u/SBRGyJo1890

When I was growing up, there was a woman in the church I attended who lost her daughter.

Her daughter was leaning against the concrete railing of a second-floor balcony when the railing suddenly collapsed. The daughter fell with it and died. The daughter was only in her twenties. The section of railing that gave way was only about a foot long, almost as if it had somehow singled her daughter out.

For a while, the woman would often cry out in grief, asking, “My daughter didn’t commit some terrible sin. Why would God take her away like this?” But no one had an answer for her, so eventually, she broke away from the church.

When I was little, I didn’t understand what had happened. All I knew was that, from one day onward, the way she looked at my younger brother and me became tired and distant.

When my brother and I were young, we often went to play with that girl who had passed away. Their front yard was large, they had a dog, and the gate was often left open. Even after her death, we were too young to understand the weight of what had happened, so we continued going into their yard uninvited to play.

Eventually, our father called us aside and told us that we should stop going to their house.

Some time later, after she had completely broken ties with the church, their home became entirely closed off as private property.

Now that I have left the church myself, I look back on what happened and wonder: if she had sought help from a professional therapist instead of turning to the church in the first place, would she have been spared the secondary trauma she experienced?

My dad once relayed the testimony of a woman from his church. She claimed that God had spared her from the pain of childbirth, and my dad believed her story without a doubt. He earnestly warned me that a devout woman wouldn’t experience pain during labor.

But I think she might simply have been exceptionally blessed in the biological lottery.

There are many factors that can contribute to a woman experiencing little or no labor pain:

・The baby is in an ideal position

・The shape of the pelvis is favorable for childbirth

・The birth canal has already gone through multiple deliveries

・The mother is extremely, extremely relaxed physically, mentally, and spiritually (endorphins going wild)

・The doctor is willing to wait and let the physiological process of labor run its course …and many more.

I’m not a professional—this is just what Dr. Google told me.

Do I want to talk back? Yes.

But do I want to get lectured until 3 a.m. and then drag my sleep-deprived body to work the next morning?

No.

^(I feel like I’ve been complaining about my dad way too much on this sub, and I know it’s probably not healthy for me mentally. But it feels so good to get it off my chest.)

Once, my dad cursed at my mom in the car, calling her 「狗日的」. So I said to him, “You know that 「狗日的」 means 「狗肏的」, right? The full meaning is basically 「妳是被狗幹的」 (“you were fucked by a dog”). The 「日」 (“to fuck”) is a euphemistic substitute for 「肏」, used to evade internet censorship.”

My dad went quiet, and the argument ended.

What I find especially funny is that he’s a Christian. When my younger brother was little, he once blurted out 「幹你媽」 (“fuck your mom”) at our mom. My dad, supposedly in the name of defending his wife, beat my seven-year-old brother so badly that he wet himself and had convulsive breathing.

But when my dad himself let something like that slip, he didn’t apologize to my mom.

Note: Although 「狗日的」 is Chinese, it isn’t a phrase used in my family’s Mandarin dialect in everyday speech. So there’s a good chance my dad learned it online, which would explain why he doesn’t really understand the cultural context behind the expression.

I recently discovered that if the Player Character is a widow with a young daughter and a happy past marriage, characters who are possessive, initially distant, or playboy types become significantly less intense.

Characters that used to get stuck in that endless "escape → imprisonment" loop suddenly run remarkably smoothly now. As long as I snap using the kid as an excuse, they don't hit the dead end of "I'm going to {further escalate the confinement} to keep you."

Hmm... beats me, but hey, at least it works.

When she brought up “if you are a man”, she used the word “man.” Yet when talking about the situation in the women’s restroom, she referred to women as “vagina owners.”

Women are expected to self-censor in the name of “respect and inclusivity,” to the point where they no longer call themselves women, while the meaning of “man” remains completely untouched.

Star anise is a double-edged sword. It can bring a wonderful flavor to food, but when it gets stuck between your teeth, it unleashes that flavor with brutal force, taking revenge for being denied the chance to reproduce.

The photo of a dead person suddenly becomes clear, but you have absolutely no idea who they are.

My reaction wasn't, “Oh, great!” It was more like, “Who? Who is that?”—shaking with the kind of fear you get when it feels like someone has suddenly appeared right behind you.

Ever since I was little, I’ve always assumed that the designs on mugs were meant to be appreciated by the person using them. My parents also never spent what they considered “wasted money” on mugs with decorative rims.

So until I first saw other left-handed people discussing this particular frustration, it had never occurred to me that the design on a mug was supposed to be facing outward for other people to see.

If I had never learned English or come across discussions about this issue, I might never have realized it.

How I play a possessive character:

・Call the police when I should.

・Avoid them the moment I see a red flag.

・If they dare try to sexually assault me, kick them in the balls.

・If I need help, I’ll scream for it without hesitation.

Result: The character’s affection level never goes up at all 👍 (Well, duh.)

When I was a kid, I was absolutely terrified of the burglar and fire music in the first Sims game—to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night. I have no idea what the composers were thinking back then, scaring kids like that.

Is anyone else as scared as I am of the music that plays when you discover a new corpse in the memories? I really, really need an option to separate the sound effects from the music...

I know it’s ridiculous to ask for a horror game to be less scary, so this is just my personal preference.

Recently, I’ve been playing Hollow Knight, Silksong, and Chants of Sennaar in Traditional Chinese, and it stirred up a strange sense of melancholy in me. It made me realize just how much game localization really matters.

When some games outsource their localization, the Chinese localization is often handed over entirely to Chinese localization companies, such as Tencent. A lot of the time, only Simplified Chinese is provided, and I honestly don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the mindset that “Traditional Chinese players can understand Simplified Chinese anyway, so there’s no need to spend extra money on another translation”? That’s probably just my own pessimistic slippery slope.

Or sometimes, even when Traditional Chinese is provided, regional language habits and cultural differences aren’t taken into consideration at all. Instead, the Traditional Chinese version is translated directly from Simplified Chinese. As a result, it still reads with a strong northern Chinese Mandarin flavor, which native Mandarin speakers can actually pick up on.

The worst-case scenario is when the Simplified Chinese translation itself is full of painfully literal translations, and the Traditional Chinese version gets dragged down with it as well.

So, thank you, Team Cherry, and all the creators who are willing to genuinely care about game localization. I’m incredibly grateful for that effort.

I’m extremely prone to pessimism because of the echo chamber effect.

I have to very intentionally tell myself, "No, the bad men you see online aren't the norm; and even if those bad women share your gender, they don't represent you."

Yet, I still frequently fall into pessimistic loops like, "Why do men treat women so poorly?" or "Women really are inferior to men after all."

It seems like the only way out is just telling myself, "Just stop thinking about it!"

My therapist asked me to practice positive thinking. He said it’s impossible to achieve overnight and that I need to intentionally train my mind for at least one to two years.

I'm not sure if I can make it through. It feels like swimming in mud—we'll see whether I reach the shore first or sink under.

05:22 A.M., Goodnight.

Speaking of the new game, all the achievement clues can be found within the game itself. When was the last time Rusty Lake did this? Usually, there’s at least one achievement that requires you to look for something in another game from the series.

4:39 a.m… I should go to sleep. Bye.