#seriously this is the most trans normalized space ive been in in a LONG time

[bear-tr4p]

something i rlly like about what i’ve seen of the saw fandom is that every one of them is trans and that’s just how it is

[crimeronan]

2020 in review

it’s been a weird year for me.

by all accounts, it Should be a bad year.  

lots of bad things happened to me this year.  i found places i adore in my new town - a certain cozy chair in the library, a corner table at a 24 hour coffee shop, a park bench in direct sunlight for most of the day - just in time to lose them all.  i started pursuing health answers in january, only for all the hospitals to close on my birthday, rendering answers impossible to find.

i waited months for the hospitals to open again, from home, unable to pursue any of the nightlife or queer meetups or community theater i’d vowed to get involved in.  eventually i found out i have scoliosis and a serious vitamin D deficiency.  i hoped to get better by treating these things.  instead the health problems continued, worsened.  i slept through most of may and november, i had intermittent weeks where i’d sleep for 20+ hours a day and be in too much pain to get out of bed upon waking.  i missed rent a few times.  borrowed money too many times.  relied on my loved ones way more than i’ve ever been comfortable with. (it’s the adam parrish ass in me.)

i developed a painful deformity in my leg.  spent stupid amounts of time in urgent care and the ER.  thought it was a dislocation due to connective tissue issues, but my x-rays came back clean.  so did an ultrasound for blood clots.  my doctor referred me to a dermatologist, who did a biopsy.  not super pleasant considering i faint when punctured with needles, but i’d already had my blood drawn and IVs stuck in me, so whatever.  found out i have an autoimmune disorder.  went from the most-perceived-as-able-bodied person in my house to the one most likely to get killed by the pandemic in the span of a single phone call.  might have a shortened lifespan, might not.  don’t know yet.  probably will know by the end of the year.

so it should be a bad year.  none of this was pleasant.  i’ve had spans of time where i’ve cried harder than i’ve ever cried in my life.  had to keep myself from calling my mom and telling her i needed her, because i knew she’d drop her job and her responsibilities and her plans to race across the whole-ass country, and i didn’t want to do that to her

but i don’t think it was a bad year.  not really.

it was my first full year living in the portland metro area.  which, don’t get me wrong, deserves some of the Cringe Hippie Liberal Anarchist Moron reputation it gets.  but it meant living in a city full of queer people and openly trans-friendly businesses.  it meant having enough healthcare providers near me that i could actively seek out ones who could treat my complex mental and physical health issues without some of the biases i’m used to.  it meant that i found an adequate psychiatrist within 10 minutes of me, an adequate primary care doctor within 20.

i used to live in rural new hampshire.  i drove 70 minutes to see my psychiatrist.  i never found a primary care doctor for physical health issues.  i would have had to go to boston, and i don’t like driving in downtown boston.  (masshole reputations are real and boston’s city planning is hell on earth.)

i also had the very strange experience of being taken seriously by every doctor i interacted with.  i am not used to this.  without getting too deep into it, i have been pretty badly scarred by experiences with having my autonomy violated because of my status as a psychotic individual, even though my fears were not psychosis-related.  also less scarring but equally off-putting experiences with being a perceived-as-woman individual whose pain was shrugged off by men as, like, normal hysterical woman agonies.  or whatever.

so, i had a leg deformity.  and doctors took me seriously.  because it was a visible, inexplicable symptom.  and because a lot of them looked at it and thought, oh fuck, this girl is dying.

(i could still be dying, i guess.  just a lot slower than they worried i was.  i’m not about to keel over from a blood clot or from my rotting bones decaying into my bloodstream.)

this has gone a long way toward alleviating my intrinsic fear of doctors.  being SICK is scary, sure, but it’s odd to be able to (cautiously) expect that doctors will try to help me instead of hurt me.

it was also my first full year living in an apartment of my own, with the family i chose.  my first full year of having my own space that i built.  my first full year of being independent, aside from the times i wasn’t.  my first full year of interacting exclusively with people who make me feel happy and loved instead of people who drain me.  and i felt better, mentally, than i have in a long time.

