#thats just regular ol stigma!!

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

dont have aspd but i like never had emotional empathy growing up (yay mix of autism and childhood situations that caused me to unlearn/block off emotional empathy) and i've never felt remorse and i only get small twinges of guilt i can easily brush aside, but i watched drrr at age 17 and showed it to my family and having all of em be like "yo ur just like izaya" (my mum was like "yeah if i hadnt been super careful how i raised u, 100% u would've turned out worse than izaya" which. uh considering before izaya the chara i related most to was azula from atla. fun to hear). and it me caused me to be like "oh shit maybe i should like learn empathy". i didnt realise i had cognitive empathy or that it was even a thing so i spent a few years teaching myself emotional empathy and man it suuuucks. worst decision i ever made. now i spend time being like upset for other ppl? when i used to just, be able to intellectually understand things sucked for them and help em out w/o feeling anything and so i wasnt emotionally bothered/drained afterwards. whereas now i like, spend time crying over other ppl? exhausting and terrible. it hasnt improved me as a person at all, im dont actually care abt things any more than i used to, and i think cognitive empathy is by far the most useful and practical out of the two. im not saying u shouldnt listen to ur therapist, i just kinda wanted to get that off my chest and not be judged?

WANNA MAKE CLEAR i am not judging u i just have always always always wanted to use this meme for as long as i have known of its existence

and what ur describing is literally exactly why i worry abt emotional empathy and feeling remorse like. maybe i'm fine existing this way. maybe i don't want to be fixed!! i get that itd make me more palatable and easier to get along with or whatever but i'm a person too!! what about me?? everyone will have conflict at some point; what about me makes it so that all chances of that need to be hammered down?? i'm a person too- what about what i feel is right for my own emotional state???

fun facts my fiance liked me partly because i reminded him of izaya. idk if you know enough of my blog to know my Lore but: he knew me for a day thru roleplaying and i wanted to know him outside of a rp context, and he was talking abt liking psychology. i then challenged him to diagnose me, yaknow As You Do, and in a Public Server he went "oh you have aspd, don't you?" totally innocently, he had no idea abt the stigma

i ofc denied it because i wanted him to like me and also was sixteen, but oddly enuf the aspd traits are (partly) Why He Liked Me??? not in a fetishistic way but just like, accepting that was part of my personality that doesnt need to be hammered out and like, not acting like Total Full Remission It's Like It Was Never Even There is the only end goal worth chasing like. maybe i dont wanna fully remiss maybe thats my choice and i have fuckin, command over my own god damned mind body and life!!!???

also fwiw: i dont know the rest of your symptoms but you having autism and the symptoms coming from trauma don't negate the possibility that it's aspd so id suggest looking into it more! even if a therapist said you didnt have it, they can be kinda..... stupid about aspd lmfao! don't look on quora and don't look on reddit nothing good lies behind those walls

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers 

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title 

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything 

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life 

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic 

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’ 

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm 

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo 

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified 

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy 

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands 

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this 

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced 

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals 

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia 

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans 

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao 

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later 

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real 

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed??? 

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B) 

[tumblunni]

Huh! An Idea!

Hey I just heard about a very cool-seeming anime called (I think?) Rehibilitaion Of An MMO Junkie! It seems really nice cos its one of those stories about hikkomori (I think thats the japanese word for it?)- depressed people who stay at home all day and are socially anxious about going out in public. LOL RELATEABLE, AMIRITE? no but seriously beyond just Jokes, this is a very sad modern manifestation of a timeless mental illness, and i know these feelings well and i wish people could have less stigma about this and instead just give these people the help they need. And that’s why i love this anime concept, cos its a sympathetic take on one of these people as a protagonist, and how videogames as escapism can be A Good Thing and how long distance relationships Are Also Good. Like wtf, subverting all the cliches at once?? Its a really cute looking romance story of her meeting a guy online via vidjagaems, and their love being absolutely real and pure, and it rekindling her will to live and helping her find the courage to take more risks in real life and start the road to recovery. And then they work thru all their various issues as a couple and meet up in real life and have a happily ever after! :D

Now okay, that sounds really cool and I ABSOLUTELY want to watch this show and I will make more posts about it when I do! But also it gave me a bit of a story idea so i’m gonna ramble!!!!!

Okay so kind of a wasted potential thing here is how it has a plot about the two halves of the couple playing as the opposite gender online and like.. nothing is done with it? Nothing really creative or relevant to like.. gender. It just seems like a weird way they could invoke LGBT imagery but technically not be LGBT I guess? Like neither character is trans or has any deep reason for playing that character except ‘my fave colour is pink and people would make fun of me if they knew i was a dude’ and ‘i wanna play a hot guy cos i was kinda lonely and drunk when i saw this MMO’. But then a lot of stuff about it kinda feels like the writers were.. not predjudiced against LGBT or anything?? like the lady protag has NO angst about getting a crush on a seemingly female player, it seems perfectly acceptable in-universe and nobody even mentions homophobia. And there’s a pair of characters that for all extents and purposes looks like a gay couple for half of the game its just like a footnote that one of them is female in real life. So like I don’t know if this was someone being overly careful to censor stuff while still hinting at it, or like if it was never intended to look LGBT and it was all a weird accident?? But anyway thats why it made me go WTF THERE WOULD BE SO MUCH POTENTIAL IN AN LGBT MMO ROMANCE and hey here we go!

