Underneath my yellow skin

What we talk about in the shadows–of death

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I’m back to talk more about the feelings the first three chapters of Schrödinger’s Call (Acrobatic Chirimenjako) have evoked in me. Yes, the game is about death, but that’s not the emphasis or even the point. If anything, I would call it the backdrop of the game. Everything in the game is shaped by the fact of imminent death, but it’s not really talked about. You’re reminded now and again about it, but more in a way to gently (or not so gently) make you feel the emotions of the game again.

It’s strange because normally, I would not like a game that was so blatantly manipulative of me, but for whatever reason I’m fine with it in this game. I think it’s because, well, let me put it this way. I love musicals. I adore them, even though they are about as far from reality as you can possibly be. In fact, they are the only form of media that isn’t realistic that I actually enjoy.

This game isn’t realistic at all in terms of depiction of the world and what happens, but it’s spot on in terms of emotions. I have not felt this much for or because of a game in quite some time. It’s made me tear up on several occasions and flat out cry more than once.

The whole time I’m playing, I’m tired. I hurt for all the characters–well, most of them. There are a few who aren’t meant to be likeable, but even with most of those, I can at least see why they think and act the way they do. I may not be sympathetic to them, but I can’t hate them, either. My heart actuually aches as I play, and I dread each upcoming moment. Not because I hate the game, obviously, but because each moment is like a shard of glass embedding itself under my skin.

I felt as if I were walking on glass with each step. There were times when my finger hovered over the A button because I couldn’t make myself go on. Especially when it was time to let go. This has happneed to me in so many games. When the time came to let certain characters move on, I just could not do it. In Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), there was a character named Gwen. She was a hardbitten, cynical deer who was damaged by her father and life in general. She drank a ton of coffee and smoked endlessly. She had a shell around her because life had treated her so badly.

I finished her last moments fairly early in the game, but I could not let her go. This was my flaw–I was so selfish. I had to keep her with me. I knew I was being selfish, and, yet, I could not let her go. She meant so much to me–hell, she was me.

This is one reason I vastly prefer indie games to AAA games. They can say and do things that AAA games would not dare to touch. The newest Wolverine game came out in the past few days. The scores have varied wildly, but many reviewers agree that it’s the equivalent of a summer popcorn movie. Even many people who like it admit that it’s pretty much by the numbers. It’s not groundbreaking in any way, and it’s definitely a PlayStation game.


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When we talk about lo–death

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My post yesterday was about the third chapter of Schrödinger’s Call (Acrobatic Chirimenjako), a game that barring an absolute collapse/disaster in the final chapters, will most certainly be on my favorite games I played this year list at the end of the year. I don’t know why no one’s talking about it (I had written a whole thing about it being released at the same time as the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong and having a similar score, but they weren’t released at the same time. Then I thought it was Mina the Hollower, but that’s not really the same time, either. I know I read an article about it because that’s why I looked up the game in the first place, but I can’t find the article) because it’s so damn good.

It really came and went with barely a ripple. The few reviews I could find (and caautiously skimmed the first few paragraphs) felt the same way about it tas I did. That it’s an emotionally affecting game that lies heavy on the heart. One even said that they had to take breaks while playing it, which is exactly where I’m at with it.

It’s interesting that my favorite game of the year may turn out to be one I can never play again. From the first moment I fired up the game until now (chapter three done, and a glimmer that I’m closing in on the end), I have played with a very heavy heart. I have not had this experience with a game before. Maybe a movie? I’m trying to think. Wait. Was there another game  I felt this way about? I want to say there is, but I can’t think of one.

I’m torn between if they should have just made this a graphic novel (which it essentially is) or if they should have tried to make the gameplay more engaging. I think giving how the strength of the game is the story, I would have bene ok with no gameplay. That’s hard to say, though, because I don’t usually play graphic novel games, so I don’t know if I would have tried this out if it were that. Then again, I might have because the review I read for it was so intriguing.

