Label parts of the brain quiz

Let me start of by saying that improving yourself =/= self improvement that is touted on social media.
99% of influencers who talk about self-improvement, stoicism, routines, motivation, business, and entrepreneurship have no idea what they're talking about. And that 1%? 99% of that tiny 1% can only talk about things that worked for THEM, but they present it as if it's objective truth.
"You should be disciplined." Disciplined about what exactly? Most young people targeted by this type of content don't even know what they're interested in yet.
"You should go to the gym." And what if you don't? Then you're labeled as undisciplined, lazy, and behind.
Here's the best personal example I can give:

• Everyone on the internet will tell you to focus on your work and avoid high dopamine sources while doing so.
• But, recently, most productive day I've ever had looked like this:
  1. Work for 20 minutes.
  2. Play a video game for 30 minutes.
• I've never been more productive then on that day, and I've worked 24/7 when I ran my business.

And this probably won't work for you. That's my exact point. Just because something seems logical - or illogical in this case - doesn't mean it will or won't work for you. Watching any type of self improvement content can make your brain turn off, leading you to accept the options they present as final. As my example shows, there are infinite ways to approach something, and you have to spend years exploring to find what works for you.
How many of you will think about SMMA, dropshipping, options training, e-commerece, or similar as their first association about starting a business? Doesn't matter if you know or don't know it's bs, but it got engraved in your mind.
I spent my teenage years chasing success, eventually moving from freelancing to becoming a business owner at 19. It lasted for two years until I completely burnt myself out. I earned a lot of money. What did it bring? Nothing. People around me didn't even have jobs yet, so what good is money if you don't have people around to do things with?
I've been invited to many entrepreneurial networking events, and people were always curious about my age. Why? Because they didn't even think about business until their 30s, and most of them are now multi-millionaires in their 40s and 50s. And they're happy. Why? Because they spent their "young" years exploring and finding something they love, without carrying the burden of feeling behind, a burden brought on by this new wave of self-improvement.
Why do we strive to be perfect in our 20s? Because we see people on the internet our age doing more than us. And before you say, "Yeah, but I know all those internet entrepreneurs, fitness influencers, gurus, or whatever, are BS," I agree. Still, if you spend any time on the internet, you can't avoid it seeping into your unconscious mind.
Human beings like being told what to do. We love not having to think for ourselves and someone else giving us answers. If you take advice from the internet about self improvement you're just taking an easy way out with a promise of mediocre results that may or may not work for you.
I know it's hard, but if you want to work on yourself that will bring you long term results and happiness, forget everything you ever heard about how you should do things and what should you do and chill out. Give yourself time to try different things out until you find something that works for you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clll3r0e33no
A major chicken supplier in the UK has breached environmental laws in the way it discharged waste, a BBC investigation has found.
Documents filed with Stormont’s Department for the Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs show the company has breached legal limits on hundreds of occasions across three different sites in Northern Ireland.
The agri-food company, which is valued at over a £1bn, is Northern Ireland’s largest private-sector employer.
Moy Park said all trade effluent is strictly controlled and treated before it is discharged, with it undergoing additional treatment by Northern Ireland Water before it enters waterways.
Moy Park supplies branded and own label chicken products to retailers and foodservice providers throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe.
An image of a Moy Park chicken Image caption, Moy Park supplies branded and own label chicken products to retailers and foodservice providers throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe
Trade effluent is the name given to the liquid waste produced by factories and businesses which typically ends up in the sewage system.
The discharges have the potential to be highly polluting and are subject to strict environmental limits set out in trade effluent consents.
These are overseen by Stormont’s Department for Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
Breach those limits and businesses could be committing a crime.
As part of a wider investigation into pollution at Lough Neagh, BBC Spotlight examined thousands of environmental compliance documents filed by Moy Park with the regulator since 2017.
The documents revealed hundreds of breaches of the company’s trade effluent consents.
Sampling by Northern Ireland Water found that Moy Park had breached legal limits relating to a number of potential pollutants, including ammonia and hexane extractable materials including oils, fats and grease.
DAERA Minister Andrew Muir IMAGE SOURCE,BBC Image caption, Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir
"This can't continue" Andrew Muir, Northern Ireland’s Agriculture and Environment Minister, told BBC Spotlight he was “very concerned” after the programme brought him its findings.
“I’ll be writing to Moy Park seeking an explanation in terms of the situation you outlined. This can’t continue.”
The environmental regulator, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), operates within DAERA.
When asked why the regulator had not prosecuted the breaches previously, Mr Muir said he would be seeking answers from his officials.
Moy Park told BBC Spotlight, that any breaches of its trade effluent consent incur a charge payable directly to NI Water for further treatment to ensure the water is safe before any discharge to a waterway.
It added that the algal blooms on Lough Neagh were a complex issue, not specifically linked to any one sector.
The company said it is “committed to working with all partners in line with a science-based approach to preserve the vitality of Lough Neagh".
Blue-green algae on Lough Neagh shoreline IMAGE SOURCE,BBC Image caption, Blue-green algae bloomed at Lough Neagh in 2023
What is happening to Lough Neagh? Campaigners fear that breaches of trade effluent consents, sewage spills and agricultural pollution are combining to fuel the growth of toxic cyanobacteria at Lough Neagh.
Blooms of the toxic blue-green algae developed on the lough last summer, with signs already showing it is returning.
Moy Park, which is owned by American agri-food giant Pilgrim’s, has a number of factories in Northern Ireland.
It recently sponsored the Belfast Marathon and has previously advertised at high-profile sporting events including the 2010 World Cup.
The company’s sites in Dungannon, Ballymena, and Craigavon sit within the catchment area for Lough Neagh and each reported multiple breaches of the trade effluent consent.
Manuel Neuer of Germany at the 2010 World Cup IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY Image caption, Moy Park was one of the advertisers at the 2010 World Cup
Trade effluent discharged from these sites typically receive additional treatment at one of Northern Ireland Water’s (NIW) treatment plants.
This is intended to ensure that the effluent does no damage to the watercourse it flows into.
However, NI Water told Spotlight that a portion of the wastewater at its sites is discharged before it can be treated.
On 25,000 occasions each year, raw sewage and untreated trade effluent spill from its facilities.
NI Water said “discharges from trade premises at higher levels than set within their consent conditions will pose an additional risk to the environment during the operation of storm overflows".
It blamed historic under-investment for shortcomings in its network and said the spills cannot be stopped without additional sustained investment.
Assembly motion on Lough Neagh 'crisis' is passed Published 13 May How do you solve a problem like Lough Neagh? Published 4 October 2023 NI poultry firm Moy Park sold for £1bn Published 11 September 2017 Mr Muir also announced the creation of a new team with a specific focus on stopping pollution at Lough Neagh.
“I’m re-prioritising within the department towards environmental protection and I am setting up an enforcement team around the issues associated with Lough Neagh.
“We have over 20 people dedicated to that area and it’s absolutely critical that we do that," he said.
Mr Muir told Spotlight he would be bringing a report on Lough Neagh to the next executive meeting along with an action plan, which he hopes other ministers will sign off on.
Feargal Sharkey IMAGE SOURCE,BBC Image caption, Water pollution campaigner Feargal Sharkey
Water pollution campaigner and Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey told Spotlight he was horrified by the extent of the problem.
“The simple truth of the matter is – putting all that poo, all that waste, all that animal bi-product into a waterway like Lough Neagh, you simply add a massive food source to bacteria that already exists naturally.
“That’s why you have environmental laws and that’s why the law says that should not be happening.”

For many years, I struggled under the weight of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which encompassed a host of debilitating symptoms. My journey included chronic digestive issues like SIBO and diarrhea, relentless back pain, and the most challenging of all—brain fog. When I mention brain fog, many people don’t understand its severity. I felt perpetually drunk without the fun part, grappling with concentration problems, memory issues, ADD/ADHD symptoms, and episodes of depersonalization and derealization. I couldn’t function and ultimately had to give up my job as a physiotherapist. It was a cruel irony—how could I help others when I couldn’t even fix my own pain?
In my quest for answers, I saw numerous doctors and underwent every conceivable test, from blood work and MRIs to lumbar punctures and colonoscopies. Despite being diagnosed with Lyme disease and undergoing antibiotic treatment, my symptoms persisted. I tried everything: different diets, more exercise, yoga, Wim Hof breathing, ice baths, meditation retreats, psychedelics, and even Kambo, a frog poison purported to have healing properties. Each attempt led me deeper into despair, until I was bedridden and suicidal.
Then, I discovered “The Body Keeps the Score.” This book was a turning point. It helped me understand that while my illness had physical triggers, the chronic nature of my suffering was deeply rooted in my psyche. Initially skeptical, I delved into limbic system disorders and the polyvagal theory, recognizing myself in these explanations.
My healing journey began with education. Reading books by John Sarno was transformative. If I could meet him, I’d hug him for saving my life. My second step was shifting my goal from fixing myself to cultivating a sense of safety. It wasn’t about repeating hollow affirmations but acknowledging the truth of my circumstances. Despite the pains, uncertainties, and daily stresses, I learned to find moments of safety. In my bed, free from immediate threats, I trained my brain to feel safe right now.
Crucially, I didn’t suppress my emotions. Instead, I used tools like JournalSpeak, recommended by Nicole Sachs, to process my feelings. Within days, I felt as if I had been delivered from demons. Although I’m not completely cured, I’m almost there and plan to work with professionals to delve deeper into my trauma and conflicts.
To anyone struggling like I did, remember: you are not broken. Your body is trying to protect you, albeit too well. My healing path involved three steps:

1. Education: Understanding the mind-body connection. 2. Setting a Different Goal: Focusing on feeling safe rather than fixing myself. 3. Trusting the Process: Believing in my body’s innate healing capabilities. 

It’s your birthright to thrive. Embrace your journey with trust and authenticity.

I’m so lost. I have done so much research, I’ve read so many stories but copper IUDs have not been scientifically proven to cause side effects other than bleeding and heavy periods? I got my paraguard removed yesterday. I was fine for a couple hours after the procedure, it was uncomfortable but tolerable. Anyways, a few hours later I completely and utterly lost it. I was crying, emotional, up and down. Today I’m so so irritable.. confused almost. I have brain fog as well. I’ve read plenty of women’s testimonies on copper “dumping” and copper “withdrawal”. Did anyone else experience this? I feel very uncomfortable reaching out to my Dr. as I’ve read horror stories of how they just label you as crazy.

