Hardware Insights Forum

Due to the sensitive subject matter, off-beat remarks will be deleted without warning.
If you repost this message on any other site, don't expect Blunell to speak to you again…

I know I got a bit too clingy towards you on DeviantArt, and I accept responsibility for that. I think I've now worked out why – I have a sister complex (my own younger sibling has transitioned to a man and has been distant for years anyway, hence can no longer be the subject of the feeling), and in the past I've shown slightly too much affection to young women in real life too (nothing sexual or romantic though). I'll continue working on that with my therapist…
I've also calmed down considerably since moving into a nicer house with my own unit (avoiding clashes with my sibling and Mum).

I accept that my last comment could be taken the wrong way (although I wasn't criticizing the artwork – in fact I posted a positive comment on that same artwork before). But I never blamed you (nor anybody else) for being bullied – just pointing out that the enshrined “solution” doesn't work (and even makes matters worse in a fair proportion of cases); it wasn't something I felt I could hide any longer.
(And I once favorited your anti-bullying animation, before reading about the problems plaguing the policies…)
As a practical assessment, would you expect adults not to fight if you put them together against their will?

I may have been overambitious to try to help you, but I knew it would be harder than anything else I've done – just couldn't predict how much harder.
Consider also that if you have the right to be permanently traumatized by the bullying, I equally have the right to be permanently affected by your backlash to my comments. But look on the bright side: One of your artworks motivated me to go vegan, saving many animals from slaughter over the last 3 years. (While I don't necessarily regard “sub‑humans” as a thing, I can see some of the lowest humans as being sub‑animal in having neither compassion nor survival instinct…)

I'm aware that France is a bit of a hellhole nowadays (practically a tumor on Europe), only marginally better than the USA from what I gather.
(By the way, mind explaining why you gave your OC heights and weights only in imperial units? The metric system was invented in France so at least list both; though personally I find the implication that Americans can't handle metric units too patronizing even by their standards. )

Since your personal experiences weren't functionally private (requiring a basic DeviantArt account doesn't constitute security) I didn't intuitively feel a problem with sharing them further, but I agree not to do it again (now that you've removed them). (And I'm very sorry for ever getting involved in that “Reception Family Wiki” cesspit; although DisneyVillain/Grust, founding it, made a far bigger mistake than I did. Truth be told, I was always somewhat uncomfortable there…)
As for certain comments not having an apparent point: Some of my early off-topic posts here on HWI didn't have much point either (I deleted the worst of those in the meantime, after becoming a moderator), but that was OK because the members here didn't mind.

In many ways I should have first respected my own boundaries – not getting involved on DeviantArt and definitely not on the Reception Wikis – as while it's easy enough to tell when I start getting uncomfortable, incremental increases in the discomfort level are harder to distinguish (some discomfort being unfortunately unavoidable around most people).

A settlement
We shall agree to both address each other's serious faults honestly and promptly (no more beating about the bush).

So time for the elephant in the room: If you preach the Golden Rule, you have to uphold it yourself. (Sure that can be hard, but if you believe in it there's no alternative.) If you really can't uphold the Golden Rule, then nor can you demand that other people follow it. Pick a side, carefully…

However, if necessary I can grant limited exemptions in the following parts of the forum:

• This thread
• Any threads you start yourself in the Off-Topic section, provided that you preface them with a warning (and don't misuse them to complain about a post elsewhere on the forum)
• Private messages to me only

Good?
If you accept my apology, I'll be happy to get back in touch (just not on DeviantArt, given the highly toxic other members there; so I deactivated my account)…
In any case, if you want to get a good understanding of how I am, you have to see my posts in my own space. On a side note, I strongly reckon that only technical websites (like this one) should even have forums. Anyway now that I have good-quality (Cernit) polymer clay, I'll reveal the Kirby pendant I made last year:
My forum avatar has been added in the meantime, explained here if it isn't obvious.