I have a unique perspective when it comes to death because I’ve already expreineced it. It’s strange, though, because I don’t remember dying (twice!). And, yes, that still a amuses me so I’ll continue to write it this way (twice!). I don’t remember it, obviously, and it’s still wild to me that it actually happened. It makes me think differently about death, though. Or rather, I have a different relationship to it now.

I wouldn’t say I’m friends with it, but I would say that I know it better than most people do. I would also ay that I would rather not talk about it. But I do ponder it from time to time. Not as much these dayys as before, but still.

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Schrödinger’s Call–A Quick Look, part two

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I’m back for the second part of A Quick Review of Schrödinger’s Call (Acrobatic Chirimenjako) after playing the third chapter. I mentioned at the end of the last post how I would probably need a break before playing the third chapter, and I was right.

I love this game. I adore it with all my heart and soul. I wanted to state that upfront before I quickly add, I have such a rough time playing it. It’s nearly two months to the day I played chapter two, and I went in with a heavy heart. Not because I thought it was going to be bad, because I knew it would take a toll on me. In fact, Hamlet, the cute, round, and sarcastic black cat explicitly told me in the game that doing a certain action would cost me. It’s pretty clear that this game is trying to tackle some pretty hefty topics. Does it succeed? I’ll get to that later.

Let me get the frustrating parts out of the way firs. My biggest gripe with the game is the gameplay, ironically. The minor gripes: there is a lot of text to button through, and sometimes when I’m on automatic, I press the button one too many times. Fortunately, I haven’t missed anything too important, but it bugs me, anyway.

Two, it’s usually clear what the game wants from me, but occasionally, I don’t know which exact phrase they want me to input. There’s a lot of dialogue saved in my notebook, and the game can be pretty cryptic at times. I risked looking up the answer once when I got stumped and got a mild spoiler (I think?) and to add insult to injury, didn’t even get the answer I was looking for. I eventually figured it out, but I did not want that in my cozy game about death. Well, not so cozy, but definitely about death.

Oh, the third gripe is something I mentioned in the last post was that some of my choices don’t matter at all. The game wants me to go down a certain path, which I’m fine with! But then don’t allow me to choose and give me a stock answer if I make the wrong choice. I get why they do it, but it’s frustrating at the end of the day.

I mentioned that the game continues to break my heart, and chapter three completely broke me. I will not be talking about the chaarcters themselves because you really need to go into the game unspoiled.

I can talk about general themes, though. Despair, loneliness, grief, ousider-ness, and more. All the characters are broken in one way or the other, underlying the fact that no one is completely normal*.  I’m in a dark place right now, and this game isn’t alleviating that feeling. On the other hand, it’s the perfect feeling to really sink into this game, so who knows if it was a wise choice or not?

I think I’m getting close to the end. I’m not sure, though, because I have studiously avoided anything related to the game. You really need to experience it as fresh as possible, and even when I read reviews before playing the game, I stopped the second they started spoiling even the smallest thing. Oh, and I read them after I played the demo (which was the first chapter), but before I played the second chapter.

It’s a weird sensation to play a game with my heart hurting the whole time. Going forward both dreading and eagerly anticipating what is going to happen. I really related to the main character of this chapter (the one I as Mary is trying to help move on/save). She said so many things that I felt in my heart, and I wanted to help her. But, the way to do that…well, I had a hard time with the method for saving her.

This game is very good at delving what it means to help someone. It’s nothing groundbreaking, really, but it’s done with such deftness and sensitivity. And it helps me clarify my own beliefs. This chapter harped on something that I don’t agree with, so initially, I was having a hard time getting past that. At some point, I just tried my best to go with it. That made it easier for me to go through the chapter, and I got drawn in as I went.

There’s a mystery to each chapter–what happened to this character in their life? How did they end up here? I think it was a good decision to make the game just seconds after the moon crashed into the earth and nanoseconds before everyone dies. This is all in the trailer to the game, by the way. And in the very beginning of the first chapter. This is not a surprise or a spoiler–it’s the very premise of the game.