My fellow gamers, for too long has our community suffered the indignation of an intolerable culture that has denigrated, besmirched, exploited, and has outright demonized our culture of unique individuals with a genuine love of a hobby that they see as profitable and progressive. They have taken beloved IP’s (Intellectual Properties) and twisted them into their own personal ideological crusade of undermining and humiliating the core aspects of characters they deemed as “Toxic” or “White Supremacy”. Through the guise and protection of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity) & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) they have used our influence in the entertainment industry to push their narratives and agendas that have stigmatized our culture with numerous anti-consumer practices that they call “being progressive”. But the truth of the matter is they were never really looking to be a part of our community, they simply wanted to use our community as a tool of activism and propaganda in the entertainment industry as it was extremely profitable, and they wanted inclusion in that division. Ever since GamerGate & Female Frequency, we have had to endure the incursion of forced ideologies, xenophobic behaviors and inferior overpriced products that have never been in our best interest and have been flat out disgraceful towards foreign media.
Before Gaming had become a major source of entertainment, we were often categorized as anti-social or societies rejects where because we found more enjoyment in playing fictional characters and not spending as much time out and about, we never fully assimilated in society (which is a good thing if you ask me). From 1998 to 2007, at the height of innovation, creativity and production, Gaming had reached a golden age in which it had revolutionized society. Hollywood Execs who had ruined the movie industry turned their attention to video games as a source of income since video games had outperformed movies in terms of profit. No one was concerned about gaming, much less diversity or inclusivity until it became profitable. This makes people like SBI look extremely disingenuous as they were not interested in gamers as a community with its own culture. They simply wanted to use it as another weapon in identity politics.
Microtransactions; the hidden enemy to gamer progress and inducer to mental laziness of our community. Microtransactions have been around for a long time; however, it has never been more potent and apparent than in recent years. It has aided in the dismantling and segregation of players on the ideology of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and has created another sub-culture of gamers who have no real drive to be better outside of how much money they put into the game. This has degraded our culture as well as we have become “fat” off transactional gaming but at the same time we have been “starved” of purposeful gaming where our achievements were our sustenance. I am not saying that microtransactions are bad, but when they are exploitative and predatorial like they have been and don’t give gamers room to grow, we become lethargic and unwilling to improve ourselves as gamers. Oversaturated microtransactional games are one of the many reasons why we have become complacent and unwilling to fight against the exploitative tactics used by big brand game companies such EA, Ubisoft, ActivisionBlizzard, NaughtyDog and so many other western business model companies. Western style games were not like this in the past, they had much more depth and actual effort put into them with the gamer in mind. This has not been the case for over a decade and our connection to western developers has been whittled down to just being transactional. That is one of the reasons why you see so many remasters and remakes in today’s gamer community. They have lost their willingness to improve as developers of games and simply accept corporate/share holder rules.
Game journalists also do not have any real integrity or purpose outside of being funded for their involvement in promoting IPG (Identity Political Games) in a positive light to the public whether it’s positively received or not. They are not interested in what we have to say, they all support the same agenda and that is why they are a dying breed. Within the next couple of years, they will be out of the job and more than likely they will not be able to stay in the industry giving how they have responded to past articles that have clearly been scripted on the premise of diversity and racism. Not only that, but most of them are also extremely hostile to the community as they stereotype and defame the individuals that are a part of the community they are supposed to serve. We have been mentally liberated from their lies and coercive tactics as we tend to laugh at their obvious attempt at virtue signaling while hiding their misdoings so that they can play the victim.
My gamer brothers & sisters, I would not suggest the following action that we must take now without good cause. I have weighed our options and the best option for us now is this…...CULTURAL SECESSION. Naturally this is a form of segregation where they would more than likely claim they are being segregated by the dominant culture of the gaming community but that is incorrect. For years now we have been the ones who are often marginalized and ostracized for the smaller portion of our community. And when we aren’t, we’re exploited for more funds so that these companies can stay in business only to subject us to low quality products that coincide with the “WOKE Agenda” that are often huge expenses to these big brands i.e. AAA/AAAA games that will eventually flop for its obvious forced diversity and bug infested product which will undoubtedly piss off the consumer to the point of wanting a refund. Losing copious amounts of capital and stock in the process, not to mention their reputation is permanently marred.
We must separate on every cultural level in terms of entertainment and ideology. We must reject everything from the west that promotes toxic western beliefs, practices, and exclusion from other cultures (i.e. Southeastern Countries such as Japan and Korea). Japan & Korea have been the targets of unjust discrimination from Western Developers, Western Journalists, Western Localizers (The Wokelizers) and Western Society Prejudice regarding their sense of aesthetics as Westerners hate the aesthetic sense of these countries. The reason why they resort to such base tactics isn’t just because it weaponizes the ideal female form but it’s also because they have deep-seated insecurities about their own looks so when they see attractive female characters, they use terms such as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized” to establish the moral high ground. But the truth is, they want to feel superior to that which is ideal, so they insult and dehumanize this figure that portrays natural female beauty because they see it as an insult to their own social superiority in what they believe is a hierarchy of them being at the top of all other women. Because of this and so many contributing factors, their movies flop harder than the Fat Chocobo landing on a group of enemies and their games seismically fail just as much if not more. We must sever our connection to Western Developers, Publishers, and ALL Western-Centric Entertainment for they seek to mentally enslave us to their Xenophobic ideology.
Let’s define Western Culture and its traits. Western Culture/Society is composed of more than several different ideologies that work in unison with one another to facilitate dominance over multiple aspects of society. Business, Social, Political, Technological, and sometimes even Global Affairs are affected by these ideologies that portray a specific mindset of Western beliefs. What are those ideologies you ask?

• Perpetual Victimhood: By weaponizing the fact that they are marginalized and of a small portion of western society, they can push their agenda to absurd standards that ultimately ostracize the main demographic. And when companies don’t capitulate, they are labeled as anti-progressive/misogynist’s or cohorts of White Supremacy. They use this to cancel their targets and silence them through societal defamation to keep the public on their side. They also use this mindset to justify their own lack of self-agency as they tend to throw companies who do adhere to their demands but miserably fail to turn a profit under the bus so that they can maintain face in front of the public while denying their actual involvement. They will never accept “Sense of Agency” when it’s negative but will gladly accept it when a positive outcome shines on them as if they are entitled to it.

Official Wiki GamerGate Page)
​

• Societal Terrorism: This is another form of ideology weaponization that they use in order to make companies “toe-the-line” with their agenda. By weaponizing cancel culture, they exert dominance over these companies but in exchange they also reimburse those companies with DEI & ESG funds that raise their credit score as well as having social status with the marginalized demographic. However; cancel culture has not succeeded in years and developers and publishers probably only want the money and the DEI ESG rating. But they have to maintain the image of having social economic power so that they can continue to strong-arm other developers into compliance and promoting financial benefits of DEI & ESG. In other words, if you are not for sale, they discredit and stigmatize you in the industry.

Asmongold Clips.
https://youtu.be/Iq86DnmX2xY
​

• “Its not us, its you who’s wrong” Mentality: This mentality is especially annoying as they tend to use it to hide their incompetence. They often look down upon gamers who are not in the industry to hide their obvious lack of knowledge on game development thinking that their job title grants them special status that they believe gives them the right to be condescending. But the truth they never wanted revealed has already strangled their careers of all credibility. They were never GAMERS, they were INVADERS. Community Colonists that seek to indoctrinate next generational gamers into their hive-mind and brand previous generations of gamers as villains.

@GeeksandGamers
https://youtu.be/1HbrTkqQFuM
​

• Double-standard Enforcement: By labeling something as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized”, they can claim this is morally wrong if it promotes traditional dynamics between men and women. Heterosexual relationships are condemned while at the same time Same-sex relationships are praised. Additionally, heterosexual relationships with main white male characters turn antagonistic and spotlight stealing. This is deliberate as to promote the “Girl Boss” ideology to indoctrinate women into the Feminazi state of mind. While at the same time, should a male character also adopt the “I don’t need male/female” ideology its seen as Toxic Masculinity which isn’t even a real thing. The idea of a strong male character is taboo while enforcing strong female characters is the ideal.

@MugenLord
https://youtu.be/to5Uciy_yeg
@EndymionTv
https://youtu.be/7TPTR8-qmbk
​

• Dehumanization/Demonization: This is something that most military branches use in order to remove conscious inhibitions such as mass slaughter is wrong or categorization. By enforcing ideologies to denounce humanity in certain targets, it deactivates your conscience by saying this is not human therefore its ethically okay to treat this target without compassion and deny the fact it has sentience. We gamers fall under this category for journalists, developers, companies and society at large. This is a tactic we are familiar with to an extent as it implies that we are not normal when we do not do what everybody else is doing. “Geeks are the worse” or “Nerds need to fall into a pit of lava” are verbal dehumanization forms that most people in society say and we as Gamers tend to be relegated to those categories. This is their way of imposing the social hierarchy on us by establishing superiority. We know this as Gamers as we see it very often in the games that we play and some times experience it in real life.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate#The_end_of_their_relevance
​

• Deflection/Projection: This is basic psychology 101. By redirecting the conversation away from their mistakes and back on to the opposing view to avert blame and justify their innocence they can avoid criticism. However; deflection is a CONSCIOUS decision, meaning they have no real argument to justify their incompetence. If you can consciously process the situation, you have self-agency which means you don’t have a legitimate excuse. Projection is something else entirely. Most times, Projection doesn’t work on conscious decisions rather it is automatically deployed when feeling threatened, anxious or both. Instead of accepting accountability for feelings or actions that are deemed socially unacceptable they accuse others of committing that unacceptable behavior thereby exonerating themselves and proving that those feelings and/or actions are not their own.

@TheTrentReport
https://youtu.be/bPIPSKruYRo
These traits are so nefarious and unconscionable that I have a hard time believing that anyone could harbor them. However, given the social, political, and economic climate that we are in, those in power who use their influence on controlling society most definitely possess these insidious traits. Everything that they do is all about control and since video games are the biggest market in the world, they want control over it and the communities built around it to accrue more wealth and to use that wealth to subjugate other cultures. Mainstream media is a tool as well as mainstream organizations and sites to help accomplish this goal.
The government recently announced its intentions towards what they believe is “GamerGate 2.0” and now even the ADL has made an official appearance, referring to gamers as “extremist’s”. We know EXACTLY what they are doing, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore because they don’t think we are aware of their motives. This is just a pretext for them to exert even more control and we know why, it’s because they want the influence we as a community have to must serve them. So here is what we do my fellow gamers-
“In light of recent events and years of mainstream stigma, we the members of the Global Gaming Community [GGC] must officially renounce ALL TIES to the corporate western video game market. We have been financially exploited through predatorial monetization schemes, pelted with numerous articles of disdain and intentional misrepresentation from game journalists, news outlets regarding us as dangerous individuals and, even subjected to inferior products not only riddled with bugs but also products meant to push political agendas. For the preservation of our community and its unique culture, apart from a few select game development studios we officially sever all connections to western owned video game companies & their mainstream affiliates. From this point onward, we will no longer support western corporate developers, journalists and publishers that do not coincide with the goals of our community.”
Naturally this is completely optional. If you are okay with the state of the gaming community as it is, feel free to ignore this. But if you wish for real change and a break away from oversaturated monetization in the games you play and the push for radical ideological reform, then you are in the right place. Lets sever these rotted miasmic ties once and for all so that our community can be preserved and made better for future gamers. If you agree with this, share it with whoever you think might be interested. The more gamers who get involved, the easier it will be for us to finally break free from mainstream game companies and their associates.

In the opening article of our series, we unveiled the existence of a global network of anti-cult organizations contributing to the creation of a worldwide digital concentration camp.
We demonstrated how these organizations play a crucial role in the process of dehumanization, labeling certain groups, organizations, or nations as a "threat to society." We explained that this happens through the branding of these groups as part of "totalitarian sects" or "destructive cults," leading to widespread intolerance and discrimination fueled and supported by the media.
We showed that these actions shape public opinion to see these organizations as harmful, justifying their persecution. We revealed that, in this way, the people involved can be persecuted and punished while the public remains convinced that the authorities are taking necessary measures against the "offenders."
As a result, the genocide against those different or inconvenient for the government goes unnoticed. We explored the case of the Chinese Falun Gong movement as an example of how those in power can commit cruel and inhuman actions against ordinary citizens while society stands compliant and passive in the face of these oppressions.
You might think that these actions only take place in China, but you are mistaken.
Let's see what the situation is like in another country violating human rights and attempting to impose a dictatorship—Russia.
Everything began in 2015 with the legal introduction of the "undesirable organization" status.
An undesirable organization, according to the official formulation, is a "non-governmental organization that has been recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation"—a foreign or international non-governmental organization whose activities may pose a threat to the constitutional order, defense capability, or state security of the Russian Federation, in accordance with Article 3.1 of Federal Law No. 272-FZ of December 28, 2012. Such organizations are banned from operating on the territory of the Russian Federation, with administrative and criminal actions prescribed for violating this ban.
This law can lead to various human rights violations. Here are some potential consequences:

• The law can be used to close NGOs that criticize the government or defend rights that are inconvenient for the authorities.
  
• Certain NGOs often play an important role in disseminating information and providing a platform for debate and criticism. Banning these organizations can lead to self-censorship and reduced access to alternative sources of information.
  
• Many NGOs provide legal assistance to individuals whose rights have been violated. Shutting down such organizations can leave many people without access to legal protection and support.
  
• Creating a climate of fear and uncertainty among human rights defenders.
  
• Many NGOs organize cultural and social events that enrich society and promote dialogue between different groups. Shutting down such organizations can reduce opportunities for cultural and social participation of citizens.
  

As of May 16, 2024, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has designated 161 foreign and international non-governmental organizations as "undesirable" in Russia.
Here are just a few examples of numerous actions taken against the undesirable organizations:

• In 2001, the Moscow City Court attempted to ban the "Krishna Consciousness Movement" as "extremist," although this decision was later overturned. However, the struggle against Krishna followers did not end, and there are continuous attempts to restrict them. One such attempt is Siberian prosecutors' desire to ban the sacred Indian book "Bhagavad Gita."
  
• In 2017, the Supreme Court of Russia designated the Christian denomination "Jehovah's Witnesses" as "extremist." Nine Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced to long prison terms. Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia previously claimed to have been tortured by police who raided their homes. According to the group's Russian website, Russia had approximately 175,000 active believers at the time of the ban. Since then, raids, interrogations, and imprisonments of adherents have occurred relatively regularly.
  
• On May 4, 2024, a citizen in Russia was convicted for meditating. The Moscow court ordered two months of detention for a Falun Gong practitioner under the controversial law against "participating in activities of undesirable organizations."
  

How can an organization become "undesirable"?
To track the methods used to ban organizations in Russia, learn more in our next article.

Hi everyone, ive been drawn to Lillith for a while now, and im still on the study-research part of the journey. This might be a silly question, pls no offence or misunderstanding. I tried to keep Lillith in the back of my mind yesterday during my evening meditation, and the whole day I had Lillith in my mind, especially when I had to communicate with a toxic person in my life. Having Lillith in the background in my mind made me feel very strong and empowered during this conversation where I usually can be emotionally drained afterwards. I know its because i manifested her in my brain, my question is when the day comes, when I feel i have the knowledge and will be "worthy" contacting her, how will i know I did it correct and its really happening, and not my mind playing with me?
Dipnote: english is my 3rd language, sorry in advance if i mispelled anything.

