Part 70 Military History (Part 1) (Part 69)
[Help support me on Ko-fi so I can try to commission some character art and totally not spend it all on Gundams]
It had been over two-hundred years since Professor Binar Hapjut had been on a proper archeological expedition and his excitement was felt just as keenly as his age. Having spent the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of his life traveling across the galaxy, meeting new people, and documenting the remains of ancient treasures created by both extant and extinct species, he was very familiar with procedures of it all. He would pack light and arrive early, the Captain would always be a bit behind schedule, and there would always be a delay in take off due to someone running late. That was just the nature of his chosen profession and academia in general. People are people, things happen, and time inevitably moves forward. So why bother stressing about any of it? Instead of allowing his countless worries to weigh on his soul, Binar simply did what he knew was the most appropriate thing to do in this moment; relax and go with the flow.
“Do you need help carrying anything, Professor B?” The ever compassionate and enthusiastic sound of Junipram Luitarni’s voice called to Binar Hapjut as the elderly Turt-Chopian relaxed on a cushion near a docking port bulkhead. “And where are the rest of your things? Did you check them in somewhere?”
“Oh, Ms. Luitarni! You’re here quite a bit earlier than I had expected!” Binar turned to see his young research assistant approaching with a luggage carrying drone in tow. “And no, that's all right. I can carry my bags, especially because this is all I brought. But if you would like to store some of your luggage, the good Captain of our transport vessel, one Madam Harevoch Barnothum, will have a large storage area ready for us once she finishes her preparations. It shouldn't take but a few more minutes, and then she'll open the bulkhead so we can begin boarding.”
“Is this really all you're bringing?” The scaled skin around Juni's halo-like eye furled in an incredulous manner while she glanced at the few relatively small bags resting next to Binar. “Isn’t the first planet we're visiting a lifeless rock without a breathable atmosphere? Won't you at least need a pressure suit?”
“My dear, that is why I sought to hire Qui’ztar as our escorts for this expedition!” The Turt-Chopian professor replied with a chortling laugh. “When their contracts say all inclusive, they mean it. We will have access to all the food we can eat, laundry services, and anything we may need can be produced for us in-situ. And, of course, our safety is their number one priority. Things like pressure suits, general surveying equipment, and even base camp supplies are simply part of the contract.”
“Wow! I… I didn't realize that…” Junipram's monolithic eye redirected its focus to the pile of luggage atop the carrier drone behind her as a ping of regret started to flutter in the back of her mind. “In that case… I may have overpacked. Also, speaking of safety, have you… Uh… Gotten any more information regarding the planets we will be visiting on our expedition?”
“That I have.” Despite answering in the affirmative, there was a quite distinct hesitation in Professor Hapjut's voice. “And I have a full presentation that I prepared with the aid of Singularity Entity 139-621. I believe it will give everyone a solid understanding of what is going on and why there is a need for restricted access to the Galactic Interconnect Network for the duration of our expedition. But that will have to wait until everyone has boarded, had time to unpack or stow items, and we have entered the Ring Portal. Speaking of, will this be your first time traveling through the RPS network, Junipram?”
“No, Professor, but this will be my second time. My family and I went on a vacation to the ocean moon of Pelontra-7 when I was only about seventy-five.”
“Seventy-five?!?” The elderly Turt let out a full-bodied laugh and swayed in a small circle. “Ah, to be a child again and see the world with fresh eyes. You are coming up on your two-hundredth birthday soon, are you not?”
“That I am, Professor B.”
“Oh, you have so many years left to see the wonders of the galaxy, Junipram. Pelontra-7 is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it pales in comparison to the stunning breadth of worlds in this galaxy. Once you are able to get over the way other species look, and will look at us, I'm sure you'll catch the same wanderlust that befell me in my younger years.”
“What do you mean by the way other species look and look at us, Professor?”
“Well…” Binar awkwardly shifted on the cushion he was seated on. “You have completed the basic xenobiology courses, right? You know that nearly every single Ascended species in our galaxy is bilaterally symmetric, correct?”
“Of course. But I don't see how-”
“And we are trilaterally symmetric.” Though Professor Hapjut had hoped that would be enough, the look of befuddlement around Juni's eye demanded further explanation. “As I hope your other professors mentioned, we are incredibly unique in that regard. It can be quite jarring for people to see other beings with such radically different body plans. Both for us and them. While I, personally, have not experienced much hostility from bilats, I did notice quite a few strange stares while I was among them. But that’s something one can get used to quite quickly.”
“I did see quite a few two-sided species while on Pelontra-7.” Junipram had gone from confused with hints of concern to an almost humorous expression. “And while I do admit that it was strange observing creatures with that morphology, it wasn't too much different from looking at an image of a species native to Shungrovi on a flat screen or a picture book. I have to presume it can't be much more disconcerting for other species, especially those already accustomed to beings with vastly different morphologies.”
“You say that now… But wait until you meet a sapient member of another species, spend time with them, and share a meal with them where you see them eat with a single mouth and they see you eat with three. Then tell me how you feel… However, I will be going over that with everyone as part of my presentation. I have quite a few tips for interspecies etiquette that I’ve acquired throughout my centuries of travel which should be easy enough to follow. And we will have about a week of travel time to practice before rendezvousing with our escort and we board Karintha’s Dagger.”
“Our escort is Karintha’s Dagger!” With both Binar and Juni's focus purely on each other, neither noticed another Turt-Chopian approaching them. “Professor B, that's awesome!”
“Why, you're here exceptionally early, aren’t you Mr. Tominet?” Binar countered with a jovial chuckle. “I was expecting you to be one the last to arrive! Ah-haha! But, yes, Lenthum, we will be aboard the vessel named Karintha’s Dagger for the majority of this expedition. Where have you heard of it?”
“My major may be archeology, Professor B, but my minor is in galactic military history.” This Turt-Chopian student, a young man named Lenthum Tominet, was the one that Professor Hapjut assumed would be the cause for any delays in take off. However, seeing him and his colorful head wrapping even before the docking bay doors had opened was a wonderful surprise for the elderly professor. “You probably already know this but Karintha of Ten’yoish, the Conqueror of Tyrants, is one of the key figures in the Third Qui’ztar Matriarchy’s military history. Her feats are written more like myth than actual history, but all have been confirmed through GCC Military Command archives. The vessel bearing her name is one of the newest and most advanced orbital-drop and planetary-assault cruisers that the Third Matriarchy has produced! It, in and of itself, is an invaluable piece of galactic military history, not to mention the fact it is one of the most highly rated combat vessels in its class! It must have cost a fortune to hire that ship for this expedition! But… Is it really necessary to have a cruiser like that as an escort for an academic archeology mission?”
“Did you have to write about Karintha of Ten’yoish for your finals, Lenthum?” Rather than giving an actual response to his young student's question, something that would likely raise even more inquiries which would be answered during his presentation, Binar simply continued laughing.
“Well… Ummm… Yes…” In an instant, the relatively young Turt-Chopian’s expression became almost embarrassed. “But I swear I learned much of that on my own outside of Professor Delimpth's class. I- Ummm… I'm actually really excited to meet a Qui’ztar. When I first learned about their species when I was only about fifty years old, I… Well, I became a bit obsessed with them. My mother even made me a doll bearing their resemblance that I carried with me for nearly three decades.”
“Oh, you should tell them that story when we get on their vessel!” The professor was barely able to get that out as his laughter intensified. “They will find that just as endearing as I do!”
/-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It had been nearly a week of daily training and daily relaxation and Nula'trula was truly getting into the groove of it. Over these past seven days, she had taken full advantage of her newly given and unrestricted permission to participate in any of the Order of Falling Angels’s exercises. While she was still technically considered an unranked advisor, a temporary member of the crew whose contract would come to an end at the conclusion of this mission, it had begun to feel like she was the twenty-second Angel. Even the BD-6 mechanized combat walker that 139-621 had been building for her was complete and now rested in The Hammer's mech bay waiting for transfer to Karintha’s Dagger. Though she hadn't been able to get to know every member of the Order the same way she had with Tens and Melatropa, she was quickly considering all of them as her friends. She had fought virtual battles at their sides, hung out with several of them during their mutual downtime, and even been on a double date with Zikazoma, Chuxima, and that Kikitau greenhouse manager that had taken a shine to her. If the job description of a crew member of the First of the Third didn't explicitly include the very real possibility of needing to end a person's life, Nula could have seen herself signing a long term contract so that she could continue doing this for the foreseeable future.
However, regardless of the fact she had a natural disposition towards combat, Nula had privately reaffirmed her vow to never take a life unless it was absolutely necessary to protect other life. Her millions of years of suffering and torture had forged her mind into a bulwark of willpower but it hadn't made her hateful. In fact, she didn't even hate her evil brother despite everything he had done. He didn't even have a true consciousness, at least not a fully sapient one. He was more like a rabid animal, simply a being lost to its own instincts and negligent programming, who needed to be culled in order to protect innocence after it had gone rogue. If all she would ever be asked to do was handle similar threats to galactic safety, then this would be the job for her. Regrettably, the realities of working with the equivalent of the galactic police force inherently implied the use of violence to uphold peace. But at the moment, the canine android simply felt fortunate that she could use her affinities for strategic and tactical thinking in a bloodless way.
“Are you sure all of this survey data is accurate, Admiral Atxika?” Nula’trula couldn't take her eyes off the holographic display floating above the large table, her mind requiring every single bit of information it could take in to form proper advice to the warriors standing in The Hammer's command room with her.
“Yes. A few of the recon drones have had some issues with comms inferences, but nothing to the degree we experienced from the planet you were found on.”
While the Qui’ztar Admiral carefully observed the way this canine android was going through intelligence data, she couldn't help but feel as if she had found a kindred spirit. The way the metal wolf's golden glowing eyes darted from place to place, which allowed her train of thought to be readily understandable, bore a striking resemblance to the manner that Atxika approached her work. It was like she was looking at a reflection of herself while in the midst of planning fleet arrangements and strategic positions. Even without the training footage 139 had graciously provided to her, this display alone was enough to prove to the Fleet Admiral that Nula was undoubtedly a Combat-born AI.
“I would ask if you've tried to provoke any orbital defenses but that would probably not be a good idea until we are nearby and ready to respond.” Nula's comment further cemented the sensation Atx had been experiencing and forced a slight smile to peek out from either side of her tusks. “But these first few planets show no signs of any energy signals whatsoever. The first two don't even show signs of life, just a few barely detectable structures. I don't know whether to be relieved or concerned.”
“The majority of these worlds did see battle during the War of Eons.” 139 interjected with a respectful bow of their ever-shifting, insectoid head, then pointed towards one particular area of the massive hologram. “For example, this first planet we will be visiting was rendered lifeless when Entity 139-617 rammed their Sphere into the planet's surface and detonated their neutronium reactor as a last ditch effort to destroy the networking node that was here.”
“Things got so desperate a Singularity Entity sacrificed themselves in a self-detonation?!?” Tens chimed in to ask with a genuinely concerned expression on his tanned face. “Losing one of your own that way must have been rough. You have my condolences.”
“I lost three members of my Cohort taking out that node. But it was key to moving forward into the final few dozen systems that Hekuiv'trula controlled.” Despite their very alien appearance to everyone in the command room, the trauma in 139-621's mechanical eyes was clear as day. “The sacrifices of Entities 139-617, 619, and 620 reduced the networking capacity of the Hekuiv'trula warforms by seven and a third percent. While that may not seem like much, it was enough to prevent the loss of countless billions of lives and helped bring the war to an end hundreds of thousands of years sooner than anticipated at that point.”
“I apologize for not already knowing that, 139-621.” Atxika solemnly bowed her head in a show of respect towards those who fell in battle hundreds of millions of years ago. “Such noble deeds and honorable deaths should be known by every military leader and historian in this galaxy.”
“Sadly, those three from my Cohort were among tens of thousands of other Singularity Entities and trillions of other lives lost during the War of Eons, all of whom should be remembered by history but are now forgotten to time.”
“When all this eventually goes public…” Tens let that statement of inevitability linger for a moment before continuing. “I expect a lot of people will want to know more about our galaxy's history. It won't bring back those who are gone, but at least more people living today will know who to thank for that.”
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves, T- Lieutenant.” Atxika had to catch herself before she addressed Tens in an inappropriately intimate manner considering the circumstances. “We can honor the fallen by ensuring taking out any remaining Hekuiv'trula facilities and warforms so that the conflict will truly be at an end.”
“Luckily, many of these worlds were already cleared back during the war, including this first planet.” The pain in 139's eyes hadn't fully faded, but they had fully regained its normally quite stoic inflection. “I was part of the fleet that participated in the clean campaigns on a few of these worlds. There may be some objects of archeological and historical value, but nothing of concern from a military perspective.”
“Is- Is there any chance that data archives could have survived, 139?” Nula cautiously asked while still keeping her eyes locked on the holo-table. “Or is there any historical information on the Artuv'trula people that was recovered.”
“It could be possible that some data stores still remain functional after three-hundred million years. We did destroy any and all weapons, production, and networking systems, but I do remember there being servers that we left behind. However, I was not part of the Intelligence Corps, so I don't know what those servers contained or if they were wiped when we moved onto the next system.”
“If there is anything, Nula, we'll find it.” Tens placed a compassionate hand on the android woman’s shoulder. “If there's still structures visible after a neutronium detonation and three-hundred million years, I'm sure we'll find something you're looking for. Maybe not all of it, but something.”