You would think that with the world ending, the last moments of a person’s life or the last call they had would not matter. But it does–at least in this game. In fact, because the whole world is about to end, nothing is more important than figuring out your last moments. I don’t know where I stand on that. I don’t remember several days before I died, and I made my peace with it. But nothing important happneed during those days so I can easily shrug it off.

I’m surprised  at just how easy it’s been for me to say, “Oh well” about missing several days of my life. I’m glad I can, though, because I can’t change it so it’s better that I’m not ruffled by it. I’m just surprised, though, because normally, I would endlessly fret about it.

No one is talking about this game. I’m not surprised by that, exactly, but it’s a shame. This is a game that is very niche and a difficult sell. It’s mostly a graphic novel about a very heavy and dark subject. It’s slow-paced and redolent with atmosphere. There is a lot of text to read through, and there is very little gameplay. It’s not a game for everyone, and I would hesitate to recommend it to just anyone.

For me, I am grateful to be playing it, but I have to be careful not to take in too much at once. If things keep going on as they have been, this will end up on my favorite games of the year list in December. As long as I’ve finished it by then.

 

 

*Fighting back the desire to rant about ‘normal’.

Sleep, eat, overthink (part seven)

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My car would not start tonight. A month or two ago, it wouldn’t start and I charged it overnight with my battery charger (after talking to my brother about it). He said that I should start it every few months or drive it twenty minutes every few months to keep the battery juiced. I tried it a few days ago just to make sure it started. I was meeting a friend for dinner tonight–and the car would  not start. All the lights were lit up like it does when the battery is dead. My friend came to pick me up (the restaurant was only two or three minutes from my house), and when I got back home, I called put my car on the charger.

Then, I called my brother to tell him what happened. He immediately said that I needed a new battery; I was morbidly glad that I had properly diagonosed the siuation. But, then a weight settled on my shoulders because I hate doing car shit. Especially since I have a hybrid, so it’s a bit trickier than if I just had a gas car. Also, tomorrow/today is Friday. And I am single, which means I have to just do it myself. Or call my brother to help me. I don’t like to rely on him too much, though, because he’s very busy.

Oh, and the reason I was checking to see if my car worked was because I want to get one of my meds before the weekend. Sigh.

My sleep has been terrible the last two nights. I went to bed earlier for me, and I got three hours and four-and-a-half hours, respectively. Maybe closer to five the second night, but that’s still not enough. It’s so frustrating to actually try to do the right(ish) thing and still not get enough sleep. I’ve been snoozing on and off while I’m “awake”, which is very frustrating.

I need to get more than six hours of sleep tonight, but with the car woes on my mind, who knows?

I don’t think I’ll finish this tonight. I’m so tired, and I keep nodding off. I’ll write more tomorrow.

(Written the next day.) I managed to get over seven hours of sleep last night, so I feel a bit better. My car place wasn’t open past ten a.m., so I did not get to talk to them. But I was able to start my car and went to pick up my meds.

Still. I’m feeling pretty down for a variety of reasons. Some big, some small, but it’s just all adding up to me being pretty unhappy at the moment. And still exhausted from getting shitty sleep the last couple of days. I’ve been nodding on and off, and never feeling awake, really.


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Sleep is such a jerk, part six

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In the Discord I’m in, we were talking about breakfast sandwiches, specifically sausage egg cheese on a biscuit. That was my fave when I was able to eat wheat and dairy–or more to the point, when I ate it. McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, to be precise. So fucknig good. I would eat one in a heartbeat if I could. It didn’t seem like it would be that hard to make a simplified version so I bought eggs and bagels. I already had fake cheese. I was optimistic that I could scramble a few eggs. I’ve done it before. It’s really one of the easiest things to cook. For me, anyway. Oh, and I bought some cooked sausage patties as well.