which is reflected in my creative work.  this was my most creative year in... ever, i think?  even though i was so sick and slept through so much of it.  even though the pandemic kept me from seeking out inspirational experiences.  i made a lot of fandom friends & got closer to friends i met last year.  i got a lot more confident in writing what i wanted to and talking about what i wanted to and not worrying about pleasing anyone but myself.

i published over 150k words of fanfic.  the vast majority of it was exploring feelings about chronic illness.  i outlined an original fiction project from beginning to end, added about 30k words to it.  i started fucking around with digital art a bit, although i have nothing even Remotely worth showing people.  i gained something like 900 tumblr followers from a combination of shitposting and earnestly talking about my feelings re: chronic illness, mental health, fictional meta.  i gave some ppl life advice that i guess was helpful.  apparently i inspired some people to survive the year, which is very weird to think about, but also very nice.

so, uh.  that’s my year i guess.  should be bad, but it wasn’t.  dunno how to conclude this so i will simply say:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[shyocean]

Let me explain, first, where I am coming from, because there are a lot of worldview things going on with this discussion.

I have a DID dx from an expert. I'm happy with it. But for a very long time, I thought I was endogenic, because I didn't fit normal patterns, I didn't remember significant trauma, I didn't know about attachment trauma and neurodivergent trauma, and my psychiatrist at the time didn't believe me.

I also have some pretty real medical trauma, from the being misdiagnosed for 20 years. So, I have thus put quite a bit of study and thought into Disability Rights, Mad Pride, the C/S/X movement, Neurodiversity movement types. It's one of our AuDHD special interests.

The History

I have really spent time looking at the history and controversies around the dx, and read quite a bit of the literature. There's a whole lot of fights that professionals in the field had with each other that led to material impacts on real people. And that mean that the research on dissociation is contested, and marred by being the center of academic turf fights.

If you are getting help from someone who believes that DID is caused by trauma, it's because either they or their mentor survived a battle. The other side, the people who wrote the DSM IV and had enormous power and sued people out of practice, didn't believe in DID at all. They thought if there was something, it was entirely caused by therapists and people watching made for TV movies--the entire fake disorder movement we are dealing with all the time.

That was the fight. All trauma, always trauma, the survivors aren't lying. Vs. Fake, not real, False memory syndrome, malpractice..

And there just hasn't been a lot of space for looking at variations of plurality. Even when people try to be descriptive, like Dell's excellent phenomological model, the noise and anger and triggers and misinformation keep it from being heard.

And the community is impacted

American psychology and psychiatry is, in fact, a science in its infancy. Any psychologist who is honest will tell you that they are operating off hypotheses and models, and they don't really know. Most Disability Studies types would also say that the medical model's also entirely constrained by a post-enlightment materialist behaviorist eugenicist worldview that is actively oppressive to people whose minds are divergent, and that is harmful to the disabled. But we are also absolutely dependent on being able to navigate these systems to get any help and to avoid having our rights completely stripped. And any non-American worldview or experience is pretty much shuffled off in the corner for the anthropologists to deal with, so we aren't even beginning to think about other models of the self, or identity, or traditional forms of knowledge. And any practice that is an accepted part of American spirituality is not seen as diagnosable and thus not worth describing, because the field only looks for divergence that is pathological.

Now we don't have time to unpack all that.

Why Do Some Systems Hate Endos

But the core is that it's very, very frightening and triggering to systems to have to confront the idea that the expert who is helping them (their doctor) might be wrong about something. Because they really need help. And their doctor told them something and believes it.

And it's very alienating to be in a lot of pain, and to see someone else who is not in pain but has similar characteristics. Trans people without dysphoria are triggering to trans people who are really suffering. Especially when the transwith dysphoria person is afraid that it will mean that no one will believe them. Or that they won't get their meds. Or that they will get lumped in with people who are really weird and not respectable.

An invalidated, gaslit, traumatized person with AuDHD looks at someone whose environment and upbringing makes their neurodivergence an asset, not a terrible burden. And it makes them afraid that no one will take them seriously. That they won't be able to get help. It's like a mockery of their pain. Especially if they think the pain is the condition, and not the way it's interacting with their environment, past, and personal conditions.