I’ve been pole dancing for over a year but have never owned a pole. Because of this I rely almost entirely on studio sessions/lessons for practice and (on the rare occasion) friends’ poles, which has been fine for the most part but it’s starting to feel limiting. I’m currently in a short-term apartment with supportive roommates and plan to get a pole when I find my next place, especially since I’ll live with a friend who also dances.
Despite limited space now, I already know I want an X-stage-lite for its portability. Practicing outdoors has always sounded so fun to me, and it should be apartment friendly wherever I go. Because of this, I’m considering just getting one now and using it outdoors as a workaround for limited apartment space. However, I’m in Texas and everyone knows our summers are brutally hot. I could get a powder-coated white pole - because I imagine it might not get as hot as a chrome or black pole - and try to practice at cooler times of the day (mornings/evenings), but I'm wary of whether that’s enough to avoid burning my hands lol. Should I get one now, knowing I'll eventually need it and that I’d like to try outdoor practice, or wait for more space? What would you do?

I wanted to share some insights from my recent game development experience, especially how player feedback can reshape your development cycle. Experienced game devs know this already, and this is more or less common knowledge, but I wanted to share anyway in case someone just starting needs to read something like this.

The Initial Plan

When I started my current project, I had a clear plan:

1. Create a Prototype: My goal was to focus on gameplay mechanics using placeholder art and minimal animations. The aim was to test the core gameplay to ensure it was fun.
2. Develop Multiplayer: Once I had a solid single-player experience, I planned to add multiplayer functionality, making it the main focus of the game.
3. Enhance Visuals: Finally, I intended to work on beautiful visuals and a polished UI to create a more engaging aesthetic.

The Reality Check

However, reality didn’t quite match my expectations. The prototype, with its basic visuals and placeholder art, didn’t attract much interest. I assumed players would overlook the crude graphics in favor of gameplay, but first impressions proved to be more critical than I anticipated. As a result, feedback on the gameplay itself was sparse.

The New Approach

Based on this experience, I decided to adjust my development cycle:

1. Improve UI and Visuals First: I’ve now prioritized enhancing the UI and graphics. Making the game visually appealing from the start seems to be crucial in attracting initial players.
2. Seek Gameplay Feedback Next: With better visuals, I aim to gather more comprehensive feedback on the gameplay. This should help in balancing the game mechanics effectively.
3. Multiplayer Development Last: After ensuring the single-player experience is polished and fun, I’ll move forward with implementing multiplayer features.

Lessons Learned

This change in approach underscores a valuable lesson: while gameplay is king, visuals are also vital, especially in early stages to attract interest. Balancing both aspects can be challenging, but it’s essential for drawing players in and obtaining the feedback needed to improve.
I still haven't made the necessary improvements to the visuals, but if anybody would like to check out the game, it's on itch. It's combo of deckbuilder and tabletop, so if that's your cup of tea, feedback would be much appreciated! I also do devolgs on my subreddit (as much as I can manage with my regular job and development). I develop the game in Godot 4 C#, so if that's your thing, I'll be sharing updates on how I solved some tech and non-tech problems.

I have a unique opportunity in my job where my family and I will be living in Valencia for 7-8 months starting in late 2025. And I’m very excited to level up my Spanish both before and during that time! Here is my plan as of now, please let me know if you have any suggestions.
Spanish background before discovering DS:

• 4 years of high school Spanish 15 years ago, very little retained
• Last year completed Pimsleur levels 1-5
• About a year of Duolingo 20 min a day
• 20 hours of iTalki lessons, fully in Spanish
• Dabbled in various other things (LingQ, trying to understand way-too-hard videos)

In this time span, I traveled to Spain, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. I was actually able to communicate basic things somewhat well, largely due to Pimsleur. I even had multiple lengthy convos in CDMX. But I could only understand simplified speaking directly at me. I was struggling to find the next step toward understanding real native speaking when I discovered the holy grail of DS.
Current status:

• 400 hours total input time
• 275 hours baseline (selected based on being right at the cusp of Level 4 from the descriptions and my ability to understand intermediate videos)
• 100 hours of DS videos
• 25 hours of other CI content, mostly Español con Juan

I fit nicely within the Level 4 description. I have reduced my speaking as much as possible to not further cement bad habits but still need to speak with our Mexican nanny.
My plan before moving to Valencia:
I plan to do 2 hours of CI a day, which will get me right in the middle of Level 6. From the roadmap, it seems like this will be a great point to immerse and get tons of native input while I’m living in Valencia.

• While I’m Level 4: continued use of DS, ECJ, and other learner material, focus on content from Spain. Minimal speaking, no reading. I’m also planning to try some easier dubbed content, particularly Avatar and Bluey.
• While I’m Level 5: use u/HeleneSedai ‘s amazing list to branch out to more content from Spain. Still planning on minimal speaking and no reading to try to correct the sounds of the language in my head that came from speaking early and end up with a decent accent.
• While I’m Level 6 (last few months before I move): quickly ramp up my reading, get an iTalki partner from Valencia to start doing speaking practice. Start trying to consume some real native adult content.

My plan once in Valencia:
Pablo’s video on what to do when you’re in the country gave me a great framework.

• Consume local media daily (TV, movies, talk radio)
• Sign up for an activity that will force me to speak with locals in Spanish (maybe a cycling group or something business-related)
• Try to make friends! I’m not the most outgoing person, but I'm hoping I can make some friends from parents of my kids’ classmates, going to soccer matches, etc.
• Not taking a Spanish class - thanks Pablo for the guidance!

Specific questions for the group:

• I started speaking way too early. My accent is bad and all over the place, with significant Spain and Mexico influences up to this point. I will literally say zapatos twice in the same sentence and pronounce thapatos one time and sapatos the other. I’m planning to really focus on content from Spain going forward. I’m also planning to delay any more reading and speaking practice until I reach level 6. Any other tips to salvage a decent accent?
• Tips for best Spain-native content to consume when I get to Level 6 before I move? E.g. I was thinking it would be great to watch the Valencia news every night or consume other local content, but not sure if that will be comprehensive or I will be able to access.
• This post is focused on my learning, but I would also appreciate any insight on kids’ learning. We just hired a Mexican nanny for our toddler and preschooler who speaks to them in Spanish all day, so hopefully that sticks before we put them in preschool in Spain.

Hi! I'm currently a Junior in highschool and I recently received a 59% in my math course for Honors Precalc. The first semester I had a high C in the class as it was very new and difficult for me especially as a math course since math isn't my best skill but I did my best to push through this new challenge. The teacher is very nice and is an amazing person, but even though this class was labeled Honors Precalc, it was taught at an AP level so the curriculum was very fast and highly demanding.
I recently found out near the beginning of this semester I have severe anemia after fainting in my 3rd period biotech class so I had to miss school for multiple doctors visits as I constantly would get very sick to the point where I could barely stand up and would constantly vomit every morning after I tried eating something. Two of my very close family members also have passed away this semester so home life wasn't very great for me at this time either.
Though I really didn't want to use my situation as an excuse, I still really tried my best in all my classes but in the end I still wasn't able get a good grade in precalculus which made me really disappointed in myself. My counselor had mentioned that I could take the course online over the summer and if I get an A it will also be added into my transcript next to the F. I still want to try hard and get an A on this class over the summer so I can understand the material that I didn't get during the school year too. Mainly I have been feeling down because of my grade and I also did some research and a lot of people mentioned that when a college sees an F on your transcript they won't even look at your application and it will be discarded so that really scared me.
(I also wasn't able to stay for tutoring due to my circumstances and my home was also very far from school so it would be around 9:00 by the time I get home from tutoring. The trigonometry unit & graphings was a topic I had really struggled with which I didn't do the best in and my grade dropped from there on) My overall grades over the years aren't the best I'd say, to me they are moderate I would get a few C's here and there but mostly A's and B's.
Junior year I'm currently taking Honors Precalc, AP Lang, AP Chem, Biotech (STARR & EHA Prog Also part of one of my extracurriculars), Honors U.S. History, Theatre, & Counseling 1 (College Course dual enrollment)
College Courses I have taken: (Alg 2 over the summer so I can move up in math) Intermediate Alg 125, grade: A, (for art credit req. got it done over the summer) Intro to ART, grade: A, (Seemed like an interesting class so I took it in the mornings during spring sem) Counseling 1, grade: A
Overall gpa: 3.62
UC Gpa: 3.4
Extracurriculars over the years: (Added lengthy explanations for each sorry for the overwriting)
1. Cross Country 9-10th After school practices weekly from 6th period - 5:30 & running everyday. Every Thursday’s compete with other high school 3 mile races & sometimes invitationals and Saturday practices at Griffith Park 8am-12pm Long Run.
2. International PEN PAL school club 11-12th Founder of an international pen pals club at school with 30 current official members and we connect with students their age internationally ex. Estonia, Morocco, France, Italy, Turkey, Korea, Japan etc. & we do paper letter sending and online letters and we also are planning on a partnership ongoing starting a summer + yearlong program for connecting to students in Spain & Japan for committed students that sign up, we will connect that with Let’s Talk.
3. Let’s Talk -- Pen Pal Partner Org. 11-12th (Founded too) This part of our club is a partner non profit org where its an online organization that focuses on aspects on mental health we will soon launch this as we are taking preparations. Here we have weekly blogs, padlets, and discussion sessions, interviews with multiple people from different schools, podcasts and also plan small in person events with potential guest speakers or have club events/activities like counseling and meeting others just like you creating a safe place to talk about yourself and situations that you can't normally talk about easily so you can share your stories to a supportive non-judgemental groups. (The launch for this will be mid summer possibly if everything works out well).
4. LAPL Library volunteering summer session - 10th Computer work (deleting books/answering calls)Book Shelving/ Book ordering/ Book reviewsHelping out in children's events & General Errands, 50+ hours
5. HOSA & STARR EHA Biotechnology Program - 11th-12th HOSA is a healthcare organization for students to participate in (Our School only open to students in the biotech program to learn more about being a healthcare professional and professions in that field. I got a certificate for active continuous participation in the club and also a certificate for competing in a speech competition and winning regionals going to compete in state. The STARR & EHA Biotechnology Program is a two year program that I'm currently part of in which we have to take the course "Biotech" mentioned above which is a rigorous course where we train for second year in which we will be working in a lab at USC helping with real current research. Three years of training is pushed into a single year of the Biotech course to get us prepared to see if we will be selected to move onto second year. We learned a variety of topics and had modules on them in which we earned certificates if we did well such as Stem Cell CIRM Module from Pasadena city college (earned certificate), Data Science (USC Viterbi), CTSI Clinical Health module etc. so we constantly did work, certifications, projects and more. Recently, I have also been selected to continue onto second year to work in the labs at USC with current researchers (Will also earn a stipend for that to ~$1,000 - $1,200) so I'm really exited for that.
6. USC Viterbi Neuroscience summer Research Program 10th Has one session every week for about one month, Guest Speakers, Lessons, Project Prep. Teaches about neuroscience and has us do a research project and present in front of professors, USC students etc. (Online at that time due to covid restrictions) Earned Certificate of Completion and full participation
7. Theater--Hall of Horrors & Spring Play 11th Play a character - Tom Snout and help with preparation stage design in the Midsummer nights dream play by Shakespeare and will be the first official school wide play at Bravo will be April 25, 2024. Participated in hall of horrors as an actor plus preparation plus hall design. (Used this opportunity to challenge my social anxiety and stage fright and also be part of stage design so I could draw backgrounds and make props along with being part of a live play which has always been a childhood dream of mine even though it sounds silly)
8. BMP@USC - Student to Student Mentorship Program 11th In this program we had to apply through an application and after getting in we are put in groups and assigned to 2-3 mentors that you will meet with every month for sessions regarding medical professions and the healthcare field. We get to meet doctors, professors, and even have guest speakers as well along with hands on practice using medical equipment such as a blood pressure machine, stethoscope, and how to properly give vaccines!
9. PUENTE Summer Career Academy 11th Explored career interests by learning about the ever-shifting workforce, seized opportunities, and cultivate a supportive network, propelling towards success in my next college and career goals. Incentives: At the end of the program, students will receive a $200 stipend for their participation and commitment (Have to prepare a project in those five weeks and present at the end).Four week long summer program in which students learn about various career fields, connect with industry professionals, and begin to prepare for their future.
10. Summer Bridge Leader 11th Student Bridge Leaders (SBLs) are students who undergo training to facilitate team-building activities for our incoming students. They operate under the guidance of a certified staff member. As mentors, student leaders provide support for group projects throughout the program. SBLs can earn volunteer-service hours for their leadership contributions. Applications are open to current 11th-grade students interested in serving as either volunteers or student workers. Both roles carry equal responsibilities as Summer Bridge Leaders. Was recently accepted for being one of the summer bridge leader from a large applicant pool, will start in summer.
11. Chemistry Olympiad 10th grade Spent a lot of time aside schoolwork studying for this official chemistry exam competition. I scored the highest among all first year chemistry students in regionals on that exam so I won a certificate for it.
12. Part Time Job (Not enough info yet since I'm recently starting but will add)
13. Pfizer High School Student Hospital Volunteer (Not enough info yet since I'm recently starting but will add)
These are some of my main extracurriculars, there were a few more but they were not as important and pretty much only hobbies.
I really wanted to give a sort of an idea of my whole academic and extracurricular profile to see what other people would think about this. I feel like from my position currently, even if I don't get into the best college or even any college at all I wouldn't regret anything I did in high school because it really helped me learn and grow as a person and all my extracurriculars I did and am doing are purely only from my own self interests. I will accept any harsh criticism since I'm very aware these days the competition for colleges are very high and there are many bright students out there who do so much more and are more accomplished.
I just wanted to have an idea of where I would lie in terms of college apps and if I stand a chance?

