Your Lie in April

I just finished watching this anime, about a prodigal pianist who quit after the death of his mother. He had a complicated relationship with music, but one day this amazing girl appeared in his life, and his world changed. I knew it was just anime, because it just doesn't happen in real life--- someone amazing like that doesn't just pop up and colour your monochrome world.

I wish they did.

As I watched I grew incredibly envious of the protagonist. He had his piano, he had his talent and friends and above all he had this girl who inspired him and motivated him and dragged him along when he was down. I felt like I spent so much of my life just waiting for someone to take my hand so that my life can begin. Then I realised I didn't want to be that kind of person, who just waits and waits for someone to pick him up. I wanted to sprint off like Miyazono Kaori in "Your Lie in April", that amazing girl who coloured the world around her. In this life I too, would rather be the short-lived shooting star that slashes across the night sky than a candle that glows dimly as it slowly burns.

It's a sad thing to realise, that a dying girl has more energy and motivation than you do. The possibilities of youth are supposed to be endless- I imagined something vibrant, full of spontaneity and vitality, but I'm left with this drawn out sense of numbness. Time just passes and I don't think, I don't feel, and I can't tell if I'm still moving. It was really painful before, when I was in absolute agony. I knew I was alive then because I wished I was dead. Now I don't feel much and I sometimes look around, and I wonder, "who am I, what am I doing here?" Maybe I have places I'm supposed to be and things I'm supposed to do, but I can't quite remember.

I think I'll travel a little after this semester's over. I'm supposed to be young, I have strong legs I can stand on. I think I'll go somewhere, find someone, and make my heart feel like it's beating again.

QAQ

Last night I spent a good hour or two getting traumatised by people who call themselves my parents. Sometimes I wonder, what the fuck did I do in my past life to deserve people like you??? It must have been some grave sin indeed, to incur this kind of karma. 

There was a lot of name-calling, I was a monster and a shame of the family. They reinforced that I was mentally ill, but they meant it as an insult. I sat there in the face of all this abuse, and I would have left but my mother was clinging onto me, crying, begging me to "be normal". It was a bit of a trainwreck scene. 

For the first time in my life I didn't cry. Initially I thought I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, and I feared I was going to have another one of my classic breakdowns where I cry and I yell in frustration, then I run away from everything. I hated myself for those times. So I sat there, and that brief moment of panic passed, and I endured. I think my non-response to the situation triggered my mother some more, and she wailed on, saying I was too cold, that I will end up all alone and that no one will love me. Apparently the friends I currently have are not real, that we are only friends because they have nothing else to do with their time, that we CAN only be friends because my existence does not negatively impact their lives. 

...I did not think my existence negatively impacted my mothers', but from what she told me last night, evidently I was wrong. 

When I distanced myself a little, I felt as if I were an outsider looking in on some shitty family drama. Here was my mother, crying as if I had died (perhaps she would be happier if I had, sometimes I do wonder), and I was sitting there, motionless, unable to stop her and unable to become a completely different person as she had wished. I will read in textbooks that the mentally ill lack insight, and to her that must be how I appear- unfazed, stoic and certain in my actions. Those are qualities I wished upon myself, and I was so proud that I did not act out last night, that I stood my ground and I was oh-so-polite, like I always wanted to be. 

Then I looked at this woman with pity as she clung to me. I could barely recognize her as my mother, the words she spoke were not very motherly by my books, and her actions far from loving. Though I suppose they were very culturally appropriate, I didn't expect (though I wished) that she would act any other way. Am I too "Westernized" for her? Of course I am, I grew up in Australia, but I love Australia much more than I love classic Chinese culture. I don't mind the conservatism, but I DO mind the fear and hatred covertly endorsed, I mind the sexism, the racism, and the stubborn unwillingness to learn or consider alternate points of view. My parents displayed a myriad of such insufferable qualities last night, and I left feeling thoroughly disgusted. 

In a moment of awakening I knew that I despised them all the same, though I cannot bring myself not to care. I found assurance and peace, because in that moment I knew I would never be like them. It was one of my biggest fears, but when I realized the gulf between us, I knew my fears were unfounded. I was already a vastly different person. Not perfect like I aspire to be- still too cold, too bitter, unwilling to forgive and unsociably cynical, but I am learning to be warmer, kinder, patient and pleasant. One day I will be able to reflect on myself and decided that I had tried, and that trying mattered, and perhaps I will even be satisfied with the person I had become. I know that I am satisfied with my progress now.

