Thank you for sharing this. Your words on ambiguity and constant identity negotiation in white/culturally white spaces really resonated with my soul. Wishing you health and happiness ♡♡♡
i don't know what to say, reading this had been a glimps in the life of a queer person of color that i do not see usually. the html is very nice and suits the story being told. i do hope you are happy or find happyness in whichever form it takes.
I am half white and half black. The family I have any sort of tether to, are all black. There are multitudes I will never relate to, due to having white skin.
However.
Reading this, I heard so many echoes of points I have vented only to myself before. There was a rumbling in my ears as I continued through the note. It took me right back. There are memories, disjointed and bruised memories we share.
I constantly feel the stinging of an isolation that cannot be cured. Layers of this incurable isolation grow each year and I'm somewhere wallpapered in and made to be quiet about it. I'm made to be a fraud, anywhere I'd decide to go. I think you understand.
Identity. I only get to be a ghost inhabiting a body. Who's there? I think I heard something, felt someone pass by. I'm a curiosity, a novelty, and crucially, not worth keeping. Nowhere beckons for me to please join in. There are no flyers being spread around town.
It's nice to know someone else feels it. It hurts to know it will be like this for our lifetimes and beyond. I'm glad to know you, and to learn more of you through your many works. In the pit of my heart, I was hugging a sniffling school-aged version of me. I hadn't done that in so long. Thank you.
Thank you Speckle. Your words about feeling like RehAIbilitation reminded you of people you knew still makes me extremely happy. I'm happy to have given you an experience that makes you hug your school-aged self
the basic idea of "there is no space i move through where i dont have to re-negotiate my identity" therefore "i did not detransition", will stick with me i think. thank you for sharing!
Oftentimes, the more I try to explain anything at all about who I am, the less understood I feel afterward, with the replies I receive merely leaving me even more alienated than I was before. I eventually just stopped volunteering information about myself 99% of the time; and do you know what I've found?
Ambiguity is not only far less painful, but fits me like a glove.
I deeply hate it, the way it feels like any meaningful part of your identity or lived experience that you choose to reveal to others is invariably turned against you, reduced to the butt of a joke, a talking point for whatever flavor of politicking, or a weapon with which to shame or invalidate you, whether intentionally or otherwise.
In the end, I'd much rather be ambiguous, inscrutable, and unknowable than subject myself to that noxious farce, no matter how isolating that choice may be.
---
Your letter is visceral, tremendously potent, and overall marvelous. Thank you very much for writing and sharing this~
Every one of your works, everything you put time into I really enjoy reading. I appreciate being able to understand others, understand you, a bit more--whether it's writing like this, text blocks and no pictures, or a game telling a story through characters. I find it interesting to know how you/others think, but I also always feel touched by your media in one way or another. I go on to think about it for months after. I'm happy I've found your work and got the chance to read your writing. I'm glad you share your thoughts / projects here and at the end of the day I hope you are happy.
This isn't a love letter, but an appreciation letter to you for managing to put these words and thoughts and concepts and stories you have into such ethereal pieces of media--and giving us the opportunity to view it. I hope it's cathartic for you in a way, too.
I'm always extremely impressed on both a personal and craft level by your writing and how emotionally resonant and truthful your works are. Thank you for taking the time to talk about your own feelings and experiences when it isn't an easy thing to do, it greatly enriches your body of work and the world at large. Your ability to use the medium of interactive fiction to convey meaning via presentation and text manipulation (the blurred text and the slight effect on all the text to make it seem slightly faded, fighting for its right to be legible at all, the large hollow red letters that obnoxiously take up the entire page, the squiggle under misogynoir) is so inspiring to me.
The sound of the cicadas is a nice throughline, and the ending images of you and your dog in the park reminded me of Leslie Feinberg's quote "The earth was damp against my back. The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy. Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me."
"You are not a tomboy. You are a Black girl" is going to stick in my head for a long time. there is no room for gender variance when everybody sees you as innately less worthy of gender. ambiguity is a comfort, but a luxury; a constant game of self-adjustment, predicting how you're read and responding in advance.
i had a lot of similar feelings about yaoi and yuri when i was a lesbian - particularly, confused guilt for my attraction to fictional boys, in spite of my (then) lack of attraction to real men. the fear that your gender is just too inconvenient to understand, or that you're "lying" by wanting something different than the way strangers perceive you... i really feel it.
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Love this
I'm not going to play this I don't want to be sad
this made me cry 10/10
this is so stunningly written. thank you so much for writing this.
Thank you for sharing this. Your words on ambiguity and constant identity negotiation in white/culturally white spaces really resonated with my soul. Wishing you health and happiness ♡♡♡
i don't know what to say, reading this had been a glimps in the life of a queer person of color that i do not see usually. the html is very nice and suits the story being told. i do hope you are happy or find happyness in whichever form it takes.
I am half white and half black. The family I have any sort of tether to, are all black. There are multitudes I will never relate to, due to having white skin.
