Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: neurospiciness

I just DESTROYED the internet, part two!

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Before I tell you how I DESTROYED the internet, I have a side note. Yes, alredy. It’s tangentially related to my exasperation at the way hyperbole on the internet is being ramped up in a desperate attempt to get clicks, but even if it weren’t, I want to talk about it.

It’s the constant enshittification (and yes, that’s a real (slang) word now) of the internet, and I am so frustrated with it. In this particular case,  it’s Yahoo! mail. They keep ‘updating’ it, ostensibly making it better. But, in fact, it’s worse. Not only is it uglier, there is a panel on the night side for ads. At first, I did not realize what it was for because I have an ad blocker. I tried to get rid of it to no avail. When I found out what it was for, I was so grumpy.

Yes, I could upgrade to premium or whatever it’s called, but I don’t want to do that. Yahoo is like my dump email, meaning it’s just for garbage, mostly. But also for all my accounts. They have been warning me for the past year or so that my inbox is exceeding 90% and that I should upgrade to avoid the possibility of not being able to receive new emails. I’ve deleted thousands of emails, but that apparently doesn’t matter.

Also, this is a nitpick, but it’s still annoying. When they ‘updated’ their look, they automatically switched me back to the light version, which hurt my eyes. Keep my preferences for fuck’s sake, Yahoo! Sheesh. It’s so ugly now, I can barely stand looking it. I know that’s a feature and not a bug. They don’t give a shit about user experience (that is so last millennium), and they are doing everything they can to maximize profits.

How does this tie into the hyperbole that I’ve found else where on the internet? Because it’s all in the name of making a tiny bit more profit. Whether it’s a mega-corp like Yahoo! or a YouTube channel with 10,000 subs, it’s the same desperation to get one more click that is such a turn-off.

I realized how bad it’s gotten when I found myself talking back as I read video titles. One that is particularly annoying me these days is the “This game has thirty minutes to get me/win me over/other negging.” Or even worse, “Kpop hater llistens to ___ (Kpop gropup) for the first time.”

It’s not that art can’t be judged–it can, of course. It’s just the “Prove that you’re worthy of my time” tone that is just so off-putting to me. Like it or not, but don’t act like a snot. Many people seem to like that premise, though, so maybe i’m in the minority on tihs subject.

Another that really annoys me has two versions. One is, “We NEED to talk about___” to which I automatically shout, “No we don’t!” The other, and it’s closely related to the first is, “Why is no one talking about_____ (incredibly popular thing that everyone is talking about)?!” I will punch my computer table the next time I see either one of these configurations.


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What I’m loyal to, part seven

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Let’s talk more about brand loyalty. I don’t have any because I’m more utilitarian than anything. In yesterday’s post, I talked about why I don’t have brand loyalty, and I want to expand on why I don’t. I’m pretty sure it has somtehing to do with my neurodivergence, but I can’t say with 100% certainty.

Here’s the thing. I do not feel any loyalty towards things, be they brands, teams (yes, they are made up of people, but not people I know. Plus, I’m talking specifically about “the team”), or individual products. I can be inttensely loyal toward individual people, but even that has it’s limits.

I don’t believe in unconditional love; I just don’t. Why? Because to me, that’s how you abuse happens and is enabled. I know you can set limits and boundaries with someone you love, but there’s so much pressure to love someone no matter what. So many people believe that love means allowing the other person to walk all over you. I don’t agree with t hat, and I want no part of that. In addition, Toxic love is not unconditional love, but so many people believe the former is the latter.

An even more toxic version is, “You do everything for me, but I’ll do nothing for you (except maybe hurt you).” I see that a lot, and it’s disturbing to me. Brand loyalty is similar to me because the expectation to be loyal to a brand is pushed by people who aren’t affiliated with any given product.

I know there is something different with my brain because I just don’t undrestand the ride-or-die way people get with things/products/groupsl/teams they like. I can appreciate really liking something, but if that something no longer brings me satisfaction, then it’s time to go. I have heard so many people say about teams that if you bail when things get bad, then you’re not a true fan. What’s more, you don’t deserve to celebrate when they win. Also, that it’s more meaningful if you go through all the pain with the team as they are losing.

I want to make it clear that I actually agree with the basis for this. Knowing the hard times does make the good times better. Where I disagree is with the gatekeeping. I don’t see how it takes away from a longtime fan’s enjoyment if someone who’s only followed the team for a year is elated when their team wins.

This is me for everything, though. Someone else’s enjoyment of something has no affect on my own. Just like if someone wants to play a From game “wrong”, it has no affect on how I play the games. Or if someone liked Liz Phair’s album that was deliberately made to be more commercial/mainstream/palatable, that doesn’t take away from her more experimental works. In fact, if people get hooked on the former, that may open them up to listening to the latter.