Electronics (and other engineering) is more fun if learned hands-on rather than by conventional schooling; but if you still aren't interested, you can just roam the off‑topic section… (That's where having a libertarian administrator can come in handy too; pretty much wherever your views sit on the political spectrum – barring pro-communism – they're safe to post here. Even if you did post something pro-communism, the post – although it will be criticized – should still stay up…)

Read the warnings on the first post

Although DeviantArt was a very bad site for me to get involved in, in many ways I was still better-adjusted than most of its members; I had enough awareness not to participate in the identity-posturing (the linked article explains why “virtue signaling” is the wrong term) rampant in the stamps.
In fact I hardly commented on anything at all…

So my first few years there were (fortunately) uneventful, then I stumbled upon your art; I liked that your style is detailed without the sense of “clutter” from many other acclaimed artists. The more I looked through your gallery (and read the descriptions), the more you seemed like a genuinely interesting person…

I still think I had a fairly sound logic trail in trying to help you – it was a thing I (almost) could have done, which would have given a purpose to my involvement.
(And the fact you didn't know a way for anyone to help – and had to deter them from being unhelpful – didn't rule out the possibility, so I thought…)

Likewise I don't fault you for making art to raise awareness (in general) – that was a way to attach (ostensibly) real meaning to your work.
(The anti-bullying one was a genuine mistake, but the others were reasonable.) Sadly the mainstream “art” world doesn't want real meaning anymore…

2022 was quite a rough year for me; between a subpar therapist, my grandmother dying, and DeviantArt itself being an unsettling place.
In the end it was just too difficult for me to worry too much about your feelings (which was, in part, why I stopped sugar-coating my views).
Sensing that things weren't going anywhere meaningful anyway, I kind of threw in the towel as my boundaries (on intellectual honesty) clashed with yours…

But don't despair, you're not the only European person to misunderstand what I wrote; quite a few unrelated people from other European countries have done so. My suspicion there is that English has looser meanings than other European languages; so Europeans tend to write it passably, but struggle to read it at times. (If any sentence in this thread is too confusing, I'll be happy to try re-wording it…)

With that in mind, British-grade humour is an absolute requirement to comfortably converse in English. (On a side note, while the American propensity to be patronizing is very annoying, I think it became somewhat unavoidable when they got into computing – using such an imprecise language, to discuss concepts requiring very precise thinking, results in an inevitable need for regular and aggressive corrections.)
If we tried to program computers in English, then even the most basic programs would crash like Sibelius.
This could also be a factor in why British engineering (although great at its best) seems to have a higher failure rate than the rest of Europe…

Also, I won't induce overconfidence by telling non-native speakers they're “better” than native – OK, sure; better, no (even if it appears that way).
Incidentally, my mother once took an interest in Esperanto (which might have been a good idea, if not for the catch that any “prescribed” language needs to be prescribed in a language that already exists )…

Pretty much every truly-interesting person I've come across is in some way messed-up; but that's OK as the visibly messed-up people aren't generally dangerous.
(Ichikawa-kun up there is pretty cute for an edgelord .)

Read the warnings on the first post
In this world, I'm not even sure it's necessary to mention that competitive gamers have better standards than medical science.
But back to my own thoughts:

Progress
Between the political system's failure (and rise of neoliberal economics) and the decline of computing as a progressive industry (in the '80s and '90s it genuinely was progressive; but as hardware capabilities caught up to most users' needs the excitement and wonder faded, while corporate fat‑cats wrestled control from the geeks; and so in utter desperation to stay “relevant” they've embraced woke identity-posturing and are now hyping AI to the moon), the system really doesn't have much of a ready‑made role for genuine progressives anymore. (Despite best efforts, I remain a mostly-reclusive renegade to date. )

It's worth checking out the blog of Marie Kennedy – a female mechanical engineer who once fell for woke ideology, but has recovered to a classical liberal.