I tried tonight. I cracked towo eggs into the skillet (oil first!) and…forgot that I should have whisked the eggs first. I put in a few slices of fake cheese and basically broke up the egg with the spatula. So it was more like chopped sunny side up egg. Which, fine, I guess (I’m pretty sure I cooked it thoroughly), but I was disappointed in the result. I put a thin layer of cream cheese on the bagel halves, then the heated up sausage patties, then the egg/cheese mess. It was…fine. I had one half bagel and that was enough. ‘Coz I was full, I mean, not that it tasted awful. It was, as I said, fine.

Would I try it again? Maybe. It wasn’t really worth the effort, but I do actually know to whisk eggs before scrambling them. I just forgot because I hadn’t done it in quite some time. Made eggs, I mean. It really wasn’t worth it, though. If I’m going to be honest.

Yesterday, I went on a rant about why I don’t like to cook and that I found it might be a neurospicy thing. When I read into it, it makes sense. People who like to cook and who are good at it like to say how easy it is. As I said, when I complained to my brother after I bought an intapot because the only thing it saves is cooking time (I still had to do all the prep–which is the part I hate), he said dismissively, “Well, yes. Of course you still have to do that” as if I were stupid for thinking otherwise.

Which in retrospect, yeah, it was silly of me to think that, but as someone who doesn’t cook, how the fuck was I to know? This thing had been touted as a game changer, a miracle, and from the descriptions I read, it implied that it involved no effort whatsoever. Pardon me if I did not have the experience to know the difference between it’s a miracle* and it’ll save a bit of time.

Again, as I mentioned in my last post, it’s hard for people who are good at something to realize what they consider basic may not be so basic to other people.


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Thinking about how I think, part five

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I’m still thinking about my thinking and what parts of it I want to/think I’m able to change. In yesterday’s post, I talked about my unending difficulty in getting to bed at a reasonable time. It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life, and any time I think I might have a handle on it, I don’t. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, quite frankly (trying to get a decent sleep schedule), and I don’t know if I can actually do it.

Huh. This is the first time I’ve actually admitted that.  Let me clarify. By “it”, I mean getting to  bed at 2 a.m. every night. I think even 3 a.m. is pushing it. I have said for many years that it’s possible while I continue to not do it. Most emphatically not to do it. Right now, I’m getting to bed around seven to eight, which is the latest I’ve ever done.

As for eating, I’m also in a pretty bad rut. I’ve been DoorDashing way too much as it’s way too convenient. I hate cooking. I see it as a huge waste of time, especially as I live alone. I don’t mind eating the same thing several days in a row, so I get the idea of cooking in batches. But it’s still so much work for such little return. I hate all the prep work so much. But, I can do simple things when I put my mind to it. Like pasta and sauce, scrambled eggs, and salads. The last isn’t cooking, obviously, but it’s still more effort than I actually want to make.

Here’s the thing. It’s really hard to separate to stop thinking of myself as lazy because it’s what I’ve been told all my life. Seriously. How the fuck hard is it to put a simple salad together? I can even buy the bagged lettuce for fuck’s sake. It is literally buy the bag of lettuce/spinach/whatever and a bottle of  dressing. Yes, I can add tomatoes to make it even better. If I’m very ambitious, I’ll buy an avocado and let it rot. This is the problem. I have all the good intentions in the world, but that means jackshit at the end of the day if I don’t actually eat them.

I have a dozen eggs sitting in the fridge right now. I bought them several days ago with the intent to make breakfast sandwiches. People in the Discord were going on and on about them, and it inspired me. I like eggs, and I can actually make a good omelet/scrambled eggs. I put in fake cheese, some kind of veggie, and sometimes chicken or ham. It truly is simple and doesn’t make time at all. Oh, sometimes I put lactose-free sour cream in it as well.

