#the instance i was thinking about in this tag rant fucking *destroyed* my trust in that therapist

[uncanny-tranny]

The most infuriating form of sanism is this idea that mentally ill people/people with mental disorders are just too stupid or too unenlightened to know how to be a proper, well-adjusted person

So many therapists have ignored signs of my unwellness simply because they assumed I was just... being stupid, and I just needed educating about why I'm acting disordered (apparently, mental disorders stop disordering you once you are condescendingly told why you're just disordered and dumb, who knew (sarcasm)).

Like, I could tell them that I knew my behaviour wasn't "rational," wasn't "reasonable" to do or believe and I'd still be treated like I was so dumb I needed hand-holding and scolding about why I'm acting disordered.

I truly wish that people would be able to take the idea of guidance and stop twisting it into "I am superior and enlightened and the people I am trying to help are stupid and wrong and beneath me!"

#mental health #mental health advocacy #ableism #ableism tw #sanism #sanism tw #yes therapist i was aware that using 1/3 of a bottle of detergent for a medium-sized load of laundry isn't rational... #...and that it could wreck my clothes and my washer (which is why i brought it up in the first place. because i knew it wasn't right)... #...like that's an example and it's SO infuriating just how high of a horse some professionals (and even laypeople) put themselves on... #...like when you stop viewing patients as PEOPLE who need guidance and start viewing them as essentially helpless idiots you have a problem #and that problem should either be addressed or you should leave the practice utterly if you're a licensed professional #call me crazy but i don't think this attitude is conducive to the PATIENT'S well-being #the PATIENT is the person who matters. the PATIENT is the most important part of this ENTIRE interaction #the instance i was thinking about in this tag rant fucking *destroyed* my trust in that therapist #because it just told me that i wasn't being seen as a *person* but as an *issue* #and regardless of if that was their intention i still don't think it was appropriate #you can have the *best* intentions and still be ignorant and say/do ignorant things. even with the best intentions #having 'good intentions' does not absolve you of harm or absolve you of the capability TO harm #another reason i Do Not Like CBTherapy

[sandwyrm]

TL;DR melancholic rant on why I took the writing in WoW so badly this year just to get it all out and finish my fucking five stages of grief spin routine.

Gonna read more it, it’s probably gonna end up super long and unedited really so don’t feel obligated to read lol

     I am one of those losers that has been with Warcraft for the whole 25 years. I watched the company grow from “check out this FULL GAME coming with this gaming magazine! it’s called Warcraft: Orcs and Humans!” to being the biggest MMO around and celebrating 25 years while the world is burning.      And when I was younger, it was perfect. It had everything. Nice gameplay, cool and funny voices, decent graphics for its time, cool models, and it started having a story too. Perf! 

     I never got along well with my brother, but by the gods the only fond memories I have of him are centered around Warcraft. Watching him play WC1. Him teaching me to play WC2. Me playing WC3. Him leaving our abusive home to hide out in internet cafes, and my parents sending me to look for him, and us just staying in there for hours, me watching him play WC3. Fond memories of us getting our two toaster computers hooked up for LAN to play WC over it.

     Then WoW came, and my brother first got us an US account - it was impossible to play cross-region back then, our lag was immense, in the thousand of ms on a good day. So then an EU account. First rolled on Sylvanas, one of the biggest servers back then, then on Twisting Nether. I would skip school just so I could play because my toaster wouldn’t run it, only my brother’s computer, so when he was at work I’d be skipping high school playing WoW (I did fine, don’t worry). I invested so much time into my vanilla account it’s surreal. I wouldn’t be shocked if I found out it has more /played than the rest of my life in the game.      I met my ex on TN. I still have my vanilla account and characters on EU TN. The relationship with my ex doesn’t matter, it was abusive, toxic, I was a dumb optimist that stayed in it, doesn’t matter. He tried to get me to stop playing WoW. I still remember many instances when he went off on me for seeing me online, it’s 5 years since I broke up with him and like 8 since I stopped playing WoW with him and my heart still skips a beat when I get a whisper or hear the guild member login sound. It was that bad. He sure did his best to make me play the game only with him, “because he didn’t trust me and I would cheat on him through the game” - guys, if any of you are in this boat, please please please, put your foot down or break up. Your interests should be sacred and respected, as should be your entire person. But I digress.

