came and left suddenly

today I had a bit of an odd experience, while I've been in a mostly lower period of my depression, it's been a fairly mild one overall, but this morning, I seemed to be slipping into a pretty bad one, all the normal thoughts and urges of my worst depression spikes were rearing up, I did my best to try and focus on the book I was trying to finish before the new year, and a few hours later I was starting to normal out to how I've been recently.  I'm not sure how to take the experience, based on my feelings, and the general way it felt it seemed more like a depression spike then when I get sad, but i've never had a depression episode that was so short.

role playing

sorry I haven't' been on much been a bit lower on energy lately (probably stress) and much of my spare energy is spent on making a website for a family member (a paying albeit low paying job).

anyway I've been trying to RP more on the haven, like most forum rp's it can take a while to find one that fits you and that lasts, but I'm hopeful for the one I'm in right now.  As you may recall role playing does often tend to help me out, since it's one of the few times I can freely and fully express my feminine side.  Still I'd like to do it some more, and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with multiple forum rp's (though  am available for large chunks of time in the evening) so anyone out there feel up for an email or IM rp, I'm open for suggestions, or we could go with my Isabelle scenario (don't worry the rp will focus on your characters new discovery, Isabelle tends to be a secondary character in her rp's) I also have a few sci-fi settings I can throw out, but I don't have a lot of story ideas for them.

transgender day of remembrance

The 13^th International Transgender Day of Remembrance is being held on November 20^th 2011: Since 1999, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), on which those trans people who have been victims of homicide are remembered, takes place every November. The TDOR raises public awareness of hate crimes against trans people, provides a space for public mourning and honours the lives of those trans people who might otherwise be forgotten. Started in the USA, the TDOR is now held in many parts of the world. In the past, the TDOR took place in more than 180 cities in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
Sadly, this year there are 221 trans persons to be added to the list to be remembered, mourned and honoured as an update of the preliminary results of Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project reveals.
You can find a list with names and more detailed data here.

family and depression

I don't know how  to start this so with this awkward segue I think I'll just jump in.  recently I decided to post a comic on my Facebook it's not a comic I made but I felt it offered an important glimpse into what depression is like and I was hoping it could help clear up some of the many misconceptions about it.  (here's the comic for those that want to check it out http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html )

boy did this turn out to be a mistake, most people ignored it to then comment on some power rangers video odd pic that someone felt the need to post very shortly after my post. however those that did read it quickly started asking me invasive questions, told me I need to think positively and remember all the good things I have, ignoring the fact that the comic itself kinda points out that doesn't work and oblivious to the fact that all they're doing for me is adding guilt that almost put me in another bad spell of it. so for me lesson learned, I can't talk about my depression except with very few people who either now enough to not make it worse or at least won't get insulted when I say they're not helping.

I don't want to leave this on a downer so here are a couple of beautiful video's I found recently.

more assisans creed

hey I know it might seem weird talking about assassins creed in three posts in recent memory, but i thought I'd just share this little multilayer trailer for the upcoming game

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ultimate-templar-assassins-creed/723599

now I know I might be making two much out of this but a few of the lines of dialog has me hopeful that there trying to make the Templar more like the one's in the first game aka, giving them some moral ambiguity, by making their ultimate goals something positive rather then just personal gain like it was in the last two games. 

cross over fan fic

I normally don't indulge in cross over fan fiction, I often think of a scene or two but I give them very little thought (truth be told I'm not much of a fan fic fan in the fist place) but I had a little idea a bit ago I think there are a few interesting dynamics that are worth exploring, and I may try to do this at some point with my own characters in an original setting.

the basic premise is that one of the assassins from assassins creed (I'd prefer altair over etzio but one from the modern age may work best) somehow goes to gotham city and eventually meets batman.  it would probably work best if it started off from batmans point of view and altair's introduction was after batman started examining the death of his targets.  as un batman as it may seem, having batman be unaware of the nature of the assisnation victims until after he'd met altair, not that altair would tell him. this provides some immediate conflict and should give a nice fight/chase scene,  perhaps with some nice dialog at workable points.  after this encounter batman would start digging into the victims and discover what they were really up to and here is were I think most of the story would take place.

I think what I like most about this story is the morals at play, batman may not be the perceived to be as big of a moral paragon as say, superman. but he still lives by a very strict unbending ethical code, most notably not killing people, and while the assassins do kill people, they seem to have a small tinge of regret about it and very strict rules not to kill the innocent (even if players like to violate this rule themselves).  so contrasting the assassins willingness to kill hundreds to improve the lives of millions or billions, would make a great contrast with batmans strict moral code that sometimes ends up in civilians suffering (how many people have suffered because the joker escapes).  you also might be able to explore some interesting possibilities with how much effort batman puts into pursuing the assassin since he only kills these bad people and batman presumably has other criminals and supervillians he could pursue.

unfortunately I'm not too familiar with batmans character (watched the old cartoon show, talk with a lot of people who read his comics but I haven't read them myself) to fully explore batmans reaction to it, one of the major reasons I think I want to do something like this with my own characters, but with my own characters I have the problem of trying to establish how strict the moral codes of both characters are, without bogging down the story.