However.
Reading this, I heard so many echoes of points I have vented only to myself before. There was a rumbling in my ears as I continued through the note. It took me right back. There are memories, disjointed and bruised memories we share.
I constantly feel the stinging of an isolation that cannot be cured. Layers of this incurable isolation grow each year and I'm somewhere wallpapered in and made to be quiet about it. I'm made to be a fraud, anywhere I'd decide to go. I think you understand.
Identity. I only get to be a ghost inhabiting a body. Who's there? I think I heard something, felt someone pass by. I'm a curiosity, a novelty, and crucially, not worth keeping. Nowhere beckons for me to please join in. There are no flyers being spread around town.
It's nice to know someone else feels it. It hurts to know it will be like this for our lifetimes and beyond. I'm glad to know you, and to learn more of you through your many works. In the pit of my heart, I was hugging a sniffling school-aged version of me. I hadn't done that in so long. Thank you.
Thank you Speckle. Your words about feeling like RehAIbilitation reminded you of people you knew still makes me extremely happy. I'm happy to have given you an experience that makes you hug your school-aged self
the basic idea of "there is no space i move through where i dont have to re-negotiate my identity" therefore "i did not detransition", will stick with me i think. thank you for sharing!
Oftentimes, the more I try to explain anything at all about who I am, the less understood I feel afterward, with the replies I receive merely leaving me even more alienated than I was before. I eventually just stopped volunteering information about myself 99% of the time; and do you know what I've found?
Ambiguity is not only far less painful, but fits me like a glove.
I deeply hate it, the way it feels like any meaningful part of your identity or lived experience that you choose to reveal to others is invariably turned against you, reduced to the butt of a joke, a talking point for whatever flavor of politicking, or a weapon with which to shame or invalidate you, whether intentionally or otherwise.
In the end, I'd much rather be ambiguous, inscrutable, and unknowable than subject myself to that noxious farce, no matter how isolating that choice may be.
---
Your letter is visceral, tremendously potent, and overall marvelous. Thank you very much for writing and sharing this~
You always word so succinctly Kyou. I'm happy you understand. Thank you for reading.
Every one of your works, everything you put time into I really enjoy reading. I appreciate being able to understand others, understand you, a bit more--whether it's writing like this, text blocks and no pictures, or a game telling a story through characters. I find it interesting to know how you/others think, but I also always feel touched by your media in one way or another. I go on to think about it for months after. I'm happy I've found your work and got the chance to read your writing.
I'm glad you share your thoughts / projects here and at the end of the day I hope you are happy.
This isn't a love letter, but an appreciation letter to you for managing to put these words and thoughts and concepts and stories you have into such ethereal pieces of media--and giving us the opportunity to view it. I hope it's cathartic for you in a way, too.
the kind of thing that reaches into ones heart. well done! ^_^
omg you really get it
this is kind of my experience too except I'm South Asian
This might be my favorite line in the entire essay.
Mine as well, I feel trapped inside and out, I want to crawl out of my body. But what exactly will crawl out? If there's nothing inside.
I'm always extremely impressed on both a personal and craft level by your writing and how emotionally resonant and truthful your works are. Thank you for taking the time to talk about your own feelings and experiences when it isn't an easy thing to do, it greatly enriches your body of work and the world at large. Your ability to use the medium of interactive fiction to convey meaning via presentation and text manipulation (the blurred text and the slight effect on all the text to make it seem slightly faded, fighting for its right to be legible at all, the large hollow red letters that obnoxiously take up the entire page, the squiggle under misogynoir) is so inspiring to me.
The sound of the cicadas is a nice throughline, and the ending images of you and your dog in the park reminded me of Leslie Feinberg's quote "The earth was damp against my back. The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy. Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me."
this was really lovely and so personal, thank you for putting so much of yourself in this!
The text was arranged beautifully and purposefully, that little squiggly line underneath misogynoir was a nice touch & bit of commentary!
I considered not sharing it but wanted to. I'm not sure I would've without works like Resist the Urge to Blow Up Your Life ♡ Thank you for reading.
aaaaaaa I'm so honored!!! I'm really happy you shared :3
Lots of love to u
in body(s) and in name(s) and in heart, i hope there's more understanding, day by day
love
"You are not a tomboy. You are a Black girl" is going to stick in my head for a long time. there is no room for gender variance when everybody sees you as innately less worthy of gender. ambiguity is a comfort, but a luxury; a constant game of self-adjustment, predicting how you're read and responding in advance.
i had a lot of similar feelings about yaoi and yuri when i was a lesbian - particularly, confused guilt for my attraction to fictional boys, in spite of my (then) lack of attraction to real men. the fear that your gender is just too inconvenient to understand, or that you're "lying" by wanting something different than the way strangers perceive you... i really feel it.
been thinking a little about ambiguity lately, and I really enjoyed reading this. thanks for making it.
Thank you for making this. As an Asian gender-whatever lesbian, this resonated hard with me.