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Why I’m against traditions and brand loyalty, part five

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I want to talk about brand loyalty, and I want to tie it into my musings on tradition. Will I be able to make connect them? I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to try. Why am I thinking about brand loyalty? Because From’s The Duskbloods is purportedly coming out soon, and I have been musing on it. Why? Because if there’s one ‘brand’ I’m loyal to, it’s FromSoft. And, this feels almost like heresy, I am starting to lose trust. But first. Here is my post from yesterday in which I talk about what traditions I eschewed when I was in my twenties.

Here me out.

I have never been the target audience for From games. I suck at them, and it takes me twice as long to finish one as it does most people. The first time through, I mean. Quickest I’ve done a playthrough is 10 hours to get the last achievement I needed to plat the game, and that was on NG+. It can be done in two hours or less, but I didn’t want to rush that much. I felt pretty accomplished doing the whole game in 10 hours when my first playthrough took 250+ hours.

I adore Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree. Put together, it’s my favorite game of all time. I’m doing my umpteenth playthrough beacuse FromSoft released…uh, it’s like this. They put the game on the Switch 2. Which, fine. Put it on as many platforms as possible. In addition, thouugh, they sold the Tarnished DLC on all platforms. It was five dollars for…horse arrmor. I’m not joking. Well, I’m making a pointed joke beacuse when Bethesda sold horse armor DLC for Skyrim there was an outcry.

In this case, I forgive it because I like being able to dress uup Torrent, my beloved spirit steed. He is best boy by far, and he deserves a ‘fit or two. I’m going to spoil what’s in the DLC because it’s relevant to this post, so this is your warning.

FromSoft is in love with making things as obtuse as possible. Most devs would just give you the armor and call it a day. Not FromSoft. This is the same devs who had to show jourrnalists how to access the DLC for Dark Souls, by the way, beacuse it was so obtuse. In this case, there are three Torrent armors, and where you find each makes sense in terms of areas. However, the exact place you find two of them don’t really make sense. And in the case of the first one, it’s put in a room I hadn’t been in since my first playthrough because there was nothing in it.


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Standing tall against gatekeeping and mindless traditions, part four

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Let’s talk more about traditions and why I’m against them. In the last post, I veered sharply into waxing poetic about K because she just gets me. I marvel that in  our thirty-plus years of friendship, we’ve only vigorously argued twice. And it was for like five minutes each time. I don’t have to suppress myself when I’m around her, which is so damn refreshing.

It surprised me that we hit it off so well because quite frankly, I’m not used to that. I can make the small talk and act all polite and shit. I can make people feel like I’m their bestie when I have no interest in them whatsoever. I get the charisma from my father and the push to be the social lubricant from my mother. That sounds gross, but I don’t know quite how to put it.

Asian people put a lot of stock in face. Saving it and allowing others to save it, to be precise. There was such a heavy emphasis on face in my family, and I thought it crossed into secrecy. In other words, it went beyond what was standard and normal in Taiwanese culture and crossed into dysfunction.

My parents had a very byzantine unspoken maze of rules that they just assumed I (and my brother) would know. My mother made it quite clear what she expeced in some ways (such as me being the perfect doll daughter tha she so dreamed of), but had so many unspoken expectations that I only discoverd as I tripped over them. And  not because she would speak up about it after I bumped into them, but becauseof her negative reaction. Yes, I still had to decipher her response, but I knew it was negative. I could feel the disdain/upset/disapproval radiating from her when she was unhappy with me (which seemed to be all the time).

I was a miserable kid, and I first started wanting to die when I turned seven. Not coincidentally, that was the same time when I first realized I was going to die. I remember when I was a tweener, someone told me to enjoy that time because it was the best time of someone’s life. i remember thinking, “If this is the best it gets, then I might as well die now.” I was miserble all the time and in constant emotional pain.

Every step I took out of the norm was hard, but it was ultimately a relief. The big one I’ve talked about several times was realizing I didn’t have to have children. This was when I was twenty, and I can’t emphasize how much of a weight that lifted off my shoulders. It’s one hell of a realization to make at that age, too.


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I ain’t got time for that, part three

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I’m back to talk more about gatekeeping, traditions, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how once your eyes are open to something, it’s really hard to close them again.

I sometimes wondered if there was a way I could have been normal. I think about my life, and, nah. It just wasn’t in the cards for me. As young as age seven, I knew there was somtething different about me. At the time, I thought it was that my brain was broken. I felt like I never got the manual for how to be a human being. Not even a normal human being, but a human being at all. I was talking about it with A, saying I felt like an alien. She was the one who encouraged me to take an online autism test because she heard a lot from me that resonated with her (she’s autistic).