pony tail

so I've been growing my hair out lately, it's gotten pretty unruly for the most part, but I started pulling it back into a pony tail, ti's still a guy pony tail, but I'm hoping I'll be able to use this to eventually have long hair.

been spending a lot of time on youtube lately

don't entirly know why, this isn't just a depressive episode like normal, I think having to move in with my dad is just kinda crushing my creative side.  but while I'm here I figured I'd highlight one youtbe account I found recently that I'm really enjoying, I haven't watched all the videos on her account but I love what I've seen, I'll link a few of my favorites, but I recomend checking out more, though be warned she she is an atheist so if your very religious you may want to avoid some of the videos that involve religion.

this is the first video of his I found and it's actual a very nice explanation of transhumanism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLyXeXH_igI&feature=related

after watching a few video's about gay rights I often get worried that they'll mishandle trans issues (sadly I've seen just as much trans hate in gay and lesbian communities as is stereotypically associated with Christians) so I think my real love for her channel started with these two videos on trans issues http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ&feature=related  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvOe15a4pN0&feature=related

and finally a makeup tutorial.  A GREAT makeup tutorial, she doesn't show you how to do some complicated look with eyeshadow, she just shows some basics it's an actual getting started video containing information that i've had a lot of trouble finding before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRSDA6b10NQ&feature=feedf

Dragon age (I will misspell many things about the games)

alright, I feel like doing something a little light hearted, so I figured I'd look at the dragon age series in a similar way to my recent looks at assassins creed.  this time I think I can do it without spoilers, but I am going to be discussing some themes and the like.

unlike assassins creed I feel that even in terms of story the two games are on fairly equal terms, though with very different strengths and weaknesses.  I'll go ahead and start with some of the things DA2 did better.  first and foremost would be characterization, while dragon age origins had great characters I believe the characters in DA2 got a lot more time to shine and were noticeably less cliche. the story is also much more focused on the hero, truly letting you feel how Hawke managed to climb from the status of an anonymous refugee (and in my chase apostate dodging the templars) to a hero.

right there is one problem with DA:2 you rise to the ranks of a hero, and the game kinda ends hoping to be picked up in a sequel, to put it simply you see a great view of the rise of the hero but very little of the full hero's journey.  this also makes it to were the scope of the game takes a hit, it wasn't until I was watching some clips from origins that took place in orzimar, and remembered how big that one city felt, and it's not even the only city you visit.  you got a sense that you were trying to save the entire land of fereldan, were in DA2 the town of kirkwall is the only place ever seemingly at risk.

however on a technical level I do think DA2 outperforms the original,  I kinda hate to admit this but while playing the original game I switched the difficulty to easy, not because I was having trouble in the fights, but the fights were so repetitive and samey that I just wanted to speed through them to continue the story. were as the fights in DA2 were much better done, and a little touch I really appreciated as a mage, when it goes to a cut scene to show you taking down a big baddy, it actually has your character acting more inline with their class, and i got to see my mage in cinematic cut scenes summoning fire to kill dragons, rather then watch them suddenly take up a sword.

had to move back in with my dad

it's why I missed last week, and I'm still working on getting settled in (would be going a lot faster but you know the drill) hopefully I'll have something substantial soon.

aliens

ok this is a little thought experiment I had a little while ago, what brought it about was that I was tired of seeing sci fi that always used our concept of male and female (and often even our secondary sexual charecteristcs like breasts) on aliens, it seemed rather arrogant to even in fiction always have sex and gender of creatures from diffrent planets or realities, mirror our concept of sex and gender.  so I wanted to come up with a species that didn't mirror that, further more as I feel is the case with the best sci-fi I wanted to come up with plausible reasons why the creatures took an evolutionary path like I hard rather then just say "this is what their like" so here's what I came up with.

the species is divided into four group,  any member of any group can produce an offspring by mating with any member of any other group.  each group is actually adapted to handle the harsh conditions of one of the four seasons on a planet were the conditions season to season vary so widely that their adaptation is to have most of the species enter a shelter and a period of little activity (similar to hibernation but not quite), while the subset best adapted for the current environment, provides for the rest.  off spring are typically carried by an inactive member of the species unill the baby is born. 

deus ex

ok before I get started I just want to send a quick thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes or showed their support in some way, it means a lot more to me then I could ever express.

