to refer to themselves are not thoroughly recognized throughout their language and country. And that provides us with a humungous problem because we are making a game about Seattle, and there are a large number of people who live in Seattle who don’t want to have a gender or don’t want to be referred to as a particular gender or they frankly don’t identify as a particular thing, so we represent those characters like we normally would, but we run into a bunch of problems when we try to localize. So like, in the character creation section what we decided was the best option for us is to essentially let you create the way your character looks in like, entirely separate of gender, so you can make your character look any way you like as masculine or as feminine or whatever you like. […] You basically can then say ‘I want to be referred to as ‘he’ or I want to be referred to as ‘she,’ and that’s the option that we give you. The reason we don’t give you the they/them option is because […] I think there are four or five languages that can do this, but a lot of European languages can’t refer to the player character as ‘they’ or ‘them’ because they have to choose one or the other, so, we ended up not being able to do the they/them option for the character creation. So we basically tried to give you a way of expressing yourself and how you look, whatever, but we do end up actually asking you to specify ‘he’ or ‘she’ because it actually is just the way we had to do it for localization. […] For example, when I worked at MiniMolecule they had the exact same problem and it’s a problem of scale as well, because if the scale was just like we only release in English, we could have done the third option, we just couldn’t do it. And also because, we actually systemically throughout the game, its structured to be able to like have lots of interactions based on your identity so we had to sort of choose that early on, so it kind of got structured that way as well. But we do have main characters in the game who do not have a defined gender, and at least if you play the game in English they will be referred to as ‘they.’ We did have the option for NPCs at least in English, to have that referent, but unfortunately, we were very limited by localization on that point. And we’re not the only game that’s limited by that, but as this is kind of more, this kind of specific thing in language rolls out across lots more languages I think actually it will become easier to do this over a time, I think, as well. I’m hoping, at least.  

TLDR; You will create your characters appearance separate from physical sex or gender and then you will pick he/him or she/her pronouns. The reason why they/them is not being included is because most of the languages that the game is being localized in do not have a 3rd/gender neutral set of pronouns and [presumably] would require all version of the game that only include 2 pronouns (because of language) to have their dialogue systems reworked/separately programmed. 

This is a bit different than “they should just put they/them in the English localization then.” If pronouns will be a character creation option that probably means they will be set up as a content trigger, which is what determines which voice and text lines you get (to correspond to your gender). For languages that only have two pronouns, what would you do with that third content trigger representing the they/them pronouns? They also talked content “structured to to be able to have interactions based on your identity.” If there were interactions that were only triggered by the they/them choice in character select, this content would effectively be lost in localizations that only had two pronouns in character select, (barring a comprehensive structural overhaul for regions with only two pronouns) 

The quicker way to do this would just be to have most NPCs use as little gendered language as possible to make most lines an content universal/not have to trigger alternate text/content based on the pronoun choice, but then this may defeat the purpose of being able to customize your PC’s gender and pronouns to begin with.  I do not mean to be an apologist. Gender neutral pronouns in RPGs are frankly overdue as an industry standard it is disheartening to hear that they/them will not be a choice in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2. I just wanted to try and elaborate on why the inclusion/exclusion of gender neutral pronouns in a game slated for world release is from a programming standpoint more involved that one may at first think.

Trans Representation in Bloodlines 2 (1:19:37)

Emily: So obviously we have some kind of gender-nonconforming representation. What is there in terms of maybe more specific representation, like say, are there any transmen are there any transwomen? Anything like that. Is that brought up at any point during the game?

Cara: […] I think what we want to do in the future is, actually have some main characters be transmen or transwomen, but I don’t—unless the junior writers have actually—actually no the junior writers have written some characters new that we have specified to be trans. But I would have to check, unfortunately, I don’t think we have actually put anyone who’s trans into the game currently unless I’m forgetting about someone. But yeah, I think our plans are to do that, but we didn’t want to do it like we’re just oh, we’re gonna just put it in…

Brian: Yeah there’s definitely […] when you’re doing the [game] design stuff, you’re looking for a character that might fit for the scene or the quest or the story beat that you’re doing and so one thing I never want to do just try to shoehorn in everything that we want to do.

Cara: By the time I had joined the main cast had been very clearly defined, so we didn’t have the option to add a trans main character which is what we have wanted to do.

Brian: Yeah, I would also like it, if we do add a trans character, we can find a voice actor who’s also…

Cara: …trans as well.

Quests with Trans Themes and DLC  (1:21:24)

(immediately follows last section)

Emily: That was gonna to be my next question, so that’s really good to hear actually. So I totally understand how it goes just in terms of like, the preplanning and establishing the world and things like that, and the main reason I bring it up in the first place is just because so much of Vampire does tend to gravitate around people’s identities their expressiveness with both their sexuality and who they are and so it’s just something that’s like kind of been kind of been some sort of undertone in the series for a long time so I was just curious how it was being handled in Bloodlines 2. Those are pretty sufficient answers.