THE IDEA TIME what if there was an anime about someone who plays a (presumed) cis dude in an mmo who is actually a trans dude irl? so you could have the same plots about keeping a secret and having a big difference between real and internet personas, but also it could be a wish fullfillment persona and the plot could be less about ‘i’m lying about myself’ and more about ‘the only place i can be the real me is online’. And how sad that is and then how triumphant it could be at the end to be able to be himself in the real world too! and also like... its already coincidental enough that two people would fall in love in an mmo and then end up to be living in the same neighbourhood in real life. so if this anime has me have to believe that silliness, its not too silly to say that two trans people could bump into each other in an mmo! have a trans man and a trans woman who meet as their online personas without knowing either of them is trans, and then their adventures online forming their relationship, learning about each othr, and like meeting a bunch of other LGBT players and forming a guild to fight discrimination in the mmo community?

Also it could be interesting to maybe combine this with the ‘trapped in an mmo world’ genre? Like it’d be extra cool to be a trans dude who’s like.. one of the only people who doesnt want to escape the MMO world. And people could think he’s just a childish jerk who’s addicted to the fantasy life, not knowing about his secret reason he loves this new life. So maybe his personality could be a very ordinary and cute looking dude whose personality is like.. absolutely fearless monster battle man! Like everyone else’s mmo avatars are all super idealized cliche buff and hot people and his is just as close as he could get to his real self but post transition. So he’s five foot tall and chubby and has big ol soulful dragon ball Z krillin eyes and then his job class is something unfitting like gladiator or barbarian with an axe twice his body size! And then in retrospect that’s the most cliche masculine class so maybe the female lead could be a not cliche feminine class, so it doesnt seem like I’m making any statement? cos ‘youre not trans if you dont act stereotypically your gender’ is a real issue within the community, sadly. Oh! Maybe! Maybe theyre both buff classes! But like he could be a tank type that protects his allies and she’s just a regular warrior with no extra functionality. Or another DPS class like thief or black mage? But I like the idea of two very shy and adorable people who both prefer buffness, and then having kind of a badass hero role amoungst their guild and the plot itself. Like, winning the actual battles against bosses is less of a challenge than conquering their various real life worries and being emotionally ready to return home at the end of the journey. Its like a slice of life hiding as an action show! Except you still do see action, its just all comparatively effortless like one punch man. Oh and maybe while male lead made his avatar look just like himself but post transition, female lead’s avatar is kind of an exaggerated ideal stereotypical female thing? Because she’s self concious about being very tall and not very curvy and stuff, even post transition. And like she’s angsting about being forced into further cosmetic plastic surgery that she doesn’t really want, to get a body that she doesn’t really want, but feels like she HAS to have. Like maybe she has some sort of friend in real life who’s like a Fedora Wearing Fake Nice Guy who keeps trying to get her to give in and date him like ‘you’ll never get anyone else’, and trying to make her change herself. Negging champion of utter hateability!

And then female lead could be kind of a mentor role to male lead because she’s post transition, and motivates him to believe that someday he’ll be able to transition too and he doesn’t need to stay trapped forever in a fake world in order to be himself. And he could also be the same mentor role to her because he’s like... happy? Well, obviously he isn’t 100% happy because that’s his whole problem, but he doesn’t have the same social anxiety issues and he’s more confident in his anxiety without worrying that he’s wrong and he really is a girl, etc etc. Like he’s at peace with being trans and his obstacle is just feeling like he’ll never pass successfully without surgery, and never be able to get that surgery. It took him ages to even get on HRT, possibly because of something like being trapped in an abusive family that didnt aknowledge his gender? or possibly just because of being in a country where he’d need a lot of money to get the treatment he needs, or because of struggling to find a good doctor? So anyway now he’s just started HRT and he expected everything to be okay now, but he’s getting frustrated how long it’s taking to have the amount of visual change he needs to be respected by his coworkers and stuff, and now he’s had some sort of other money emergency and he may not be able to get top surgery in the end. So at the time of starting this MMO he was really un-optimistic about his future and looking for an escape. And she was looking for a similar escape because she didnt have any support group while transitioning, and had got trapped into an abusive relationship with this other dude that was making her feel like a fake woman who’d never be loved by anyone except him. So she was considering giving in and falling into his trap, and that’s her reason to be terrified of going back to the real world... And so they both are all OH MY GOD YOURE SO AMAZING I’M SO TRASH about each other, and they help teach each other two different aspects of self love that they were missing, and they make a bunch of other friends in the LGBT community, and generally find the love and support they always needed! And then in the end they could go back to the real world and move in together and slap negging man in the face, and keep in touch with all the other guildmates and create a better community for all queer folks playing this game! Woo! And also maybe the final scene could be like ‘wow we havent seen you guys for ages’ ‘yeah we were so busy with the wedding, we couldnt play!’ and then the guild’s wedding gift to them was saving up for a rare ingame item that lets you re-customize your character, and female lead makes one that looks closer to her real life appearance cos now she’s happy with herself! and then we pan out and see that male lead now also looks totally identical to his ingame self, and he did manage to transition in the end! ...and then i dunno, cliche anime everyone looks at the camera and jumps and the theme tune plays, lol