I wonder what my parents will have left.

April...Fools

I plan on staying in my room all day so I don't see myself being pranked. It's nice a sunny outside, down south in the town where my parents live. Yeah, I'm visiting them. I had a long talk with my psychologist about why I keep on going back to what I classify as "an abusive relationship", and I came to understand that I needed to do this to feel good about myself, as a person. I decided at one point that I didn't want to be the kind of guy who abandons his family even though they treat him like dogshit, because I don't believe in "sweet vengence", and because I believe my deepest character flaws comes from my unwillingness to forgive, my penchant for petty manipulation and outright malice (because I can). I don't know what "love" is but I don't think this is love I feel. In my quest for self-improvement, this is perhaps one of my greatest obstacles.

There's nothing like a Saturday morning when you wake up to your parents yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, and that sound is mixed with the wailing cries of my young sister. I don't know why they torment each other so, and I don't know why they have so much discontent in their lives. I am often repulsed by the actions of my sister whenever I come back South to visit, thinking "this is such a rude kid", and it baffles me when my parents don't reprimand her. Then you get this morning, and I realised it's more like, ineffective and inconsistent parenting, where they'll let her off free once and then yell their heads off at her the next time, for the same fault on her part. How dare they act surprised when she yells at them to express her discontent or when her childish whims aren't satisfied- they have taught her one an only one way to communicate when unhappy, and she's using what she's learnt.

It's easy to criticise others when you are not in their shoes, I know. I was never a parent, but I felt that I was saddled with the responsibilities of one when my parents left my sister in my care when I was younger. I was apparently a replacement babysitter- saved us money, for sure, but there was a lot of bitterness on my end, because I didn't get to decide to have a child. It all felt wildly unfair to me, anyway.

Ahhhh being in my parents' house is exhausting. They make so many demands on my time, take everything I do for granted, and I know I'll never meet their expectations. It's a futile struggle, for sure, and to surround myself around these people is to surround myself with unpleasantries. When I leave, however, I'll know that I did what I had to do to feel okay about myself, that I was someone who visited parents he didn't like, because he believed that made him a good person.

I'm going to have my own family some day, I swear. Then I'll have someone to love.

Mystic Messenger Post 3: Han Jumin Edition

Alright so I've finished my third run of Mystic Messenger. I realized I described all the characters before but never bothered to upload a single picture. So here goes:

L to R: Zen, Jaehee, Jumin, 707, Yoosung

When I first saw the advert for this game, I've decided that I liked Han Jumin's character (for design). His personality is super-cute as well, what we call "gap moe", I guess? "Gap Moe is when a character does something completely contradictory to what their usual habits/personality/character/appearance dictates."- posting from urban dictionary. Jumin looks like he's cold and calculating, the "out of my league" kind of guy, but he's got this obsession over his cat and he types "meow" in the chatroom and I'm like ????? my weak little heart is fluttering.

Anyway playing his route, yup the attraction is that this guy, who's cold-hearted and looks like he doesn't care about girls, totally falls for my character, and is all "you taught me how to open up and how to love, you changed me for the better". And WHEWWWWW isn't that the ultimate fantasy, you're so attractive that you made someone who's not interested in girls interested in you.

I was indulging in this strange little game, because I'm soooo goddamn deprived of affection I'd settle for hearing a virtual character say, "I love you". Then the story took a weeeeird turn and I thought "what the fuck is going on".

See they basically ripped off the storyline of 50 Shades of Grey, and then I realized Han Jumin is Christian Grey. If you haven't read 50 Shades, you probably know it as the infamous female-erotica. To give you the basic background, it's about this rich CEO kind of guy who is kind of fucked up, but obsessed over the female lead, and wants to do kinky things with her... but in a really weird, sociopathic kind of way. Anyway the Mystic Messenger story kind of mirrored that, and like, I GET why it's written into the story like that, since 50 Shades sold so well there has to be a lot of people into that kind of shit, but for me it's just ??????? Like this is so unhealthy.