I have yet to make anything with the eggs. They are sitting guiltily in my fridge, and I am aware that time is running out. Will I make anything with them before I have to toss them? Who knows? If I don’t, then I’ll feel so bad when I throw them out. And yet.


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Poking more into my brain, part four

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Arrrgh. How am I here yet again?! I have a friend, A, who gently pokes me to go to bed early. It’s a positive thing on her part, and I call her my reverse-alarm. She poked me around 4 p.m., and I said I was aiming to go to bed by 4 a.m. I mean, that seemed reasonable twelve hours ago. Twelve hours was so much time! And yet, here I am ten minutes before said time, and I am nowhere near ready to go to bed. Four in the morning was a reasonable time for me to set as a goal for going to bed. Unfortunately, I fucked around too much and I found out that I am once again not quite ready to go to bed.

I know being frustrated with myself won’t help. Indeed, it just makes things worse because of the shame spiral, but I can’t necessarily stop myself, either. I get others being frustrated with someone who can’t do something on time, but there’s no way they’re more frustrated with that person than that person is with themselves.

I hate that I let hours slip by while I do nothing worthwhile. It’s not like I’m curing cancer or anything important like that. I’m usually fucking around on the internet or playing games or watching videos. None of that is enrichment for the brain, and I could easily chop off three-fourths of it all.

I know that it’s the way my brain works (or doesn’t), but it’s so fucking frustrating. I want my brain to be normal for once. It’s not something I would usually say, but let me experience it for one day, please. Actually, no, don’t. If I only got to feel it for one day, then it was whisked away from me, I would be displeased, no matter what.

If I preferred how I felt when I was normal, then I would be forever sad that I had to give that up. Unless they erased my memory of it once I returned to my normal. Then, fine. whatever. But why would I bother doing it if I could not remember it? What’s the point in that? If I preferred how I was as a weirdo rather than being normal, then I would be doubly mad at all the people judging me after I lived as aa normie for the day.

Having said all that, I would probably do it if it was on offer because I am incorrigibly curious. It’s one of the best and worst things about me, as with many of my traits. I don’t half-ass anything. If I’m going to do it, I’m using my full ass. It’s not much, but it’s more than it has ever been–thanks to Taiji.

Back to eating. Here’s my post from yesterday in which I talk about how I eat (and don’t)–which is not “normal”. I have said in the past that I know most of my flaws. I know the ones that are worth trying to fix and the ones that aren’t. for exmple, I am a huge procrastinator. I work to the back end of a deadline, and I’ve made my peace with that.


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How my brain does what my brain does, part three

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I’m back to talk more about how my brain works (or doesn’t). I’m happy to know that it isn’t completely broken, but I still can’t help but think it’s somewhat broken.

For example. I have no hunger signals. I know that I broke my hunger meter at some point after many years of struggling with eating disorders. I thought that was the only reason, but I learned recertly that autistic people have many difficulties with eating. One, the sensory issue. Weirdly, I have very few textural issues with food. I do have a ton of sensitivities, though. I’m gluten-free and dairy-free, and I have to be careful with onion and garlic (much to my dismay. I’m Asian! Garlic is in almost every dish we have). I also think I have an issue with cauliflower, but I don’t want to test it.

Before I get into it, I just want to say that I talked about gender roles and how rigid they are in different countries, but in different ways in yesterday’s post. Now back to eating.

You know all those articles that tell you to listen to your body when it comes to eating? That intuitive eating is best? I say this with absolutely no snark–that’s a good idea if you can’t do it. I just can’t.

First of all, I am not hungry when I wake up. I’ve said this several times. I don’t eat breakfast or for several hours after (except for one bite of something approximately twenty minutes after I get up because I have a medication I need to take with food AND a medication I need to not take with food. So I take the latter with the other med I take daily in the ‘morning’ (I have one other I take at night) and then take the one I need to eat with food twenty minutes later. If I remember it all).

There’s a narrow window of time in which I have to eat something or I simply will not. And this is where I differ from the intuitive eating philosophy. Again, I want to emphasize that I think it’s better to be intuitive about eating–but it’s also better to actually eat.