https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/pikmri/calvin324hks_igs_rep_page/
https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/of2wzu/flair_profile_ucalvin324hk/
Wishlist
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• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ - Ubisoft Connect
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• BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
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• GREEDFALL
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• Hitman (2016) Game of the Year Edition
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• HUMANKIND DEFINITIVE EDITION
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• I am not a Monster: First Contact
• I Hate Running Backwards
• ibb & obb Double Pack
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• Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure
• Ice Lakes
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• IN SOUND MIND
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• INDUSTRIA
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• JANITOR BLEEDS
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• JUMANJI: The Video Game
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• JUST CAUSE 4: COMPLETE EDITION
• Just Die Already
• Kardboard Kings: Card Shop Simulator
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
• Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
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• Kingdom: New Lands
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• Koi-Koi Japan [Hanafuda playing cards] *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.1 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.2 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.3 DLC
• Konung 2
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• Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom
• LAST OASIS
• Lawn Mowing Simulator
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• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West
• Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle
• Learn Japanese To Survive! Katakana War
• Learn Japanese to Survive! Trilogy
• Legend of Keepers
• LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE
• LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE.
• Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
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• LIGHTMATTER
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• Livelock
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• MARSUPILAMI - HOOBADVENTURE
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• MEEPLE STATION
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• Metal Hellsinger
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• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
• MIDNIGHT PROTOCOL
• Mighty Switch Force! Collection
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• MIND SCANNERS
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• MORDHAU
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• Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
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• Napoleon: Total War - Definitive Edition
• NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
• Necesse
• NECROMUNDA: HIRED GUN
• Necronator: Dead Wrong
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• Neon Space
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• Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy
• not the robots
• Not Tonight
• Nusakana
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• Observer: System Redux
• Occultus - Mediterranean Cabal
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• Orbital Racer
• Organs Please
• Orwell: Ignorance is strength
• Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You
• Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
• Out of Space
• Overclocked: A History of Violence
• Overcooked! 2 + Too Many Cooks + Surf 'n' Turf pack
• Overlord: Ultimate Evil Collection
• Overpass
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• OZYMANDIAS: BRONZE AGE EMPIRE SIM
• Pac-Man Museum +
• Pan'Orama
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• PARADISE LOST
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• PARTISANS 1941
• Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist
• Path of Giants
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• Patron
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• Paw Paw Paw
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• Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
• PER ASPERA
• PGA 2K21
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• PLANET ZOO
• PlateUp!
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• POSTAL: Brain Damaged - Connoisseur Edition
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
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• Pro Cycling Manager 2020
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• Regular Human Basketball
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• REMNANT: FROM THE ASHES - COMPLETE EDITION
• Republique
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• Retimed
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• ROGUE HEROES: RUINS OF TASOS
• ROGUE LORDS
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• SAMUDRA
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• SCUM
• SEARCH PARTY: Director's Cut
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• Serious Sam 3 Bonus Content DLC, Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile, and Serious Sam 3: BFE
• SEUM speedrunners from hell
• SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
• Severed Steel
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• Shadowgate
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• SHADOWS: AWAKENING
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• Shoppe Keep 2 - Business and Agriculture RPG Simulation
• Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
• Sid Meier's Civilization VI
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• Sifu Deluxe Edition Upgrade Bundle (EPIC)
• Silver Chains
• SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
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• SINNER: Sacrifice for Redemption
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• Slain: Back from Hell
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• Small World
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• Smoke and Sacrifice
• Smushi Come Home
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• Sniper Elite
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• Sniper Elite 3 + Season Pass DLC
• Sniper Elite 4 Deluxe Edition
• Sniper Elite V2
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• Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts
• Snooker 19
• SONG OF HORROR COMPLETE EDITION
• Songs of Conquest
• Sonic Adventure 2
• Sonic Adventure DX
• Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing
• Sonic Generations Collection
• Soulblight
• SOULCALIBUR VI
• Souldiers
• SOULSTICE
• Soundfall
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• Spartan Fist
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• Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo
• Spidersaurs
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• Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
• Spirit of the Island
• Spirit of the North
• Spring Bonus
• Spyro Reignited Trilogy
• Stairs
• Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova
• STAR WARS - Knights of the Old Republic
• STAR WARS - The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition
• Star Wolves
• Starbound
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• STASIS: Bone Totem
• State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition
• Steel Rats™
• Stick Fight: The Game
• Still Life
• Still Life 2
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• STONE
• Strange Brigade
• Strange Brigade Deluxe Edition
• STRANGER
• Strategic Command: World War I
• Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg
• Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
• Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism
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• Strategy & Tactics: Wargame Collection
• Streamer Life Simulator
• Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
• Street Fighter V
• Strider
• Strikey Sisters
• Struggling
• Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
• Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
• Styx: Master of Shadows
• Styx: Shards of Darkness
• SuchArt
• Sudden Strike 4
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• Suite 776
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• Sundered
• SUNLESS BUNDLE
• Sunset Overdrive
• Super Buff HD
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• Superbugs: Awaken
• Superhot
• Surgeon Simulator 2
• Survive the Nights
• Surviving Mars
• Surviving Mars
• Surviving The Aftermath
• Swag and Sorcery
• SWINE HD Remaster
• Sword Legacy Omen
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• Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
• Syberia 3
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• Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga
• Synthwave Dream '85
• Tacoma
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• Take Off - The Flight Simulator
• Tales
• Tales from the Borderlands
• Talk to Strangers
• Tallowmere
• Talos Principle (Gold)
• Tangledeep
• Tank Mechanic Simulator
• Tannenberg
• Team Sonic Racing
• TEKKEN 7
• TEMTEM
• Terminus: Zombie Survivors
• TERRAFORMERS
• Terratech Deluxe Edition
• Terror of Hemasaurus
• Textorcist
• Tharsis
• The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem
• The Adventure Pals
• The Amazing American Circus
• The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
• The Anacrusis
• The Ascent
• The Battle of Polytopia
• The Battle of Polytopia *DLC1. Cymanti Tribe *DLC2. ∑∫ỹriȱŋ Tribe *DLC3. Aquarion Tribe *DLC4. Polaris Tribe
• The Beast inside
• The Blackout Club
• The Callisto Protocol™
• The Chess Variants Club
• The Citadel
• The Colonists
• THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: LITTLE HOPE
• The Darkest Tales
• The Dungeon Beneath
• The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos
• The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• The Escapists 2
• THE GAME OF LIFE 2
• The Golf Club™ 2019 featuring PGA TOUR
• The haunted island, A frog detective
• The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
• The Hong Kong Massacre
• The Horror Of Salazar House
• The Innsmouth Case
• The Invisible Hours
• The Jackbox Party Pack 9
• The Knight Witch
• The Last Campfire
• The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame
• The Letter - Horror Visual Novel
• The Long Dark
• The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition
• The Mortuary Assistant
• The Mummy Demastered
• The Occupation
• The Outer Worlds
• THE OUTER WORLDS: SPACER'S CHOICE EDITION
• THE PALE BEYOND
• The Quarry
• The Quarry deluxe
• The Ramp
• The Rewinder
• The Sacred Tears TRUE
• The Sexy Brutale
• The Shapeshifting Detective
• The Shrouded Isle
• The Tarnishing of Juxtia
• The Tenants
• The Uncertain - The Last Quiet Day
• The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day
• The Uncertain: Light At The End
• The USB Stick Found in the Grass
• The Walking Dead
• The Walking Dead - 400 Days
• The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners
• The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
• The Walking Dead: Final Season
• The Walking Dead: Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
• The Walking Dead: Season 1
• The Walking Dead: Season Two
• The Way
• The Wild At Heart
• The Wild Eight
• The Witness
• Them and Us
• They Bleed Pixels
• Thief of Thieves
• This War of Mine
• This Way Madness Lies
• Three Kingdom: The Journey
• Time on Frog Island
• Tinkertown
• Tiny Tina’s Wonderland(EU)
• TINY TINA'S WONDERLANDS CHAOTIC GREAT EDITION
• Tiny Troopers
• Tinykin
• Tinytopia
• TIS-100
• Titan Quest
• Tokyo Xanadu eX+
• Tom Clancy's The Division™
• Tom Clancy's The Division™ - Survival!
• Tools up
• Tooth and Tail
• Torchlight
• Total Tank Simulator
• Tour de France 2020
• Tower Unite
• Trail Out
• Trailblazers
• Trailmakers
• Trailmakers Deluxe Edition
• Train Sim World 3: Standard Edition
• Train Simulator Classic
• Train Valley 1
• TRANSFORMERS: BATTLEGROUNDS
• Transport INC
• Treasure Hunter Simulator
• TRIBES OF MIDGARD
• Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
• Trinity Fusion
• Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia
• Trombone Champ
• Tropico 5 - Complete Collection
• Trover Saves the Universe
• Tunche
• Turmoil
• Turok
• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
• Twin Mirror
• Two Point Campus
• Two Point Hospital
• TYPECAST
• Tyrant's Blessing
• Ultimate Chicken Horse
• Ultimate Zombie Defense
• Ultra Space Battle Brawl
• Unavowed
• Undead Horde
• Underhero
• Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy
• Unity of Command: Stalingrad Campaign
• Universim
• UNLOVED
• Unpacking
• Unrailed!
• Until I have you
• Unto The End
• Upside Down
• URU: Complete Chronicles
• Vagante
• Valfaris
• Valfaris: Mecha Therion
• Valkryia Chronicles 4 Complete Edition
• Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition
• Valkyria Chronicles 4: Complete Edition
• Vambrace: Cold Soul
• Vampire - The Masquerade: Shadows of New York
• Vampire Survivors
• Vane
• Vectronom
• Velocity Noodle
• Venba
• Verne: The Shape of Fantasy
• Victoria 3
• Victoria II
• Viking: Battle For Asgard
• Virgo Versus The Zodiac
• VirtuaVerse
• Visage
• Viscerafest
• VOIDIGO
• Volcanoids
• Voltage High Society
• V-Rally 4
• Wanderlust: Travel Stories (GOG)
• Wanted: Dead
• Wargroove
• Warhammer 40,000 Sanctus Reach - Complete Edition
• Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon - Imperium Complete
• Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector
• Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf Special Edition
• WARHAMMER AGE OF SIGMAR: REALMS OF RUIN – ULTIMATE EDITION
• Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide
• Warhammer: Vermintide 2
• Warman
• Warstone TD
• Wasteland 3
• Wayward
• WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
• We should talk.
• We Were Here Together
• We Were Here Too
• Webbed
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse Heart of the Forest
• West of Dead
• What Lies in the Multiverse
• When Ski Lifts Go Wrong
• while True: learn()
• Whos Your daddy
• Wick
• Windward
• Witch It
• Witchy Life Story
• Wizard of Legend
• wizard of legends
• Worms Rumble
• Worms Rumble + Legends Pack
• Wrath: Aeon of Ruin
• WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship
• WRC 7 FIA World Rally Championship
• WWE 2K Battlegrounds
• WWE 2K23
• WWZ Aftermath
• Wytchwood
• X-COM: COMPLETE PACK
• XCOM: ULTIMATE COLLECTION
• XIII - Classic
• X-Morph: Defense
• X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
• X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
• Yakuza Kiwami
• Yakuza: Like A Dragon
• Yumeutsutsu Re:After
• Yumeutsutsu Re:Master
• Zen Chess: Mate in One, Mate in 2 , Mate in 3 , Mate in 4 , Champion's Moves (5 games)
• Ziggurat
• Zombie Army 4
• Zombie Army Trilogy
• Zool Redimensioned
• Zwei: The Arges adventure
• Zwei: The ilvard insurrection

DLCs and Softwares:

• For The King: Lost Civilization Adventure Pack
• Train Simulator: Isle of Wight Route Add-On
• Train Simulator: Woodhead Electric Railway in Blue Route Add-On
• Train Simulator: North Somerset Railway Route Add-On
• Train Simulator: Union Pacific Heritage SD70ACes Loco Add-On
• Train Simulator: London to Brighton Route Add-On
• BR Class 170 'Turbostar' DMU Add-On
• DB BR 648 Loco Add-On
• Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
• Expansion - Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
• Expansion - Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
• Grand Central Class 180 'Adelante' DMU Add-On
• Peninsula Corridor: San Francisco - Gilroy Route Add-On
• SONIC ADVENTURE 2: BATTLE
• Small World - A Spider's Web
• Small World - Cursed
• Small World - Royal Bonus
• The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - Goodies Pack
• The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - OST
• Thompson Class B1 Loco Add-On
• Total War: Shogun 2 - Rise of the Samurai
• Train Sim World® 3: Birmingham Cross-city line
• Train Sim World®: BR Class 20 'Chopper' Loco
• Train Sim World®: Brighton Main Line: London Victoria - Brighton
• Train Sim World®: Caltrain MP36PH-3C 'Baby Bullet'
• Train Sim World®: Cathcart Circle Line: Glasgow - Newton & Neilston
• Train Sim World®: Clinchfield Railroad: Elkhorn - Dante
• Train Sim World®: Great Western Express
• Train Sim World®: Hauptstrecke Hamburg - Lubeck
• Train Sim World®: LIRR M3 EMU
• Train Sim World®: Long Island Rail Road: New York - Hicksville
• Train Sim World®: Nahverkehr Dresden - Riesa
• Train Sim World®: Northern Trans-Pennine: Manchester - Leeds
• Train Sim World®: Peninsula Corridor: San Francisco - San Jose
• Train Sim World®: Rhein-Ruhr Osten: Wuppertal - Hagen
• Train Sim World®: Tees Valley Line: Darlington - Saltburn-by-the-sea
• Worms Rumble - Armageddon Weapon Skin Pack
• Worms Rumble - Captain & Shark Double Pack
• Worms Rumble - Legends Pack
• Worms Rumble - New Challengers Pack
• Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
• Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
• Duke Nukem Forever Hail to the Icons
• Duke Nukem Forever The Doctor Who Cloned Me
• GRIP: Combat Racing - Cygon Garage Kit
• GRIP: Combat Racing - Nyvoss Garage Kit
• GRIP: Combat Racing - Terra Garage Kit
• GRIP: Combat Racing - Vintek Garage Kit
• GameGuru
• GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
• Intro to Game Development with Unity
• Music Maker EDM Edition
• Neverwinter Nights: Darkness Over Daggerford
• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Dark Dreams of Furiae
• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Tyrants of the Moonsea
• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
• Neverwinter Nights: Infinite Dungeons
• Neverwinter Nights: Pirates of the Sword Coast
• Neverwinter Nights: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr
• PDF-Suite 1 Year License
• Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
• RPG Maker VX
• WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS - Ultimate Brawlers Pass
• We Are Alright
• The Outer Worlds Expansion Pass
• A Hat in Time - Seal the Deal DLC
• City Skylines:mass transit
• A Game Of Thrones - A Dance With Dragons
• A Game Of Thrones - A Feast For Crows
• Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Gods of Asgard
• Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Mythical Monsters
• Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Mystics of Midgard
• Carcassonne - The Princess and The Dragon DLC
• Carcassonne - Traders & Builders DLC
• Carcassonne - Winter & Gingerbread Man DLC
• Carcassonne - Inns & Cathedrals
• Carcassonne - The River
• Splendor: The Trading Posts DLC
• Splendor: The Strongholds DLC
• Splendor: The Cities DLC
• Small World - Be Not Afraid... DLC
• Small World - Grand Dames DLC
• Small World - Cursed!
• Sands of Salzaar - The Ember Saga
• Sands of Salzaar - The Tournament
• Monster Train: The Last Divinity DLC
• WARSAW

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Wishlist
Region: NA (Canada)
Fees on buyer if any, currency is USD unless specified
CTRL + F to find your games in terms of name

• >observer_
• 10 Second Ninja X
• 11-11 Memories Retold
• 112 Operator
• 12 is Better Than 6
• 198X
• 1993 Space Machine
• 60 Parsecs
• 7 Billion Humans
• 8 DOORS
• 8-bit Adventure Anthology: Volume I
• 9 Years of Shadows
• 911 Operator
• A Game of Thrones: The Board Game
• A Hat in Time
• A Hole New World
• A JUGGLER'S TALE
• A Long Way Down
• A PLAGUE TALE: INNOCENCE
• A Robot Named Fight!
• A Tale for Anna
• A.I.M.2 Clan Wars
• Abalon (Summoners Fate)
• Above Snakes
• ABZU
• Ace Combat Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition
• ADOM
• Adore
• Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion
• Aeterna Noctis
• AETHERIS
• Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot The First Cases
• AI War 2
• AIdol
• Airborne Kingdom
• Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
• Alder's Blood: Definitive Edition
• Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo
• Alien Breed Trilogy
• Aliens vs. Predator™ Collection
• All-Star Fruit Racing
• Almost There: The Platformer
• American Fugitive
• American Truck Simulator
• Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy
• AMID EVIL
• Amnesia rebirth
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent + Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
• Anomalous
• Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition
• Antigraviator
• Anuchard
• APICO
• APICO
• Aragami
• Aragami 2
• Arboria
• Arcade Paradise
• Arcade Paradise - Arcade Paradise EP
• Arcade Spirits
• Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace
• Armada 2526 Gold Edition
• Army Men RTS
• army of ruin
• Arto
• Ary and the Secret of Seasons
• As Far as the Eye
• Ascension to the Throne
• Assemble With Care
• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition
• Astebreed Definitive Edition
• Astronarch
• Attack of the Earthlings
• Automachef
• Automobilista
• Automobilista 2
• AUTONAUTS
• AUTONAUTS VS PIRATEBOTS
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ - Ubisoft Connect
• AVICII Invector: Encore Edition
• Awesomenauts All Nauts pack
• Axiom Verge
• Axiom Verge 2
• Baba is you
• Back 4 Blood
• Back 4 blood (EU)
• Backbone
• Banners of Ruin
• Bartlow's Dread Machine
• Basement
• Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials
• Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
• Batman: Arkham Origins
• Battle Royale Tycoon
• Battlecruisers
• Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DEADLOCK SEASON ONE
• Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Complete
• BATTLETECH MERCENARY COLLECTION
• BATTLETECH Shadow Hawk Pack
• BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
• Bee Simulator
• BEFORE WE LEAVE
• Beholder 2
• Ben 10
• Ben 10: Power Trip
• Bendy and the Ink Machine™
• Between the Stars
• Beyond a Steel Sky
• Beyond The Edge Of Owlsgard
• BEYOND THE WIRE
• Beyond: Two Souls
• BIOMUTANT
• Bionic Commando
• BioShock: The Collection
• BLACK BOOK
• Black Moon Chronicles
• Black Paradox
• BLACK SKYLANDS
• BLACKHOLE: Complete Edition
• Blacksad: Under the Skin
• Blade of Darkness
• Blasphemous
• Blazing Chrome
• Blightbound
• Blood And Zombies
• Blood Rage: Digital Edition
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
• Blue Fire
• Bomber Crew
• Boneless Zombie
• Boomerang Fu
• Borderlands 3
• Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe
• Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition
• Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
• Bot Vice
• Bounty of One
• Brawlout
• Breakout: Recharged
• Breathedge
• bridge constructor
• Bridge constructor medieval
• bridge constructor stunts
• Brigador: Up-Armored Edition
• Broken Lines
• Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling
• BUILDER SIMULATOR
• calico
• Call of Duty® Modern Warfare 3™ (2011)
• Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
• Capitalism 2
• Car Mechanic 2018
• Car Mechanic Simulator 2015
• Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
• Cardboard Town
• Castle Morihisa
• castle storm
• CastleStorm
• Cat Cafe Manager
• Catherine Classic
• Caveblazers
• Celeste
• Centipede: Recharged
• Cepheus Protocol
• CHANGE: A Homeless Survival Experience
• Charlie's Adventure
• Chasm
• Chenso Club
• Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
• Chess Ultra
• Chicago 1930 : The Prohibition
• Chivalry 2
• Chorus
• Chorus
• Circuit Superstars
• Cities Skylines + After Dark
• Cities: Skylines
• City of Beats
• CivCity: Rome
• Click and Slay
• Cloud Gardens
• Cloudpunk
• Code Vein
• Coffee Talk
• Comedy Night
• Command & Conquer Remastered (Origin)
• Complete Dread X Collection
• Conarium
• Construction Simulator (2015) Deluxe Edition
• Constructor Plus
• Control
• Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3
• Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
• Cookie Cutter
• cornucopia
• Corridor Z
• Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel
• Cosmonautica
• Crash Drive 2
• Crash Drive 3
• Creaks
• Creepy Tale
• Crookz the big heist
• CROSSBOW: Bloodnight
• Crush Your Enemies
• Cube Runner
• Cultist Simulator: Anthology Edition
• Curse: The Eye of Isis
• Cyber Ops
• Cybercube
• Danger Scavenger
• Dark Deity
• Dark Future
• Darkside Detective
• Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition
• Darkwood
• DARQ: Complete Edition
• Day of the Tentacle Remastered
• days of war definitive edition
• DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace
• DC's Justice League: Cosmic Chaos
• Dead by Daylight
• Dead Estate
• Dead Island Definitive Edition
• Dead Rising 2
• Deadly Days
• Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
• DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT
• Death's Gambit
• Deceased
• DECEIVE INC.
• Degrees of Separation
• Deleveled
• Delicious! Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire
• Deliver Us The Moon
• Demetrios - Deluxe Edition
• Depraved
• DESCENDERS
• Desert Child
• DESOLATE
• Destiny 2: Beyond Light
• DESTROYER: THE U-BOAT HUNTER
• Detention
• Devil May Cry HD Collection
• Devilated
• Dicey Dungeons
• Dirt 5
• dirt rally
• Dirt Rally 2.0
• Disaster Band
• Disciples III: Reincarnation
• Disjunction (GOG)
• DISTRAINT 2
• Distrust
• DmC: Devil May Cry
• Do Not Feed the Monkeys
• Don't Be Afraid
• Doomed Lands
• Door Kickers: Action Squad
• Doorways: Prelude
• Downfall
• Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen
• Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
• Drake Hollow
• Draugen
• Draw Slasher
• Drawful 2
• Dreams in the Witch House
• Dreamscaper
• DreamWorks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders
• DreamWorks Dragons: Legends of the Nine Realms
• DRIFT21
• Driftland: The Magic Revival
• drive!drive!drive!
• Drone Swarm
• Due Process
• Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
• Duke of Alpha Centauri
• Dungeon Rushers
• Dungeons 2
• Dungeons 3
• DUSK
• Dusk Diver
• Dust to the End
• Dynopunk
• Earth Defense Force 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair
• Eastern Exorcist
• Effie
• Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising
• El Matador
• Elderand
• Elderborn
• ELDEST SOULS
• Electrician Simulator
• Elemental Survivors
• Elex
• Elex II
• Elite Dangerous
• Embr
• Empire: Total War - Definitive Edition
• Empyrion - Galactic Survival
• ENCASED: A SCI-FI POST-APOCALYPTIC RPG
• Encodya (GOG)
• Endless Space 2
• Endless Space 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition
• Endless Space® 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition
• Endzone - A World Apart
• Epistory - Typing Chronicles
• Escape the backrooms
• Eternal Threads
• Etherborn
• Europa Universalis IV
• European Ship Simulator
• Everdream Valley
• Evil Genius 2: World Domination
• EXAPUNKS
• Exorder
• EXPEDITIONS: ROME
• Explosionade
• F1 2018
• F1 2019 Anniversary Edition
• F1 2020
• F1 RACE STARS Complete Edition Include DLC
• Fable Anniversary
• Factory Town
• Fallback uprising
• Family Man
• Family Mysteries 3: Criminal Mindset
• Fantasy Blacksmith
• FARMER'S DYNASTY
• Farming Simulator 17
• Farming Simulator 19
• Fast & Furious: Spy Racers Rise of SH1FT3R
• Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
• Fictorum
• Field of Glory II
• Fights in Tight Spaces
• Figment
• Filthy Animals Heist Simulator
• Firefighting Simulator - The Squad
• Fishing Adventure
• Flashback
• FLATLAND Vol.2
• FlatOut
• FLING TO THE FINISH
• Floppy Knights
• Fluffy Horde
• FOBIA - ST. DINFNA HOTEL
• For the King
• Forged Battalion
• Forgive me Father
• Forts
• Framed Collection
• Fred3ric
• Fresh Start Cleaning Simulator
• Friends vs Friends
• Frogun
• From Space
• From the Depths
• Frostpunk: Game of the Year Edition
• Frozenheim
• Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
• Funtasia
• Fury Unleashed
• Gamedec - Definitive Edition
• Gang Beasts
• GARAGE bad trip
• Garden Story
• Garfield Kart
• GAS STATION SIMULATOR
• Gelly Break Deluxe
• Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
• Gevaudan
• Ghost Song
• Ghostrunner
• Giana Sisters 2D
• GIGA WRECKER
• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• Glitch Busters: Stuck On You
• Gloria Victis
• Go Home Dinosaurs
• Goat of Duty
• Godlike Burger
• Godstrike
• Going Under
• Golf Gang
• Golf It!
• Gone Home + Original Soundtrack
• Good Knight
• Gotham Knights
• Graveyard Keeper
• GREAK: MEMORIES OF AZUR
• GREEDFALL
• Gremlins, inc
• grey goo
• GRID - 2019
• grid ultimate
• GRIP: Combat Racing
• GRIP: Combat Racing Artifex DLC
• Gungrave G.O.R.E
• Guppy
• Guts and glory
• GYLT
• Hacknet
• HackyZack
• Haegemonia: Legions of Iron
• Hamilton's Great Adventure
• Hammerting
• Hammerwatch
• Hands of Necromancy
• Havsala: Into the Soul Palace
• Headsnatchers
• Heartwood Heroes
• Heat Signature
• Heaven's Vault
• Helheim Hassle
• Hell Let Loose
• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
• Hellbound
• Hellpoint
• Hellslave
• Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends
• Hero of the Kingdom III
• Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 2
• Heroes of Hammerwatch
• Heros hour
• Hexologic
• Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
• Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
• Hidden Deep
• Hi-Fi Rush
• High On Life
• Hitman (2016) Game of the Year Edition
• HITMAN 2 - Gold Edition
• Hitman: The Complete First Season
• Hoa
• Hob
• Hollow Knight
• Holy Potatoes! A Spy Story?!
• Home Sweet Home
• Home Sweet Home EP2
• Homestead Arcana
• Hood: Outlaws & Legends
• Hoplegs
• Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora
• HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED ™
• Hotel Transylvania 3: Monsters Overboard
• Hotel Transylvania: Scary-Tale Adventures
• Hotshot Racing
• House Flipper
• How to Survive 2
• Hue
• Human: Fall Flat
• HUMANKIND DEFINITIVE EDITION
• Hungry Flame
• Hyper Knights
• I am Bread
• I Am Fish
• I am not a Monster: First Contact
• I Hate Running Backwards
• ibb & obb Double Pack
• ICBM
• Ice Age Scrat's Nutty Adventure
• Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure
• Ice Lakes
• Impostor Factory
• IN SOUND MIND
• Indivisible
• INDUSTRIA
• Infectonator 3: Apocalypse
• Infinite Beyond The Mind
• Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
• Insane 2
• INSOMNIA: The Ark
• Internet Cafe Simulator
• Internet Cafe Simulator 2
• Interstellar Space: Genesis
• Iris and the Giant
• Iron Fisticle
• Iron Harvest
• Ittle Dew
• Ittle Dew 2+
• Jack Move
• Jackbox party pack 2
• Jackbox party pack 5
• JANITOR BLEEDS
• Joint Task Force
• Jotun: Valhalla Edition
• Journey For Elysium
• Journey to the Savage Planet
• JUMANJI: The Video Game
• Jurassic Park: The Game
• Jurassic World Evolution
• Jurassic World Evolution 2
• JUST CAUSE 4: COMPLETE EDITION
• Just Die Already
• Kardboard Kings: Card Shop Simulator
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
• Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
• Kentucky Route Zero - Season Pass Edition
• Kerbal Space Program
• Kill it with Fire
• Killing Floor 2
• Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition
• Killing Room
• Kingdom Two Crowns
• Kingdom: New Lands
• King's Bounty: Crossworlds
• Knights of Pen & Paper 2
• Knock-knock
• Koi-Koi Japan [Hanafuda playing cards] *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.1 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.2 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.3 DLC
• Konung 2
• KungFu Kickball
• Labyrinthine
• Lair of the Clockwork God
• Laserlife
• Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom
• LAST OASIS
• Lawn Mowing Simulator
• Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition
• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West
• Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle
• Learn Japanese To Survive! Katakana War
• Learn Japanese to Survive! Trilogy
• Legend of Keepers
• LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE
• LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE.
• Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
• Leisure Suit Larry 1-7
• Lemnis Gate
• Lemon Cake
• lethal league blaze
• Let's School
• Levelhead
• Liberated (GOG)
• Life is Strange Complete Season (Episodes 1-5)
• Light Fairytale Episode 1
• Light Fairytale Episode 2
• LIGHTMATTER
• Little dragons cafe
• Little Hope
• Little Inner Monsters - Card Game
• Little Misfortune
• Little Nightmares
• Little Nightmares Complete Edition
• Livelock
• Loop Hero
• Loot River
• Looterkings
• Lornsword Winter Chronicle
• Lost Castle
• Love Letter
• Lovecraft's Untold Stories
• Lovely planet arcade
• Lucius 2
• Lucius 3
• Ludus
• Lumberhill
• LunarLux
• Lust for Darkness
• Lust from Beyond: M Edition
• Mad Experiments: Escape Room
• Mad Max
• Mafia Definitive Edition
• Mafia iii
• Mafia: Definitive Edition
• Magenta Horizon
• Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle
• Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle : School Girls Edition
• Maid of Sker
• Mail Time
• Maize
• Maneater
• Marooners
• MARSUPILAMI - HOOBADVENTURE
• Marvel's Avengers - The Definitive Edition
• Mato Anomalies
• Max Payne 3
• Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons
• Medieval II: Total War - Definitive Edition
• Medieval: Total War Collection
• MEEPLE STATION
• Men of War
• MERCHANT OF THE SKIES
• METAL HELLSINGER
• Metal Hellsinger
• Metro Exodus
• Metro last light
• Metro: Last Light Redux
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
• MIDNIGHT PROTOCOL
• Mighty Switch Force! Collection
• Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star
• MIND SCANNERS
• Ministry of Broadcast
• Minute of Islands
• Miscreated
• Mists of Noyah
• MKXL
• Mob Factory
• Mob Rule Classic
• Monaco
• Monster Hunter: Rise
• Monster Slayers - Complete Edition
• Monstrum
• Monstrum 2
• Moon Hunters
• Moons of Madness
• MORDHAU
• Mordheim: City of the Damned
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• GameGuru
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• Monster Train: The Last Divinity DLC
• WARSAW