There is, however, at least one last bastion of true progress – the free software community. Obviously they can't exert the same economic influence, but they do include some of the most skilled and passionate people around; and as it turns out, they're better-informed about copyright law than most lawyers probably are! (Certainly their founding father Richard Stallman is, as evident in his extensive essays…)

Copyright
To put Richard Stallman's case in a nutshell: Copyright law was originally designed around the printing press, for which it worked well as it was easy to enforce (as it only had to be enforced against other publishers) and uncontroversial (as it didn't restrict citizens in anything they could do). While home audio/video recording made music and movies easy to copy (hence making copyright hard to enforce and controversial), in the analog era publishers could still invoke quality as a justification for sticking to the official release; but since the arrival of digital technology, people can make perfect copies for only the cost of their bandwidth.
Anyhow, the original justification for copyright was to promote creation – supporting the authors was secondary.

While modern publishers will gleefully justify copyright in the name of authors (ironically, when authors originally imposed copyright against the publishers), in practice the major publishers keep most of the revenue for themselves and give authors almost nothing. If you ask me, it's practically embezzlement
So don't complain to me when the bubble bursts… (Of course if you do buy new music, you should get it through the likes of Bandcamp.)

Obviously, having made legality their whole schtick, the publishers can't actually resort to killing people in the process.
But The IT Crowd's famous parody of copyright PSAs really isn't as far from the truth as the publishers would like it to be…

You admitted that you earn nothing from your digital paintings, so why should legal resources be expended there (and hence away from material offenses)?
(If they're profiting off it, the objection is more understandable; the noncommercial Creative Commons licenses cover that, to an extent, but have another complication in that smaller users can't afford the license fees, so they aren't the anti-corporate win they look like…)

The way to avoid abusive exploitation is to use CC‑BY‑SA, a Share‑Alike license without the -NC restriction. This allows your peers to use the work without fear, as long as they keep it Free‑as‑in‑Freedom. Big corporate monopoly players, however, are unwilling to release anything Freely: if they want to use your work, they’ll have to negotiate a waiver of the -SA clause. For this they will pay money. It works like a regular licensing deal: for $X you waive the -SA restriction and allow them to re‑use the work without contributing to the community. I have had many corporate licensors offer me such contracts, although I didn’t sign any because I was such a Free license booster.

If people still want to support copyright as an honor system (as it de facto already is), I'll leave them to it; it's not my place to triangulate there.
For me that matters little, though, given that barely any mainstream (or even indie) entertainment is interesting enough for me to bother with anyway.
(And you do know that Disney clip you linked to before has been taken down? I checked for myself while I was on DeviantArt .)

Otherwise, crowd-funding looks like the way forward for major productions; fellow Australian Uniquenameosaurus has produced well-researched videos on the matter – and what are us Australians if not practical?
(To be clear, I don't personally support NFTs – but nor do I doubt that they serve(d) artists better than the failed copyright regime…)

One area where copyright remains relatively trouble-free is for the designs of physical products (at least those beyond the limits of 3D printing…)

In any case, stop trying to dress it up in “respect”; respect is voluntary – if it's compulsory, then it's just obedience.

Finding Interests
I find it much easier to get involved in niche interests and find my way back to the mainstream, than to branch out from the mainstream to a niche.
(This is also a factor in what motivated me to reach out…)

In any case, us progressive people now have no choice but to be bold, inventive, and think outside the boxes.
(You can find plenty of outside-the-box ideas in my general thoughts thread.)

At some stage I'll probably start my own website for my electrical item reviews; and while I'll keep the small-appliance and accessory information free, I'd be prepared to review major appliances for publications for a fee (subject to some basic conditions on the quality of their other content)…

Take as long as you need to process the above; there's no deadline.

You don't have to respond to all of it in one go, either…

Read the warnings on the first post

Although I originally made a point (or tried to…) of not offering specific advice, by this stage I feel it's more practical to just be frank. So here goes:

Boundaries
You know they cut both ways? Conflicts don't usually result from the absence of boundaries, but instead from differing boundaries which can't be reconciled. (However, I'm more than willing to try re-negotiating them if necessary; if it's ultimately impossible on my side, then I'll specify why.)