I once mentioned to K when we were in our early thirties that sometimes, I wished I could have been normal. She sighed deeply and said, “You would not have wanted that life.” She was right, but it didn’t stop me from wishing for it now and again. Not often and not for long, but when I was deep in my depression and things looked bleak.

Yeah, life would have been easier if I could have been normal. I stand by that. If I had wanted to have the married life and kids. To care about fashion and, hell, I don’t know. Cooking? Now I’m just being catty. But I could not be any less feminine if I tried. And, believe me, I have. Well, ok, if you want to go by physical attributes, I could cut my hair off and do something with my boobs. The former is reasonable; the latter is not (because I like my boobs).

K is right, though, in that I would not have wanted that life. I would have hated that life. In our conversation last night, we were talking about having kids. She has one who is now working their first post-college job. Wow. How time really flies. I mentioned how I had said to one of my Taiji classmates that I would have been a bad mother. He immediately countered me and said he thought I would have been a great mom.

K said that in our society, it was so taboo to say you’d be a bad mother (specifically. Men get a free pass on this one. Maybe not as much these days, but certainly thirty years ago, there wasn’t nearly as much pressure on men to be fathers), it was pretty messed up to not listen when someone said they would be one (a bad mother). It brought tears to my eyes, though I did not tell her that.

She has the ability to make me feel seen in a way that no one else does. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m too much for her to handle, but she’s very good with strong personalities. And, it’s not like she’s the shy and retiring type herself.

You know how you meet someone you can talk to at any time and it seems like you had just talked minutes before? That’s our relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s a day or a year. She is in my heart, and I know I ‘m in hers. We tell each other things we would not share with others, and she is the sister I’ve always wished I had.

I had no chance, really. There was nothing ‘right’ about me, and I gave up trying sometime in my late twenties. I mean, I had given up before then, but that’s when I became conscious that I really couldn’t be normal, no matter how much I try. It should have been freeing. Instead, it sunk me deeper in the depths of depression, self-loathing, and despair.

Fast-forward to me in my fifties. Not only do I know I’m not normal, I no longer have any desire to be. I know I can’t be, not even as I mask to the best of my abilities. See, I can say the platitudes necessary to pass as a normie for short periods of time. I can mask very well. I seem very empathetic, and I can get someone’s life story in five minutes, whether I want it or not.

In fact, K and I were commiserating about not liking to take Lyfts or Ubers because we get the life stories of the drivers. When she mentioned it, I couldn’t believe my ears because I thought I was the only one. We also bitched about how so many drivers burn incense as they drive. I’m allergic to every scent under the sun, and she said that she was allergic to many smells as well.

As I said, she just gets me. It’s something I really tappreciate about her, and I am so grateful to have her in my life. We met each other serendipitously (at work), and it was only because she was very persistent that we stayed friends when I left the nonprofit we worked at.

About a year into our friendship, she asked me if I wanted to be friends. I never called her, and she said she didn’t mind doing the calling–she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t bothering me. I hastily told her I was so grateful that she called me, and I was glad we were besties. I just didn’t want to intrude because at that time in my life, I felt that I was an imposition on everyone. That’s the power of being constantly put down as a child and told that I was worthless. Not told explicitly, but implied all over the place.

Once we got that settled, our friendship blossomed. We’ve been by each other’s side for over thirty years, which amazes and delights me. She really is my soulmate, and there’s a reason I call our relationship a queertonic one. She’s fine with it, and she loves the idea of the two of us heckling others in a old folks’ home when we’re in our eighties.

 

 

 

Seeing things with a clear mind, part three

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Back to talk more about my brain. I was going to expand on my premise, but after rereading my last post about Kojima, I decided to elaorate a bit more on the last bit. I read that he’s desputing that he was missing deadlines and going over budget, but I take what he says with a grain of salt. Other people are saying that all big budget games go over budget and miss deadlines. I would not be surprised if this was true, but how does that excuse him from doing it? “Everyone else is doing it, Mom!” has not ever been and still is not an acceptable excuse.

And, call it a hunch, but I bet Kojima misses deadlines by more and goes over budget by more as well. In addition, he’s the one in charge so the buck stops with him. If you’re going to get the accolades for being the auteur who is also a visionary, then you have to deal with the blowback of missing deadlines and going over budget.

Look. I am not one to take the side of a corpo over–well, just about anyone. However, in this case, there’s enough blame to go around. I don’t doubt that Sonyy is looking to cut their losses after hemorrhaging money over their ill-conceived idea of being ALL LIVE SERVICE GAMES ALL THE TIME. In addition, they’ve decided, weirdly, not to port their games to the PC. I know they did not make a ton of money on their ports, but it brought their best games to a whole different crowd. And, I think if they did it steadily and consistently, they would have seen a significant increase in their sales.