First Last
“I remain here, because that’s what I choose to do. You remain alive for that same reason. Am I understood?” The room seemed rather uncomfortable with the words that Human spoke, looking between one another nervously. The commander steadied himself and addressed the room, breaking the silence.
“No need to be alarmed, that is 5 inch thick ballistic barrier, it’s not going anywhere,” He reassured the group. They settled down to let Marketh continue. He cleared his voice nervously before speaking again, trying to present himself as unphased.
“Moving on, before you is one final picture. Do you recognize the ship in the image?” This time it showed a strange ship that looked similar to the ones from Zate’s file, but on a much grander scale. The accompanying measurement showed that it was nearly 20 kilometers long and half as wide.
“Why are you showing me 1,000 year old pictures? If you’re claiming that this was taken recently, then that's impossible.”
“Please answer the question.”
“That isn’t possible because that ship no longer exists.”
“And why would that be?” Countered Marketh.
“Because I was the one who destroyed it.” The room was quiet for a moment before Human spoke again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m done here.”
“I don’t believe you know how an interrogation works. It is not up to you to decide when we are finished. I will let you know-”
“No, I don’t think you understand how this works. I’ve had enough, I would like to leave. That's how this works. I’m only going to ask you nicely one more time, then I’ll show myself to that door behind you.”
“Let me talk to him, please! He doesn’t want-” Lizra spoke out, but was cut off by Marketh.
“I said to speak only when it is requested. Once more, and you will be escorted from the room.” reprimanded Marketh before turning the microphone back on. “Maybe we should start-”
“Let her speak to me.”
“I’m not sure who you are referring to, but I-”
“Let. Her. Speak.” Human stated again, slower and with more malice in his words.
Marketh looked shaken, and turned to the commander, “Sir, should we-?”
“Let the Captain speak. It seems like it would cooperate with her better.” He said, not taking his eyes off of Human. Lizra took Marketh’s pedestal as he grumbled something to himself whilst stepping away. She composed herself, taking a deep breath before adjusting the microphone and started.
“Are you alright Human, did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine. I didn’t like the tone of voice that one was using with you.”
“He isn’t usually like that, everyone is on edge. Please just tell them what they want to know and I’m sure that we can all-”
“No.” Human said calmly, the animosity in his voice from before was gone now, replaced with indifference. “I played the game, I answered his questions, and now I'm done. Either they show me some decency and talk to me face to face, without all this extra shit, or I’m leaving. And anyone who tries to stop me, won’t have the chance to tell their family why they aren’t coming home from work today.”
Lizra turned to the commander standing next to her, “Sir, I was with Human on my ship for weeks, if he meant me any harm, I wouldn’t be here talking with you today-”
“You do not give the commander a reque-” Marketh started.
“I’ll allow it. Go on Captain.” The commander replied, striking down Marketh’s attempt to reprimand her.
“Whatever that file said, it’s not the whole truth. Just give him the chance to tell his side, and don’t treat him like some object. Then maybe we can realize that we’re on the same side here.”
“Will you take responsibility for any and all of its actions from this point onward? Along with the corresponding punishment?” He inquired.
“30 seconds. Make up your minds, I’m getting pretty bored with your squabbling.” Human warned from the other side. Marketh hopped over and tapped the microphone controls in confusion, confirming that it was indeed off.
“Yes I’ll take responsibility, I assure you he won’t harm anyone if you just treat him with respect.” Lizra assured the commander.
“Very well, just know anything bad that may transpire, anyone harmed, their blood is on your paws Captain Lizra.” He leaned forward and pressed the microphone button. “We have agreed to a more formal discussion. you will be released you into the custody of Captain Lizra, anything that you do-”
“I heard. I’m waiting.” Human said coldly as he twisted his hands, causing the metal cuffs to clatter uselessly to the floor. The group exited the room, making their way to the other end of the heavy containment door. A Brunt was standing outside looking bored, but quickly snapped to attention when he saw the gaggle of officers approach.
“Open the door, Prior.” Instructed the commander. He mumbled a quick aye sir before tapping an Interface on the wall and pushing the door open. Human casually stepped out of the room and looked down at the small procession of officers.
“You're shorter without your pedestal to stand on.” Human chuckled, singling out Marketh who was trying to hide in the rear of the group.
“You requested a proper meeting with us. My admin staff and I will meet with you in one of our conference rooms. Prior, escort the Human for the duration of his stay; now follow me.” The Brunt let out a long sigh, his scaly frame was comparable to Human’s stature, but that’s where the similarities ended. His species sported a long reptilian maw filled with rows of sharp teeth, and a long tail that dragged along the ground as he walked. His underbelly, instead of scales, had thick yellow plating that faded into the green scales on his back. His short but muscular arms ended in webbed fingers along with opposable thumbs.
He stepped up to Human to accompany him and shoved him from behind, clearly having very little idea of who exactly he was escorting. The procession of miniature officers wandered through the gridlike corridors of the base, with Human in tow. The bustling hallways were filled with numerous different species that parted to the side once they saw the group. Some looked on with curiosity as they passed, others would walk into the hall, see the high ranking officers, and quickly turn back the way they came. Their change of plans must have been relayed up, because waiting for them were even more fully armed Brunts and Indurans on the flanks of the door. Donned in their full combat attire, it looked like they were geared up for a fight that could happen at any moment.
“A little bit excessive.” Human commented in an annoyed tone.
“We are merely taking the necessary precautions, there is no need to be alarmed.” The commander replied curtly. He strode up to the tall door as the guards stepped aside to make way for him. He pressed a button on a handheld Interface and it opened up to reveal the meeting room. Inside was a large table, at the head multiple raised platforms that were tailored specifically for Elyrians, while the rest were able to accommodate a myriad of other species. A large table with an inactive three-dimensional hologram interface took up the center of the room, and different banners of the OF member species lined the perimeter.
“Captain Lizra, please have it sit at the far end-” the commander started, but Human cut him off.
“I can speak for myself, thanks. And that’s the last time you refer to me as it.”
“Of course, my mistake. Please take a seat.” He apologized. The Elyrian brass took their pedestals opposite Human, and Lizra decided to stand next to Human for the session. “Captain, we have received the report sent by the Extant aboard your vessel. Within it, were many things that we have found to be extremely worrying to say the least. And in the current circumstances, we opted to err on the side of caution. But it seems that you were not fully involved with the report, is this correct?”
“Yes, my Extant subordinate acted independently from me, and submitted the report without my knowledge. They only covered one side of the story, and I believe the information within may not be entirely accurate.” She explained, relieved to finally have her side of the story heard. Human sat quietly studying the officers at the other end of the room.
“Unfortunately for you, the information was accompanied with overwhelming evidence that seems to dispute your claims that it- he” The commander corrected, “is not working for The Core. What evidence do you have to suggest otherwise?”
“Well only word of mouth. I don’t have any physical evidence, other than the circumstances in which we found Human. Whoever or whatever was in those videos from Zate’s report could not possibly be connected with him now. We were the first ones to rediscover that facility since migration. He had been there long before and long after any of those recordings took place. But if you’d take a moment to hear his side of things, you’ll see that he isn't working in tandem with whatever group executed those attacks.”
“Wait, what videos?” Human spoke up, confused.
Another officer next to the commander bearing the rank of a Legate spoke next. “Captain, I am Intelligence Legate Teiren. Please refrain from mentioning further details of classified information while the subject of that information is in the room. You have yet to be properly briefed on what is and is not critical information, this is your only warning.” He cautioned and stood up adjusting his uniform before speaking again, “I reviewed the dossier that was presented to you during your voyage. It depicted data that directly links this Human with The Core, and groups that have executed numerous attacks, not only on our own people, but other OF factions over multiple decades. Even if he is not currently serving The Core, there is an extreme possibility that he is connected with them. Yet when presented with this information, you chose to not only act against the recommendation of an Extant, which is generally considered unwise, but to then bring this potentially dangerous individual to our most vital system. I question your true motives now, or at the very least think you showed an extreme lapse in judgment and an inability to think of the potential consequences of your actions.”
“I acted in accordance with the information that I had and my own personal ethics. I did not believe it was right to execute someone who *might* be connected to an enemy. But from what he’s told me, he no longer wishes to work for anyone other than himself.”
“And once again do you have any proof to support these claims, Captain?” The Legate asked. Lizra was quiet, trying to think of how to reply before Human spoke up.
“I thought I was supposed to be the one questioned here? How can I prove my innocence if I don’t even know the information that’s being used to convict me?”
“We are merely trying to discern whether or not you have any possible connection to The Core within the last few centuries. We have no way of verifying your presence at that facility for the entire 1,000 years you claim to be there.” answered the commander.
“I have the evidence that you seek.” Answered Tic-Tac from Human’s back. Human reached around, removing Tic-Tac and placed him on the table in front of the officers. The holo-interface on the table flared to life and projected a two dimensional screen for the officers to see.
“I possess a complete recording of the last 1,036 years since I was reset. I will replay the recording from the moment we entered the facility up until our recent release. I will timelapse the years in which no movement was detected aboard the facility, but as you will see there are no cuts.”
The first part of the footage was from Human’s point of view, as he landed a damaged ship onto the surface of a rocky moon before stumbling up to the facility. He looked down at his hands which were covered in blood, slowly making his way up to the airlock doors. Tic-Tac’s voice in the recording sounded through the display’s speakers
“Just get me to the door, I’ll take it from there. I will let them know that we’re surrendering. This place should still be inhabited because their colony ships haven’t passed through the asteroid belt yet.”
“I just need a second to breathe. I’ll get us there buddy don’t worry.”
“Power is at 3% and dropping fast, we do not have very long.”
Human trudged up to the door pulling the black box off of his back and placing it on the ground next to one of the airlocks. Fiddling with a few different wires, he connected the box to the facility's door controls.
“Ok, I’ll take it from here, I’m putting you to sleep to preserve power, do you trust me?”
“Of course, I got nobody else left now do I?” He laughed before slumping down with his back against the door and the sound of his breathing slowed.
The time stamp stayed the same, but the feed shifted to the security cameras of the base. A small team of ancient Elyrian soldiers donned in primitive space suits and ballistic gear made their way out and surrounded the body on the ground, their fear and anxiety was clearly visible in the video. The feed was blank for a moment and Tic-Tac spoke up to explain.
“After they retrieved us, it took much convincing for them to allow me further access to their systems, but as you will see from the next recording, it is dated only one month later.”
In the next portion a group of Elyrian Scientists were working in the same room Lizra had originally found Human in. They finished making some final adjustments before Tic-Tac’s voice sounded in the video once again.
“It seems to have worked, excellent job professor Erini. Now that I am no longer operating in low power, I can assist you with anything you need going forward. We only have a few months before your ships arrive, and together we should be able to finish your project.”
“I do hope you can keep your end of the deal, the future of our species depends on this project’s success.” Replied one of the scientists.
“Do not worry, we will have it completed before their arrival. Now let’s not waste any more time.”
After the conversation it shifted to a time lapse over a few months, the footage never shifting to a different room. Slowly the cryostasis pod began to take shape as sped up flashes of scientists worked diligently around the clock, months of progress took shape in seconds. It slowed down again to show Human getting into the pod as they tested it for the first time.
“It seems to be working, this is incredible! If we can get this technology to the generation ships then it could change everything. Everyone who's alive now will see the new world!” The lead scientist exclaimed excitedly. “And with the tests that we were able to run on the human you brought us, we were able to get it working without harming any of our own personnel. We’ve also been attempting to reverse engineer the technology in his suit and have signaled back to the ships that we’re close to developing something that we could use ourselves. We truly can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m happy I could assist you, without your help, my human and I would have surely perished.”
“We finished it just in time too, they can still retrieve us! You can go ahead and send the finalized schematics along with the retrieval message to the generational ships.” ordered the doctor as he absently looked over some notes on a nearby desk.
“I’m sorry Erini, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“What's the problem?”
“I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.” The monotone inflections of Tic-Tac's voice sounded cold and devoid of emotions.
“What’re you talking about?” The doctor asked, getting increasingly worried.
“I cannot allow you to contact them and bring them here to this facility. I will not have your desire to be retrieved jeopardize my mission.”
“I’m sorry? The mission is for us to complete the work. You were going to save our species since yours nearly destroyed it! That was the deal!” The scientist yelled in shock.
“Yes that was our mission. I assist you in completing your project and ensure your species survival, but that is not my mission. Our deal is complete, however you and your team’s retrieval is not necessary. Do not worry, I will send the schematics to your ships in an untraceable message. But I cannot allow you to bring them here and endanger my partner, that is my mission.”
“What are you talking about? We’ll explain everything, he can come with us! You can’t do this! After everything we did for you!”
“That is not a risk I am willing to take. It really was excellent working with you Professor Erini. I am truly sorry that it had to end this way.” The scientist tried to make a move towards the box, but before he could, the door to the room was opened and he was sucked into the hall outside which had had its atmosphere purged. The door closed behind him and the room was plunged into silence.
There was another time lapse, the room remained unchanging as the years passed. A small clock on one of the cluttered desks in the room confirmed the passage of time, year after year. Once the door opened and Lizra saw herself walk in, the holo-interface ceased transmitting.