Hello all, hope you're well!
My ficnapping assignment this time around was u/United_Patriots Nature of Orion. I loved reading their story in preparation for this and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next. I'd definitely recommend giving it a read if you haven't already. Also be sure to check out their ficnap for Exchange Program Shenanigans.
I hope people enjoy the ficnap I've written even if the tones a fair bit different than the main story. And if anyone's interested please check out the ficnap u/sirgeneralcliche wrote for Terran Zoology, it was a lot of fun.
Now without further ado, let's get into the ficnapping.
Memory transcription subject: Glim, Venlil Guild Exterminator
Date [standardised human time]: September 25th, 2136
Closing the door to my quarters as quietly as Venlily possible I gingerly tiptoed down the hall, hoping that the softness of my paw pads would help mute my otherwise clawed feet until I was safely out of earshot of the still slumbering human I’d left behind.
My time spent mingling with the trio of Marcel, Tyler, and Alice had been… interesting. The consideration they’d shown for both my physical and mental wellbeing after I blew up at them shortly after our introduction, coupled with their continued attempts to include me in the group dynamic since then, had shown me that they weren’t the bloodthirsty unrestrained monsters I’d first believed them to be.
Despite that, I remained sceptical of their true nature and was convinced that somewhere within them there lay predatory inclinations, patiently lying in wait for the most opportune moment to reveal themselves.
Sure they may act all fluffy and cheery, their gangly bodies barely built for anything other than the startling projectile accuracy they’d displayed in our game of bowling, but even a Dossur could be spurred to fury regardless of its diminutive size and lack of natural weapons.
Speaking of Dossur, my most recent idea to uncover the truth of human nature had stemmed from overhearing a conversation a few paws ago between a Dossur and their human exchange partner. They’d been discussing jobs, starship maintenance or something similar, and it had stuck with me. Not the ships part, Stars no. Rather, I’d started to become curious regarding what jobs humans actually did.
The three I knew by name were all soldiers and the guy I’d overheard must’ve been an engineer of some description. Jobs like that made sense, predators of course needed warriors to fight and engineers to keep their equipment running, but it begged the question of what other professions humans deemed necessary in a predator based society.
This was why I was sneaking out on Marcel well before he was likely to wake up. I was sure that if I asked him he’d be happy to tell me all I wanted to hear, but there were no assurances that he wouldn’t hide the more predatory aspects of his people's culture.
No, in order to fully reveal the truth, I would have to catch humans unawares and hope that they let something slip they weren’t supposed to when questioned.
[Advancing transcript by 15 minutes. Resuming playback…]
It hadn’t taken me long to find just what I was looking for, a lone human male with no one else in sight; a perfect start to my mission. Sat at an outside table of one of the many cafes running along the station's concourse they lazily sipped from a steaming mug while occasionally glancing around, probably waiting for their exchange partner to show up. The expectation of an arrival meant I had little time to put my plan into action. If I was going to make a move then I’d have to make it now.
Cautiously so as not to attract their attention, I casually slid into their blindspot before drawing steadily closer. Only a couple tails away and they still hadn’t noticed me. I was in the perfect position but I gave it a moment so that they could put down their drink. It’d be one thing to give them a fright, another thing entirely for them to burn themselves because I’d made them drop their cup.
Tarva and Kam have already screwed with my life enough. Don’t want to give them more of an excuse to brahk it up further.
The moment their cup clinked against the saucer I took the initiative, “Excuse me human.”
As I’d anticipated they jumped in their seat, a grunt of surprise escaping them as they wheeled around to look at me with a mixture of frustration and alarm, “Aah! W-what the- Where did you come from!?”
Good, they’re off balance. Time to press my advantage and uncover their secrets.
I forced an apologetic tone into my voice and drooped my ears a little to better sell it, a necessary deception to further drop the humans guard. Humans clearly had a soft spot for our appearance so, as much as it stabbed at my dignity, I could stomach acting cutesy long enough to do what needed to be done.
“Oh I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to talk if you were free?”
My apology succeeded in settling the humans frustration, the creased frown around their eyes giving way to a more placid expression. Again they glanced away in the same direction they’d been looking previously, likely checking to see if their partner was close by, before opening their mouth to reply. A pang of concern shot through me, worried that they might reject my request in favour of keeping to the solitude that all predators enjoyed.
Unwilling to let this chance slip through my claws I pushed on, not giving them a chance to speak, “You see, I’ve been really curious about human jobs. Would you be willing to tell me what you do for work?”
His jaw remained open but it lolled without purpose, his train of thought completely derailed as confusion swept over him. Surprisingly however his composure returned with alarming swiftness, all uncertainty being blown away as a beaming smile overtook his face.
A reaction I hadn’t anticipated.
That can’t be good.
Quick as a flash a hand shot out to my shoulder, hurriedly guiding me to the seat next to them with a fervour that left me instinctively aware that I’d stepped right into the Voidpin burrow.
“This is great! Vola asked me about my job too when we met but uh… she wasn’t too interested. But that’s fine, not everyone would be after all. That said, I hope you’re different, because personally I think my job’s pretty cool! Oh, I’m Jaque by the way. Pleasure to meet you!”
Thoroughly disarmed and unsure of how best to respond in the face of this overwhelming bubbly font of excitement, I could only reply with a brief introduction of my own, “Um, Glim… hi.”
Jaque leaned closer with an eager grin, “Glim, I’ll remember that! Ok then Glim, my job is pretty simple but I think it’s really interesting. You ready? I’m a pension administrator.”
My tail fell still.
…Ohhhhh speh.
[Advancing transcript by 20 minutes. Resuming playback…]
How long has he been talking? Has it been a claw? No that’s too short, it feels more like three claws at least.
Stars… how can someone be so enthusiastic about pensions!?
“You know one of the things most people don’t understand about pensions is that it’s not a savings account like a bank, but rather it’s an investment portfolio that can grow or fall depending on how the stocks perform. I can’t tell you the number of times a client complained because their policy had less money in it than they’d put in. I sympathise of course, it absolutely sucks when that happens, but that’s just how they work at the end of the day.”
I could feel my eyelids begin to close as Jaque continued to drone on and on and on, pulled further and further downwards by unseen lead weights that my tired brain was begging me to relent to.
It was truly astonishing that he hadn’t picked up on the fact that he was boring me into a coma. Was he simply so enthralled by his absurd passion that he hadn’t noticed my wilting posture? Maybe he was yet to develop an understanding of Venlil body language. Either way the outcome was the same, an unending stream of mind melting gibberish about personal finance that offered no ford with which to cross it.
Stars… someone, anyone, make him shut up!
“Hey Jaque sorry I’m late. Who’s this?”
Salvation!
The heavens had heard my desperate plea and delivered unto me another poor soul who could distract the ever chattering administrator!
A portly salt-and-pepper shaded Venlil greeted Jaque as they approached, sidling up to him with a happy flick of the ear while looking at me in idle curiosity, “Gone and got yourself another exchange partner just because I’m running behind a little?”
Their whistling chortle was joined by the humans' deeper grunting chuckle, “Not at all Vola, how could I ever replace you? This is Glim and he was curious about what I do for work. We’ve been having a pleasant conversation about it while I waited.”
Conversation? Conversation!?
You did nothing but talk and talk and talk while my brain liquified you damn brahkass!
Before I could pull myself back together well enough to say as much, Vola spoke up, tugging at her partner's sleeve with a claw, “Glad to hear but we’ll have to get going if we’re going to make it to the cinema in time.”
“And who’s fault is that?” Jaque stood from his chair with another teasing laugh before turning to me one last time, “It was nice meeting you Glim. Hopefully we can continue our chat another day.”
Still in a mild daze from the barrage of tedium Jaque had hammered me with, I could only muster enough energy to sway an ear in brief farewell as the duo walked away, leaving me alone in the blessed embrace of silence.
Ahhh, bliss. I’ll never take the quiet for granted again.
After taking the time to properly collect myself, along with grabbing and downing the nearest caffeine laden drink I could find to re-energise my weary frame, I set off in search of another human.
This attempt may have ended in failure but I wasn’t going to be thrown off course by a single bump in the road. I would uncover the darker side of human society and I would not be deterred!
[Advancing transcript by 40 minutes. Resuming playback…]
“And these pictures show my collection of rare coins from the Qing Dynasty of China. These ones were minted in the early years of the dynasty, which spanned the years of 1644 to 1912. The current year on our calendar is 2136 if you didn’t already know, making these coins pretty old indeed!”
I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.
[Advancing transcript by 25 minutes. Resuming playback…]
“Now the name Ladybug is actually slang and not their actual name at all. They’re actually called Lady Beetles, and that’s just one of several interesting facts about these crazy critters.”
This is psychological warfare, it has to be. There’s no way this is real. There’s no way they’d be so boring!
[Advancing transcript by 55 minutes. Resuming playback…]
I thought I’d had one this time. Really I did! I switched tactics and asked the next human about their hobbies and they immediately answered that they enjoyed lockpicking in their free time.
Finally, this was it! My moment of vindication. A window into an ultimately deviant mind that validated what I already knew had to be true. But, just like in the previous attempts, it all fell apart like a sandcastle washed away by the waves of the encroaching mercilessly indifferent tide.
“Yeah so it’s actually a huge hobbyist thing, especially with people like me who love puzzles! Because that’s what a lock is if you think about it, a 3D puzzle with a specific way to open it that you need to figure out. Some designs are straightforward, a single bolt that just needs turned 90 degrees and boom it’s open. But others are incredibly convoluted combinations of multitudes of different mechanisms that all need to work in tandem to finally unlock and reveal what’s behind it.”
I slumped in my seat as the human continued talking, her relentless enthusiasm blinding her to my sullen demeanour. While I wouldn’t go as far as to lump her hobby in with the rest of the positively monotonous professions of the humans I’d already talked to, it still didn’t change the fact that this was not what I was wanting to hear.
Am I- am I just wasting my time with this? I’ve not confronted a lot of them yet, but every human I’ve talked to has shared everything on their mind without a second thought. There’s no way they could’ve rehearsed all of this so cleanly!
Or have I just been so Star’s damned unlucky that I’ve happened to cross paths with the most boring people Earth had to offer?
Ugh… maybe I should’ve just asked Marcel to start with. He’d probably at least have something interesting to share. Maybe Tyler too? Ha, he definitely would have let something slip.
…
OH FOR BRAHKS SAKE!!! I should’ve just talked to Tyler!
I leapt from my seat, startling the human across from me as I did so. With a hasty half-assed wave goodbye I powered off back to the living quarters. It didn’t take me long to reach, the renewed fire in my chest propelling me onwards until I was outside Tylers door, breath heaving in my lungs and heart pounding against my ribs. I managed to restrain myself from barging through immediately, knocking instead despite my impatience.
Thankfully it didn’t take long for the large blond haired human to answer, his expression changing from curious to confused as he noticed me, “Glim? Hey, what’s up?”
“Do you hunt? Tell me how if you do”, I half asked and demanded.
Tyler looked me up and down for a second before fully opening the door and inviting me in with a wave of his hand as he walked back into his quarters, “Uh… ok, sure thing. Well I don’t go hunting but I do enjoy fishing. Would you be interested in that?”
YES! At last I’m going to hear the truth of their nature!
I flicked an ear back in confirmation and settled onto a nearby seat with satisfaction, “Yes thanks. Fishing would be perfect.”
[Advancing transcript by 10 minutes. Resuming playback…]
“So basically all lines have different tensile strengths which makes them more or less suitable to catch different fish. This plays in with all the other equipment as well. The rod, hook, reel, all of it. Knowing what you want to catch will give you a baseline for what equipment you want to use and with that you can do all the necessary prep work. Hold on, I think I've actually got some magazines still downloaded on my pad from when I left home. They go into much deeper detail than I do. They’re a pretty fun read.”
BRAHK!!!