In fact, you did tacitly acknowledge that the other members have their boundaries, when you described inflicting your personal journals on them.

4chan
They're actually more honorable than mainstream social-media; while 4chan's userbase is trash, at least they're honestly trash so we know what to expect.
The likes of Facebook and Twitter (and DeviantArt is if anything even worse in this regard), though, are plagued by a hypocritical pretense of kindness.

Adjustment
You may well be “well adjusted” in many ways; but in the end, I think it's impossible to become well-adjusted to mainstream social-media sites.
The “Web 2.0” of centralized mega-platforms was never really about convenience (and that's largely gone anyway); it was invented as a power-grab.

So I'd recommend coming back home to the “Web 1.0” of small, decentralized, quality, soulful sites.

Patronization
Although people tend to only recognize negative patronization as such, it does come in both polarities and to me they're almost equally offensive.
So if I was to misquote Miyashita from Mitsudomoe: “Don't call ME patronizing!”

But seriously, now that I think about it, it's effectively impossible not to be patronized on a pathologically-“polite” platform like DeviantArt; even if you tell the others to promptly mention any problem they have with you, I guarantee that they won't follow through on it.
In any case, once you ask the question, your only legitimate grounds for rejecting an answer are if it's a personal attack, or in factual error.

Also on the topic: If you find it impossible to respect your audience's intelligence (or lack thereof), then you have to wonder if they're worthy of your work.
While most of my stuff is in a totally different field, I take the utmost care to uphold that respect (only warning against actions which are actually dangerous).

Law
While you're great at doing so much else, the evidence is clear enough to me that being a lawyer is the one thing you suck at.
You admit that you don't enjoy it anyway, so please let it go; you don't want to fall foul of the sunk cost fallacy, do you?

If you sucked at almost anything else, I could deal with that; I wouldn't even mind you sucking at law if it didn't taint the way you treat people.
But it visibly does, so it's something you'll have to confront if you don't want to keep making enemies…

Not that I begrudge you for it, or anything; most Millennials only learn the hard way (if at all) about the worthlessness of formal qualifications nowadays.
To say I'm lucky to have never fallen down the higher-education trap would be the understatement of the year…

Law is the very bottom tier of “justice” anyway, so let's leave it to those of slightly above-average intelligence; this is why I hate lies to children
Besides, law is adjacent to politics; so if you aren't confident to discuss politics, why do law?

Other artists
Since here I'm not under the pretense of kindness, I'll go right ahead and say what I think of them

Katsuvy (Carlota Suárez) is amazing too, perhaps your only real challenger in both attention to detail (albeit in a more-whimsical style) and variety of subjects.
If we count cosplayers, then the BakaBakaGirls (Touhou characters) and YujiChiyuba (various anime/manga boys) are (or were) top-tier.

But JericaWinters' stuff never appealed to me; it doesn't even matter that she says not to download it, as I wouldn't want to .
(In any case, it's a hard boundary of mine that I do not interact with people who say not to download what they've posted online, so there.)

Your signatures
Cursive used nowadays comes off as pretentious and snobbish (how you “intended” it doesn't matter); your previous signature (the stylized BL) was much better.
However if you insist on spelling out your full nickname, then just render it in a normal font.

How to stay out of further trouble, if you stay on DeviantArt
I'd strongly recommend doing like Katsuvy does:

• Post only the art itself; even descriptions aren't really necessary (it's the viewers' job to interpret the art, not yours to explain it to them)
• Never post anything more about personal issues, and I don't recommend trying to raise awareness either
• Only reply to comments if you have an actually meaningful response (not as a matter of “obligation”)
• Don't use the forums at all

Aspergirls
In many ways your type indeed have a problem with being female.
However I suspect it's not so much an issue of identity itself, as an incompatibility with conventional female socialization.

(To quote Ichikawa-kun, as he's the best-relatable character I've found to date: [Girls] should just stick to being like, “Kya Ha Ha!” and “Tee Hee Hee!”)