I don't know why there is this stereotype that "men can't be trusted" or that "all men want from you is sex". Repeatedly the characters in this game like to remind my character, "hey, I'm a guy too, you know", or "you can't trust him, guys are beasts". Sometimes the line is spoken a lot for comical effect, and everyone just sort of goes along with it like, "well what can you do, it's in their nature".

Except it's not??? Like personally I can't deny that I think about sex alllll the fucking time, but that doesn't make me dangerous? Maybe I'd like to have sex with you, but that doesn't mean I'd rape you or coerce you or do ANYTHING. Maybe you'd come up in my fantasy, and if you knew that'd gross you out, but it's not like I'd ever tell you, so no harm done, right?

I hate being compared to beasts. Even beasts can be trained. To say that no men would be able to resist taking advantage of a girl is just ridiculous. There's this portion of the game where the main character (my character Alice) stays over at Jumin's house, and every other character in the game freaks the fuck out. The implication is that my character is going to get raped, an that implication pisses me off, even if it's in a game.

This shit is why we need feminism in this world- I used to misinterpret that line. Now I know, it stands for so much more. Being a feminist is the same as striving for a world where there isn't an expectation that women will be raped if they are over at a man's house. When I want to argue that "men are not sexist pigs who let their primal urges rule", I should also really argue that "women are not dainty delights that are as free as condoms in an STD clinic" (I can't believe that's the first simile that came to mind). When you refuse to see women as human, and treat them as some evil seductress who were created to tempt men, you propagate the idea that men, fallible as we are, could not possibly resist and could not possibly shoulder any blame. And that's fucking disgusting (i.e. don't do that).

At the end of this rant, what we should really examine is how my love-life is a field of poverty and even indulging in a female-oriented dating-sim makes me irate. What has been a fun little mobile game for many people becomes a field trip in the exploration of sexism and homophobia in popular culture for me. I didn't want to go full social-justice-warrior but maybe deep down I AM a filthy SJW and I'm not even ashamed of that.

Also Mystic Messenger sucks and I needed a walkthrough to reach the "good end". Fuck me I can't even get a dating sim right.

Civil Unions

In Australia we like to offer a commited couple, who are determined to be the same sex, a thing called "civil unions". It's like marriage but you can't call it marriage because you're gay, so when you propose to your partner you ask "hey would you like to civilly unite with me winky face winky face".

It really grinds the gears of some Christians, and I'm being unfair in singling out Christians but I go to a Christian church so that's the view I'm exposed to. "God created man and woman to unite in one flesh, through marriage and through sex, they complement each other". What follows then is that a man and a man or a woman and a woman cannot complement each other, therefore they can't really marry.

And I can't argue against that in the biblical sense, because the Bible literally says that and I can't be all "well if you squint your eyes really hard the text stops making sense". It becomes problematic, however, when we use marriage to mean MORE than the union between man and woman. You see in modern society, we use marital status to determine things like:
-who gets your money if you die
-who looks after your children if you die
-who makes medical decisions for you when you're about to die
-and probably a few other things not related to dying or imminently dying, I just can't think of any other examples right now.

It doesn't make much sense to use a religious defintion of marriage to define union in our largely secular society. Keep the spiritual things spiritual and keep the practical things practical. I also get the feeling that the Christians would be placated as long as "marriage" wasn't labelled "marriage", and thus the "civil union" business.

But why does it matter, right? What's in a word, if "civil union" confers the same rights? Well my counterargument is that we should really be labelling it as "Christian union" vs "marriage", or maybe "spiritual unity between man and woman", SUBMAW for short.

"My dear Eliza, will you SUBMAW me?"

Why do Christians own the word "marriage", anyway? Just because it was so translated that way- maybe they can stick to the ancient Hebrew word and we can have "marriage" as it's made its way to common English.

People seem to get upset that we make such a huge commotion over "semantics", as "words are just words". Well you see, when you use words to communicate, words confer meaning, and when you use such things to mean "you are inherently below me/worth less than me", people get angry! If people could choose to be straight they probably would, but the choice is kind of made for them. And no, marrying the opposite sex doesn't make things all-good again, because you can't offer yourself to someone you're not attracted to, so you won't achieve that nice spiritual union thing you were aiming ofr in the first place.

Thus concludes my post-church rant. This "Christianity" thing is NOT going well for me ):