"Gifts of medicine, like the forest is a goddess who heals."
Rivers flow in all directions, flowing into rivers that flow back into themselves upstream. The Amazon is an ouroboros, a Mobius strip, a recursion, a dream. In fever I tell you what I saw, but what I saw, I saw with my clinical eye.
If this bottle of Livermore would drown my lungs, I'd have not poured it on the ants who wait to feast on my bones. This in one hand, my quill in the other, let me guide you with what remains of my thoughts, before I am uncertain what the fever has given and taken from my brain. A found fragment, floating forever in a relentless stagnation, ignoring the thousands of years it takes for glass to decay.
If anyone who is born to fairer generations thinks Aguirre was a hero, let me tell them with my own words that he was not. Aguirre went totally insane, totally psychotic, and shed his humanity and emerged from his larval form as a beast of a man. Mere murderers and criminals are still our cousins, no matter how depraved they become, but Aguirre was something else, a monster.
When the jungle slithered towards him as vines and crawling things, as it does, he looked back, halting the reaper. The jungle digests the dead, I've watched it, and sometimes it does not even wait for death. The jungle is one living thing, and she is fair.
I was here to collect the medicines of this place. I know medicine comes from the forest, and I see it all around me, proof of resilience to all forms of decay and rot. We have only to look closely and imitate the chemicals these living things excrete.
Alas, I am to be food for this place. I will not leave this seat, as the moss already blossoms and the spiders already prepare their tents. I will not last this night, no, and my discoveries will likely remain here in my camp indefinitely. I am afraid.
I do not know how I should explain my fears. It is not normally my way to discuss such things, but I am worried that the veracity of my account will be questioned if I do not also describe the terror I felt, and I should contrast it with the mortal dread and suffering I now endure to complete this writing.
My first priority is solved, for I have testified that Aguirre was horrible and a monster, but I have not said why I should say such things. That is my next priority, and I can only apologize if this is found, and then it is translated and there is a portion of the facts that render my story incomprehensible, some missing detail. I am sorry, but every word I write is another moment of agony, and the less ink and paper I have left to work with.
Perhaps I write to think not of what waits for me in the dripping dark jungle, watching with both the eyes of the hungry animals but also of the things most sinister that lurk in the realms beyond the living, where my destination lies. As I teeter here between my final collapse and the next dip of my pen in the well of blackest ink, I hope that any delay in finishing my account keeps me a moment longer from those horrors beyond.
Now I've said so much about how I am, that I hope you know me well enough to know the metric of my fearful reactions in the story to come, so that you will understand that as horrible as Aguirre was, there are things far worse that come from the night.
I do not want to waste a lot of my time, paper and ink writing about Aguirre. I expect that if he is written about, there will be no real way to conceal that the natives were terrorized by him before they terrorized him back. No biographer could conceal the facts about Aguirre no matter how well lined his sleeves are as he writes (or she, as I've read biographies written by women biographers and found them to be equal in quality, I just wouldn't expect the smaller pool of female writers to produce one who would accept a bribe so readily, and therefore I imagine a male writer to be our hypothetical villain, in all fairness it could be a woman, but who would expect that, in all honesty?).
On my word, there is no crime Aguirre could be accused of that I did not see him commit at some point. That's a fact.
When the singers of the wild trail had caught Aquirre, they struck him again and again and tore off his armor. They crucified him to a tree and shot sixteen arrows into him. Then they butchered him.
By morning the jungle had eaten him entirely.
The jungle regretted it right away. He was back, like reassembled vomit. I do not know how best to describe what Aguirre became, except the jungle puked him back out, and Hell or reincarnation, or whatever awaits us when we die, rejected him. He was exiled to live as that plasmic amorphous vaguely Aguirre-shaped thing made of chewed and bile saturated bits, eaten by a million different kinds of animals and insects and dropped as fertilizer for thousands of godlike plants and the subject for at least one arcane fungus.
All spewed him back out, and this is the entity of the jungle I knew to be fact, as I witnessed this awfulness. I was laughing at it, raving in my mind's recoil. I knew it was real, but there was some part of me that thought I could stay sane by pretending it was not, so the quiet voice of insanity and the master's voice of reason became interchanged, and this formulated in me as a burst of manic laughter.
I covered my own mouth, my eyes watering in horror. Aguirre looked at me. I had accidentally ingested my arcane fungus, the tiny node was in the palm of the hand I'd covered my mouth with. It was an accident. I knew that what it does would be fatal in a concentrated dose, and I hadn't meant to eat it.
"Keep it in you." Aguirre commanded, his voice sounding like it was made of noises in the jungle, wet gurgling noises or insect noises, it is hard to explain.
"I am death." I gagged. It was the Eye of Camazotz, the name of the fertility inhibitor. It wasn't even the kind of medicine I was seeking, and the natives would have used one node ground into thousands of particles and only use one particle. It was highly toxic the way I'd eaten it. I was going to die, for sure. I attempted to vomit it out, but I'd digested it already, the toxins had quickly dissolved.
Hoping to save myself, I tried to retreat back to my camp, but a spell of dizziness overcame me and I fell and became an inert, but terrified witness, to the wrath to the jungle demon. The realm between the living and the dead belongs to this thing, this Camazotz. What dies or lives, death - fertility, these are the domain of the athlete, the headhunter, the bat man, the harvester and the blight bringer. Camazotz.
Terror stopped my heart painfully, like it was being squeezed in my chest and couldn't stop pushing against my ribs with such pressure. I was so afraid of the creature, that I was unable to look away, although I could not bear to see it. The panic was so complete, that I was paralyzed to react, just staring and feeling like the fear would kill me, my heart refusing to end the flat contraction and continue its rhythm.
"Trespasser, insulter, defiler!" The crashing voice of Camazotz's priest announced. The words were directed at Aguirre. Camazotz was mad about something. Aguirre wasn't free from the woes of death.
I looked and trembled, whimpering and trying to pray at the sight of the monstrous Camazotz. Aguirre drew his sword, more of a psychic resemblance to the blade, but the ghostly weapon struck a blow on the arm, cutting the thick wing membrane with a cut that went almost through the wing along the jagged slash.
Camazotz roared with the hideous sound of a beast in the jungle, but more high pitched, draconian and infernal. The priest of Camazotz stood near me, chanting. He looked similar to my eyes to any sort of native shaman, although I would point out that to an expert on such costumes, the obvious correlations of death and the underworld to the components of his attire and the effect of his piercings and paint - macabre. I was like his congregation, as one who lingered on the doorstep between life and death for a long time.
The combatants circled many times, and I wondered that Camazotz did not slay Aguirre right away. I did not understand that Camazotz could in turn sustain injury and oblivion, for the death of something that is not alive or dead is surely complete oblivion. Aguirre provided a worthy enemy for Camazotz, and the ancient creature was dutiful and wise enough to preserve itself, and to be patient.
Eventually Aguirre, characteristic of his deranged personality, rushed with reckless abandon at Camazotz. The bat horror spread its wings, knocking the sword from the hand of its enemy. Aguirre was carried by the momentum of his charge into the bat's embrace.
His headless remains fell and splashed into so much of the stuff he was made of, the stench overwhelming me, kickstarting my heart again. I gasped, my eyes fluttering. So, I wouldn't die there, I crawled to my camp.
The jungle wilted and reformed around Camazotz, the moonlight became as a spotlight on the hunched bat. Dramatically it unfolded, as all the insects and beasts became a cheering crowd. The head, Aguirre's actual skull, was in the hand of Camazotz. Camazotz was doing some kind of offensive dance, making pelvic thrusts and walking backwards and tipping its head back and cackling evilly in victory. Then Camazotz began to play a ball game with the head, the open ball court used to kick and bunt and hip blast the skull through a sideway hoop.
That is when I noticed that somehow, the skull, or rather the skinned head, of Aguirre, was still alive while the demigod of night played its sacred ball game.
I shuddered at the awfulness as the wilted jungle grew back, concealing the realm of the gods from my vision. I was to die soon, but I felt the fever in my body holding on to life. I was not dead yet, and so I realized it must be known, how fared Aguirre.
For the third part of my priorities, I should like to list out all the properties of my favorite plants I have discovered during this expedition. There were hundreds of them, but I shall only write in detail about the thirty or forty that were the most important and the ones I liked the most.
The plant I am going to call the Austerity Vine is the same one creeping across the back of my left hand. It seems this is the last ink, though. Farewell.

"Gifts of medicine, like the forest is a goddess who heals."
Rivers flow in all directions, flowing into rivers that flow back into themselves upstream. The Amazon is an ouroboros, a Mobius strip, a recursion, a dream. In fever I tell you what I saw, but what I saw, I saw with my clinical eye.
If this bottle of Livermore would drown my lungs, I'd have not poured it on the ants who wait to feast on my bones. This in one hand, my quill in the other, let me guide you with what remains of my thoughts, before I am uncertain what the fever has given and taken from my brain. A found fragment, floating forever in a relentless stagnation, ignoring the thousands of years it takes for glass to decay.
If anyone who is born to fairer generations thinks Aguirre was a hero, let me tell them with my own words that he was not. Aguirre went totally insane, totally psychotic, and shed his humanity and emerged from his larval form as a beast of a man. Mere murderers and criminals are still our cousins, no matter how depraved they become, but Aguirre was something else, a monster.
When the jungle slithered towards him as vines and crawling things, as it does, he looked back, halting the reaper. The jungle digests the dead, I've watched it, and sometimes it does not even wait for death. The jungle is one living thing, and she is fair.
I was here to collect the medicines of this place. I know medicine comes from the forest, and I see it all around me, proof of resilience to all forms of decay and rot. We have only to look closely and imitate the chemicals these living things excrete.
Alas, I am to be food for this place. I will not leave this seat, as the moss already blossoms and the spiders already prepare their tents. I will not last this night, no, and my discoveries will likely remain here in my camp indefinitely. I am afraid.
I do not know how I should explain my fears. It is not normally my way to discuss such things, but I am worried that the veracity of my account will be questioned if I do not also describe the terror I felt, and I should contrast it with the mortal dread and suffering I now endure to complete this writing.
My first priority is solved, for I have testified that Aguirre was horrible and a monster, but I have not said why I should say such things. That is my next priority, and I can only apologize if this is found, and then it is translated and the is a portion of the facts that render my story incomprehensible, some missing detail. I am sorry, but every word I write is another moment of agony, and the less ink and paper I have left to work with.
Perhaps I write to think not of what waits for me in the dripping dark jungle, watching with both the eyes of the hungry animals but also of the things most sinister that lurk in the realms beyond the living, where my destination lies. As I teeter here between my final collapse and the next dip of my pen in the well of blackest ink, I hope that any delay in finishing my account keeps me a moment longer from those horrors beyond.
Now I've not said so much about how I am, that I hope you know me well enough to know the metric of my fearful reactions in the story to come, so that you will understand that as horrible as Aguirre was, there are things far worse that come from the night.
Terror stopped my heart painfully, like it was being squeezed in my chest and couldn't stop pushing against my ribs with such pressure. I was so afraid of the creature, that I was unable to look away, although I could not bear to see it. The panic was so complete, that I was paralyzed to react, just staring and feeling like the fear would kill me, my heart refusing to end the flat contraction and continue its rhythm.
When the singers of the wild trail had caught Aquirre, they struck him again and again and tore off his armor. They crucified him to a tree and shot sixteen arrows into him. Then they butchered him.
By morning the jungle had eaten him entirely.
The jungle regretted it right away. He was back, like reassembled vomit. I do not know how best to describe what Aguirre became, except the jungle puked him back out, and Hell or reincarnation, or whatever awaits us when we die, rejected him. He was exiled to live as that plasmic amorphous vaguely Aguirre-shaped thing made of chewed and bile saturated bits, eaten by a million different kinds of animals and insects and dropped as fertilizer for thousands of godlike plants and the subject for at least one arcane fungus.
All spewed him back out, and this is the entity of the jungle I knew to be fact, as I witnessed this awfulness. I was laughing at it, raving in my mind's recoil. I knew it was real, but there was some part of me that thought I could stay sane by pretending it was not, so the quiet voice of insanity and the master's voice of reason became interchanged, and this formulated in me as a burst of manic laughter.
I covered my own mouth, my eyes watering in horror. Aguirre looked at me. I had accidentally ingested my arcane fungus, the tiny node was in the palm of the hand I'd covered my mouth with. It was an accident. I knew that what it does would be fatal in a concentrated dose, and I hadn't meant to eat it.
"Keep it in you." Aguirre commanded, his voice sounding like it was made of noises in the jungle, wet gurgling noises or insect noises, it is hard to explain.
"I am death." I gagged. It was the Eye of Camazotz, the name of the fertility inhibitor. It wasn't even the kind of medicine I was seeking, and the natives would have used one node ground into thousands of particles and only use one particle. It was highly toxic the way I'd eaten it. I was going to die, for sure. I attempted to vomit it out, but I'd digested it already, the toxins had quickly dissolved.
Hoping to save myself, I tried to retreat back to my camp, but a spell of dizziness overcame me and I fell and became an inert, but terrified witness, to the wrath to the jungle demon. The realm between the living and the dead belongs to this thing, this Camazotz. What dies or lives, death - fertility, these are the domain of the athlete, the headhunter, the bat man, the harvester and the blight bringer. Camazotz.
"Trespasser, insulter, defiler!" The crashing voice of Camazotz's priest announced. The words were directed at Aguirre. Camazotz was mad about something. Aguirre wasn't free from the woes of death.
I looked and trembled, whimpering and trying to pray at the sight of the monstrous Camazotz. Aguirre drew his sword, more of a psychic resemblance to the blade, but the ghostly weapon struck a blow on the arm, cutting the thick wing membrane with a cut that went almost through the wing along the jagged slash.
Camazotz roared with the hideous sound of a beast in the jungle, but more high pitched, draconian and infernal. The priest of Camazotz stood near me, chanting. He looked similar to my eyes to any sort of native shaman, although I would point out that to an expert on such costumes, the obvious correlations of death and the underworld to the components of his attire and the effect of his piercings and paint - macabre. I was like his congregation, as one who lingered on the doorstep between life and death for a long time.
The combatants circled many times, and I wondered that Camazotz did not slay Aguirre right away. I did not understand that Camazotz could in turn sustain injury and oblivion, for the death of something that is not alive or dead is surely complete oblivion. Aguirre provided a worthy enemy for Camazotz, and the ancient creature was dutiful and wise enough to preserve itself, and to be patient.
Eventually Aguirre, characteristic of his deranged personality, rushed with reckless abandon at Camazotz. The bat horror spread its wings, knocking the sword from the hand of its enemy. Aguirre was carried by the momentum of his charge into the bat's embrace.
His headless remains fell and splashed into so much of the stuff he was made of, the stench overwhelming me, kickstarting my heart again. I gasped, my eyes fluttering. So, I wouldn't die there, I crawled to my camp.
The jungle wilted and reformed around Camazotz, the moonlight became as a spotlight on the hunched bat. Dramatically it unfolded, as all the insects and beasts became a cheering crowd. The head, Aguirre's actual skull, was in the hand of Camazotz. Camazotz was doing some kind of offensive dance, making pelvic thrusts and walking backwards and tipping its head back and cackling evilly in victory. Then Camazotz began to play a ball game with the head, the open ball court used to kick and bunt and hip blast the skull through a sideway hoop.
That is when I noticed that somehow, the skull, or rather the skinned head, of Aguirre, was still alive while the demigod of night played its sacred ball game.
I shuddered at the awfulness as the wilted jungle grew back, concealing the realm of the gods from my vision. I was to die soon, but I felt the fever in my body holding on to life. I was not dead yet, and so I realized it must be known, how fared Aguirre.
For the third part of my priorities, I should like to list out all the properties of my favorite plants I have discovered during this expedition. There were hundreds of them, but I shall only write in detail about the thirty or forty that were the most important and the ones I liked the most.
The plant I am going to call the Austerity Vine is the same one creeping across the back of my left hand. It seems this is the last ink, though. Farewell.