Basically girls are socialized to be passive-aggressive emotional manipulators (a leftover from the bad-old days when it was the only social power they could exert), and this doesn't sit at all well with Asperger's syndrome. So it ultimately comes as no surprise that many of them would rather be “a man”…

It also seems common for Aspergirls to get stuck in a no-(wo)man's land between the “normie” and “geek” worlds, which becomes unendingly unsatisfying to live in. While somewhat understandable given the ideological degeneration of many “geek” spaces (computing having become largely‑woke and the gaming subculture often‑misogynist), it doesn't change the fact that you ultimately need to pick a side. (And here we have a non-ideological geek space…)

Anyhow since you clearly can't win at “femininity”, I reckon you might as well embrace a tomboyish style again (short to medium hair; shirts with edgy pictures or statements, or maybe just related to video games etc.), make your child-self proud, and show those bullies who's the boss now

As a matter for public record, I actually adore Aspergirls on the (rare) occasions they're in a healthy state of mind; to me they provide all the attraction, with (for the most part) none of the nonsense of “normie” women. (Don't worry though: I'm more-attracted to bigger girls and there's plenty of them around my location…)

Read the warnings on the first post

My tastes in entertainment
Perhaps we seemed distant because I didn't mention them enough (to be fair, that didn't seem to me to add much on DeviantArt anyway). No problem:

Anime and Manga – I've only found a bare handful to be actually good, but that handful are worth it:

• Hetalia – have fun with national stereotypes. (I think they were kind to France, too )
• Mitsudomoe – I gave a brief overview here; superficially it may look stupid, but it's every bit as weird-and-wonderful as anime in general is “supposed” to be (according to the usual overhyped stereotype). The bonus song “Paranormaling” is worth a listen too – Nomico can do way better than Bad Apple!!
  WARNING: Mitsudomoe's bonus songs are mastered very loud – turn your volume far down if you last listened to properly-mastered music!
• The Dangers in My Heart (I showed book 1's cover above) – Norio Sakurai's latest work isn't as energetic as Mitsudomoe, but still better than most.
  However unlike Mitsudomoe, I prefer the manga (the anime also exaggerates Anna Yamada's breasts and thins-down her lower body )

Music – I'll of course list the artists directly, as going by “genre” is far too reductive for me:

• Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) – he produces very experimental and diverse electronic music, from energetic and lively (“4”) to slow and sentimental (Avril 14th), rough and edgy (Corn Mouth among others) to soft and soothing (Flim), wild and wacky (54 Cymru Beats) to subtle ambience (Ageispolis) and everything else you can (or can't) begin to imagine…
• Geoff & Tim Follin – it's a pity their work was largely wasted on subpar games, but it stands on its own; my favorite soundtrack of theirs is from Equinox/Solstice II (if only I could find an SPC player which doesn't give up during the silences…), followed closely by Plok.
• Scatman John – who knew dance music could be inspirational?
• Split Enz – their 1970s albums were more interesting (progressive rock on steroids, basically) than the pop direction they took in the 1980s.
• Wendy Matthews – hit-and-miss lyrically (as other people write them for her), but Token Angels is pretty cool and Let's Kiss (Like Angels Do) may be the sweetest rock track ever. (However, Sydney Youngblood's original version of “If Only I Could” sounds better.)
• Yanni – do I even need to elaborate? Perhaps the Ancient Greeks' logical heritage lives on to an extent
  Many people criticize his world-music side for not being fully authentic, but I think that misses the point:
  If you want completely-authentic regional music, then just listen to native music from the region you're interested in

ZUN would also make the list if he mastered his tracks properly (however, you can get recordings of his early MIDIs, which are).

Notable individual tracks from others:

• The cheap shitty pink USB charger from China song (Big Clive) – perhaps the most important song I've found in recent history…
• The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan) – the quintessential progressive song; people nowadays particularly need to remember the line “and don't criticize what you can't understand!”
• Eleanor Rigby (Bobbie Gentry's cover version) – while Bobbie Gentry was generally a competent-but-unspectacular rocker (albeit one of the first women there), this track sounds catchier than the Beatles' original.
• Another Brick In The Wall [Part 2] (Pink Floyd) – they might need education after singing the double-negative, but the sentiment remains solid.
• Skin Deep (The Stranglers) – watching out for them isn't just “better”, it's mandatory for me.