I've been playing a lot of deus ex human revolution lately (spent money I barely have and shouldn't have spent to get it), it's been helping me keep my mind out of a sudden depression spike.  but I have to say the game is fantastic, I may have been caught off guard by a boss fight has a stealth/non-lethal combat character.  what impresses me the most is this constant theme about the morality and philosophies of human augmentation, both arguments for and against are regularly featured with Adam Jensen himself being some one who's live was saved by cybernetic prosthetic. and for those of you thinking it's only an intellectual exercise, they've already got chips to interact with the brain/nervous system, it's incredibly basic right now, but a time when these questions start relating to real life is probably closer then you'd think. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/pax-2011-deus-ex/719894

prepare for angry and ranty

I know I made a post on saturday, but this happened yesterday and I really need to get it off my chest.  I'll put it behind a cut so if you don't want to read it you don't need to see any part of it.

reasons why digimon is better then real life

when the good guys are loosing, the good guys grow jet packs and rocket launchers. 

my writing

just thought I'd make a quick post on my writing, my cheesy erotic piece is coming slowly but it is coming. and so far it has seemed to help with my desire to write. and not in just the momentum way I was originally thinking, I think I was starting to get a little burn out on my cyberpunk piece since I really want it to be good, so much to the point were even though I only had a few pages I already had scrapped that to completely rewrite the opening.  so taking a break and writing something simple and cheesy seems to have helped me put the more enjoyable parts of writing, while I still plan to focus on the sexy one for now, I think I might end up switching between the two pieces, both to keep things rolling on my cyberpunk piece and so that I minimize the risk of the sexy piece feeling like a chore.

asssians creed

before I get started I just want to direct everyone to the humble indie bundle #3 there's only a few days left on it, it's pay what you want, a portion goes to charity (the rest goes to small independent game studios which is also a nice plus) and you get 7 great games that can run on just about any system (independent studios typically can't make games that really tax modern computers, though you might have trouble running them on a netbook).


today since I want to mostly work on homework, work on my story, or play the bundle (thank you Jennifer )  I figured I'd give some quick thoughts on the assisans creed serious,  so spoiler warning: for the first and second game, I'll try to avoid talking much about brother hood, but I still might give info about the first hour or so of play.  

now I fully admit the first game has problems, there was a lack of side missions and you were required to complete several per assassination, resulting in a lot of repetition (that being said I loved the environment so much I did all of them).  these problems were addressed in the second game.

however overall I can't help but feel that the first game was better, they may have fixed the repetition problem but I believe they lost some character in the process. at first I loved ezio, but in assassins creed two, he's content to spend his entire life searching for revenge, and never seems to appreciate the bigger picture of what's going on even after it was directly reviled that he was to play a very important part.  Altair though had a very strong arch, he starts off in the game fairly arrogant and breaching the philosophy of his brotherhood, by the end of the game, he seemed to have a deep understanding of what the assisans stood for, and knew how his actions affected those in his brotherhood.

another place they lost characterization is in the Templar themselves, I love that each target has a chance to monologue while on their death bed. it gives a great sense that the assassins aren't in this just for blood.  in the first game, most of the Templar seemed to actually want to  help the people they had power over (they did it in bad ways but their intentions seemed good) there was one exception and that made him an extremely satisfying target.  when we reach assisans creed two, the moral ambiguity is gone even though ezio's reasons for killing are are far less noble, they compensate by making the Templar unambiguously evil and greedy for power. 

cartoon superhero's

ok before I get into this topic I just want to get something out of the way, if you came here from ask.com and are looking for Jennifer's TG caps of defiance you can find the link here and always in my sidebar to the right.  also for the record I wasn't ripping on ask.com for the sake of it, people looking for jennifers blog have always been one of my highest sources of visitors from search engines, and after the recent upgrade to Google analytics I found out they ALL came from ask.com and they were the only ones from ask.com.  so next time think about using Google or yahoo, ask is not a very well written search engine.

now a lot of the people following this blog know that I'm just now getting into comic books, but I do have something of a passing familiarity with a lot of the characters. some of this is due to being a fan of linkara who mostly reviews the bad comics but details from other characters can still pop up.  most of my knowledge about the characters comes from the 90's cartoons though, batman, superman, spiderman, and the x-men, spent a log of time with all of these shows. even know that I'm approaching my mid 20's I still enjoy these shows (re watching them on netflix).

however I haven't been a fan of a lot of the more recent ones, super hero squad does such a through killing of the charecters so to have hulk literally bawl like a baby. both the batman and the latest spiderman shows horrible respect for their source material (seriously there's a line in the batman that says, before the supervillans showed up gothem was officially the most crime free city in the world, and aside from a specific crime scene, gotham is portrayed as a bright and peaceful looking near utopia) and while wolverine and the x-men didn't look too bad I don't like that they felt the need to stress wolverine so much. so outside of the movies (both animated and live action).

which leads me to the few exceptions, fantastic four earths greatest hero's and more recently the avengers earth's mightiest hero's. I'll mostly be talking about the avengers since it's the one I found recently.  while there are a few problems with it, mostly in the forms of toning down the characters flaws to make it more "child friendly" (this is probably most obvious with iron man) I still find it entertaining and fairly real to the characters otherwise. which leads me to the last thing I want to comment on their theme song (check it out). it might be a little cheesy, but it still seems to fit, and I find myself enjoying it a lot.

the internet

OK I want to start by stating that I don't believe all technology is truly neutral while I can't think of any tech that I would be comfortable banning all together. I believe some tech lends itself naturally to societal or individual progress and comfort, and some tech lends itself to a more destructive nature and good can come from that tech with discipline and control.

