#mostly because merry crisis is so much drawn from my own experiences

[allieebobo]

Hi Allie!! The update was really gooooodddddd! Anw, ive been stalking and reading through the asks & while I’m enjoying those, i don’t think anyone has asked u about urself yet. Or maybe i miss it but I’m interested to know more about the author who wrote 2 of my fave IFs. Just general questions like;

1. which part of SG were you from?

2. Fav food?

3. Fav place to lepak?

4. Pri/sec school (if you were educated in sg)

5. What made you migrated to USA?

6. Where are u currently based in?

7. Are u still a student or a full-fledged career womann

8. One place in sg that will always carry beautiful memories for you, now that u’ve moved abroad.

9. What sparked your interest in writing these IFs?

Hehehe. If some of the questions are abit personal, you don’t have to share ur answers. Have a good day ahead 🤍

Ooh!! Anon, these are great questions hehe!! Sure, we can do a get-to-know-me session!

I will answer a couple, and get back to the rest at some point, OK? If there's a question that I didn't answer that y'all are really curious about, you can send me an ask with the number and I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

(P.S. no, none of them are too personal, I just think it'd take me a gajillion years to reply if I tried to answer them all!)

Got long, so the answers are below the cut!

1. which part of SG were you from?

Redhill/Bukit Merah! There's a moment in Merry Crisis where MC talks about it, and that's directly from my life! West side, best side! If me and my partner were entitled to a subsidized public housing flat (we aren't, for so many reasons including we're queer and she's not Singaporean), I'd absolutely buy a flat in the exact same neighbourhood.

2. Fav food

Wow... I can't really choose one, but if I could cheat and pick a whole cuisine then Peranakan food, hands down. Petai (stinky bean) with ikan bilis is one of my fave dishes—and it reminds me of my grandma. Otherwise, ban mian is a big comfort food for me, and so are red chili oil dumplings. I also love kaya toast with eggs for breakfast. Herbal bak kut teh and teochew fish are things I love but wouldn't eat every day... All of these might show up (the fish already has I guess!) in the game at some point!

For non-Singaporean food, I could eat udon, all kinds of pasta, and som tum all day every day.

3. Fav place to lepak

<Lepak is Singaporean/Malaysian(? I think) slang for like, 'chill' or 'hang', btw.> As you can already tell I added a lot of my own experiences/things I love into Merry Crisis already, so I'm going to have to go with Labrador Park and Sentosa. As a kid my mom would bring me and my brother to the rocky coast in Labrador after school with a box of Sarpino's pizza and we'd play in the water and eat and get really sandy. Sentosa back in the day was less commercial/touristy, and we'd just park in the carpark for $2, and spend the entire Sunday just chilling on the beach (yes, I'm a huge beach person haha), and my dad (not a big beach person) would be napping under a big tree probably wishing his wife weren't such a big beach person because it's been inherited by his kids and now this is how he'll spend his weekends for the rest of his life.

6. Where are you based in? 7. Are u still a student or a full-fledged career woman

Have a full-time job, sadly. I've been working as an urban planner in Singapore for three years now. (Think that answers both questions at the same time.) So yeah, I plan the city. Mostly I make sure future generations have enough housing, even though I'm not entitled to one myself. 🤷‍♀️ I enjoy my work and I think it's fulfilling, but it's also tough and my hours are too long. One day I hope to write full-time but I really don't think it'll pay the bills. Maybe if I live somewhere cheaper than Singapore!

Quite excited to answer 8, 9 as well, but maybe those are for another day?