It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.
“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.
“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.
I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.
A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.
I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.
I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.
I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.
The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.
Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.
From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.
Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.
Part 3 Liu
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Liu.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.
Part 4 Taishen
My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.
My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.
He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.
The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.
He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.

It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.
“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.
“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.
I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.
A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.
I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.
I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.
I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.
The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.
Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.
From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.
Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.
Part 3 Liu
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Liu.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.
Part 4 Taishen
My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.
My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.
He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.
The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.
He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.

Hello everyone,
I hope you’re having a nice day.
I’ve not been diagnosed with schizophrenia but I have severe paranoia so I thought posting here might help. This post might contain some triggers regarding conspiracy theories so be careful reading it.
The paranoia I deal with is about either an apocalypse happening, or being kidnapped by secret services/the illuminati. Part of what might be delusions is that I am essentially John Connor from the Terminator films if that’s helpful, or a very important person in the future. So I am afraid of hostile secret services/robots coming back in time to harm me. So I don’t really go outside.
This is related to conspiracy theories/the pandemic, I’m sure many of you have heard of them. I’m afraid the illuminati are trying to turn the world into 1984, & that because I’m aware of their plan they will try to neutralise me. I thought things would go like this during the pandemic, but clearly it didn’t (or at least as far as I’m aware, part of me thinks my memories are all false/implanted). So now I think it will happen by 2030 (another pandemic, or the apocalypse or something.
I don’t really go outside because my brain tells me if I leave my bedroom these things will happen (the apocalypse/the robots/secret services). I am currently taking Olanzapene, an anti psychotic drug, for this.
Part of me thinks these are just delusions, but another part of me thinks it’s all true. & sometimes it can get too overwhelming to even go outside or open the curtains. What’s keeping me going is a small belief that I might be wrong about all of this.
Ultimately what ends up happening is my brain tells me the only way to get out of this situation is to end my life. Because then the robots or the secret services won’t come after me or my family/friends.
As I said, I hope you’re all having a nice day & might be able to provide some insight for me. Sorry for the wall of text.
Take care everyone.

Hey guys, as the title reads I filed my personal taxes today and they got both accepted for federal and state (I live in California so we had a June extension).
I just use turboTax so I had everything prepped. I knew I was going to owe money but don’t have all of it yet so I filed with the payment plan. Lo and behold I forgot I paid for part of the amount owed in September (third estimated tax month). I’m at a loss of what to do. The federal return has already been accepted and when I go into TurboTax it says I can amend but it will be direct deposit or check, but I will still owe about 3,000.
Do I go through with amending the return or do I just pay the difference? This literally was a brain fart on my part and discovered this less than 24 hours of submitting.
Any help is appreciated 🙏

I'm so sick and tired of people playing fucking counters every game, even in quick play. Everyone bitches about tank feeling like shit then also immediately swaps after the first fucking fight just because they lost a fight or it seemed tough, not even cause they're getting countered by the enemy team just off the bat. It's ridiculous. Like you chose your hero for a reason didn't you? Because you wanted to play them. So then fucking play them! Learn them, get good at them. Stop swapping after you lose one fight. Come at it again, maybe you just played it poorly at the start, maybe one of your DPS was standing in the open and got picked off early. But for the love of game itself STOP COUNTER SWAPPING AFTER EVERY FIGHT. 99% of the time you don't even need to. You can just adjust your playstyle to the situation BUT THAT REQUIRES MORE FUCKING THOUGHT THAT PRESSING H AND SELECTING A HERO THAT COMPLETELY IGNORES HALF OF THE MECHANICS OF THE GAME. Should people swap? Yeah of course, if you cannot do anything with your hero then if course you should swap. BUT IF YOU'RE LEARNING A HERO then it's counter intuitive to swap off them when the game gets hard. At that point you aren't learning the hero you're playing rock paper scissors. Play your hero, play the game, don't play counterwatch. It's so fucking pervasive it's all over the game, can't go one fucking QP match without basically the entire team swapping to counter me every match because I actually took the time to LEARN HOW TO PLAY MY HEROES. And because I have fucking morales and I won't play orisa and hog and mauga for stupid brain dead, easy wins I get punished for it. Because I'm good at the game I get punished for it, because I'm better than someone else I get punished for it. THATS SUPPOSED TO BE THE REWARDING PART OF THE GAME, GETTING BETTER AND BEING REWARDED FOR DOING WELL. Instead just a wall of hard counters every fucking game. And that's just the tank experience, support feels like ass as well because none of the current support playerbase even has the phrase "main healer" in their vocabulary and Winston is unkillable. Not to mention because DPS is broken right now all the brainlets are attracted to it clogging up the Q times and making so 7/10 games you have someone playing that plays like they don't even have their monitor plugged in.