For whatever reason*, they have chosen live service games over everything else. Even though their last big live service game (Concord (Firewalk Studios, who got shut down because of the fiasco)) was an utter disaster.

So, yeah. Sony’s panic is of their own making, completely. Let’s add to that the fact that they shot themselves squarely in the foot with their stance on physical copies of their games, including the fact that they chided their customervs fdor being naive/not smart enough to realize that, duh, of course they don’t really own anything digitally. This as they’ve taken away movies from their shelves long after customers have bought digital copies of said movies and are SOL.

In other words, they are owning their own goals so hard right about now. The last thing they need is (in their eyes) a high-strung, nervy auteur who is not meeting the demands goalposts they were setting.

I’m not saying Sony is blameless–far from it. I’m just saying that it’s not outrageous that they would cut the cord with

Well, my sleep has been aaaaalllll over the map, and I was struggling to stay awake for hours when I was writing this. I finally gave in and went to bed, so this is me writing the next day.


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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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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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Me and double empathy, part three

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I have more to say about bias, the double empathy problem, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I have no heart because there is so much hatred in this country right now.

In the Discord I’m in, we were arguing about politics. Well, not politics themselves, exactly, but whether or not America is hopeless. There were those who said though things were bleak right now, there was a brighter day coming. I, on the other hand, was just done. I did not come back from the dead (twice) for this bullshit!

Someone in the Discord was saying that to believe it was hopeless meant ‘they’ won. I knew what they were saying, but at this point, I just couldn’t care. I have been a Democrat since I was old enough to realize what the parties stood for. I was a Democrat by default because I loathed them a little less than I did the Republicans.

Yes, you understand that correctly. I have never been an enthusiastic Democrat because there is just so much wrong with the party. I’m not going to enumerate their faults and flaws here, but suffice to say if I could have found any other party to vote for, I would have. Any other party would have done (except the Republicans, obviously), but that would have been a folly in a two-party system.

I’m also not going to rant about that because I’m not in the mood, but I will say that I have never voted  Republican, and I most certainly will not now. When I was on the dating apps (back in the Stone Ages), I had a bio that said I didn’t care about gender, color, religion, or anything except that I would not date a Republican. This was thirty-some years ago, and I feel it even more now. You cannot be a part of the Republican party right now and not have hate in your heart.

Do I have hope? Honestly, I don’t think that’s a revelant question for me. Hope doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t help people in any tangible way. In fact, I would say unreasonable hope is wores than no hope at all. I get it. You don’t want to take all hope away from people, but I don’t want to hope for something that isn’t going to happen.

There is a very thin line between being hopeful and toxic positivity. America is heavily into the latter, and it’s working my last nerve right now. I do know that people have to have some sliver of hope, but things really are dire right now. And I know we have to keep fighting, but it’s so hard. Where is the good news? Where is that spark of things can get better? There is none. I have a hard time even checking the news on the daily because it’s unrelenting grim news.


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Let’s talk more about the double empathy problem, part two

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DEI training is worse than useless if it’s not done well. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I was unwillingly dragged into being a DEI trainer when I was a ‘mere’ admin assistant for a DEI department (or the equivalent thereof before DEI was officially a thing).

I was supposed to just deal with paperwork, more or less, but my boss discovered that I’m really fucking good at other things–like writing and computer-related things that she did not want to do. As I said in yesterday’s post, she was in over her head and really should not have been in the position.

The one thing I learned while doing DEI training was that most of it was shitty. This was thirty years ago, and while it may have gotten better since then, I think it still probably sucks. I mentioned it at the end of the last post that I came up with an idea for a diversity town in which people who are now in the majority (cis het white Christian dudes) expreienced life as the minority for a month.

I want the actual minorities to treat the people in the majority the way they themselves have been treated, no holds barred. It’s nearly impossible to explain to someone what life is like as a minority, especially as a multiple one. There are some people who have empathy, but there are more who do not. And there are a big number of people who haven’t had to be empathetic. The same people who would benefit from diverrsity town.

The reason I dismissed it was because, well, there were several reasons. One, it’s not very ethical to fuck with people like that. Two, it would take an astronomical amount of money. Three, it would be really difficult to govern. Four, crimes would happen. I’m just speculating on the last, but I’m pretty certain that it would happen. Or rather, there would be no way to guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.

Those ore the four off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more that I haven’t thought of–such as not being allowed to do any such thing. Also, people who are in the majority are already afraid of how they’d be treated if they truly were in the minority. This certainly would not help in that area.

I think it would be a good way to really open people’s eyes to prejudice, though. And I would make sure that they got to experience ALL the harrassment, microaggressions, gaslighting, and other delightful bullshit that minorities have to go through. Which, again, is neither ethical nor moral. And probably not legal, either.


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