And it's the same dynamic with some systems. And it triggers their fight or flight, like it's a threat to their life. And so they go into fight mode and call endos bad for existing. They say that they are liars, that they are harmful, that they should be silent, that they are ableist, that they are evil, that they should stop existing.

Why Is That a Problem

Obviously, this is abusive and it causes reactive abuse. And some of the people being abused like this are in fact DID systems who can't get anyone to listen to them. Who have been gaslit and invalidated into being told it's not that bad. Or who simply cannot for their own safety remember their trauma.

And the idea that they should be have to remember their trauma before they get help is lethal. That we should abuse them until they remember being hurt will fully kill people.

And harassing people for existing and trying to define themselves is just bad.

And who knows what else exists, because no Western scientist has really invested in studying it. Maybe there's a neurology that impacts connectivity across the brain. Maybe there's a neurology with intense levels of plasticity and parallel processing. We don't know. The DSM undergoes major changes really frequently because they know they are figuring it out. Maybe spirits actually exist, I don't know. We can't prove that none of that exists, and we don't have good data to imply that it doesn't. Certainly not enough to harass and other people because their self concept doesn't match the tiny categories the DSM presents.

And I have never encountered an endo who disliked all DID systems--just the ones harassing them. Just like I have never encountered a trans person without dysphoria who disliked trans people with dysphoria--just the ones harassing them.

Why the Sysmed Term?

Transmeds are people who believed the DSM III and their doctors. The diagnostic criteria in the DSM III was that you had to have dysphoria. You had to be in pain. That was the only way you could deserve help. So they believed the DSM and their doctors. They were in pain, they were disordered, and they really needed the help. This was during my lifetime, by the way. This was the medical standard, and anyone who didn't meet it didn't qualify. I have absolutely had someone trained under the DSM III tell me that they had diagnosed transexuals (the technical term) before, and I wasn't one.

And so these people believe their doctors. They are angry that people who aren't in pain are claiming a connection with them. Their trauma is being trivialized. They are afraid that they won't be able to get help or medicine. And nonbinary people are having really different experiences, you know? So different it must be fake. And they have been told that they were faking for attention, but obviously the ones who are actually faking for the attention are the ones that aren't even hurting and just like, having a good time and being silly.

You have to suffer to deserve help or being taken seriously. You have to submit to the doctors and be compliant to be taken seriously. Either submit to being stigmatized and pathologized and called sick and suffering and having your human rights threatened, admit that your identity at core is a sickness or sit down and shut up. And tucutes are just stealing resources and making light of their very real suffering. The transphobes.

Do you see why this seems like a good metaphor? For what's going on with systems?

Especially since my transness is not separate from my plurality, and that's why I use the term genderplural?

Now, we recognize that transmedicalism is bad. But we recognize it because community members fought against doctors for decades to make them recognize other ways of existing. Not so long ago, the community was divided in the same way.

So what about needing suffering to get help? The way the US government demands you live in utter abject poverty to be considered disabled and get help? That's a scam, imo

Even as DID dx'ed system, I think of the system as a gift. An incredible survival mechanism of my incredibly clever brain. An absolute joy. The badness is the world that did this.

Our goal is absolutely non-disordered plurality. We don't have to suffer to be real, or need help. The sickness isn't the system.

wow, this was long. Sorry, OP. I hope this wasn't too much and you have a good day.

i have a very genuine question about endo/t*lpas

why are they bad? I am new to system stuff and I can't actually find an answer with good sources so far. i understand that endogenic systems are not DID/OSDD because those disorders require trauma, but does that make them bad?

I would like to understand better so I can make my own moral decision, because as of right now, I don't have enough information about either of these things.

[jewelwriter]

My Two Coins:  Value Insulted

Disclaimer: "My Two Coins" are to be read as such, someone's two coins about the topic at hand. IF at any point you disagree with it or agree, remember they are just my coins about said topic and the value you have of it will differ from my own because of religion, upbringing, beliefs, and logic based on your own experiences. Do not assume my coins are the international equivalent for it may be considered of a lesser value in the bank of public exchange. Thank you.