Now the reason I'm bringing this up is because ATnT's cap isn't a unique thing, Canada has to deal with a lot of bandwidth cap, you add to the fact that net neutrality is something that still pops up from time to time  (the most recent attempt at ending net neutrality being the aptly named internet freedom bill). and these trends scare me, I know has a tech geek this may seem a bit cliche but I truly belive the internet is one of the greatest things people have ever made (possibly the greatest). i've seen it allow people a voice to people who otherwise wouldn't, I've seen unite communities of people who might otherwise think they were completely alone.  it has been a true force of change, and has allowed information of all sorts to become easily assessable. and I belive we are only scratchign the surface of the impact it might have in our world (possibly one of the reasons I'm a cyberpunk fan).

these policies are a direct detriment to that, companies who start charging per bit instead of upgrading the network slow down the evolution and growth of the internet, possibly to the point of halting it altogether.
the effects of ending net neutrality could be even worse, if the architecture of the net is changed so that only large corporations are capable of significant web presence then the beauty I see in the net will quickly be lost, possibly even converted into a detrimental force in the world at large.

sorry for the lecture, and I'll try to have something less soap boxy next week, but this has been on my mind for a while, and it feels great to get it off my chest.

sex

well my computer's back and settled so I suppose it's time to get back to regular updates. and because it's been on my mind I'm going to give a rare post that actually earns the adult content warning I put on the blog.

last time I talked about this I mentioned that I'm a virgin and that still hasn't changed so this will mostly cover my solo experiences, you have been warned.

first I'll give an odd confession while I do masturbate I actually don't think of myself as enjoying it. they main reason I continue to do it is because I've learned that my body does have physical when I try going a long time without it I get stressed more easily, my headaches become more frequent and eventually my body can become more ache (it starts around the shoulders). to add to it, I very rarely experience what I'd refer to as "sexual attraction" based solely on some one's appearances, something some one says is far more likely to trigger that reaction then any way the look dress or act. to put this in perspective, I have probably spent more time fawning over linkara (who is a comic book expert and my fawning started when he nerded out about star trek) and iron liz (who is a very avid pen and paper RPG reviewer) (two people who do entertaining albeit low budget shows on the Internet), while they are by no means unattractive I think it's fair to say wouldn't exactly rank as high as say movie stars or super models in terms of being conventionally attractive.

I think these two things is the main reason why I read caps, when I actually am looking for some erotic story or imagery I need a lot more then just imagery but I don't want to sit and dwell on something for a long time. this has also lead me with very little explorations of my sexual interest or sexuality beyond just discovering a few big ones while I read. but there is a major exception to this, and that's my submissive side.

now I want to stress that there is a lot more to submissiveness and submission then just the sexual fetish involved and it would be doing a disservice to a lot of people to say that it is always about sex or little more then sex, but fact remains that it's difficult to explore without running into a fair amount of sex.

wow long winded rant and only now am I getting to the point, right now I'm going through another phase of attempting to explore this part of myself, the locked in lace forum has some sort of sub or off shoot site called the isle of submission, were I've started role playing, and last night I had another idea. I think I might start writing my first sexually explicit story, I have a lot of scenes I've already started planning out and I have most of the main characters planned (though I'm still trying to decide if I should include magic) while I normally want to avoid stories that are so blatantly self insert I think this might help me out in the long run, both in terms of finding an outlet, and hopefully letting me slide back into writing (there are still a few non sexual stories I want to work on)>

computer trouble, going to be out for a bit

title says it all, my computers down, and I have limited access to working computers, so I might not be able to blog for a bit.

ups and downs

so things have been a bit up and down lately, mostly down it would seem, but frankly it's surprising I don't feel a lot worse then I do.

for a brief run down the bad weekend I mentioned a couple of posts back was quickly followed by my landlords telling me to get out, I have some time to find a new place, but it's only been about 6 months since the last time I was kicked out of a place (I swear I'm not a bad tenant, both times it's been the land lords finances) worrying about a place to stay is one of the primary reasons why I even bother staying in this state, so when my housing situation ends up being this unstable I spend a lot of time thinking why don't I just get in my car pick a direction and then try my luck somewhere else (without a place to stay, knowing anything about the area, or even much money for basics).

the good news, I found a potential house in just a few days I'm still waiting for full conformation so I'm trying not to get my hopes too high up but this would work out very nicely and has been keeping my stress low.  and while there wasn't anything to alleviate the bad weekend stuff, something did happen that helped put a little hole in my normal depression. basically this, http://venatus.tumblr.com/post/6308720276/that-post-about-wanting-to-date-someone-on-tumblr-i  the girl who left that ask can be found here http://thenakedfemme.tumblr.com/  picture here http://thenakedfemme.tumblr.com/post/6328354128  (sorry for the link spam in this part) it may seem petty, but thoughts that I'm pretty much destined to spend my life alone does tend to be a common companion during my depressive episodes, so hearing that somebody would like to date me, even if she couldn't for a number of reasons did mean a lot to me. 

trans community needs help

I'm grabbing this specfic part from the haven but I've seen the same thing float around a few times, please read this the American Psychiatric Association is getting ready to make some changes that will severely hurt trans people and especially gender variant non trans people

By Kelley Winters, PhD 
May 28, 2011

On May 5, the American Psychiatric Association released a second round of proposed diagnostic criteria for the 5th Edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). These include two categories that impact the trans community: Gender Dysphoria (formerly Gender Identity Disorder) and Transvestic Disorder (formerly Transvestic Fetishism).