Another thing that I can’t do is three square meals. I just quickly Googled, and it seems that after much debate three meals a day may be better for you than snacking throughout the day (as long as you don’t eat a huge meal late at night), but I just can’t do that.  I eat one big meal in the middle of my day (which can be anywhere from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., depending, and then I eat here and there.

There’s a saying for new parents–fed is best. This is because there’s a raging feud over breast-fed v. bottle-fed, with virtual blood being spilled on both sides.

I have to embrace fed is best, as messed up as that may sound. Otherwise, I won’t eat. Like, I did not eat an actual meal today until 2 in the morning. That’s not good, I know, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.


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More thoughts in my brain, part two

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I have more thoughts about society and how my brain works. Strap in because this is going to go places. I don’t know which places, exactly, but we’re going to go to them. Maybe. You know how I do. I may end up somewhere completely different; we shall see. In yesterday’s post, I was all over the place. I eventually talked about not getting gender on a cellular level. No, that’s not how I put it, but it’s what I meant.

I’ve been tinking about it a lot lately for several reasons. One, because of *waves at world around me*. Two, because of my dip into Kpop as I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Gender roles are very prescriptive and proscriptive (as they are in many countries), but in a somewhat different way than it is in America. Granted, this is a very niche area in the first place (Kpop). I don’t know for sure, but I would wager than men in Korea who aren’t in the arts probably don’t–well, I just looked it up, and I was wrong. Men in Korea do shave their body hair. It’s the standard over there.  It’s considered dirty unkempt to have body hair, apparently. Which is funny because many Asian people have very little body hair. I don’t, and I haven’t shaved anything since I was in my early twenties.

As for makeup, that’s much less common, though a chunky minority(roughly 16%) wear it for special occasions. About 4% wear it daily. Interesting. I say it’s interesting because in general, at least from the Kpop I’ve seen (mostly Stray Kids, but I have watched other groups), there is less of the overt muscular masculinity, even though there is some of that, and more of a cute vibe. In fact, theat’s part of the culture–adults acting cute as social lubrication.

It’s been a really interesting look into how another culture does gender–and it’s another culture in which I would not feel welcome. I’m saying this as a person of Taiwanese descent. It’s not the same as Korea, obviously, but there are some similarities. The honorifics based on gender. The veneration of age. The rigid gender stereotypes. I will note that I have not been to Taiwan in a decade and a half, so I can’t speak to how it is now. But when I was there, I got a lot of shit for not fitting their idea of what a girl/woman should be.

The first time I went was when I was ten or so. Taiwan did not have a taboo about talking about weight. I had more than one cousin I had just met for the first time tell me how fat I was. You can porbably guess that this made me feel really good about myself. My mother put me on my first diet when I was seven. And she nagged me about my weight until I put my foot down when I was in my late thirties. I told her explicitly that she could not mention my weight. Or health, for that matter, because she would use health as a cover for weight.

I know I’m going to dip out of Kpop at some point because the environment is not healthy for me. Also, I know that it’s a world that I most definitely do not fit in. I mean, that’s all worlds so far, but this is the one I’m currently interested in.

This is my life, by the way. I stay in a space for as long as it’s tolerable for me, and then I move on. I know there is no place that would feel 100% comfortable (because that’s life), but I would settle for 50%. Maybe even 40%. I also would like to know if others feel the same way.

Here’s the thing. Any time I’m in a crowd, I’m keenly aware of just how different I am, and it’s been that way my whole life. It’s because I’m several deviations away from the norm, and it’shard to find a middle ground. Let’s list them out. I’m queer  (bi), Taiwanese American, areligious, agender, able to think about things on several different levels, and that’s just the start of it. I don’t wantto be in a long-term relationship, and I’m ethically nonmonogamous. I am looking to date again, but just for sex. I would love a fuck buddy who I could call two or three times a week–have a laugh and a few tumbles in the hay, and then send them home again.