Are you people sane anymore?  I really want to know since this is where I know this is getting close to ea and is in the realm of Bethesta.  Whom am I getting at?  Game Freak and Pokemon Company.  I think an introduction is in order. Welcome ladies and gentlemen of all ages. You've found a wild Jewelwriter.

And recently, we gotten news of BOTH Pokemon's Expansions (Frozen Tundra and the Isle of Armor.) and details of Pokemon home.  Allow me to explain this stuff to people who have been out of the loop or have held on for some good news. First going with the newest one. Pokemon Home has this kind of line up (Down below)

Home {=} Sword and Shield

Meaning you can transfer Pokemon too and fro from Pokemon Home to Shill and Slop (YES I said it, NO I won't take it back, you know I got opinions, or did you forget the warning label up front?) No problems there.

Home {=- Let's GO Eevee/Let's GO Pikachu

Meaning Pokemon you get in this game are likely going to never come back if they ever step a toe inside Galar.  Though as long as they don't they can jump back and forth between this and Let's Go.  Kind of a painful roll but then again I didn't by Let's Troll.

Home {= Bank (Generations 6 and 7.)

You'll need the Premium (Paid Plan) and in return...you'll be paying the tickets for any Pokemon you sent into Bank to NEVER return to Pokemon of the past generations, likely giving nerfs to them, and having their intelligence and power subtracted...if they can get into the games at all.  (There's more but I'll hold... until the ^ shows up.)

Home {= GO

There's not a word on this yet officially but Go might suffer the same as the Let's Go games at best.

=

Now we get into the features of Home.

The Wonder Box (iOS) is wonder trading without any big set up and can only be done... ON the application iOS variant.  (that's right, there's a switch one but I'll signal which is which as we go on.)  It'll allow you to trade for random Pokemon at the expense of having your Pokemon sent to whomever it can be at the other end of the world.  In the free variant you can trade as many Pokemon as there are heads on a Dodrio.  If you paid up for the bigger services, you'll be able to do add two more Dodrio and a Pidgeot to make that many heads as there are Pokemon you are allowed to trade.

Global Trade System (iOS) allows you to trade Pokemon for Pokemon with the exact things you need.  This normally means you were seeing legendary and mythic Pokemon being asked for ...at the prices ranging from other legendary creatures that are impossibles like a male Chansey or something at level 100 which is kind of specific but then again I can only imagine how chaotic this'll be.  By the buy... if you got the free variant, you can only get as many as a diglett face showing.  With the paid service, it's like that diglett evolved into dugtrio.

Room Trade (iOS) is a special room that'll allow you to trade with up to 20 people in a special “Wonder Room” where you won't know what you get until you start trading. If you are a free player you can only get into the rooms but paying up allows you to host such trolling houses.

Friend Trade (iOS) … seeing a pattern yet?  Anyhow this is where you can direct trade AND see what you are getting into.  Only difference is you can't use this under the age of 16.  (a thing understandable...to a point.)

National PokeDex (iOS & Switch) … FINALLY something found that belongs to both.  Anyhow, You can access the national dex in both and can filter things to find what is desired.  BUT... and here's the big one.  If you run the iOS variant, you'll get details like list by abilities, Moves, and maybe more.

Mystery Gifts (iOS) are special gifts for either Stuffing and Slime or for online which can be stuffed into a box.  Be sure you have the Best OS since some details won't happen.

Judge (iOS & Switch) ever wondered what your Pokemon's IV count is well this is where you can do it. Though if anything you can do it in the game too if I recall. JUST... you'll be able to do this if you paid for it.  YEP, it's a premium service if you want to do it in Home.

Room (iOS) This is where you can decorate a spot and fill it up with stickers...especially after doing certain tasks which might reward someone with more than that.

News (iOS)  You'll be updated on the battles that distributions, gifts and more in this variant.

Battle Data (iOS) This can let you see how the competition is doing.  Using certain Pokemon, seeing which are at the top, and more.  Though this won't be on release day...likely next month.