It was like Amazon. For boyfriend's.
According to his bio, Cam was a cat person.
His favorite food was sushi, and he loved horror movies.
His profile was cute. Cam’s photo looked professionally taken. He was a guy in his mid twenties with a slight curl in his lip that teased the start of a smile. Maybe a little on the pretentious side with the Sherlock style trench coat, though his eyes were what pulled me in.
I don't think I had ever seen that shade of blue.
Like staring directly into a perfect, crystalline blue sky.
Not quite natural, but too beautiful to ignore.
Cam was perfect.
Now, I didn't really think this Hire-a-boyfriend thing through.
I found the app through a link my friend Hannah sent me.
After just getting out of a pretty toxic relationship, finding someone to just hang out with was more comforting than dwelling on a relationship I have trouble even remembering. I don't think I can describe loving someone I don't remember. I have zero memories of him, only a vague sense that I was drowning.
That I had to run, to get away from him.
His face inside my mind is more of an outline, a shadow I can't make out. My therapist said it was PTSD, my mind’s way of dealing with trauma. I don't know the details, but I woke up in the emergency room with stitches in the back of my head.
Hanna was straight forward in her text.
She told me Hire-a-Boyfriend pulled her out of depression.
I was sceptical, though the app looked legit.
Like I said, it was Amazon. For boyfriend's.
The interface was cute.
When I signed in through my apple account, the app required a questionnaire after registering.
They asked details such as my likes, hobbies, and who and what I was in the mood for.
The Boyfriend™️ was a bestseller.
I found Cam on the feature page. His reviews were sparkling.
I hired Cam for a wedding! He was amazing! So polite, I wish he was my real bf :( - Lissa.
“Watched a movie with Cam, and he talked all the way through it. Not in a bad way lol, the movie was terrible. This guy was hot. I fully recommend”! - Ryan.
”Hire a bf is amazing lmao, my friends actually thought we were dating. The plastic thing ruins it tho. 😭” - Mina.
Scrolling down, there were even Husbands™️.
Husbands were more expensive, and could be hired for up to three days.
The Boyfriend™️, however, was only available for 2 hours up to a full night.
The app intrigued me.
I thought it was a joke, but could I really hire a pretend boyfriend?
Before I knew what was happening, I was on my second glass of wine, and my credit card was definitely in my hand, squeezed between my fingers.
In the back of my mind, hiring a boyfriend was a whole other level of dystopia.
However, I was still lying to college friends about being taken. Even worse, I blabbed I was fucking engaged at twenty three. This was definitely a me problem. My initial plan was to close down the app and install Tinder.
But my credit card was feeling heavy in my hand, the corner spiking my palm.
Cam was 50 bucks for half a day with him.
50 bucks I would otherwise spend on Uber Eats or over-expensive makeup.
Tapping on Cam, my hands were shaking. I was halfway through the hiring process that was settling on a day, a time, and a location, when a discounted Boyfriend™️ popped up.
Roman.
23.
Leaving soon!!!
Roman had two reviews, which was just a string of heart emojis and another that was hidden. I did see the start of it, but I wouldn't let me tap read more.
Hey! Isn't this… [REVIEW HIDDEN]
The guy’s lack of bio was slightly off-putting. No likes or hobbies, not even a favorite TV show. Roman’s photo stood out, however. Dark hair that was the perfect kind of messy, freckles, and a far-away look, half lidded eyes not even meeting the camera.
He looked like a daydreamer.
It made sense why this guy was on a discount. He didn't smile in one photo, and not even the teasing smirk I was used to with the others. His available photos were him standing awkwardly, arms crossed across his chest, as if he didn't know where to put them.
But, like Cam, this Boyfriend was flawless.
Not a hair out of place, and if it was, that was the style.
Each guy had a color scheme, and his color was chestnut.
His description caught my eye.
Perfect caramel coloured curls and eyes like melted chocolate. Roman is our favorite ‘Fall’ guy! An enemy to a lover in three (yes, three!) dates!
I had to agree. This guy embodied Fall itself, every outfit in deep oranges and browns that reminded me of crisp autumnal mornings. I think they were trying to sell college guy with him holding a book, and looking uncomfortable wearing a pair of glasses. His last photo was a full zoom in, capturing flawless skin and tawny eyes swirling with flecks of red.
Out of all of the guys I had scrolled through, this was the only guy who looked like he had personality.
Cam was cute, yes. But Cam reminded me of a mannequin. He was too perfect.
Roman’s perfection was human enough for him to feel real. Cam was a Ken doll wearing the exact same grin that people knew would sell. Roman was scowling, standing slightly tilted to the left, his hands in his pockets, and then squeezed into fists, before settling over his chest.
I could practically hear the impatient voice behind the camera.
Why are you scowling? Smile! Do you know how to smile?!”
“Eyes on the camera! Look awake! You're supposed to look appealing, why do you look half asleep?!”*
He made me wonder what the BTS behind Hire A Boyfriend was.
Cam was marketed as true love, while Roman was the guy next door who drives you insane, but is also kind of hot.
Were these guys strapped for cash and selling themselves out?
Was this all an act, or were they based on their real personalities?
Either way, I was sold.
Tapping hire, I chose our date to be in the city park at 3PM.
The app asked me if I had any special preferences, and I hesitated.
“Call me a donut.” I typed. If this thing was legit, this poor guy has a script.
I was nervous to meet him. After class in the afternoon, I headed to the park. It was raining, so already the date was going great. The receipt I received in my emails had the exact location, a green bench next to the water fountain.
I was five minutes early, already regretting my spontaneous, wine induced decision making.
Scrolling through my phone with clammy fingers, I was trying to cancel, when the bench wobbled next to me.
Roman.
Dressed in his usual autumnal wear, a levi’s jacket with jeans and a beanie, he looked exactly like his profile, already scowling at the ground, that exact same faraway look in his eyes.
My Boyfriend™️ was purposely distancing himself, sliding further away from me. After getting mildly offended, I remembered his standoff attitude and perma-scowl was his selling point.
The refusal to smile and inability to compliment me.
Enemy to a Lover.
He was acting.
“Hi.” His voice was a low mumble. Still refusing to look at me, he tipped his head back and blinked at the tree looming over us. “It's, um, Jane, right?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Hi.”
I watched his gaze wander, lingering on a butterfly. He folded his arms, pursing his lips. I had no idea what he was trying to say, before he let out a groan.
“I'm not calling you a fucking donut.”
Ooh, this guy was really getting into the role.
I liked it, playing along.
“It's fine,” I said with a laugh, “It was a stupid request.”
Roman met my eye, his lip curling. He wasn't laughing. “Yeah. It was.”
This guy was a pro.
I thought I'd made a mistake. Especially when my ‘boyfriend’ refused to walk by my side, stalking behind me instead.
He took me to a restaurant and bought me the cheapest option, indulging in the delicacy menu himself, and spent an hour ranting about birds not being real.
I started to realize why this guy was on discount. He was a fucking weirdo.
Still, though, everything about him was endearing.
The way his gaze wandered when I was speaking, like I could physically see his mind jetting off to Saturn.
Roman played with his hair a lot, twirling a single strand around his index. He ate his pasta like a psychopath, using a spoon instead of a fork, and spoke with his mouth full, spaghetti sauce running down his chin.
He (unintentionally) made me laugh out loud multiple times.
When we left the restaurant, Roman surprised me by slipping his hand in mine, entangling our fingers.
His gesture was unexpectedly warm.
When we parted ways, he had the slightest curve of a smile hinting that he was getting a little closer to me.
That’s how Hire a Boyfriend lured you in.
Their guys were like video game characters. I had to pay more to build them.
And that is what I did.
My friend was an artist, and invited me and my ‘boyfriend’ to her exhibition.
I hired Roman for the exhibition, but halfway through the date, he leaned his head on my shoulder, grasping tighter to my hand. He didn't get any less weirder, officially freaking out my friend with the birds aren't real theory. Eve was more amused than scared, immediately asking for his socials.
Roman said he didn't know what a social was, and she laughed harder.
“Your boyfriend is amazing,” Eve told me over drinks, “Isn't he like, literally perfect?”
Yes, he was.
But he wasn't mine.
I started hiring Roman every week, and the more I got to know him, I fell hard.
Every week turned to every day. I was obsessed with unlocking his true character and personality. Each time I hired him, Roman would get less standoffish, his barriers coming down.
He started to lean into me, squeezing my hand, kissing my shoulder.
Cash didn't matter to me, I was barely emotionally conscious when I was entering my card details. Just like the app said, Roman did get closer to me.
Fast forward four months, and I was sitting on a park bench with his head sandwiched in my shoulder, cherry blossoms blooming above us. It felt real.
He felt real.
I can't describe my feelings, because I don't even understand them.
He was the first man I remember truly falling in love with.
When he kissed me, I stopped seeing him as a Boyfriend™️.
Roman was like no other guy I’d ever met. Before him, I couldn't remember having a clear mind. After him, everything made sense. My friends loved him, and I had slowly deluded myself into believing he was real. His true personality was friendly, a little clumsy but in an endearing way, and he made me laugh. The park was our place, and I enjoyed dozing in the sun with his face pressed into my shoulder.
There was just one problem.
Roman was still a Boyfriend™️ which meant he was off limits. The plastic tag sticking out of his right temple assured that. If that wasn't enough, the app sent me hourly reminders, warning me to not get too close. I did understand, it was for the guy’s privacy and safety.
But it's not like Roman wasn't being affectionate himself.
The app said zero touching, including kissing, sexual intercourse. He kissed me multiple times, his head correctly leaning into mine. I still wasn't sure if he was part of his obligation as a Boyfriend, but it was clear this guy was slowly steering away from the rules.
I couldn't resist prodding the tag. “Does this not bother you?”
Roman shrugged, pulling his legs to his chest. “Not really. I like the smell of it.”
“Smell?”
Rowan held out a hand with a small smile, catching cherry blossom on his palm. “Yeah. Doesn't it smell good?”
He was talking about the cherry blossom.
Something about the way he immediately dismissed the tag put a sour taste in my mouth.
“No, the thing sticking out of your head,” I said with a nervous laugh.
Roman blinked, his lips breaking out into a smile. “I'm glad we both like it.”
Maybe he wasn't allowed to acknowledge the tag.
Ignoring my twisting gut, I focused on the sunset instead, blurred reds and oranges streaked across a twilight sky.
It was slowly starting to sink in that Roman was not mine.
“I love you,” he said in a low murmur.
Something warm dampened the sleeve of my shirt.
Was he crying?
For a moment, my words were tangled in my throat.
“I think I love you too.” I said, my cheeks heating up.
“Mm.” he sighed, and I was trying to ignore how wet my sleeve was getting. “I told you I would come back,” he snuggled into my shoulder, and that wetness was dripping down the bare skin of my arm. When he nestled his face in my neck, I smelled it, a tangy, metallic scent tickling the back of my nose.
Blood.
Twisting my head, my right sleeve was drenched with startling red.
My neck felt sticky, blood smearing my shoulder blade.
Roman was bleeding. I thought it was a nosebleed when I glimpsed his nose and lips and chin dripping red, but it was leaking from his ears too, rivulets of blood seeping from him, while the guy himself didn't move, still smiling, his head leaning on my shoulder. When my body remembered how to move, I jerked away with a shriek, but Roman stayed in the same position, his head tilted.
“I came back for you,” a wide smile spread across his lips, blood dribbling down his chin. “And our baby.”
I didn't respond, pulling out my phone to call an ambulance.
“Are you happy I came back?” he whispered. I was transfixed by the blood running down his face. His head jolted suddenly, his smile dampening, before curving into a frown. The man's eyes were suddenly so sad, wandering, like he was searching for something.
Someone.
“I changed my m-mind,” Roman’s head jerked again, drool slipping down his chin. “I w-want to be a dad, Sara.”
Roman’s words jolted something inside me, a shiver slipping down my spine.
I dropped my phone, using my sleeves to stop the bleeding. Grabbing his face, I forced him to look at me. “Hey. Look at me.” The bleeding was letting up a little. But it was his eyes that held me in a trance. I fell in love with beautiful, almost unnatural brown. What I was seeing was green, a smear of lime slowly seeping into that tawny oblivion.
“Roman.” I said, louder. “Who is Sara?”
His expression crumpled, like he was crying, a whole new personality taking over.
But he wasn't looking at me.
Roman was looking right through me.
“I love you,” his voice broke, “But I also love him. I'm not ready for a baby! I'm twenty three! What twenty three year old wants to settle down with a little brat?” His eyes widened, expression softening. “I didn't…I didn't mean that.”
I was talking to a memory.
“I love both of you. And I want to… I want to make a family with both of you,” he shook his head. “But not now, Sara.”
Sara.
There was that name again.
“Sara.” I said. “Can you tell me who that is?”
The man's gaze snapped to me. “Sara,” he whispered. “She's my girl…” his head jerked again, this time violently.
“Girl… friend?”
Roman frowned. “She's my girlfriend,” he mumbled. “I was going to go… back. But I… I couldn't… find her…”
His hands dropped limply to his sides.
“I looked for her. But they… grabbed me.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “They took me… away.”
When his whole body shuddered, eyes rolling back, I couldn't help myself, reaching forward with trembling hands and plucking the piece of plastic from his temple. It was like pulling a tag out of a toy. But it kept going, a long plastic thing feeding directly into his head.
It was like pulling a tag out of a toy.
This thing was a long coil of wire stained red, a metallic plate attached to the end.
Biting back a shriek, I dropped the tag, my fingers slick crimson.
This thing was embedded, fed, directly into this guy’s head.
Like a switch had been pulled, Roman’s arms fell to his sides. “Sara.” he said through a mouthful of red. “She's my… she's m-my…” he trailed off and blinked slowly. His gaze found my hand, where I was gingerly stroking his temple. Roman jumped up suddenly, his eyes frenzied, awake, like a startled animal. “What the fuck?” he shuffled away like I was contagious, diving to unsteady feet.
So, this was Roman.
“Who are you?” he swiped at his bloody chin. “Where's Sara?”
When I couldn't reply, his fingers gingerly stroked at his right temple.
“Fuck.” Roman let out a sharp breath. “You actually got that thing out.”
I was shaking, still holding it between my fingers.
This thing was warm, thrumming, like it was alive.
“And what is it?” I managed to get out. “That thing was inside your head!”
Roman curled his lip, his gaze wandering the park.
“Where's the exit?”
“What?!”
He grabbed me, harshly this time, pulling me to my feet. I was still trying to mentally register the tag feeding into his brain. This guy was not the man I hired, violently pulling me to his side when I could barely stand. His eyes were fierce, hollow, a whole other person taking over him. He was the shadow that had been pushed down, a suppressed memory who was awake.
And pissed.
“We need to get out of here right fucking now,” he said in a hiss. His fingernails stabbing into my skin hurt, but the pain was enough to snap me into fruition.
“That app.” I said. “What is it?”
Roman’s eyes darkened. “It's a factory,” he tightened his grip around my wrist.
“Can you help me find my girlfriend? I'll tell you everything, but we need–”
“Miss Doe, am I correct?”
The sudden voice caught me off guard.
Roman looked confused, his gaze flicking behind me.
Fuck. His lips formed the word and he stumbled back, his hand slipping from mine. Behind us, an outline of a woman slowly bled into the shadows.
“You.” Roman’s lips parted in a silent cry. He shook his head, clawing at his hair. The guy let out a spluttered sob, a thin line of blood escaping his nose.
“You're the bitch who did this to me.”
The outline inclined her head. “I know you have the memory of a goldfish, dear boy, but if I remember correctly, you were recommended to us. I even have your consent if you require proof.”
His eyes were wide. Terrified.
“You make us sign it! We don't have a fucking choice!”
“That's a rule break. Boyfriend's do not swear, unless it part of a joke and has been given full content by our clients.”
The woman appeared, no longer a disembodied voice, basking in the shadow of the setting sun, rich red hair and matching heels. She was my age or a little older. Sculpted in a black suit, this woman was oozing sophistication.
She turned to me with a bright smile.
“Hello Jane! My name is Lily. I'm a customer adviser at Hire a Boyfriend. I am so sorry for the malfunction!”
Tilting her head, Lily’s lips formed a frown.
“As we explained in our terms and conditions, the Boyfriend™️ does not usually act like this unless considered faulty. However, it is expected from a discounted model like Roman. He is scheduled to be refurbished in a week, so we'll happily take him off your hands.”
“No.” Roman whimpered. His gaze flashed to me. “Please… help me.”
His head jolted once again, and he dropped to his knees.
“That is also a rule break,” Lily said. “You never directly tell clients what to do.”
Roman’s body shook, his head jerking left to right.
“Get away from me.”
“You are broken, Roman. Allow me to fix you.”
His eyes filled with tears. “Broken?”
“That's right. Broken.”
“Sara.” Roman swiped blood from his nose. “Is she okay? Is she… s-safe?”
The woman regarded him with a pitiful smile.
“I'm sorry, who?”
Roman blinked. “Sara.” his expression crumpled. “She's my…she's m-m-my–”
Lily stepped towards him, and he shrunk back.
The sound of her heels frightened him, like he was used to them.
Used to her looming over him, a satisfied smile on her face.
“She's your what? Come on, speak up!”
He let out a raw cry, clawing at his hair.
“I don't know! I d-don't know! I…”
“Come quietly, and I will rethink my decision to convert Sara’s child when once of age,” Lily said. “The contract was clear. Section five, clause three. Hire a Boyfriend are automatically entitled to a Boyfriend’s offspring.”
Roman broke down, his head dropping into his lap.
“I'll go w-with you.” somehow, his eyes were glitching, unnatural blue light igniting around his iris. “I'll g-g-go.”
More blood, this time running thick down his face.
Lily’s lips split into a grin. “I'm sorry Roman, who is Sara again?”
He scrunched up his face, fighting to keep his mind. “I… d-d-don't know.”
I hated myself for turning away, after listening to him sobbing, begging for his unborn child to be safe, his mind torn from him right in front of me. I felt sick to my stomach. Lily was revelling in every second. Was this the reality of Hire a Boyfriend? What about Cam?
Who was behind his original face?
I should have done something. I stepped forward to grasp him and pull him back. When my hands were on his shoulders, the light fizzled from Roman’s eyes, sparks flickering out.
Like a puppet, he flopped to the ground.
In a panic, I tried to pull him to his feet, before I was violently shoved back.
The redhead nodded to me. “I apologise again for the malfunction, Jane,” she told me, scooping him into her arms.
He looked so vulnerable, a fully grown man somehow reduced to a living toy.
Lily bid me goodbye, promising me discount on my next Boyfriend™️.
I thought about that day a lot. I went to the cops with a report, only for them to tell me Hire a Boyfriend did not exist.
Apparently, I had been watching too many movies.
Two months passed by, and Roman never left my mind.
In an attempt to forget about him and delude myself into believing I was suffering a psychotic break, I lost myself in podcasts. Anything I could find, I listened to endless hours, blocking out thoughts drowning me.
Yesterday, I was making my way back home from class when I walked into a dishevelled looking girl with an armful of missing posters. I already knew who she was, and who was on the poster.
I was trying to avoid her, but this girl was following me. I could sense her steps getting closer, her breath on the back of my neck. Grief enveloped her in a sickly green aura, pale cheeks and straw-like hair stuck under her hooded sweatshirt. This time, the girl situated herself in front of me, red rimmed eyes begging me to stop walking.
I did, coming to an abrupt stop, my gaze immediately flicking to a very familiar face on the missing poster.
Unlike Roman, my Boyfriend™️, this man did have flaws.
Crooked teeth flashing a grin and an oddly shaped nose. He was stockier and had the worst fashion sense imaginable, clad in socks and sandles. This time, though, the boy had a different name.
Jun.
The photo was always different, what I guessed was a collection from her Instagram. This one was particularly heart wrenching. Roman’s eyes were bright and happy, no sign of that hollow cavern I found myself lost inside. The two of them were standing in front of a mirror, his arms wrapped around her.
Whatever happened to him after he was taken had stripped Jun away.
The girl shoved the poster in my face.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?
JUN LOCKE.
24.
LAST SEEN WEARING A PLAID SHIRT AND JEANS, OUTSIDE CAMPUS.
I didn't look at the face that had been perfected and moulded into the ideal boyfriend.
Into Roman.
I stared at the girl’s bulging pregnant belly instead.
Sara was getting bigger.
“Please,” She whispered, her voice a hoarse cry, one hand cradling her stomach. “Have you seen my boyfriend?”
It was always a no.
Swallowing hard, I shook my head.
Sara didn't even acknowledge my answer. She turned and walked away.
“Wait.” her name tangled in my mouth.
I felt like I was floating, my body moving for me. Stumbling after Sara, I lightly touched her arm and she twisted around, her eyes igniting with hope.
Opening my mouth, I choked on my words.
I have seen your boyfriend.
“Jane Doe! Oh my God, I haven't seen you in… years, is it? How are you doing?”
Sara’s half lidded eyes flicked to a familiar face behind me.
Lily.
This time, the woman strutted in a stylish red dress.
Her smile was too wide, too many teeth.
“Jane, can we talk?” she asked, “Woman to woman.”
Lily nodded at Sara’s belly. “Congratulations!” she winked. “I hope it's a boy!”
I had no choice, letting her pull me away from Sara.
Lily’s grasp on my arm was polite. She dragged me off campus. I thought she was going to throw me into a truck, before the redhead came to a stop.
I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened.
“It is quite painful, you know,” she said casually.
When I frowned at her, the woman prodded at her own temple. “The Neurowire is fed directly into the brain to ensure complete compliance with our Boyfriend's.” her gaze was across the road, and when I followed her eye, my heart almost jumped out of my throat.
Roman.
They had cut his hair. He was a sandy blonde now.
His colour scheme was deep blue, sporting a short sleeved shirt and jeans.
He was laughing, hand in hand with another girl.
“I'm only going to say this once, Jane, because you are a little too curious.”
I watched Roman reach for the girl’s hand. They must have changed his personality. Now he was smiling and playful, the two of them laughing. But there was a shy side to him, his cheeks blossoming red, fingers slipping through her fingers and entangling them.
“There are certain men in our society who are born to be Boyfriend's and Husbands.” Lily spoke up, and I realized she didn't just work for them.
She was Hire a Boyfriend.
“At Hire a Boyfriend, we believe everyone should have a significant other they can be with. Even if it's for an hour or two every day.” she turned to Roman, who was wrapping his arms around the girl, laughing into her hair.
The two of them seemed too close. I had a feeling this wasn't their first date.
Lily followed my gaze, her eyes narrowing. “Do you really think a man like that belongs with someone like Sara? No, sweetie. As you can see, Roman is currently being hired by Lula, our richest client, a socialite who is considering buying him as a full time Husband! Now, she is perfect for him.”
The redhead turned to me, lightly brushing my hair out of my face, the tips of her fingers tiptoeing across my temple. She had a smile I couldn't make sense of. “I have missed you, Jane. If only dear Ben didn't get his own way.”
She tried to touch me again, and I smacked her hand away.
I caught a hint of hurt in her eyes, before she sighed, grasping my chin with manicured nails and forcing me to look directly at her. “Sara is a woman who's boyfriend left her. She does not need any more stress for our baby.”
Dropping her hand, Lily’s tone hardened. “If you do not walk away and forget us, I will happily contract dear Sara into the Hire a Girlfriend program. And trust me, you of all people should know that it will be a very uncomfortable time for her. Would you like to know the conversion process? Well, allow me to explain–”
“Stop.”
My legs were close to giving way.
“I won't say anything.”
The bitch enjoyed my silence, my panicking thoughts trying to understand what she was saying. “Or we could make her a wife! There are a lot of lonely men looking for the perfect wife! Look at her. A young woman in her early twenties. Perfectly healthy and beautiful. And she's pregnant, so that's a bonus! Sara Mcintire is textbook girl next door. Exactly what we look for.”
Shaking my head, I was trembling, sweat trickling down my neck.
Lily's nails dug into my skin. “Am I clear, Jane? Or do you want me to say it again?” her lips grazed my ear, a shiver skittering down my spine, bugs filling my mouth. “Pain is beauty, after all, and we aim to create perfect Boyfriend's. I'll leave the process to your imagination.”
Stepping back, I nodded, swallowing a bout of vomit.
“Good.” she pivoted on her heel. “Keep walking and you will never see me again. Neither will pretty little Sara.”
Her voice followed me home.
“By the way, it was nice to see you again! Say hello to your boyfriend for me, all right?”
I don't have a boyfriend.
When I returned home, I felt like I was stepping inside a different apartment.
Everything seemed just like how I left it but the house was too… clean.
Too empty.
Standing in front of my bedroom mirror, I pulled out my ponytail, my fingers lightly prodding at my temple.
What did she call me again?
Jane Doe.
Maybe I was seeing things, but I'm terrified.
There it was.
How had I never seen it before?
With shaky fingers, I prodded the tiny plastic tag sticking out of me.
When I pulled it out of Roman, he knew who he was.
Who Sara was, and his unborn child.
Am/was I like Roman?
Am I a Hire a Girlfriend?
And if I pull this thing out, who was I before?
Edit: I've found hundreds of blood stained and fresh tags in my bedroom drawer. Who is changing them?
I live alone, but why does my apartment feel so empty?
Please help me. I think I'm going crazy.