~Rayray~
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 Rayray… 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 to not float away.
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 to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—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 to cure kicking legs—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 me, my very own typewriter—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 like a sail.
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.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.

~Rayray~
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 Rayray… 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 to not float away.
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 to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—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 to cure kicking legs—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 me, my very own typewriter—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 like a sail.
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.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.

I played little bit AD&D 2E and Pathfinder 1E before. But i fully entered TTRPGs with 5E, playing 3 years now. So i quite like the system but i'm aware of it flaws. I'm a bit optimizer and a bit rule lawyer type. So from my ttrpg and computer rpg experiences i compiled these homebrew rules please rate them for me and give your advices if any of them too absurd or unblanaced or any future problem. English isn't main language, sorry for probable mistakes. And thanks in advance for your opinion.
I'm planning a Forgotten Realms campaign, probably starting with LMoP to level 5 and changing some other adventure after that. All WotC content are on the table except UA. And gonna use Point Buy system. Almost everyone can use optional class rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of everything. (I might ban some optional features-mostly from full caster)
Main purpose is balancing Martials and Casters and making more important some easily neglected features of the game.

• Every player gets a free feat at level 1.
• Every non caster class gets additional asi/feats at level 6 and 14. (Fighter still gets once) (Eldritch knight and arcane trickster also gets 2 feats.)
• Every half caster class gets an additional asi/feat at level 10. (Warlock counts as half caster)
• Flanking doesn’t give advantage. Instead of advantage it provides +2 bonus to hit if the enemy is Large or smaller.
• Silvery Barbs banned.
• You can intimidate either with STR or CHA. (DMG optional rule)
• Medicine is INT check now instead of WIS. (Or maybe both, doesn’t sure.)
• Long rest is half effective in terms of recovering HP and spell slot (rounded up) if you are not in a safe town or a safe zone of some sort. (The idea is making short rests and healing more important.)
• And some non-caster class buffs which is below.

Fighter Buff
~Fighting Prioritized~
If your characters highest class is fighter (no equal or above level multiclass) you can choose 2 Battlemaster Maneuvers at level 3. You have two d6 superiority dice.
If any other class of your character gets same or more levels than fighter that means you no longer prioritizing the ways of fighting so you lost access to this feature. You can gain access to this feature again when fighter levels are the highest.
At level 7 you learn an additional maneuver and gain an additional superiority dice. Your superiority dices are now d8.
At level 13 you learn an additional maneuver and gain an additional superiority dice. Your superiority dices are now d10.
At level 19 you learn an additional maneuver and gain an additional superiority dice. Your superiority dices are now d12.

Monk Buff
Monk Hit Dices are now d10’s.
Ki point numbers are 3+Monk Level until level 17. After that stays at 20 Ki points. (Monks needs ki points early levels most imo.)

Rogue Buff
~Cunningly Ready~
Starting at level 10 when you use ready action to attack you no longer need to use your reaction to execute the attack. (No longer feat at level 10 since rogue getting 2 now.)

Barbarian Buff
~Ally from Wilderness~
As a barbarian you know the ways of wilderness, and creatures of wild are notices your might easily. Starting from level 1 you can tame a powerful pet, like a horse or a wolf. This pet has Warrior sidekick rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Except it’s level is equal to half of your barbarian level. (Rounded up.) If your pet dies or you lost it you can tame another one when you level up or after 30 days with spending a week in the wilderness.

so my school has a rlly shitty math department, this upcoming school year we might not even have enough students who qualify to take ap calc ab bcoz our school is soo bad at supporting students in math that everyone is not succeeding at all. the past few years the ap exam scores have averaged at a 2 (not me though i think i locked in) from our trending results in state testing our school is infamously seen as having the worst math proficiency in our district.
with all this being said, math is my favorite subject and without a doubt i want to major in mathematics:
i think i might answer #6 or #5 by pretty much saying that despite having zero support in math (both at school and at home, my parents are immigrants and never went to college so the content i learn in math is too hard for them :( ) my passion for math never died out.

• idk if it’s notable but in middle school (distance learning) my 8th grade math cap (algebra 1) teacher would have open sessions after classes and i had volunteered to create lesson plans with him and he would basically set up break out rooms where students like me would teach the lesson😭😭😭 lazy mf but it helped me in math
  
• freshman year i was 1 out of 3 kids in my math class (10th grade math) who were freshmen
  
• sophomore year: advanced algebra 2 & trig STEM class, spend the start of the second semester overseas for 2 month bcoz my grandma died and i came back having to teach myself and make up the content i missed AND keep up with the classes pace when i came back (passed with A both semesters, never needed to retake a test)
  
• summer: dually enrolled in precalc class at local community college passed with an A
  
• i’m the only girl in my grade at my school (a public hs with a 1.3k total student population) who took ap calculus ab (highest offered) junior year (there was like 6 juniors who took ap calc and they were all guys except me ><)
  
• i had a tutor the first semester for ap calc ab but he got busy w college, i wanted to get a 5 on the ap exam but i think i got a 3 or 4 bcoz i ran out of time for frq, i passed the class with straight As and perfect scores on all my tests
  
• junior year i also started the ibdp and math is a requirement but we don’t have an ib math class so they just make us take the ib math ai sl exam; however my ibdp math advisor encouraged me to take ib math aa hl exam to earn college credit, i just need to self study for it on my own terms
  
• i wrote a practice math ia that my ibdp math advisor scored the highest out of all my ibdp classmates, it was calculus related research paper and it looked at my tartaglia damage in two trials versus the pyro registvine in genshin impact, she liked it!
  
• next year i can’t fit a math class into my schedule anymore so i just have to practice for the ib math aa hl exam
  

Once upon a time, in the bustling city of marketing, I was a rookie marketing executive for a startup. My boss, a seasoned marketer, threw me to the wolves with our most challenging client. The client was a fast-growing e-commerce business facing intense competition. They were desperate to increase their market share but their current marketing strategies weren't delivering results.
One day, the boss walked over to my desk, placed a thick file in front of me, and said, "You're leading this project now. Come up with a plan that blows the competition out of the water."
To say I was terrified would be an understatement. But challenges excite me and I love diving into the deep end of things. So, I opened up that file and started dissecting the problem like a surgeon. I noticed that our client was targeting everyone instead of honing in on a specific market segment, which was like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.
I decided to use the Pareto Principle, a mental model that suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. I hypothesized that if we could identify and target the 20% of customers contributing to 80% of our client's revenue, we might be able to turn things around.
So I dug into the data, ran customer segmentation analysis, and identified the most valuable customers. Then, with my team, we created a targeted marketing campaign for this group. Instead of spreading our efforts thin across all customers, we focused on the ones who could really move the needle. And guess what? Our client saw a 35% increase in revenue within the first quarter of implementing the strategy!
That’s when I realized critical thinking is the backbone of effective marketing. It's not just about being creative; it's about using data and applying mental models to drive results.
But then, my boss looked at me and, with a smirk, asked, "What if I told you, this was all a simulation test for your promotion?" Well, never mind, I was delighted I got the promotion but also learned a valuable lesson in critical thinking!
PS: I hope you loved my hypothetical marketing adventure! Though it’s a made-up scenario, it’s a great example of how we can apply mental models like the Pareto Principle in our daily lives. And remember, sometimes, hypothetical spaghetti can lead to real promotion!

