blogging through it.
it's 11pm on September 18, 2024. i make the mistake of checking twitter.
i noticed japanese accounts are seemingly following me at random. one profile has "ffxiv" in their bio so as i'm listening to team liquid try to clear Nerub-Ar Palace on Mythic+ i decided to check them out. maybe they have nice screenshots of their character, and i like checking those out even if my heart isn't in that game anymore.
instead i see screenshots of my twitter. my linkedin. i see a retweet that reads:
"i've received information about kazuma hashimoto who told the NYT that Assassin's Creed Shadows was well received in japan and that criticism in japanese was translated to english. former sweetbaby. former ubisoft and square enix consultant. writes for polygon and ign."
my heart starts hammering in my chest when i see a YouTube video attached. it speculates who i am. the user in question posts that they have "uncovered" shocking information about me.
it's just information from my linkedin. but mentioning that i'm half-japanese starts a frenzy. comments are racist. just like before. i'm not japanese apparently. i'm korean. or chinese. this time i'm not white. (i am half white.) just the wrong kind of asian for japanese nationalists.
it's the same as before. but my heart is still hammering in my chest.
i post in my community discord that invitations are locked down for the foreseeable future. i don't want to wake up to a potential disaster and offload that onto my mods if this makes it to the English speaking side of the internet. and it might.
because people have been mad about Assassin's Creed Shadows since it's announcement trailer. and i'm telling the truth when i say i've mostly seen positive reception. game looks cool. but because it features two protagonists -- one a black man, another a japanese woman (the key word there being woman) -- the usual suspects can't get over it. (and to be clear, i have no involvement in Shadows. the work i've done for sweetbaby i will probably never be able to talk about!)
discourse has been rancid. that's the way of things. it's why i've tried to stay out of it on bluesky. just posting about world of warcraft. being "normal."
but when this happens i start to spiral. i realize my life is not normal. no one should experience harassment like this, or be singled out in this way.
and this is the third time it's happened.
and i'm tired.
when i was twelve years old i was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. i've been on and off medication since. but recently i've been more productive in trying to improve my mental health. i've been taking medication for a few years. i'm in therapy and my therapist understands my line of work. he plays video games too. it's neat. when he gives me advice he does it in video game analogies which i think is fun.
but sometimes i hit those lows. that happens with bipolar disorder. sometimes i'm hypermotivated and i cut a few cosplay wigs. i order things for myself for projects i want to commit to but fall to the wayside because of a depressive episode. and i'm in one of those episodes right now.
it's been hard getting out of bed. i've been crying a lot recently. it's not nice to admit. it feels ugly. shameful. but that's life. i know it will pass. just like this wave of harassment. but it never feels good.
i guess it isn't supposed to. i just don't like how these feelings come in waves. how cyclical it is. up and down and up and down in extremes.
it's never a bad day. it's harassment from a group of people in an entirely different country. it's getting doxxed. it's always something a little more extreme.
one day, i'd like it if it just rained on me instead.