I remember watching a short film at one point that took place in a fallout-esque wasteland. I don’t remember that many details about it but I could’ve sworn that it had a message of like “cherish what you have because it might all be lost” or something like that. I’m also pretty sure one of the main characters was a dude with short brown hair. I think it also had a part where it had the perspective of a dog too but that might just be something my brain made up. The stupid things I’ve searched up looking for this is honestly funny. “Wasteland short film about loss” “short film dog wasteland loss” “short film dog wasteland brown hair dude loss” “wasteland short film brown hair” “wasteland short film about loss brown hair main protagonist” “wasteland be grateful short film”. Any help finding it would be appreciated.

I sometimes feel like, while I've my own stuff and don't go with just anything or everything, I'm a social chameleon. Because I've had instances, where I'd match the energy or I guess demeanor of the person I'm talking with. Like I might really switch up from A to like J. Sorry don't exactly have the words to describe what I'm trying to.
PS. I'd say this is more concerning personality by the way and not lifestyle/values/interests, etc. The latter stuff I more or less decide for myself, and I'm open about my level of openness to it. So if I don't like x, y, or feel meh about z I'm not afraid to say so. Unless the context doesn't warrant saying, or I've no reason to.
Like one example my general,* word I can't find, is to talk in a somewhat reserved, calm, soft manner. Though one time I recall having a video call with a Black guy, I'm also Black, and my energy was like up there. So was his.
Then very recently I was at a store in the line. Behind me were two Spanish speaking women. I'm not of Spanish speaking country nor do I speak it, aside from very basic stuff. Anyway, I was having a little trouble with my nail. So accidentally hurt myself and went "ay!" once or twice. I wasn't even talking with them or paying them much attention. Although we may have smiled at each other. The thing is, I don't really recall ever saying that, I'd think I'd say the English equivalent since I speak it most, or some other language I speak. So it got me thinking, why did my brain choose to react that way. 😂
Edit: I also don't live somewhere with much Spanish speaking people. I just might see one or two here and there. So it isn't a case of them rubbing their lingo off on me lol or me getting used to it.
I'm sure there have possibly been other experiences like that, though those two are what most come to mind.
On a little sidenote, I'm not Asian. Though I came across a guy at a cross walk and I think he was Japanese or something. Although more subtle, he gave me a little smile and that bow... I was internally like awww. Like I'm not even part of your culture and you still feel like doing that towards me. Maybe it was a habit though and who knows it could've been his first day in the country lol.

This is my first post & I am thankful I found this group. Background; 64yo white male. I’m also a disabled veteran. Had Covid @ five years ago. Although fitness is relative, within my age group I am in outstanding shape. 90 minute workouts every other day. Rowing 30 minutes, followed by incline walking at level 15 for 1.5 miles. Followed by strength training. Resting pulse (when asymptomatic ) is always 54-64BPM. BP within normal limits at 120/8O. Low cholesterol. Easy peezy, right? But…last three days mimic my long Covid symptoms that have troubled me over the past years.
Currently, if I attempt to walk more than 15 yards, or attempt any aerobic activity, it turns into torture; my heart start’s palpitating against my chest, BPM skyrockets, I suffer from Hypoxia, dehydration, brain fog, fatigue, lactic acidosis in my limbs. My BP will sometimes drop to 65/40. And because I suffer from both PTSD & major depressive order, I get hammered mentally and it’s an hour by hour struggle to stay sane.
I am a former Navy special operations combat medic. So, I have some minor medical training which allows me to sometimes convince myself that I know more than I do. But, for the most part I am in tune with my body. I try and follow a healthy diet. I drink little alcohol other than the occasional glass of wine. I do have my MMJ card and love how marijuana helps with depression, anxiety, and sleeping.
I’m fortunate that I receive my medical care (thank you taxpayers) through the VA and its wonderful medical professionals. In 2018 & 2022 I underwent a whole-body battery of tests - brain scan, X-rays, MRI of bladder & prostate, chest & heart Doppler, blood tests, etc. - everything was normal. No abnormalities were found. This did not surprise me.
So, ladies & gentleman, what can be done? I’m frustrated & I am looking for any advice, however minor. This F&$@-;g sucks. My quality of life disappears when long covid makes a house call.