TV shows – MythBusters was pretty-much unbeatable in its heyday; I guess Red Dwarf (although different in kind) is next-best (if it isn't too British ).
(And if British humour plus ropey animation is OK, the Secret Life of Machines was equal parts educational and amusing.)

Video Games – mostly Nintendo first/second-party franchises (Mario, Zelda, Kirby) so far. Unlike many people, I've never found the commitment to get into full‑blown RPGs (even the likes of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross etc.) and prefer Zelda's action-adventuring with RPG elements.
(Though even among Zelda, there are distinctly better/worse games – TotK doesn't beat BotW for me, and Majora's Mask was cumbersome with the 3‑day timer.)

The only non-Nintendo game (that is to say a true game – Humongous Entertainment was a different category as they have no lose condition) I've enjoyed much is Cave Story (the essential early indie game). Plok would be fine if it wasn't too hard (and was probably still Software Creations' best effort).

Settlement, part 2
Can we agree to disregard what we each said on DeviantArt, as non-representative of our true personalities?

Asperguys (?)
While not as severe as for the girls, me and my comrades also have difficulties with societal expectations of “masculinity”:

The stereotypes tend to go that we're either asexual, or sexually-frustrated perverts; neither is generally accurate, although I think the sexually-frustrated minority become that way as a result of being pressured into the “manly” mold (which I, fortunately, wasn't).

I don't mind individual boys, but large groups of them are scary even to me (they're just far too energetic and aggressive to control)

Sometimes we end up in very-awkward situations which give an almost genuine appearance of perversion; but I think it's safe to say that if a neurotypical man somehow did end up in the same situation, he'd become way more of a pervert than we ever are.
It's more likely that interactions between us and a girl will end up too innocent:
Considering that neurotypical women hardly even exist to me (mostly they just freak me out ), and that you were the first Aspergirl I encountered of “appropriate” age (I already knew one IRL, but she was underage); don't I deserve some credit for not being a horndog? (Yes, a neurotypical man would probably be a pervert if he got clingy; but you can't project their motivations onto us and expect them to be accurate. You also can't emotionally pressure us into seeing things the “normal” way – only logical reasoning may succeed. Anyway, do what's necessary to survive in the physical world; but online you should strive to be better, not worse than IRL.)

Read the warnings on the first post

I find that neurotypical people (including the professionals) are just as biased (if not more so) against us, as they are against any other minority demographic.
This (dis)colors their view of how we think and feel:

Theory of Mind
Technically I (and probably most of us) do have it; I just can't use it on neurotypicals, given that I think and feel so differently from them.
(In early 2022 when things seemed OK, it almost enabled me to relate to you – rather than using the slower, resource-intensive Theory of Other Minds.
You can think of the Theory of Other Minds as being like an emulator – only its target system has incomplete and ever-changing specifications )

Empathy
Rather than lacking it (which we wouldn't be alone in anyway – half or more of their “empathy” is fake ), many of us have too much empathy.
(Indeed, that's one of the reasons why I came too close to you; I didn't exactly get an opportunity to learn to regulate it before…)

Communication
I've long regarded neurotypicals as the bad communicators – their way is convoluted, cryptic, mentally-draining and often dishonest anyway.
When dealing with complex technical matters, their way becomes absolutely hopeless

Seeing the “Big Picture”
As I see it, neurotypicals form a crude low-resolution “big picture” and try to fit the details to it afterwards (only to discard those which disagree with their image).
We, on the other hand, tend to first collect the details and build an accurate picture from them.