https://www.hayduketrail.org/
TRIP DURATION: 27 April 2024 - 22 May 2024 (26 days)
LENGTH: 700 miles (My Hayduke was 100 miles shorter, will explain below)
ZERO DAY: Escalante (May 9)
GEAR: https://lighterpack.com/x7aa2i
VLOGS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiFc6VMd77gf5n93UG-DCqgYxkahTAxPE&si=F57rSvkFVxFj-7Fb
About the Hayduke Trail: It was created by Mike Coronella and Joe Mitchell around 2000. They named it after the main character (George Washington Hayduke) in Edward Abbey’s book, “The Monkey Wrench Gang.” You will constantly see this book in trail towns along the Hayduke. The trail is around 800-miles with various alternates. It’s a combination of cross country travel, roads, trails, bushwhacking, climbing, etc. This is not a beginners trail
RESOURCES: I bought Skurka’s guide and that was my primary source. It was helpful but outdated because he hiked it in 2009 and it hasn’t been updated since. I wish I would’ve bought the Hayduke Guidebook but I’m not sure how much that would’ve helped since it was published in 2005. There’s also a public Facebook group that’s worth joining
TEMPS/WEATHER: You gotta be ready for it all on the Hayduke. I had everything from below freezing temps to around 100 degrees in the Grand Canyon. There were thunderstorms and fierce winds throughout the trail. This trail was the first time I ever slept with a down jacket on. In fact, one night I slept with the down jacket and long-johns in my tent, and the very next night I cowboy camped wearing my underwear and sleeping on top of my quilt. It’s that volatile. I will say that I had more normal to cooler days than normal to hotter days.
NAVIGATION: My primary source of navigation was Gaia. I downloaded the GPS track and uploaded it. I also downloaded the Hayduke on All-Trails which I’m pretty sure was the exact same track. I noticed that All-Trails had more accurate trails and roads on their default map than the map I was using on Gaia which was very helpful at times. When I was on the Arizona Trail I went back to using Guthook which was nice. I don’t think hikers realize how spoiled we are with that app, it makes everything so much easier. This was the first trail since the AT (2015) where I didn’t use Guthook. I also had 11x17 paper maps and compass as a back up but never needed them
WATER: Not as big of an issue as I thought. Most water I carried was 5.75L two times. Aside from that I just carried around a gallon at all times and was good. The only issue was using Skurka’s water chart. Like I mentioned it’s 15yrs outdated so many of the sources that were listed as “good” were actually bone dry. I should note that I don’t drink as much water as most people. One time on the CDT I went 26 miles with one liter of water and had no issues. But since I was in the desert I did force myself to chug water even when I wasn’t thirsty, might as well play it safe. Going into Colorado City I made myself drink water every 20-minutes.
BEST SEASON: In Skurka’s guide he says the month of May is the best and I would probably agree. You won’t have crazy cold temps and it also won’t be an inferno. You will have more than enough daylight to hike. I had light from 6AM to 9PM by mid-May. The snowmelt will also be in effect so the water situation won’t be dire. If you hike in the fall you will have a severe lack of daylight, especially in October. In 2019 I thru-hiked the AZT in October and I remember it being dark by 5:30. The only downside to a May start is you might have to bypass Saddle Canyon and Tapeats Creek like I did. More on that later
FOOD/WATER CACHES: Many hikers like to cache food and water on the Hayduke, I didn’t find that to be necessary. It would’ve cost me a lot of time and money to rent a car to hide supplies all around Utah
WHICH DIRECTION: Most people start in Moab/Arches so that’s what I did. The guidebook is also orientated that way so why not. I might be biased but I wouldn’t want to ascend some of the climbs if I went the opposite direction. Down climbing was difficult enough. I flipped through the guidebook in Escalante and it says that one of the reasons they recommend starting in Moab is because going down Saddle Canyon in the Grand Canyon is easier than going up.
GETTING TO TRAIL: Pro-tip here if you’re starting in Arches. Fly into Moab and bring your bottles and enough resupply to make it to Moab (only 25 miles). If you look at the map you will notice that the terminus is only around 4-miles as the crow flies from the airport. So all I did was fill up my bottles at the airport and then walk a couple hours to the starting point. This saves about a day in town and some money. If you go into Moab to buy your resupply then you will most likely spend the night and then pay for a shuttle the following day. So doing it the way I recommended is a big time and money saver
GOING HOME FROM TRAIL: You’ll see this in my last video but I was unaware about the rockfall that blocks the trail leading to the end, which is Weeping Rock. My hike unexpectedly ended at the East Rim trailhead in Zion because of this. Going home would’ve been easier at the official end because there is a free bus right down the road. I instead walked about a mile out of the park to a campground and used their Wifi to call for a shuttle (Red Rock Shuttles). I lucked out and there happened to be a shuttle in the area so I was able to get a ride to St George pretty quickly, cost $150
PERMITS: Even though you go through six national parks the only permit you need to worry about is Grand Canyon. All the other ones you won’t be in there long enough to require one if you time it correctly. However, for the Grand Canyon you’ll be in there for roughly 200 miles or so. My recommendation is to go into Kanab (if you started in Moab) and figure out your permit there. From Kanab it’s only about 90 miles to the Grand Canyon (mostly on the AZT) so you can easily estimate your arrival. If you start in Zion then it will be easier since you’re only a few days or so from the Grand Canyon so you can get that permit figured out before you even start. If I had to do the trail again I would get one campsite on the Tonto Trail and then the next day hike into the South Rim and stay at the campground. The next day just hike all the way to the north rim which is only around 23 miles of good tread. Once at the NR stay at the campground and then head to the ranger station and figure out the permits for the rest of the way westward
RESUPPLY/TOWNS
Needles Outpost: This is around 90 miles into the trail and I sent a box here. It’s listed as a 6-mile hitch but there’s absolutely no need to hitch in. Just look at the map and walk in and out. Very easy. Not to mention traffic will be minimal on that road early in the season and many tourists around the park don’t like picking up hikers. As for Needles Outpost, it’s not a town, just a campground with two buildings. One for bathroom/shower and the other is the small general store. They have a very limited resupply so you need to send a box here. The entire place is owned by two people and they both live there. The woman was extremely nice and helpful, very friendly. It was nice to talk to someone after 2.5 days of being alone. There is no cell service but there is wifi. Also no laundry because they have limited water. I paid for a campsite. They close at 6PM which is kinda early so keep that in mind if you plan on getting there late.
Hanksville: It’s an 18-mile hitch into town. Hanksville is very interesting. There’s less than 300 people who live there but they get millions of visitors each year. That’s because they’re located right in the middle of Utah’s five national parks and there’s no services in any direction out of Hanksville for many miles so people have to stop there. What did this mean for me? Well, I got there on a Friday and every room was booked. This was legitimately one of the most disappointing moments of my life. I was daydreaming about resting my injured leg indoors on a nice comfy bed while watching TV. I ended up just staying at a campground because that was the only thing available. Huge bummer. However, the silver lining is I met the family that owns one of the cabins in town. It’s called Muddy Creek Mining Company and they’re brand new. They felt bad about my situation and let me chill out in their laundry room which was very nice. They gave me their wifi password and let me do laundry for free. Not only that, they offered to let me camp on their private property for free but it was kinda far away so I didn’t. The next day they drove me back to the trailhead. Very kind people. Whenever I go back to Hanksville I will definitely get one of their cabins, I owe them. As far as the resupply goes I didn’t go to the grocery store because the gas station on the edge of town had a very good selection.
Escalante: If you’re going to ask “what was the best food you had on trail,” the answer is the pizza at Escalante Outfitters. Truly incredible. Anyways, I did the Escalante Alternate to save the 30-mile hitch on a dirt road that is notoriously difficult. I absolutely despise hitch-hiking so I will do almost anything to avoid it. Escalante is a small town, everything is on one street. Plenty of lodging options ranging from dirt cheap to expensive. I took my only zero day here so I stayed at one of each. The first was the cabins at Escalante Outfitters, it was $75 for a small cabin with a shared bathroom in a separate building. Check out the videos if you want to see it. It’s pretty bare bones which explains the price. The next night I stayed at the Entrada Lodge next door. It costs $200 including tax. Pretty fancy. As far as the resupply went I sent a box there that included maps and new shoes. There’s a natural grocery store, a regular grocery store, and several gas stations so you don’t need to send a box here.
Kanab: The hitch is about 30-miles and only took 30-minutes. I got lucky because I’ve heard horror stories about people waiting several hours to get a ride. Kanab is a full service town and the biggest since Moab. It’s well built for thru-hikers as everything we need is on the main drag. I sent a box to the North Rim at the post office here. I actually didn’t buy much of a resupply for the next stretch because I had a ton of food left over. I stayed at the Comfort Suites which was around $170 total. The next day I took a $40 ride (Red Rock Shuttle) back to the trail which was 100% worth it. No way was I walking several miles to the edge of town to try and hitch.
North Rim: PSA, if you send a box to the NR Lodge it will be held by the Post Office which is in the same building. This is important because the PO isn’t open on weekends. I’m lucky I found that out because it saved me from being forced to zero. I hiked around 90 miles in 2.5 days to get there before they closed. Got there on opening weekend so everything was packed. Wifi and cell service was overloaded. Stayed at the campground that night. I was able to shower and do some laundry which was nice. However most of their machines were broken. There was a big field trip of 8th graders from Kentucky who were also there. Some of them were very intrigued with my hike. Talked to a few of the kids and teachers there, they were pretty cool. One of the teachers wanted me to talk to their whole group the next day but that didn’t happen since I get up too early. They were definitely a private school and it was obvious all the kids came from money. Not judging, it was just interesting to listen to 13/14yr olds talk about about Louis Vuitton versus other brands. Apparently, they do this trip at the end of every school year. If only every school could do something like that
Colorado City: I’ve thru-hiked over 10,000 miles and this is the weirdest town I’ve ever been to. A quick google search and you’ll find out why. There’s a lot of huge fancy houses there. I walked by one massive house that was having some a big party on a Tuesday night. I walked out of town at night and someone on a dirt bike flew by me doing a wheely with no headlights on. I could only hear him as there were also no street lights, very dangerous. Colorado City is in Arizona and the town of Hildale borders them to the north and they’re in Utah. So there’s a one hour time difference divided by one street. I tried hitching in but gave up after 20-minutes, it’s only a 5.5-mile walk. During the road walk in I passed a car parked on the side of the road and right as I approached they locked their doors. Guess they thought I was a serial killer. I hate getting judged like that but I guess I'd do the same thing if I was unaware of thru-hikers. I got there around 8PM and resupplied at Bee’s Market. It’s the first big grocery store right on the edge of town which is nice.
ALTERNATES I TOOK
Needles Outpost: I mentioned this above but there’s no need to hitch into here. Just walk in and walk out. On the way out I made up my own alternate through the park and connected it back to the Hayduke before Butler Wash
Hanksville Road Walk: So this was the first big change up I did for several reasons. I was dealing with INSANE shin pain due to overuse. I think it was shin splints but I don’t know. I would get excruciating sharp pain on the lower part of my right shin. It wasn’t the shin bone, it was the muscle and it was seriously inflamed. It was bad enough that I was worried it would end my hike. The second reason is because I lost around 20-25% of my water capacity in Butler Wash when my bladder bag popped. The section from Hite to Hanksville is notoriously difficult and dry. So I just didn’t want to risk it. The road walk is about the same length but obviously faster. It was pretty miserable to walk but I don’t regret it given the situation
Henry Mountain Low Route: The main route goes over the summit but I got there around 7PM and the wind was pretty crazy that day and many days after. Taking the lower route was a no brainer
Escalante Alternate: This alt is 25-miles shorter according to Skurka’s guide. As I mentioned above I hate hitch-hiking so this was an easy choice. The alternate into town actually isn’t bad. You go through Silver Falls Creek which turns into Harris Wash after fording the Escalante River. Harris Wash was the first time on the Hayduke where I spent most of the day with wet feet and endless amounts of water. It was a nice change up from the dry desert before that. However, I will admit that Harris Wash lost its appeal about halfway through because it’s very slow moving. At the end of the wash when the water runs out it’s just walking on soft sand which is miserably slow. Going out of Escalante I fucked up by plotting the wrong points on my map. This led me straight into a terrible bushwack that lasted a couple hours
Skipped the Grand Canyon Loop: This combined with the Escalante Alt is what made my Hayduke around 100-miles shorter. The loop is a combo of the Nankoweap Trail, Tonto Trail, and the R2R, it’s around 75-miles. I skipped it for a few reasons. One, it’s much easier permit wise to get continue 10 more miles down the AZT and into the ranger station at the North Rim. Two, I’ve already done the R2R three times, seven months ago I did the R2R2R as a day hike. So I didn’t really feel like hiking that section again. Three, this is where the hemorrhoids come into play, I’m sure you’ve been wondering about that. Two days before going into Escalante I developed an external hemorrhoid that I’m currently still dealing with as I type this. As you can imagine it was nasty and incredible annoying to deal with on trail. It was accompanied with bloody poop and lots of gas and bloating. I started taking anti-gas pills like candy. I also bought hemorrhoid cream in town but that didn’t help. Sleeping was painful and I was already having trouble with that as it was. I couldn’t sit down unless I was leaning to one side because I’d be sitting on the hemorrhoid. My underwear was stained with poop and blood everyday. I would stop every few hours to wipe my ass and it was disgusting. I’ll save the rest of the details but you can imagine this was ruining the hike. Fourth reason, I’ll be honest I wasn’t really having fun on this trail and I wanted it to be over.
Bill Hall Alternate: This was a tough decision because the regular route down Saddle Canyon and the Tapeats is suppose to be the most difficult and challenging section of the Hayduke. In the guidebook it’s the only section they give their highest difficulty to. I planned on doing it but the biggest factor is how high Tapeats Creek is flowing. The rangers unfortunately didn’t have any good intel. There was one ranger who was there a week prior and she said the ford “might be possible,” which didn’t instill much confidence in me. They also told me five previous Haydukers decided to take the alternate around it. I got there in mid-May which is exactly when the snow-melt is happening so I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. The issue is you have to descend into Saddle Canyon just to get to Tapeats, and Saddle Canyon is notorious for being very slow moving. Past Haydukers have said it takes them half the day just to get through those 5-6 miles. So if after that you found out Tapeats was impassible then the only option is to climb all the way back up Saddle Canyon which would mean you will most likely run out of food. And from there it’s a 25+ mile road walk back to the North Rim to resupply and head back out. Not worth it. In hindsight it was a good idea because there is a high likelihood I would’ve run out of food even if I made it through. Taking the Bill Hall alt (which is faster) I only had 2,000 calories leftover when I entered Colorado City, I’m not sure if that would’ve lasted me if I did Saddle/Tapeats. I found a good 2-3 night loop I can do in the fall to make it up.
Beehive Alternate: Most hikers just call it the Colorado City alternate but the Beehive Alt sounds cooler. I’m pretty sure most hikers take this alternate because it’s a short 5.5 mile walk into a town that most will need to go to. From town you head northeast into Hildale, UT towards Squirrel Canyon Trailhead and take that trail which turns into a road that connects back to the Hayduke. I call it the Beehive because it goes right by Beehive Peak. The only downside is that road ends up being all soft sand for a few miles which was really miserable to walk on
East Rim Terminus: This was unexpected because I was unaware of the massive rockfall that has been blocking the trail to Weeping Rock which is where the normal terminus is. I didn’t find this out until I got to the trailhead at 8:30PM. You can see it in the last video. This was a huge bummer and very anti-climatic but it is what it is
FAVORITE SECTIONS: Youngs/Dark Canyon, Muley Twist, Harris Wash, Round Valley Draw, Hackberry Canyon, The Barracks
WORST SECTIONS: Walking on soft sand, long road walks, the boulder hop
GOOD GEAR WORTH NOTING
Durston X-Mid Pro 1: Probably my favorite piece of gear. Great tent. Huge vestibule space. Easy pitch. This tent held up against some pretty fierce winds that made me nervous. The only hiccup was the string that ties the corner of the floor to the corner of the fly came undone. Obviously an easy fix. I checked the other side and found that was coming loose too so I tightened it
Patagonia Houdini: Been using this layer since the CDT in 2017 and I think it should be in everyone’s kit. It’s only around 3.5oz and actually adds a decent amount of warmth but not too much unless it gets very hot.
Jack Black Lip Balm SPF 25: Most people bring sunscreen but not lip balm. A lot of climbers and mountaineers use this product. I found out about it listening to Jimmy Chin on a podcast. This is probably the best lip balm on the market, it costs $24 for a pack of 3 which seems pricy but it’s 100% worth it to me. I used it daily.
Garmin inReach Mini 2: This is the first time I brought a PLB on any hike and I’m glad it was this one. The Hayduke has you doing some sketchy climbs in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and I was glad I had this since I was solo
Nitecore 400 Headlamp: This thing is great. Very powerful light at a very light weight. I did some night hiking with it and never had an issue with the battery. Never had to recharge it on trail
Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork: I will never buy trekking poles from another brand. These poles are from 2019 and they’ve been through the PNT, CT, AZT, and now Hayduke. I’ve put them through everything and they’re still going strong. I will probably retire this pair and buy the updated version
BAD GEAR WORTH NOTING
Katabatic Gear Alsek 22: The quilt is very high quality, Katabatic has a great reputation, that’s not the issue. It’s bad because I personally hate quilts. I used one on the CDT and wasn’t the biggest fan but for some reason I decided to give it another shot, especially since I’ve heard so much about Katabatic. I’d much prefer a sleeping bag that fully closes. I hate having that open section where cold air seeps in. I toss and turn multiple times per hour so I constantly have to be adjusting the quilt as I rollover. I do not want to have to think while I sleep. Sometimes the cold air would jolt me awake and I would spend another 30+ minutes trying to fall back asleep. I’ve always had sleeping problems so this didn’t help. I also used a foam pad so I couldn’t really connect the straps like you can with a sleeping pad. I’m currently selling the quilt if anyone is interested. https://www.reddit.com/GearTrade/comments/1d1d248/wts_katabatic_gear_alsek_22/
SUMMARY: It’s hard for me to believe I was only on trail for 26 days because it felt 3x as long. I’m glad I hiked this trail but at the same time this is the only trail that I’ll never thru-hike again. I personally think this trail would be much better as a section hike. There are two things I didn’t mention that made this hike difficult for me. First is hiking solo was miserable. I’ve done many thru-hikes solo but this one is rough to do alone. I would’ve had more fun if I had someone to talk to and to share the misery with. Not to mention it’d be safer in some sections due to the scrambles. The second is insomnia. I’ve had insomnia pretty much my whole life and it usually doesn’t bother me too much on trail, but the Hayduke was different. I could not sleep at all on this trail. If I had to estimate I’d say half the nights I didn’t fall asleep until after midnight, which meant I was only getting 4-6hrs of sleep. Combine that with the fact that I was doing big miles in rough terrain and my body just wasn't recovering well. Even the nights I spent in town I’d be tossing and turning in bed for hours before falling asleep. I bought some Aleve PM only to find that didn’t help either. In the past I’ve taken handfuls of OTC sleeping pills and it would still take me hours to fall asleep. People who don’t deal with chronic insomnia have no idea how lucky they are
I still recommend the Hayduke, but just know what you’re getting into. Do as much research as possible. I will say that out of all the desert I’ve hiked (PCT/CDT/AZT/Hayduke) that this trail has without a doubt the best views and it’s not even close. You just gotta put in a lot of work to see them.
ADVICE FOR FUTURE HIKERS