While GID has received a great deal of attention in the press and from GLBTQ advocates, the second transvestic category is too often overlooked. This is unfortunate, because a diagnosis of Transvestic Disorder is designed to punish social and sexual gender nonconformity and to enforce binary stereotypes of assigned birth sex. It plays no role in enabling access to medical transition care for those who need it, and it is frequently cited when care is denied.http://www.gidreform.org/blog2010Oct15.html

I urge all trans community members, friends, care providers, and allies to call for the removal of this punitive and scientifically unfounded diagnosis from the DSM-5.
The current period for public comment to the APA ends June 15.

The entry in the current DSM on Transvestic Disorder, like the former entry on Transvestic Fetishism, is authored by Dr. Ray Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly known as the Clarke Institute). Blanchard has drawn outrage from the transcommunity for his defamatory theory of autogynephilia,
http://www.gidreform.org/blog2008Nov10.html
asserting that all transsexual women who are not exclusively attracted to males are motivated to transition by self-obsessed sexual fetishism.

He is canonizing this harmful stereotype of transsexual women in the DSM-5 by adding an autogynephilia specifier to the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?ri...

Worse yet, Blanchard has broadly expanded the diagnosis to implicate gender-nonconforming people of all sexes and all sexual orientations,
even inventing an autoandrophilia specifier to smear transsexual men.
Most recently, he has added an "In Remission" specifier to preclude the possibility of exit from diagnosis.
Like a roach motel, there may be no way out of the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis once ensnared.

What You Can Do Now

1. Go to the http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=189
APA DSM-5 website, click on "Register Now," create a user account, and enter your statement in the box.
The deadline for this second period of public comment is June 15.

[NOTE: Safari may not load that web page. Use Firefox or another Browser instead]

2. Sign the Petition to Remove Transvestic Disorder from the DSM-5,
sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education.
http://dsm.ifge.org/petition/


3. Demand that your local, national, and international GLBTQ nonprofit organizations
issue public statements calling for the removal of this defamatory Transvestic Disorder category from the DSM-5.
So far, very few have.

4. Spread the word to your networks, friends, and allies.

http://www.gidreform.org/blog2010Oct15.html for More Information

Cross-posted with additional comments at the
http://gidreform.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/transvestic-disorder-the-...
GID Reform Advocates Blog.

Visit PINKessence at: http://pinkessence.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

bad weekend

well I just got home after attending my sisters graduation party and let me just say I hope everyone reading this had a better weekend then me.  for a few highlights, stress depression and sleep deprivation started peaking around the same time till I had to find a private spot to blast some music and cry a little, and my dad got drunk and quite possibly ensured some cousins I like are never coming down again.  so yeah sorry not in the mood to make a bigger post right now but I'll try to be a little more positive next week.

it's strange loosing a friend.

so yeah, the friendship between me and the person I mentioned in my "not on tap post" is officially over. it's an awkward feeling, I do feel a bit bad about it, but at the same time this is the same girl who regularly ignored me, called me a bad friend when that made me insecure, and made me not saying bad things about myself a requirement just for talking to her and then weeks later tried to send me uplifting video's and trying to build a supportive relationship. I really can't be played with like that and as such, even though a part of me is sad to see the friendship officially cut off, I'm very relived and glad that it is.

glasses

ok I have about three topics I'd like to talk about, but energy seems to be a bit low lately. hopefully I'll get to them soon.  in the mean time the title says it all.  looks like I'm probably going to be getting a pair of glasses soon.  I haven't seen the optometrist yet (appointment this wensday) but based on how well I could see the stage compared to other family members at a show I saw a few days ago it's pretty probably I'll be getting something. though I'm not sure what, my child hood history indicated I'd need reading classes when I got older, but now it looks like I may be near sighted.

either way I've started looking into what to get. I don't know a lot of the options out there but my insurance does cover scratch resistant lenses, so that one's pretty much a given. I'll have to check on how much transition lenses cost, there not covered but it would be handy to have a ready pair of sunglasses for driving.  and the part I'm the least familiar with, the frames. my insurance will cover up to $130 for the frames but I don't even know were to start with those, for now I'll probably just take a look at what they  have available were I'm getting my eye's checked.

gamerisms

just a short post this weekend but I wanted to say I've been inviting to be a member of a corroborative blog on tumblr with a number of wonderful people, the blog is called gamer isms, and it's primarily going to be a gaming news/editorial place, but with the exception that were building it to be a safe space. so if your tired of hearing "make me a sandwich" 'jokes' or using the word gay like an insult within gaming communities it should be worth checking out.

http://gamerisms.tumblr.com/

not on tap

something's been running thorugh my mind lately so hopefully you don't mind if I use this to clean up a few cobwebs that have been hanging out in my head.  just a few things to keep in mind,  the fact that this is coming up now is a good thing, a few years ago I wasn't able to recognize this and tended to blam myself for everything (still blame myself for 99% of it but hey it's progress).  I'm just barely now coming to realize some of the problems with my last romantic relationship (a relationship that happened years ago) it wasn't the only thing wrong with the relationship, however it was a pretty big one, and I think I only recently realized it because in the guise of a "friendship" she's still treating me like this.