I'd probably have more to say, but that's all I can think of off-hand

Read the warnings on the first post
Yes, I was LR-HWI on DeviantArt.
Almost everyone makes some wrong assumptions about me, but time to rectify them:

• I'm not obsessed with electronics (neither any subset thereof, nor the field as a whole) – I've actually become rather bored of it in the last few years.
  Neurotypical people (those apathetic slackers ) just mistake our diligence for “obsession”…
• Just because I haven't said much about a phenomenon, doesn't mean I don't know and understand it; in fact it's often the opposite problem – I know far more than I have the time or space to say.
  (What do I know about the Golden Ratio, for instance? It's used to determine low and medium power settings in many heaters, although rounded typically to the nearest 100W; 1500W heaters typically have 600W low + 900W medium settings, while a full Australian 2400W model may be 900W low + 1500W medium. Two of the stages of a 5th-order Butterworth filter have Q values of 0.618… (Φ−1) and 1.618… (Φ), but otherwise its occurrence in electrical engineering is infrequent. It can also be used to determine relative dimensions of speaker boxes, but in this case not because it's somehow uniquely harmonious – quite the opposite in fact: Speaker enclosure dimensions are specifically not rational multiples of each other to reduce frequency aberrations, and any other irrational factor which is far enough from the small rational ratios would work fine too.)
• Although I'm often brutally honest, I'm not nasty – I'd never knowingly say something hurtful to somebody I care about (or even to somebody I hate, short of them threatening physical harm), and if I hurt you unknowingly I'm perfectly willing to apologize (provided that the mistake was indeed mine, and that you coherently explain it to me).
  Ultimately nobody can present both absolute honesty and impeccable politeness every time – there may not be much difficulty during “everyday” talk, but for edge-cases you have to pick a priority. If you don't choose, you'll just end up failing at both…
• Some of my comments were indeed word-crushed too hard, but if you gave my e-mail a fair and thorough reading I wouldn't have felt the need to do so.
  Only skim through material you're already broadly familiar with (and show some appreciation for today's multi-terabyte storage devices )…

Compassion
You've already lost whatever moral “high ground” you once had over your bullies; your last message to me was extremely hurtful.
I'm willing to let you earn it back, but you'll need to put real effort in – reflecting on the precise problems you've had at the time (just as I'm trying to do here), and resolving them where reasonably possible; you can't merely say “I'm sorry” (indeed, this is one of the key reasons I don't readily say “sorry” myself).

It might not have mattered much if you were just any old rando, but finding people even close to my own intelligence is very difficult (and very low-yield) – so it wasn't actually strange for me to give a lot of attention (setting specific content aside, which I know wasn't always the best idea).
Make no mistake, every other intelligent, competent person I know has been at their limit too.

You don't have to open up in public here, though – PM or Jabber/XMPP is fine with me.

Which direction to meet
For me to meet you on DeviantArt may have seemed the obvious way, given that I'm more-familiar with art than you are with electronics; but far more important than familiarity, is which side is more welcoming to the other – and Hardware Insights would be much more welcoming to you, than DeviantArt ever was to me

A real irony is that I got my creativity back (my new avatar etc.) after quitting DeviantArt

Other parties you can blame
If you need some cannon fodder, fire away:

• My Mum, for passing her hyper-responsible attitude (and element of defiance) onto me
• My Dad, for demanding a second child (hence giving me the big-brother instinct; and I believe the second child mentioned DeviantArt to me in the first place) and not upholding his promise to take care thereof…
• The English, for imposing their failure of a language on the rest of the world

Read the warnings on the first post

During 2022 I discussed some things with my therapist, who came to the conclusion that people online made bizarre judgements about me because I wasn't “flowery”. Well, I couldn't be flowery under fear; but now that that's out of the way…

Characters
It'd be nice to see your OCs again; I can't yet judge if your Shin is as much of an idol as Mitsudomoe's (Shinya Satou), but maybe I can if he does more stuff
Energetic-but-sweet girls like Mel are great too

Girls (in art)
What's cuter than little girls or big girls? Little and big girls together in a team.