Home Points (iOS) by inserting and extracting Pokemon you can gain Home points to trans fer into BP (Battle Points.)  Screenshots provided... the exchange rate is (and I can be wrong.) is 30 points PER Battle Point.

=

Now that the features are out, how about storage and the differences of price?

With Pokemon Home's “FREE” system you can only...

Store a box of Pokemon (thirty), send three Pokemon through wonder trade, get one Pokemon worked on in the Global Trade System, Partake only in other's Rooms of trading, and can't judge a Pokemon online.

^Meanwhile on the “Premium” version of the system...

You can have two hundred times as many storage boxes (six thousand); which is double Bank's (btw, you'll need this to take Pokemon out of bank.), Wonder trade ten Pokemon, go for three Pokmon in the GTS at once, host and enter the rooms of trading, and judge a Pokemon.  Also this is where you can take Pokemon from Bank to home.

AND after hearing all this you are wondering the price.  Well let me set it up for you. (NOTE: this is all in United States currency.  Your prices may differ so please use the exchange rate to find this value in your homeland.  Also I added 1 penny since it makes it easier to figure out.)

There's three flavors to pick from.

The Monthly munch, a tiny but pricey three dollars.  If you are wondering why this is the pricey one. Paying this twelve months straight will lead to you losing thirty-six dollars a year.

Next is the Seasonal slurp, it's a bit higher but at the same price as the bank you get three months of this powerful 'service'.  And adding it all up to a year that's about the price of one year of Nintendo Switch Online Pass.  (though trust me that has a lot more value than what is given credit for by many, even if it can be better compared to what is next is a god sent.)

And finally the Yearly YUM!  For one year you get all this for the price of sixteen dollars a year. NOW keep in mind what I said before but also are paying for.  At worst... it's forty-one per year and at best it is twenty-one dollars yearly.  Why the price hike?  You'll need bank in order to use it fully if you aren't trying to use the DLCs (which are coming up.) for this service.  Which might work if you had to keep in mind that if you leave someone behind, you might lose them if you don't fork over the coin.

Now I can hear people saying this: “It's a service, they have to make money in some method.”

Thing is, it was free in the past and they are also the LARGEST franchise in existence.  And yet the small team split their focus and… fudged everything after their failure for fudging up every bit of this game.  Graphical fails, animation fails, interaction drops to barely petting them.  For what?  Empty Story that refused to allow you to go see what's going on and just allow you to see the next gym; a wild “area” that is as barren as get out with barely any real life with bad graphics, barely a lot of Pokemon or people for that matter, and wonky weather systems that can be as random as dice, and you're Safari Zoned since you can't catch a Pokemon over your skill level; EXP love for everyone... NO matter what; and the most BROKEN GAME MECHANIC that ever existed.  And yet...that's not all.  It's time to see about the Island of Armor and the Frozen Tundra!

=

The Island of Armor is able to allow the following.

You get a new location that is likely more of a wild area as far as seen in the tropics to the west side of the region, you'll gain a new Pokemon Kubfu and it can evolve into Urshifu which can become Water/Fighting (Rapid Striker) or Dark/Fighter (One Striker) the Power to evolve the starters to be the drum machine with party hair, Goku riding a Flaming Jynn that is enough to gulp a mansion, and double zero seven now becoming the role of TF2's Snipper, new LOOT to allow one to do more than ever before, Move tutors... which is a bit of a requirement FOR competition play, and restricted battle play which probably is a problem since we don't know how it is restricted in 'sparring'.

As far as story content, you'll end up encountering Leon's teacher (when did this get hinted at?), Mustard who has an apprentice too who is aiming to craft a gym of their own. Though it'll be based on which version you roll with. (Klara for the blade wielders, Avery for the shield barriers.)  This is so far all we got with this.

Now for the Frozen Tundra's gifts to the world.

You get a new location that is far FAR south in the world that is also in a wild area (Is that the south pole of Pokemon?  Seriously?  I really wanna know.) so you'll be tasked with exploring this chilly place, a Mythical/Legendary by the name of Calyrex which looks like a fusion dance of Sawsbuck or Stantler and Celebi and it kind of went south, and... just a Co-op Mode to explore a certain space which probably isn't safe since mythicals are said to be in those spaces.