I know she's not doing it maliciously but she treats me as if my energy and emotions are on tap for her, she bears little to no regard for ignoring me for small things even after I've expressed concern about it. yet (especially while we were dating) she seems to always expect me to be available, even if she was just bored.  yes she would offer emotional support and the like sometimes, but it rarely had anything to do with when I needed it, and I suspect much more to do with when she decided she was up to it. and keep in mind, she knew about a lot of the problems I had, a very emotional blog post on the haven was effectiveness what started that relationship. I know it might not come off very well in a blog post, especially since I fully understand how sometimes you just can't muster up much energy, sometimes even for important things, so you'll have to take my word that what she did was not just a few isolated incidents, it was the norm, and her volunteering any energy or even willing to listen to me when I was having problems were rare.

a little confession

alright, I’m bored and my depression is spiking so I’m going to get something off my chest, this is something I’ve felt kinda guilty for doing but I know I shouldn’t. very very very minor spoilers for mass effect and dragon age games.
I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a good romance, though I rarely like them to be the focus of the story and hate it more when it feels forced in.  I’m also a video gamer and an avid role player (pen and paper and forum play by posts included).  and one thing bioware as been doing a great (though far far from perfect) job of doing lately is opening up more role playing options and romance options within that.

the two have been a great combination for me, and a great chance to express myself.  the problem is that my characters always go for the same type of guys, in mass effect it’s kaiden, never winter nights two (not bioware but it was based off there work) it was cassivir, dragon age two it was Anders (alister came close for the first game but he doesn’t quite fit) these are all protective guys, kaiden especially talks about how he wants to protect your charecter and they all talk about how they don’t want to see any harm come the charecter.  now my characters are not weak women in dragons age 2 my version of hawke stood in front of a man twice her size and as a mage challenged him to one on one combat (mages are not made for going into a fight alone) my version of shepard has talked (face to hologram) to entities so old and powerful as to be on the edge of comprehension, and she’s done this without flinching and telling them that she will not go down without a fight, and that they better be ready to find her fighting back at every instances.  and in all these games it is quite easily my character saving her love interest despite how I like the conversation to go once there somewhere safe.

I know that since I do my best to bring these characters to life and flesh them out to be real 3 dimensional characters this shouldn’t feel like paradox but the constancy of this has always gotten to me a little.  also one of the things that annoys me is that I have yet to come across a female character with those sorts of dialogue options I would love to see a girl character in one of these games fill that romance role.

update on escapism and cats

ok still trying o pull myself up, though I do seem to be climbing, so i've been having trouble coming up with full topics for blog posts, so here's a few updates on previous posts.

one is my cat, thanks to a vacuum kind of spot cleaner and finding a spray that seems to work for the carpenter (thanks to my good good friend jennifer) I think my cat is safe, the landlords still don't like it so he's on very shaky ground but there no longer actively telling me I can't have him.

second is that I think I gave the wrong impression in my escapism post, while I admit I overindulge in gaming and escpaism while my depression is flaring, I think I pretty much have it under control when my depression isn't killing my functionality. and when my depression flares I need the distraction, if I'm not gaming it's typically only a matter of time before I start doing things like literally researching how to suscessfully kill myself, I know why some of the common methods fail and I've spent time looking how to do them effectivly, and spent time thinking about where I could go to do it that would take the longest for them to find me (ideal situation being not finding me at all) and while I enjoy stuff like writting or reading, I basically need to build up momentum before they manage to occupy enough of my head to sufficiently keep those thoughts out, otherwise a part of my brain brings them up and before you know it, I'm thinking more about sucide then what I'm trying to read. gaming as the advatage of drawing me in sufficently right away.

furthermore I don't think I use it to avoid other things, if there's something specific on my mind I usually find a way of trying to deal with that (often thanks once again to my friend Jennifer) but a lot of times it's not stuff that I can, sometimes it's self esteem issues, and sometimes it's just the sadness thoughts of death, so I welcome anything that can bring something else into my head.

escapism

sorry the posts have been really low lately, my depression is flaring up and I've been needing a lot of caffine just to stay functional for my homework so getting around to blog posts as been an uphill battle. and has per my usual when I'm not drowning in caffeine and homework during a depression I click on some video games, spent a little more money on them recently then I probably should have.  I know burying myself in video games probably isn't the best course of action but it's one of the few things that involve me enough to keep the darker thoughts out of my head, it really wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that dragon age 2 got me through the last couple of weeks.  hopefully I'll be a bit better next week and have something a bit more substantial.

cats

sorry for the short post but I just got news that I probably won't be able to keep one of my cats. since he's already sick the chances of finding him somewhere else to live are pretty slim, practically zero.  so it pretty much means I'll have to put him down soon.  and that fact is kinda hitting me hard, my cats have been one of the few constants in my life since I got them, and out side of meds one of the few things helping my depression (it's pretty much them and a very close friend who I can only communicate with via messenger).  sorry, I don't know what else to say, but yeah, the news has hit me pretty hard.