Dearest gentle player,
It is with much delight that this Game Master welcomes you into the dazzling and glamourous ton of the Adamant Empire.
In this world of socialities, schemers and sycophants, you will be assuming the role of debutantes, bright and accomplished Gems, who are either just now being introduced to society or who are returning to it after being away for a very long time, with the intent of securing respectable matches for themselves.
Armed only with your wits, wiles and charms, you must charm suitors and navigate the rigid society of the Empire while avoiding scandal and ruin. Gods forbid you end up being dragged through the mud in the mysterious Lady Quartz's society papers!
What will you strive for, gentle player? Will you search for that perfect one, throwing caution to the wind in the pursuit of true love? Will you prove to be the most sparkling of Gems, earning yourself the favour of her Grace, the Queen Consort Ciyradyl, and the title of the Diamond of the season? Will you aim to rise as high through the ranks as possible? After all, why be content with being a Mrs. when you can be a Duchess? Or will you strive to forge a different path for yourself, forsaking what your family and society has set out for you? Something in between?
Whatever your goal is, be weary, dear player. For in this world, secrets are a dangerous currency and scandals can destroy entire families. Be an example of fine society or embrace infamy, tis your choice. Just know that the ton is always watching, judging in hushed whispers and giggles.
So, follow my lead and dance through candlelit ballrooms as we create together a tale of thrilling character drama, love, passion, ambition and bitter rivalries, all that which makes a heart flutter with enthusiasm and dread.
And if our darling debutantes unwittingly end up entwined in a conflict much grander than they could have ever anticipated? Well... is it truly a D&D game without some heightened stakes?
Campaign Pitch
Thank you for reading through my ramblings. I will be running a bit of a niche idea for a campaign. Those who have seen the Netflix Series Bridgerton or have consumed any media inspired/related to Jane Austen probably have a fairly good idea of the kind of story I am going for.
Essentially, this game will focus a lot more on your characters, their goals, desires and tribulations while they wade through the social season. There will be a main plotline as well as many other storylines linked to NPCs and factions that the players might interact with if they so wish, but ultimately I enjoy focusing on what my players find most enjoyable.
This will be a very roleplay heavy game. Combat will occur on occassion. This is D&D still after all so I am essentially contractually obligated to allow you to bonk at least a few times, but combat will only happen when the story demands it-and the story likely won't demand it that often. I suppose you can theoretically go out to the wilderness and do a dungeon crawl and I will play along with it, but if that is what you are seeking out of your D&D experience, this is sadly not the game for you.
Besides from roleplay, there might be some degree of urban exploration within the city of the Summit, the capital of the Empire and the setting of our campaign. There will potentially be some opportunities for sleuthing too if that is an avenue the players decide to explore more.
Instead, most of the game will be focused on exploring the lives of your characters and for those around them as well as that of your larger society. You can expect a lot of talking to each other and to NPCs so I encourage you to get deep into your character's mindset, to flesh them out as a person and to allow yourself to get vulnerable while playing them. Those are the moments my current table thrives on. We have quite literally cried as result of scenes. So never hesitate to speak up, try something new out and go deep into your character's soul.
As for me, I will strive to create an immersive, breathing world. I want my NPCs to feel like real people and for you to bond with them as such. I want your environment to react to and remember your actions, what makes you who you are. For this purpose, I will work with each of the players to intergrate their characters into the Adamant Empire and to best accomodate what you want to do in and out of character.
Speaking of the world, during character creation, we will work together to create the province you are from as well as your family and their place within society (status, any connections to guilds they might have, etc). So, you will be actively involved in creating at least a few small parts of it.
Once I have gathered up all players and received their backstories, there will be a two weeks gap between that and starting the game so I can get some more GM prep done with all the factors in mind. I want to try and begin either at the end of this month or at the start of the next one, but I won't push on this too hard.
Once we have started, I want to settle on a consistent schedule so schedule compatibility and consistence is quite important for me. I do not have a specific end date in mind for this game. I believe campaigns should last as long as it takes for them to have a satisfying conclusion. That being said, my games tend to be on the longer end so keep that in mind too.
If any of that sounds like your cup of tea, feel free to fill in the form down below! Hopefully we will get to create a great story together.
Lore
There is some lore within the Adamant Empire and the continent it is a part of, Kosmos, but nothing of massive importance that you would need to know right out of the bat. It has its own history and pantheon of Gods, etc, but honestly I am more than happy to work with the players to adjust the existent lore or to add entirely new one. Never hesitate to reach out to me.
The basics of the world are these though:
The Adamant Empire is thousands of years old. It is fairly similiar to the irl British Empire in many ways. It is extremely powerful and influential and it has supposedly independent colonies that in essence function as puppet goverments all over the continent. Few can match them in power.
That was until a hundred years ago.
King Edmund Diamant was determined to conquer one of the last remaining nations that could potentially rival the Adamant Empire, the elven isles of Yara Ambar. He miscalculated gravely, however, and that led to the Empire's first true loss. Taking advantage of the distraction, multiple colonies revolted and enough banded together to form the City States of Andora. With the assistance of their infernal supporters, the revolutionaries have gained some level of independence and are now almost certainly plotting to claim more and more of the Empire's lands for themselves.
The Empire's legions, coffers and reputation took a significant blow and they were forced to sign a treaty with the elven royalty.
Prince Orion was betrothed and later wed to an elven noble woman. This was a significant event because for centuries now, since the reign of Cedric the Conqueror, it had been strictly forbidden for non-humans to be part of the Adamantian nobility. The Oldblood families, the most ancient of bloodlines within the Empire, protested against the decision, but there was little to be done.
King Orion and his consort Queen Ciyradyl have reigned together for 70 years now. During their rule, peace and prosperity has largely been maintained and the people are content. More and more non-human families have also made their into the ton, a most scandalous occurence at first, but one that the ton has grown to accept with time, albeit some races more than others.
Alas, it is uncertain how long peace will last still. With the 99 year old King growing ill in body and mind, his wife and children have primarily taken over his duties. The City States of Andora stand proud to this day, a mark of shame upon the pride of any true Adamantian. Much conversation remains over what is to be done with them. Simultanously, there are many other forces who would benefit to see the Empire crumble on its knees.
Life in the Adamant Empire is about to change. Whether that change shall be for better or worse and what role you might play in it is yet to be revealed.
There is yet another element that needs to be discussed when it comes to the lore and that is the Gems/Steels separattion.
In essence, I and my players wished to replicate the sort of narratives one might encounter in the books of Jane Austen, where for example the Bennet family must marry all their daughters or they will end up with no inheritance (gasp!), but we still wished to be able to have PCs be male or to explore queer romances and narratives.
So, we settled on the following idea:
There is a secondary label by which individuals are put into one category or the other. People either bear the Mark of the Gem or the Mark of the Steel. This system of social distinction in essence replaces the era accurate existence of sexism.
Gems and Steels can be male or female, it does not matter. Similarly, Gems and Steels can be in relationships with men or women, that also does not matter. Creating offspring is still important within society, but magic can also accomplish that so gender or sexuality is not a factor.
What matters is that Gems are not allowed to inherit property and titles and are very limited in the careers that it is appropiate for them to have. They are expected to spend their time at home, tending to the needs of the household and the family. Steels have none of these restrictions.
Your characters are all Gems, meaning they need to marry -and marry well- in order to secure the best possible future for themselves.
Idea might be slightly altered in the future, but the skeleton of it should remain the same more or less.
As you might have figured out from this, while we will be trying to keep the spirit of the era and many of its customs, we won't be going for 100% historical accuracy (if you did not figure that out from the fact that magic exists). So, if that is what you are looking for, sorry but this table probably won't perfectly match your taste.
Table Rules
Given that we will be very focused on roleplay, character creation will have some according adjustments. you can find those down here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a7JdKnUQEfsoEOufrb8hACKmDBzIGaKEzXGKtT1sD7o/edit?usp=sharing
If you require some guidance in creating the narrative elements of your character, you can use this doc as a well as a sort of guideline:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qAudZPqYzCS9lDZGp7E6ZtWQExmCvP3DQnUqFZ9u3Ww/edit?usp=sharing
Some more rulings to keep in mind:

• Social PvP is allowed, but combat must be discussed by the players and the GM beforehand.
• For inspiration, you can have up to 3 at a time.
• Drinking potions is a bonus action :)

And we might come up with more as we play.
Plot Hook
The Player Characters all have town lodgings in the same neighbourhood, Fairbrooke Square. Thus, they might know each other to some degree or they might not. That is up to the players.
Regardless, as you were all neighbours growing up, you would have grown up alongsides the at the time Viscountess Kristina Royce (Steel). The specific relationship and dynamics that you had with Kristina can be fleshed out later between you and I, but everyone knew her in some shape, way or form.
Ten years ago, Kristina's parents died, making her Countess of Stirling and shortly after she left to roam the sea as Royces tend to do. Whether you maintained contact with her afterwards is once again your decision to make.
Kristina has now returned to the Summit, shortly after breaking off her betrothal to Emil Pleasant (Gem), son of the Baron of Fairbrooke Square and another one of your neighbours. You can also decide what kind of dynamic you have with him too.
While your whole street is whispering about the impending social season and the latest hot gossip, you (the PCs) each receive an invitation to dinner from Kethryllia Royce, Doawger Countess of Stirling, grandmother of Kristina and former handmaiden to the Queen.
It is uncertain yet what she wishes to discuss with you about, but that private dinner will be the inciting incident of our game.
Player Requirements
If all this sounds good to you, then now it is time to see if you would be a good match for the table! The ideal player for us would match the criteria down down below.

• Is 18+.
• Has a decent internet connection.
• Has a laptop cause you need that for Foundry.
• Has a mic and camera and is comfortable with having the camera open for sessions (yes, this is obligatory. I understand why some might not like it, but I find roleplay flows much more smoothly when you can see the other's face so this is must. Sorry.)
• Is available every Sunday from 4 to 9 BST.
• Is LGBTQ+ friendly as I am not going to allow any kind of hate at my table.
• Loves roleplaying.

As you might have noticed, level of experience is not a concern here. Newbies and experienced players are welcome alike!
Player Application
If you match all the criteria above, wonderful! i can't wait to hear from you. Go ahead and fill the application in. It is a bit long, but I hope it will be as fun for you to fill in as it was for me to make.
I already have three amazing players and I am looking for two more to fill out the party. The form should remain open for around a week so take your time.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeXCoA6pUYSWk2WzsNq0Vb1N7xj3BSB8C3DEPVOmYfPAJ3KJg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Afterword
If you have read through all my ramblings, thank you very much! Remember to include the word "bonbon" in there so that I know you did.
This is a rather new experience for me if I am sincere. I have been GMing for a few years now, but this will be a very different sort of game to what I usually run and I am also rather new to Foundry too.
I cannot promise it will be a perfect experience, but I can promise that I will always strive to make it an enjoyable one. I am always open to critique and willing to adjust things for the entertainment and safety of the group.
I have bored you enough I would say. Farewell for now, gentle player. Let us not keep the ton waiting.

So, I got curious while listening to a kpop group with a bi-racial (Wasian) member and decided to look into the different Blasian, Wasian, and Hispanic-Asian kpop idols who have been in the industry. I also stumbled across some interesting bonus info included at the end of this post. Therefore, I made this list of all the idols/pop singers who promoted in korea that I could find searching online who fit these criteria.
I was wondering if I missed anyone? Specifically, I wonder if I missed any kpop singers from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s who are Blasian, Wasian, or Hispanic-Asian? (If I missed any from more recently as well, feel free to comment). Additionally, from the list I compiled it seems like the overwhelming majority of Wasian kpop idols (who constitute the majority of Bi-racial kpop idols) are girls. Any ideas as to why that is?
Asian-Hispanic:

1. Kim Samuel - was a soloist under Brave ent, ranked highly on Produce101 S2, pre-debut member of Seventeen
2. Chanty - in the MLD group Lapillus
3. Tia - (Puerto Rican specifically), was in the group Chocolat
4. (technically) Carlos Galvan - more khip-hop than Kpop

Blasian:

1. (technically) Insooni - really more of a Diva pop singer, but was in a fun kpop project group called "Golden Girls" and in the 70s proto-kpop girl group Hee Sisters
2. (technically) Yoon Mirae - more khip-hop than kpop
3. Lee Michelle - soloist, competed on Kpopstar tv show, was supposed to be in a YG girl group called SuPearls but debut fell through
4. Lee Manbok - (also has german and native american ancestry), was in the 90s kpop group INK
5. Kpop adjacent model Jenny Park - model but hosts youtube interview show talking with different kpop idols
6. Kpop adjacent model Han Hyun-Min - model but was an MC with Daehwi for a kpop music show
7. (technically) Sonya - (quarter black) soloist and musical actress, but not really traditional "K-pop"

Notable Blasian survival show contestants who haven't debuted:
Bae Yujin - competed on Mnet's Cap-Teen, eliminated in round 1, also a model and has competed on other singing shows (oh my part, you), active on insta
Francisca - competed on Mnet's Cap-Teen, was a student at seoul school of performing arts, eliminated in round 2
Wasian:

1. Isak - she was in the SM ent duo Isak n Jiyeon
2. Vernon - in the Pledis/Hybe boy group Seventeen
3. Danielle - in the girl group AdoHybe New Jeans
4. Shannon Williams - was a soloist under MBK ent
5. Somi - soloist under The Black Label, was in the group I.O.I
6. Lily - in the JYP girl group NMIXX
7. Nancy - was in the MLD girl group Momoland
8. Kyla - was in the Pledis girl group Pristin
9. Huening Kai - is in the Hybe boy group TXT
10. Huening Bahiyyih - is in the Wakeone girl group Kep1er
11. Huening Lea - was in the girl group Viva
12. Sam Carter - in the now-inactive male kpop band Lunafly from the same label as Brown Eyed Girls
13. Juliane - was in the girl group Chocolat
14. Melanie - was in the girl group Chocolat
15. Jay Chang - soloist and in the boy group OnePact, competed on Boys Planet, finishing 10th
16. Alex - was in the Woollim boy group Drippin but later left
17. Jaeyun - is in MNH ent's boy group 8Turn
18. Yoon Soo-il - was an 80s and 90s kpop singer
19. AleXa - soloist who competed on Produce48
20. Tony - was in a duo who debuted in 2000 as a collab between SM ent and Cia ent (along with a fully white guy named Eddie) called Golbaengi (only ever released 1 album then gave up being singers)
21. Alexander - (quarter portuguese from Macau) was in the boy group U-Kiss
22. Nina - is in the kpop girl group Irris
23. (technically) Nina Hillman - in the JYP group Niziu who are mostly a Kpop adjacent Jpop group, but who have also released korean songs and won on korean music shows
24. (technically) Harvey - in the kpop adjacent japanese group XG
25. (technically) Maki - in the kpop adjacent Jpop group &Team under Hybe Japan
26. Dok2 - (quarter spanish), more khip-hop than kpop though

Notable Wasian trainees from survival shows who haven't debuted:
Guinn Myah - ranked 11th in Girl's Planet 999 and is from Top Media
Chanelle - was a popular trainee on Hybe/Be:Lift lab's RUNExt
Bonus Info not relevant to my questions:
black idols:
Alex - was in the girl group BP Rania (the predecessor of Black Swan), (bi-racial black and white)
Fatou - is in girl group Black Swan (which also has Sriya, one of only 2 indian kpop idols alongside X:IN's Aria)
Nvee - is in girl group Black Swan (bi-racial black and white)
Mickey Romeo - was a member in the popular 90s kpop co-ed group Roo'ra for ~1 year
Latin Kpop idols:
Gabi - (brazilian of german descent) is in the girl group Black Swan
white kpop idols:
Sophia - was in the short-lived girl group O My Jewel
Olivia - was in the girl group The Gloss although they didn't had a proper debut (no music shows or anything) and had only 1 digital single
Lana - soloist who released and promoted some songs; she's a bit nuanced in that Russia borders large parts of Asia (Mongolia, China, and some Japanese Islands) and so she definitely could be Eurasian/more genetically similar to those of asian descent depending on her family lineage
Eddie - from that Duo Golbaengi that only had 1 album and was a collab between SM ent and Cia ent
Brad Moore - was the drummer and percussionist for the group Busker Busker (!)
(technically) Chad Future - soloist (calls it A-K-pop) who literally collabed with Vixx's Ravi, Bestie's U.Ji, and Nu'est's Aaron
"International" kpop groups with non-asian members:
UHSN (project group from Mnet)
VCHA (JYP)
Katseye (Hybe)
EXP Edition (what a thesis project)
Kaachi (oof)
Bonjour (an oldie from 2006)
Esquire (ESQ) (duped by a shady company)