u/Revolutionary_Web_59

my lord, i’ve always struggled with math past intermediate school. i can’t remember the last time i completed my multiplication tables or even got a grade higher than a d. in high school i had to summer school for geometry even.

buuut! despite having both adhd & dyscalculia, i’ve finally done it!!! granted it took me 3 hours of studying the most agonizing problems for three weeks. (yes i needed those three weeks, i was that paranoid that i would fail horribly) maybe some occasional getting off track.. like being distracted by a youtube video i’d have playing. but i can’t
recommend pomodoro enough, you’re not just sitting there for three hours you actually get time to wind down. it helped my adhd brain knowing i wasn’t just sitting there for three hours doing math.

genuinely wasn’t able to sleep because i was so scared of this math final. i’m happy i managed to do it. i was afraid of the time given as everytime i usually finish a math test with only about 5 minutes leftover. but i finished with an hour left! 🎉

i’m so proud of myself 🥲 i really wasn’t believing even when i was studying & learning… i just felt hopeless at every turn. but i pushed through & i knew everything on the test. shoutout to the teachers who supply study guides because the fear of being in the dark was the scariest part.

there’s an increasing number of people who write off cozy games are “not real gaming” & i’ve genuinely felt the need to look into it. i think a lot of it comes down to that people define real games by a metric of suffering. difficulty, punishment, rage moments, getting your ass kicked & coming back. like suffering is somehow the whole point?

cozy games can have an element of difficulty. stardew has real time management and optimization if you need it. a lot of these games have mechanics you have to learn. the kicker is they’re just not designed to make you feel like garbage playing them. women play hard games too obviously, this isn’t really about difficulty preferences at all.

god forbid i want to wind down & not throw my controller at the nearest wall. i literally just finished majoras mask 3ds & those beaver races had me gnawing on my 3ds at every opportunity. fuck those beavers BTW. i know what being frustrated feels like i just don’t always want it

but it isn’t even only just cozy games. there is this whole subset of people where women who plays games are usually written off for being “too casual” or “too girly”. i think this idea comes from thinking there is a inherently correct way to game; & that so happens to look exactly like what men enjoy. first-person shooters, competitive multiplayer, games where you can suffer as loud as you want & call it skill. anything outside of this bracket is discarded & it isn’t a coincidence that the stuff getting dismissed is usually what women gravitate toward.

but honestly, i believe the real reason is just cozy games are usually made or marketed for women. the second something is coded “for girls” people stop acting like its a legitimate hobby. basically similar energy to dudes who act like liking feminine things makes you lesser. we’ve been doing this forever

it’s not about difficulty anymore. it’s never been about difficulty, as always the culprit is ingrained misogyny. which happens to be about who the game was designed for: women.

would love to hear if anyone else has thoughts on this or has been on the receiving end 💀

edit: i understand the frustration with constantly seeing examples of misogyny, especially since reddit is already full of it. but please know you can filter & curate your feed, even just by sorting by new.

i also wouldn't say calling out dissecting misogyny makes you male-centered. if anything i think there's a difference between centering men & just acknowledging something that exists. being male-centered is like revolving your life around their approval. calling is out is kind of the opposite of that. you can't push back on something you're not allowed to talk about.

i also think it's nice to have a space like this as opposed to not. most gaming subreddits are genuinely hostile toward any criticism of men so the contrast is pretty stark. i didn't write this to vent, more just to dissect where the quote was coming from because i was genuinely curious. sorry for the drop in the ocean, but nonetheless i'm glad of this subreddits existence.