I don’t believe in marriage. I mean, I know it exists–I’m not saying it doesn’t. But it’s just not for me. As for kids…the less said about that topic, the better. I’ve talked about it enough–you know what? No. I am going to get into it.

When I was in my early twenties, I realized I did not have to have children. I grew up assuming I was going to have them because that’s what you did as a woman. You were for breeding and spawning and anything else was extraneous. That’s what my mother and her very sexist evangelical Taiwanese Christian church had me believing, and American society did not do anything to dissuade me of that belief.

So when I realized that I could actually choose not to have children, it was the best decision of my life. I was so excited about it, I shared it with anyone who wanted to know. And, boy, did a lot of women want to know. So many woman. So much questioning. Ugh. If I could go back, the one change I would make is that I would have kept my decision to myself. I naively thought that it was a small thing that should not matter to anyone. In reality, I got a lot of shit for deciding not to have children.

See, this is yet another way in which my brain is broken. I thought, “This is a decision that doesn’t affect anyone but me. No one is going to care.” I was so, so, so wrong. for some reason I still don’t completely understand, many women* were heavily invested (and, sadly, still are) in propping up the ‘a woman’s purpose is to have children’ bullshit and took it REALLY personal when someone like me came along. More tomorrow.

 

 

*Yes, only women in this case. Men at the time wnated to avoid getting me preggo because they wanted to get in my pants. A gross generalization, but not far from off.

 

More re-birthday musings

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Let’s talk more about my weird brain and how I think of things. In the last post, I was talking about how bigots are going to bigot because they are bigots. I know that’s reductive and goes around in a circles, but it’s also true. When you get down to it, they are bigots because they are/want to be bigots. They have hate in their hearts, and they want to spread it around.  Also, many of them believe that everyone also has the same hate in their hearts, but just keep it to themselves. That’s why it’s important to speak up when you hear bigoted statements.

It’s interesting. As a visual minority, I don’t get to hear most of the rank foul things people would say about Asian people. Sure, I get to hear the casual racism, and I’ve been asked really foul personal questions as an Asian AFAB person. And, my god, when I used to use the dating apps, the vast majority of the men responding (when I was looking for men) would tell me how much they LOVED Oriental girls (their words, not mine) and send me dick pics. This was with me putting in my ad that I did not want dick pics or men who were Asian fetishists.

Side note: my dudes. Bruh. I don’t know why I need to say this, but the way to instantly stand out on the apps as a straight dude is to FUCKING READ WHAT THE AD ACTUALLY  SAYS. I was very upfront about not wanting either of those two things, and I would say at least 90% of the replies I got had the Asian thing and maybe 50% had dick pics.

Guys whine about not getting any answers to their queries on dating apps, but if you can’t put in the minimal effort of READING THE FUCKING AD, then there’s no reason for someone to reply to you.

I know what it is, of course. Sexism and racism all rolled up into one. Yippee. It’s cishetwhite dudes not realizing that they need to put in a modicum of effort. So many guys whining about not getting any answers, blah blah blah. Like they are entitled to a date from any given woman. I mean, I would have a modicum of sympathy if they put in the effort and were being rejected (which does happen to some guys, obviously), but for the ones who don’t even READ THE FUCKING AD before responding, well, they can go fuck themselves (because I certainly am not going to do it).

I’ve gotten into Kpop (well, one specific group, Stray Kids), and I’m struggling. One reason is beacuse I see a lot of what I consider queer-baiting behavior in the indulstry in general. And it’s based on very rigid gender roles that are as entrenched as they are in America (in different ways, yes, but still makes me grimace).

Not only do I find it distasteful, but I don’t get it. I don’t understand why the need to constantly joke about them being married to each other and why fans are so invested in it, too. All the shipping makes me very uneasy for several reasons. One, who the fuck cares? That’s the first and biggest reason.


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