Engineering
Whether electrical, mechanical etc., it has some key advantages over other “prestigious” fields like law or medicine:

• It's more rigorous and robust; engineering choices have to be genuinely justified, while laws – let's face it – need only appear to be justified to earn popular support (and the legal profession produces more spin than Hina Kagiyama). Medicine is less corrupted by societal values than law is, but far more convoluted and tricky than the reasonably straightforward engineering worlds.
• Engineering judgements don't exhibit the stressful urgency of medical judgements, or inherent pain of legal judgements.

On the more hands-on side of things, why not observe Colleen Fazio's guitar amplifier repairs? She's adorable too

Mental Health
I would leave it to the professionals if they understood how to be compassionate to neurodivergent people (and in general to an extent); that's more than I can say of the bulk of them . In my mother and sibling's experience, the majority of psychiatrists are still bad for us (and frankly, I regard the existence of some good psychiatrists as being more by accident than design).

But psychiatry never seemed (to me) like the appropriate way to treat your situation; occupational therapy seems far more applicable. Not that it's easy to find a good therapist – even if, like me, you can afford to pay out of pocket (rather than suffering through the Nightmarish Dehumanizing Inaction Scheme or whatever equivalent France has) – but it's worth trying…
I can give you a protip too: If a therapist you see shows crude tastes – super spice, MOAR BASS etc. – walk away and try somebody else.

(I don't remember if you tried therapy; sorry if you have.)

I think us gifted people fundamentally need deeper meaning to what we do, and most professionals aren't even aware of the need, much less how to meet it.
Shallow banter might be easier and seem more-comfortable in the short term, but it won't fool your deeper subconscious…

So go ahead and try out a few different hobbies. You may have to go through several to find one you really enjoy (or may have to alternate between a few half‑decent hobbies as desired), but at least some of the knowledge and experience should be transferable to other things, so the time won't be completely wasted.

Don't worry about finding an “identity”; it really doesn't matter at all to me, and for the most part I think it only seems important to people who lack a more-tangible meaning in their lives (especially DeviantArt users ). If anything, identity is for simpletons – as they're simple enough to have a coherent, concise identity.

Free Time
If you're afraid of being a burden on me, don't worry; I still have more free time than I know how to spend.

Privacy
If I've still said too much about something in particular, then just notify me via any available private channel and I'll remove that part (though I can't stop other people from saving or archiving it elsewhere). I've only addressed the things I feel need to be addressed at some stage, but you can always ask in private later…

Read the warnings on the first post

Most people just get sentimental about the animals they keep as pets; those assigned some significance in their culture; and a few token endangered species.
As a practical person, I shall rectify that:

• Ants, as Lewis Thomas famously remarked, “are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment” – to us, especially, as they not only do so many of the things we do, but in many ways they do them better. For bonus “girl power” points, their workers and soldiers are all female
  Wood ants (at least) even make their own antibiotic, by combining tree resin with their formic acid…
• Capybaras, the largest rodents, seem to get a pass even from people who see the smaller rodents as unmitigated vermin.
• Chameleons are quite privileged in being able to indicate their mood by changing color (something which would definitely help me in stressful situations) – and being able to switch between binocular and dual independent vision is a neat bonus.
• Giraffes are among the most-graceful of the large animals – they put pandas to shame, without a doubt.
• Ibises are widely smeared as “bin chickens” (at least in Australia) because of where they resort to eating from, but they're a perfectly fine bird.

Australian animals, by the way, are really their own phenomenon (emus, kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, possums, wombats and many others)…

Human characters
So as not to leave us out of the kingdom, though:
Given that even Japanese people are coming around to slightly-chubby girls in the last decade or so, isn't it a good time to portray them better in general?
You can find any number of fat fetishists, of course, but the gracefully “plump” category remains underrepresented in media despite being abundant in real life.

The point shouldn't be to make a big deal of their weight and curvature, though – just show them happily (or whatever other emotion suits the situation) doing the same things slim girls do. Existing characters (of either sex) may also be shown with a little extra “winter weight”, but again without worrying about it.

Sensitive, kind, innocent guys are also left out of much media…