"your so much more then trans" but you'd never say that to a doctor.

this blog post is inspired by a little incident that happened between me and some one else recently, and if your reading this, it's not aimed at you, rather the incident reminded me of several others, and I think it's probably a larger problem in society.

the basic premise of this problem is that I've seen a lot of people say things like "your not a transsexual your so much more, your creative intelligent etc etc" or "why do you define yourself as gay, there's so much more to you then just your sexuality" this always struck me as odd, after all I've never met someone who's gay or trans who would themselves say that by identifying as such there identifying ONLY as such, and I've never been able to see any reason why identifying as trans or gay would by it's nature exclude those things.  the odd thought process that goes behind these sorts of statements was highlighted once I realized that no one as ever said anything similar when I identify as a gamer, a nerd, aspiring computer programmer.

this leads me to a fairly frightening conclusion.  the reason the phrase is suppose to be a compliment is because trans or gay or the like still have a negative connotation. naturally the idea that these things are still looked down upon isn't surprising or a revelations in the least. What is, is that people who are normally sympathetic, still in some deep part of there psyche have trouble seeing people beyond those identities, that there is some how a mental block in them that once someone says there trans they have trouble seeing anything more then a serious of stereotypes surrounding gay or trans people,  like I said in the title and earlier, people would never say something like this when talking about a doctor or an artist, and I don't know of anyone who would say a doctor is incapable of being a writer or singer a well. but when I identify as transsexual, or others identify as homosexual is suppose to suddenly become a big compliment that were seen as more.  though I hate to center so much on the recent incident I had I think I'll close out with an exert from the last messeage I sent to that friend, it may not be the best way to say what I said but I think it captures an emotional essence I felt at the time that would be difficult for me to duplicate. I sent this directly after she had told how I was so much more then just a transsexual, and seemed to think I was clinging to that identity in a way that was isolating me from others. 

"but it's not something I've ever felt confined to, knowing what it is as actually given me great hope, i've found a community of others with similar experiences and I have bonded/started to bond with many of them and the idea that I may be able to one day look in a mirror without hating everything I've seen (I can get pretty graphic here, but I'll hold off)

i've never identified myself as just a transsexual or even as just a trans woman, but none the less that identity is a very vital part (emphasis part) of who I am."


I am nerd, I am geek, I am gamer, I am some one who pretends they have writing talent, and yes I am also trans and so much more, but it is not a compliment to tell me I am not something thing, just because I am many things.

black widow

so I've been trying (and slowly) getting into comics recently, it started off with me tracking down some of the marvel ultimates line since (has I recently discovered) there suppose to be something of a retelling/re-imagining of the marvel hero's, for the most part the characters are the same but starting off in modern times and free of continutity.

anyway to make a long story short some of what I read prompted me to track down some comics of black widow in the main marvel line so far I've read a trade paper pack of her's called deadly orgin seems like a good place to start if you want to learn about her, didn't have a lot of action scenes but showed a lot of scenes from her history, basically giving an abridged version of her history (as far as I can tell).

and most surprisingly I felt myself connecting and emphasizing with her a lot more then I thought I ever would with a superhero character, if you don't know much about black widow the follwoing might be considered spoilers, but it is all pretty much back story stuff, still be warned.

I found I oddly connected with her plight of feeling fractured, and having spent so long being told who she was that she's having trouble feeling like herself, or like a whole person.  in her case there were even refrences to things being done to her head, which may have made her think that she was something she wasn't (in her case a balarina).  obviously I don't know exactly what it's like, but the basic theme of loosing yourself to what your told you are, and spending time trying to piece your own basic identity together was something I found myself emphasizing with a good deal, and now I'm really looking forward to reading more of her stuff.

quick update

so a few thing have happened since my last blog, nothing major but a number of small things.

one I got my second cat back, I was really happy about it at first but the two seem to hate eachother suddenly, I'm hoping it's temorary and that they'll go back to there friendly selves soon.