     Instead of breaking up, I went the mature route of buying a US license, and playing it while he was at work or I was visiting my parents. I rolled on a RP server for the first time ever, and it was probably the best decision of my life, so, gotta thank my abusive ex for that. I met many wonderful people, have many wonderful things on that account, and another 7 years of wonderful things on my EU account.

     Then, the community itself. I hate it. Believe me, I hate the playerbase and fanbase of WoW with a burning passion. But at the same time, I have met amazing, wonderful, intelligent, friendly people I love and respect and wish the best for (if you’re reading this you’re part of this, yes, don’t let your brain trick you into thinking you’re a horrible person lol).      This is another fun arc. I started in the cringe culture. OCs are lame, who makes OCs lol. Then I became, I make OCs and cringe culture can die. Same with characters, but it’s different there. Oh, so different.

     See, I began by loving the obvious characters - Thrall, Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Malf, the works. I didn’t even like Garrosh much as his arc was unfolding - between the thing with my ex, quitting Cataclysm, changing regions and restarting, I didn’t really have a chance to dwell into him fully. He became a villain and I was all yeah okay. Iguess.jpg. I even wanted him out of the story at his peak edgelord moments because I liked Anduin more obviously. WoD was something I did not process almost at all because I was high on a cocktail of pain meds and post-partum depression and sleep deprivation. Legion was pointless bullcrap in my eyes on the main story factor, and I sort of enjoyed BFA until the whole Saurfang sucks Sylvanas fucks deal in the writer dept and fandom.

     Deciding to finally read the novels I had missed out on, and reading War Crimes, was what propelled me into “hahahahahah these idiots actually acquitted Garrosh of crimes in this book? Are they for fucking real?” and actually realizing the entire arc was a complete mess, BFA is a mess, the writer dept is a mess, and suddenly, I had no footing to stand anymore. A spit in the face, and then it overlapped the Saurfang hErOiC sAcRiFiCe special edition. I sort of had a breakdown and I hid it behind “well Saurfang was hot lol now I don’t have my orc grandpa anymore” but it was deeper than that.

     See, when we get into a setting, we have this selfish expectation that it will grow with us. That it will mature with us. Keep up with us. That we will always enjoy this setting, definitely not as starry eyed as we did as children, but that it will always be good. ATLA is a great example. Dragonlance is still good. Star Wars may be hammy and have tons of issues now as an adult, but it’s still good.  But Warcraft was my lifeblood for 25 years.       And to know that not only it did not grow with me, but it regressed beyond belief, destroyed me in a strange sense. Kind of like losing a friend, a family member. They didn’t just kill Saurfang for me, the setting died with him as far as I’m concerned. Because he was the last bastion of what interested me in it. 

     I am that weirdo that loves, loves, war movies and books. I devour them. That was part of my downfall, and the writers and fanbase of WoW so often make it feel like it is, somehow, MY FAULT (just like Garrosh getting backstabbed repeatedly was his fault I guess?)       It feels like it’s my fault that I care about weird things like the Geneva Conventions, and the Paris Conventions, and so on and so forth. It feels like I’m the idiot for knowing basic military tactics and conventions. It feels like I’m the idiot for wanting WARcraft to, at all, even a little bit, bear any resemblance to real wars, to real military tactics, to genuine war stories with genuinely well written soldiers. In my folly and pride, I forgot it’s first and foremost, a fantasy setting, a simplistic one at that.

     It insulted me these guys can’t even google what consists a war crime. It insults me to my core these guys paint the ONE (1) character who goes all “hey maybe.... weird concept but..... maybe not kill kids, or torture prisoners, or kill unarmed soldiers and civilians. Maybe show COMPASSION”, that this guy had to go. It also insults me the only other character who listened to him - Garrosh, yes - was written as the setting’s biggest fucking villain to this day, and it needed some real fucking propaganda and twisting of the OBJECTIVE narrative to get that to pass, and yet it successfully passed by so many, including myself years ago as it unfolded. 