[…a brief interlude where they talked about a random quest from Bloodlines 1]

(1:23:00)

Cara: We actually have a quest based on the idea of dysmorphia, like feeling like you’re trapped in your body and it doesn’t match the way you perceive yourself. A lot of our writing is based on what it actually feels like to be in this state of stasis when you weren’t expecting to feel that because it has happened suddenly to you. And so there are loads of issues that would be really valuable to explore in that way, and you know we have staff who are super interested in giving their input on that, so I think we should definitely approach it, we just haven’t actually put it in the game in terms of main characters. We wanna make a trans main character, I think that’s important to us. We’ve got some DLC coming up that we’re gonna like make a greater effort on that front, like its Seattle, it would be so weird if we didn’t have trans characters. [Note: Cara lives in Seattle currently. 

Brian: Mmhmm

Cara: So, yeah. [to Brian] Ask Margaret as well, our voiceover director, if there are any trans actors that she would recommend we could cast for the role and maybe write it for them. So yeah.

Emily: So that’s the thing and even I struggle really to think of many games that have a trans character in a main role, let alone--I can’t actually think off the top of my head unless they’re very like micro indie stuff any games that feature like a trans woman protagonist. I think the last time I saw a transwoman in a game was I think I wanna say like Dishonoured 2, one of the semi-core side characters you encountered for one of the quests is a documented as trans.

Cara: And I think the Dishonoured 2 team really really really made a huge effort on that front to be able to represent a huge variety of different backgrounds of people. They were very interested in [doing that] from the start, so yeah I think there are like some games where it does matter too, and it really feels like the world is bigger when you actually provide those characters.

In-game Asexual Characters and Their Ideal Approach to Portraying LGBT+ characters.  (1:25:29)

Cara: But yeah, like we have tried to represent asexuality as well in the game.

Emily: Good good.

Cara: We have characters who are asexual. Who are canon asexual. And yeah, […] We try as well, not to write it sort of clumsily, we don’t write characters that like, out themselves, because that’s not—

Brian: No, because generally someone does come up and say that immediately.

Cara: when you’re from a background that has been marginalized, you’re very aware of your own safety. Especially if a stranger who looks shady approaches you, like our characters, you’re not gonna like immediately say it. But we make it explicit that this is who they are, but not in a way like ‘Hi, I’m Cara! I’m transgender!’ You know?

Brian: Yeah, yeah.

Cara: I think some of the ways in which people have done it in the past have been a little clumsy so I’m very aware of that as well.

Brian: Yeah, I would never want to handle it in a way that’s like ‘The main thing about that character is that they are trans’ like that’s not right at all

Cara: I want the main thing about that person to be something that they’re interested in, like, actually like exploring with the player character and I think like, most people are coming from somewhere when they approach you and its not going to be about I want to talk about my…[they both trail off laughing,]

Brian: They probably want to talk about a way in which they’re going to fuck you over. Or get something from you, or get you to do something for them.

Cara: Yeah and I would love to write a trans character who is like really really interesting and really really involved in something and I don’t want it [their transness] to be their defining [feature].

~~

Thank you for reading.

[dysphoric-culture-is]

Dysphoric culture is having breakdowns over your body/agab/your assigned pronouns everyday since you were 12 years old and yet your parents still think it’s “body dysmorphia” so your only outlet is being an anon on trans-positive tumblr accounts and rewatching your favorite anime for the 17474838rd time (I apologize for the long ask)

Dysphoric culture is!

No need to apologize for your long-ish ask anon.

Also, are you out to your parents? If so, there are tons of resources that might help them see the difference between body dysmorphia vs gender dysphoria. Note that most of them talk only about body ('sex') dysphoria though and also promote the idea that body dysphoria can't give you a distorted view of yourself (which isn't always true).

If you're not out or they don't listen mod suggests participating in trans affinity spaces (if possible) and finding more coping mechanisms that aren't internet-related. (Not that there's anything wrong with tumblr or anime if they help you cope, but it means that without the internet/tech you're screwed.)

[fangsup-cobrastyle]

*ED/body dysmorphia TW*

So I have body dysmorphia. Like therapist diagnosed me, blah blah blah. But the thing about body dysmorphia is that it makes you think that it’s real, and so you tend to think you don’t actually have it.

So yesterday, my dumbass brain goes “you don’t actually have body dysmorphia. You just wish you did because you want to be like Gerard Way.” As if I haven't had this disorder since before I knew who MCR were. Just looked at a picture of Gerard Way and went "they're so cool! I should hate myself just like them!" and then developed the worst relationship with food you've ever seen just to add to the hero worship.

[sacred-pro-fiction]

Not to be dramatic but I loathe the weight loss shows my mom watches that preys on her insecurities and body dysmorphia

[ravenquingvax]

What's this? A face reveal?

Felt cute today, a rare occurrence in my life, and seeing my own face didn't give me dysmorphoria for a change so I got brave and took a pic.

May regret this later and take this post down, but oh well! 🤷🏻

But for now? I'm feeling Nonbinary as fuck and very fucking proud about it.