Now for the NEW stuff both got.

New regional forms (*looking to her personal project.*  Gahhhh!!!!  I got more to do?!?), Pokemon of the past rejoining the battle (*Hearing #BringBackNationalDex cheers*)...but not all of them sadly (*Hearing #BringBackNationalDex boo hard*) for now, New Pokedexes, New attire to wear for all you fashion fowls to wear, and new Dynamax/Gigantamax battles to be ready for in the Max Raid Rumbles.

More information will be sent out but keep this in mind that so far they have proven that they CLEARLY removed this since it was MONTHS since the release and already releasing new stuff just to revive their LOST content that was in the base.

“BUT Smash has this kind of stuff too and you didn't complain.  In fact, you're likely buying that stupid game's second pass while hating on this game that is giving you more!”

Very cute but wrong.  Let me explain why I was saying that.

Super Smash Brothers has made clear what they are doing, and even announced that they are adding more but will take time to do it since it might not be out in time for launch and they took care to balance it to work with the fighters ALREADY in the game which have old and new faces and returning heroes.  They shown they CARE for their community and even at times troll them. (...I got hate hammers for two in direct range: Incenaroar, and K.Rool.)  And they have made the passes more fair than buying them one by one.  So far each character is six dollars if you go solo and together they were twenty-five dollars together which cuts a dollar off of each.  With the second one it can be the same and it'll be worth it since the full game already has a lot of heroes, villains, and copies to pick from.  Clearly Super Smash Brothers Ultimate will be one of the largest fighting/party game line ups in video game history! 

Pokemon Sucker and Pokemon Snot meanwhile... was able to lie about what was going into the game, they have shown quality drops year after year in an attempt to get more money with not only making their games almost so far that competitive players are paying out the @$$ but heaven help the completionist that wants to get it all for the price of each of these games that have added up.  The total of all the Generation eight content has so far hit four-hundred and twenty-one dollars and this is using the price of having it all for at least the entire year.

“HEY!  Don't forget the Nintendo Switch Online stuff since you are having to use that in order to get the Pokemon for free if you aren't going to by the-.”

STOP right there!  STOP right there you piece of ignorance.  Nintendo's online service has problems but in NO instance is that a part of Pokemon since they did offer you the power to trade and play against others on it's own, and UNTIL that price is shown the this price can be higher and trying to say that the Nintendo Online Service is it then sorry but that has more things to do than just Pokemon and thus THIS will not be added.  Period and Exclamation POINT!

And before I forget, THANK YOU REAR ENDS FOR MAKING THE ONLINE SYSTEM A PAID SERVICE SINCE I KNOW YOU'VE CRIED FOR IT TO HAPPEN!  HOPE YOU LOVE IT...

Now back on topic, and getting near the end folks...how it is @$$ that a system that has so called more power, more pixels, and more controls than the 3DS is able to give less Pokemon, less interaction, less story, and less post game than what was given on generation six which was the most insulted of all next to generation five.  I can't help but feel this is the true greed of Game Freak, of Pokemon...and it's disgusting to the very bleeping bone.  I will never buy that trash, I'll never put it into my switch, and if anyone even thinks of getting me that game it will go right into the nearest GameStop and I'll be getting coin off of your stupidity because I rather not own something that I would not even feed a Trubbish with.

I rather be playing a mobile game than ever touch that Cr@P willingly.  And I have no love, respect, or heart to give for someone defending all of those practices, all of the things removed to be put into pieces of other things... and think they should be called a gamer.  So help me I rather break your game karts of that sh!t so it never enters the hands of someone naive again.  Maybe I should use them, erase their contents and put a BETTER game in it's place, especially if they aren't going to fix the version they flipped up.

{|=|=|=|}

BUT... since this is the internet, I know someone's got something to say about this that I'll be likely arguing over but then again this is where I know I'll get it.  So as a believer of what I feel, COME AT ME!!! in commentary down below As for me... this wild one runs away to get a shower in to cool off.  F@<K you Game FrEAk!