     At this point, it’s insulting to see the same themes - mentally unstable or hurt people deserve to suffer and die, there is no happiness because happiness and happy endings are for toddlers, we are just edgelords jacking off to our self inserts, world isn’t fair because real world isn’t fair anyway kiddo grow up, and what the fuck is honor even we just make it up no? Also objective facts and lore? Fuck that who cares lmao.

     Here’s the deal. 

     War stories NEED hope. I can handle watching a whole regimen be killed in brutal ways in war, because REAL war stories always leave you SOMETHING at the end that was worth the whole pain. In a REAL war story, perhaps Saurfang would have still committed suicide by proxy in front of everyone, but people around him would have actually then gone and maybe fucking went “you know what he was correct. Let’s write the Geneva Conventions.” In a REAL war story, it would have been handled so much better. And perhaps, in a REAL war story, he would have survived. With so much loss, so much pain, and yet - with HOPE. Hope, for HIMSELF, for the future. Not the generic bullshit hOpE they tried to write into him. yOu CaNt KiLL hOpE.......      Yes, you can.       You fucking can.      By killing off the last fucking character in the setting that cared about actual military honor (not just the buzzword it is in this fandom and setting), the last fucking character that cared about tomorrow, about fighting for a better world.      That’s how you kill hope.      And in my eyes, they did so damn well.

     Because I don’t want to sit around and be insulted for another 25 years that I’m the only idiot who expects tactics, honor, a good outcome, a hopeful ending. Because I have reached the point I hate being in this game only to hear sTrEnGtH aNd hOnOr when it literally means nothing. Because I reached a point I hate watching the double standards they apply to their precious babes while the minor characters get thrown under the bus for way less. Because I reached a point where the fandom trying to go all “but Alex, someone has to set a precedent for a war crime trial!” means jack shit when nobody ELSE has been tried for any war crimes AFTER Garrosh (which would’ve been PEACHY by the fucking way). Because I got to a point Blizzcon gave me goddamn anxiety every time someone IMed me to tell me an announcement, and I got to a point I blacklisted half the tags on tumblr because I walk in to read what my friends have been up to and some damn Discourse makes its way to my dash, only for me to find myself feeling stupid and in the wrong for liking Saurfang. Not even Garrosh, which I would admit is Problematic(tm) but goddamn Saurfang.       Leave it to this setting and fandom for making me feel stupid and idiotic and in the wrong for loving the goddamn war movie protagonist.

     And at the end of it all, after much debate, I don’t think I will quit the setting. Writers don’t care, about their lore, about their characters, about us. The other fans don’t care who they hurt with their edgy rhetoric, I sure as fuck didn’t when I was younger and dumber myself. I’m sure eventually the wound will close completely and I’ll dissociate again from the story and fanbase and enjoy the gameplay and my very wonderful friends. First step in that, just for me, is to not buy Shadowlands. The xpack after, perhaps, it depends. But just out of spite, I will be that one idiot who has a sub running but doesn’t give a +1 sale on Shadowlands. Just for myself.

     Second step...? Who knows.... Who the hell knows what tomorrow will bring... This has indeed hurt worse than anything in my life. I have been going through the stages of grief - jokingly or seriously - since 8.2.5 now (and a whole load of 5 months of pure anger before that processing Garrosh’s arc from an objective standpoint). I cried more over the death of Saurfang (and the setting) than over my ex of 10 years leaving me as a single mom, or over all my other relationships combined. I’m not ashamed to admit that even if it’s cRiNgY. Like I said, it wasn’t just the death of one fictional character, but the death of a setting I loved and grew up with. The final acceptance that there is nothing left for me in the setting that shaped my interests, art, writing, and all that. That my interests have gone too far in other directions - optimism, actual war stories, good stories, being a mature individual, acknowledging mentally ill or divergent characters and not making excuses for author darlings. It’s a weird thing... Like the final acceptance that I have lost what could qualify as a dear friend or family member. While they are still alive and interacting with me daily. Like a breakup. But way worse.      It is a pain I wish on noone honestly.      But I do hope against hope, like an idiot, that other settings, other writers, future generations of writers, will do better. I know they won’t. But I’ll take my sliver of hope.

     And if you read this far, I do genuinely hope the game - this game, any other interests - will keep bringing joy to you. And also, help yourself to a cookie. Thanks <3 I wish you a good day/weekend.

#salt #negativity