Morning Sermon

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself. And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

I think I’m just a little too autistic for most people

Like I’m definitely a low support needs autistic person in the sense that I can navigate reality on my own, understand complicated things more or less fully: all to say, I’m not intellectually challenged (not say I’m some genius lol).

But I’m weird. When masking, I speak and write in a very formal, stilted, clear manner. I make every effort to be understood, or at least hopefully not misinterpreted. The only times that I come across as emotionally present are either when I’m very heavily masking and doing emotional regulation for someone else, or if I’m not masking at all because I’m comfortable around someone. They’re very different kinds of emotionally expressive though.

The problem is, I still do the stilted speech thing even when not masking if I’m trying to say something difficult or make sure I’m being coherent. And the thing is, I am fully cognizant that my mannerisms are off-putting. Sure people might tell me they don’t mind, but I’m not stupid - I can tell if they’re lying, even if it takes me some time to notice.

But I’m not just weird in my mannerisms. I have very niche, even cringe interests (I am held hostage by Sonic the Hedgehog and I won’t shut up about Deep Space Nine). I really suck at small talk, and love listening to people I care about talk about whatever they’re passionate about. I think that can breed a sense that I don’t contribute the same amount to conversation, even if cognitively I’m fully present. I’m quick to get attached to people I find comfortable around, especially because that’s so rare for me. And the quickness is probably what prospective friends find the most off-putting.

It feels like the only other person that will understand me is just someone who’s a carbon copy of myself. And I’ve yet to find her. Hell, I’m not even entirely confident we’d get along.

But I guess I have to hold out hope there’s at least one person that will get me. Because if there isn’t, what’s even the point? Why am I living in loneliness if not for the shred of hope that it’ll eventually end?

It just hurts to be abandoned again. And again. And again.

And it’s getting harder and harder to be strong/brave enough to even give people a shot.

new internet rule: every bit uploaded to the internet on April 1st, or every post scheduled in advance to be public on April 1st, should be scrubbed automatically come April 2nd. I should be allowed to avoid the internet for a day and not be served the slop afterwards by algorithms that think I accidentally missed it

one (1) ragdoll kitty... now at least 47% more festive!

OK I figure I should lay out my unpopular opinions about this game.

The short version is I think the Dimps' version (PS2/Wii) is overall the better version (with Sonic Team making the PS3/Xbox version).

Lets tally up what I think each does better than the other, based on what I consider the Definitive Experience (TM) for each (emulate the Wii version and play the Recompiled version for each):

General gameplay feel (really high level, not nitty gritty): Dimps

Visuals: Sonic Team (though I played Recompiled with mods most recently, which makes whatever they did just a bit better)

Progression: Dimps, but the Improved Progression mod makes progression in the Sonic Team version much more similar, or at least tolerable

Level design: Dimps, and this one isn't even close

Final boss sublist:

Gaia Colossus vs Dark Gaia: Dimps

Super Sonic vs Perfect Dark Gaia: Sonic Team, and it's not even close

Now onto my big gripes with the Sonic Team version:

Level Design: I find myself getting very frustrated with the level design of Empire City Day and Night, with Holoska Night, and with Eggmanland Day/Night (and the fact that it's all one Frankensteined level). Apart from Empire City, which feels really rushed, the rest of the listed levels feel like there are sections of somewhat untested or unrefined level design which result in playing through them being less fun and more of a chore/slog. These grating sections of levels are almost always death loops.

Gameplay:

The progression for moveset unlocks for the Dimps version is more or less predetermined, which means that you can't accidentally get to the end without the fully intended moveset and strength, which is possible in the Sonic Team version because of the XP based RPG-lite style progression. In fact, I'd argue that the XP system feels really out of place in this game.

Platforming: honestly both versions struggle with this in almost the exact same ways.

Day stage gameplay: Sonic moves too fast for my reaction time. That's a personal problem. What isn't a personal problem is that drifting around corners almost never works correctly because the turn radius is way bigger than the sharpness of the turn you're supposed to go around. Future games end up doing both better, and it's understandable that they can't get it perfect in the first 3D Boost game.

QTEs: I hate these and am not good at them. Too many, but that's also kind of a personal problem, and it's more just emblematic of the era of gaming this game was made in. I haven't played the Dimps version recently enough to have a strong opinion on if they did QTEs less, but that version also had them for what it's worth.

Now, I don't want all this to make it look like I hate this game. I grew up with the PS2 version and loved it. If you'd asked me growing up I'd have listed this as my favorite Sonic game, not having even touched the Sonic Team version and not caring what was different.

I also really want to like this game. It clearly had so much effort put into it. There's scope! It's big! Not in the sense that they're trying to milk like 60 hours of playtime, but the locales are so diverse (the music! top notch!), and the gameplay all feels like they were having fun with the ideas they had. It feels so lovingly made, and it breaks my heart that Sega decided that since it was a flop upon initial release that they had to pretend it never happened and change course.

The recompiled version, which can run at any* framerate and resolution, and can be modded with HD textures and character models, is gorgeous!

*(at least reasonable ones, not sure if 8k 360fps is supported lol but I got to experience 1440p at an almost constant 144fps)

Anyway that's enough yapping about Sonic Unleashed. Nobody wants to hear my unpopular opinions about SA2 though lol.

In case anyone is curious, yes I have a Sonic game tier list, from S "Favorites" to F "Bad". Sonic Unleashed gets B-tier "Good" for the Dimps version, and C-tier "Just OK" for the Sonic Team version.

While it has not improved my opinion of the game, I have discovered the transfem Sonic mod for Sonic Unleashed Recompiled (thank you for featuring it on your website) and I adore her so much

Many such cases.

Happy TDOV!~ 🎉

It has been not even 2 hours and -jesus christ- I missed this site, there will never be another website like tumblr

Wow it’s been a year. I doubt that the transphobic moderation has gotten better but I missed Tumblr so here we are I guess

meow! (with rizz)

Alright one last thing. The Transfem Sonic mod currently only has daytime Sonic. While I would love to see them do werehog Sonic as well, there’s something poignant about having the werehog be male. It was especially so in the Adabat cutscene after Chip regains his memories.

Sonic: “I’ll bet it’s thanks to you. Even when I’m like this, I’m still myself.”

Chip: “You’re too strong to lose yourself.”

(Also let’s just ignore that Dark Gaia’s power making werehog Sonic male could lend itself to some bioessentialist bullshit that transfem people are “still male” at their core, because that’s wrong and I think the positive reading of it I described earlier is better)

While it has not improved my opinion of the game, I have discovered the transfem Sonic mod for Sonic Unleashed Recompiled (thank you for featuring it on your website) and I adore her so much