I was very recently contacted by an old friend who I figured wasn't willing to put any effort or energy into our friendship, so I'm kinda happy about that, but a little cautious since she might easily go back into that attitude.

and I did one of my nerdiest things on tumblr and made a blog dedicated to random thoughts from across the Borg collective please check it out share it, and feel free to submit to it, i'd love to start posting stuff on there that came from other people. (I've also included a picture of one of my recent jokes on the blog)  http://assimilationponderings.tumblr.com/

just venting

it should be fairly obvious by now that I consider my online spaces to be some sort of safe space for me and my issues. today I'm going to be taking advantage of that and I'll be venting a little about one particular individual, who I won't name, but has consistently pretended to be a friend (even after I made it clear I didn't care for the friendship) but as attacked me, claimed I couldn't really be trans unless I obsessed over one thing she obsessed over, continually asks me questions that are very hurtful to me, even after I have answered the question, explained the situation isn't going to change, and explained numerous times that it is a very harmful question for me, and when I have the gall to get upset when she asks it for the 12th time (I think I'm lowballing it) accused of being bitchy and being in PMS.

it should be quite clear that this person is obviously deeply misogynistic, what with the whole "upsetting questions make you upset, change your tampon" (she actually did say stuff like change your tampon) and her claiming that I can't really be a woman if I don't obsess over her (traditionally girly) interest. but is also incredibly rude and has no sense of respecting another human being. I think what annoys me the most is that just when I think she's gotten the picture on something she some how always comes back with the same annoying attitude and the same fucking question.  the reason this came up today is that she recently started trying to re-initiate contact with me, and the same day, when I simply gave some info to a question she posed to a comunity she STILL managed to come at me.  it's gotten to the point were I can't be sure if she's really that dense, or if she is trying to bully me, and in fact I've considered reporting her on the claims of bullying.

I'll admit there are multiple people I don't get along with, happens to everybody, most people I simply hope not to see.  I know this girl from an online community/safe space and she has the honor of being the only person I would ever want to leave or be booted off that place.

birthday

my birthday was a couple of days ago so now I'm officially 24 years old, as such I've made the joke "still not old enough to rent a car" a number of times in the last few days.

all in all I think I had a pretty good birthday, i've been doing less and less for my birthday since I got out of high school, and this year if it weren't for my parents taking me out to a birthday dinner and movie I wouldn't have done anything but I got a few good meals and managed to see both black swan (great movie, a lot more sex then I was expecting though) and green hornet (funny movie) I also got some of my favorite food which I'll be slowing eating, unfortunately I'll be eating it slowly because pineapple always gives me sores not to try and make it last longer.

in the next couple of weeks I hope to have a post with some more detail about my struggle with depression but to be honest, those posts are really hard for me to get out, when I have the energy to type them everything in me doesn't want to dwell on the thoughts but when the thoughts are there anyway I don't have the energy to type, but in the long run getting them out there has helped tremendously in the long run so I'll try and get something typed up.

tron

so I saw the new tron movie a little while back, and while I admit it wasn't the deepest story out there I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it (and I've been playing the opening narration about the grid more then most people could handle), it had wonderful visuals and great action scenes and story wise felt like a true successor to tron, which I admit I only saw a few years back when Disney decided to air it on TV (around the time they released kingdom hearts 2 and I still wonder if that was coincidence or if they purposefully did that).  they even had a number of good nods to computer science while they were still in the real world, real UNIX commands were actually used (any one wondering were the kill -9 thing came from) and even the sound track was very enjoyable even if it seemed like daft punk had to write most of the music to fit has background music instead of stand alone tracks. and I really hope they go through with there plans of making more of these, I've even heard rumors of them making an animated series to act as a bridge between the original and the new one.

but lets face facts, I am a giant nerd, I consider myself to barely know UNIX commands yet I was still able to catch a few they used, and being the giant computer nerd any movie about somebody being sucked into a computer world is probably going to have to work really hard to make me not like it. now for the big question, WHY, is the original tron not available for dvd, it looks like it was made at some point but checking online used copies were going for about 70 bucks and netflix didn't have it for rent either I'm going to wait till legacy is on DVD before I decide it's OK for me to pirate it (I'm hoping for a combo pack or something) but watching the sequel brought back a few memories of the one time I managed to see the original and made me realize I really wanted to see it again, and commercially seems like they would be printing more of the movies to sell as I'm sure others think the same I do and I've seen people who wanted to check out the original before watching the new one, but over priced used copies seem to be all that's available.

opposites

hello, I hope everyone had a good holiday. mine was pretty good once I got past a scare with one of my cats. but it's ok and the cat will be just fine.


now here's a little fact about myself I always found curious and a little odd.  my favorite genres of fiction are fantasy and cyberpunk.  two genres that I don't think could have less to do with each other.  but it goes a lot deeper then just liking to read/watch/play those genres the most.  my two favorite fictional characters are link, a noble swordsman who's effectively an elf. and major makoto kusangi, a cyborg woman and talented hacker, leader of a nearly military police unit that bends and breaks rules on a some what regular basis.

heck even some of my ideas of paradise fit this (the ones that revolve around the environment I'm in rather then the people I'm around)  a quite place with a big lake I spend most of the day in (to be fair I doubt I could handle that long term without a computer) or being able to immerse myself in a digital world with all the information and knowledge of the ages is instantly accessible (not a clue how I'd handle that long term).  just always thought the constant contrast between the two was a bit odd, are a lot of people out there like this or is it just me?