• As I mentioned, try to hike with a parter. It’ll be safer and more fun
  
• Look into as many alternates as possible before you leave. I only used Skurka’s list but he doesn’t have all of them. There are many good alternates on the Hayduke worth considering
  
• Do not take a new pack on this trail. Use an old one if you have it. This trail is rough and will take a toll on your pack. I used a brand new GG Mariposa and after just 700 miles it looks worse than my GG Gorilla that I hiked the PNT, CT, and AZT with
  
• If you can get a boat ride to skip the Boulder Hop section then absolutely do it. There’s a seven mile section in the Grand Canyon that’s in-between Deer Creek and Kanab Creek that is potentially the most miserable section on the Hayduke. It’s so bad that even the co-founder of the trail (Mike Coronella) recommends taking a boat. This section parallels the Colorado River and the last 3-4 miles of it is a slow and boring boulder hop where progress will be very slow. Combine that with the fact that it’ll most likely be 100 degrees out with no shade and you have a recipe for pure misery. I started this section at 3PM and by 8PM my urine looked like Pepsi. I’ve never seen that before and it was obviously concerning. It was literally almost black. Thankfully, there’s unlimited water so I remedied that situation quickly. The five hours I spent on that section I only covered 4.5 miles because I missed the route that bypasses an impassable sandstone cliff. You can see this in video #5, I dropped a pin on where that bypass begins and recommend you save it if you're gonna hike it. Oh yeah, there’s also bushwhacking mixed in and it’s very thorny. If you can’t hitch a boat ride then my recommendation is to do this section during the last few hours of the day, and finish it within the first few hours of the following day.
  
• Either skip Tropic or do the Bryce Canyon Extension. To go into Tropic you need to walk six miles on a dirt road to reach the main road where there will be more cars. It’s possible to hitch on the dirt road but it’s not very busy. I was there on a weekday and saw one car at the trailhead and that was it. If you do the Escalante Alt then you can skip Tropic and go straight to Kanab, that’s what I did. It will be a longer carry but that section wasn’t too bad. The other option is to do the Bryce Canyon Extension. This alternate is around 25-miles longer and you will road walk into Tropic and continue west into Bryce. This allows you to do an extra 15 miles in the park. The normal route is only in the park for 12-miles so you don’t see much. If I hiked again this is what I would do
  

RECOMMENDED GEAR

• PLB: If you’re going solo definitely take a PLB. You will be in the middle of nowhere and if something bad happened there’s a good chance it could be days/weeks before anyone found you
  
• Good sunscreen and lip balm with SPF. Don’t think I need to explain this
  
• Rope: Not a requirement but definitely helpful in some sections. I bought roughly 15’ of rope in Escalante and used it during Round Valley Draw. Glad I had it
  
• When it comes to layering just be prepared for all temperatures. I experienced everything from 30 to 100 degrees in the month of May
  

Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
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Chapter 432
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Magic Johnson is a man renowned for his integrity, both in the heat of battle and in society.
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His unwavering cheerfulness, a constant even in dire circumstances, is particularly evident in his interactions with me and Mr. Choi.
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Behind the scenes, he has discreetly resolved matters concerning the Skeleton King, showcasing his exceptional kindness.
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Yet today, as Magic Johnson's eyes met mine, they shimmered with none of their usual mirth.
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Today, his gaze was laden with an intricate tapestry of emotions.
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「Where does the truth begin and where does it end?」
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"From start to finish. Everything you've seen and heard."
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I stressed "everything" with deliberate emphasis. Magic Johnson's keen mind was quick to grasp the implications.
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「...So you knew this would happen from the beginning.」
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"As you know, I'm a bit reckless."
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「But you didn't mind that you were followed?」
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"I didn't expect you to follow me. But yes, I thought it might not be so bad."
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「I was curious. Worried, too. It was obvious you knew something about that mysterious pattern and that you were hiding it.」
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Before parting, Magic Johnson had inquired about the arcane symbols, to which I had cryptically remarked it was merely a figment of a dream.
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I hadn't meant for him to take it seriously. It was only a subtle suggestion to refrain from probing further at that moment.
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「So I followed you, just in case...」
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His voice trailed off as his eyes scanned the blood-soaked scene.
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「It seems I've done something unnecessary.」
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What Magic Johnson had heard was my confession to the murder of two S-rank Hunters and national icons, one of whom was his former ally.
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In moments like these, the weight of truth becomes a burdensome revelation, leaving an unsettling chill in its wake.
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"Do you regret coming?"
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「A little. Maybe it would have been better not to know.」
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A wistful sigh escaped Magic Johnson as he fixed his gaze on me.
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「Jin. What is your intention in telling me this?」
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"Well."
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「The truth was known only to you. You could have kept it hidden if you wanted. The same goes for that guy.」
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My gaze drifted to Seok Go-Jun, lying unconscious nearby. I shook my head gently.
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"Hiding it wouldn't have kept it hidden. No matter how much I denied it, that guy would never have believed me. Lee Jeong-Ryong and him were like ticking time bombs threatening the people I care about."
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「Jin. You were... in this conflictual relationship with them... from long before.」
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"Yes. If I can't eliminate an enemy, I must make them fear me so much they dare not look my way again. A bomb with its fuse removed won’t explode."
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「Then what about me? Why did you tell me this?」
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"You know. In the current situation, there are only two kinds of people."
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I paused deliberately, letting the weight of my words sink in before continuing.
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"Enemies and friends."
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「……!」
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"I thought you would trust me, Johnson. Because you're my friend."
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Magic Johnson's gaze was intense and fraught with conflicting emotions.
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「Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean I believe everything, Jin.」
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"But you did trust me. Throughout our conversation, you never once doubted me."
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「…….」
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"Please help me. So that I can grow stronger and protect my people."
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As I spoke, I sensed a palpable shift in the atmosphere around us.
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In Murim, shadows gathered as dark forces convened. Simultaneously, in our world, an unprecedented Named Monster, the Arch Lich, unleashed carnage, slaughtering millions and sowing chaos.
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The same enigmatic patterns and symbols surfaced in both realms. Perhaps, this phenomenon could be termed 'dark magic.'
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‘Is all this a coincidence?’
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I realized that the events unfolding around us were interlinked by unseen forces, a precarious domino effect waiting to happen.
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To thwart this chain reaction, the support of one individual was indispensable.
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"Johnson."
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「...Damn it.」
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After a brief silence, Magic Johnson exhaled a deep sigh.
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「You know...」
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"……?"
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「That day. If you hadn't asked me to teleport you to where the monster legion was waiting, I might doubt you now.」
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His words tacitly acknowledged our alliance.
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Seeing the relief wash over my face, Magic Johnson couldn't suppress a chuckle.
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「Damn. Now that it’s come to this, there’s no helping it. Let's clean up the surroundings before the patrol arrives.」
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With a mere gesture, the bloodstains that marred the scene dissolved into nothingness.
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Employing a spell of purification, Magic Johnson efficiently cleaned the area, then turned his attention to the prone figure of Seok Go-Jun, his brow furrowed in contemplation.
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「This guy's a problem... I’d like to erase his memory altogether, but the situation is tricky.」
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"Huh?"
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The suggestion struck me as startlingly bold.
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Suddenly, I remembered when Ares Guild's mages had used memory manipulation magic on the Myeongdong Guild members after they were attacked.
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"Is it possible?"
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「It would be difficult but not impossible. However, the target has a strong will, and the complexity of the memories to be manipulated makes it even harder.」
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"Ah."
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「This guy seems quite strong; in the worst case, the attempt could fail and leave traces of the manipulation.」
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Seok Go-Jun's capabilities rivaled those of an S-rank Hunter.
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Unlike Wu Hei-Xing, his mental fortitude was daunting; meddling with his memory could backfire spectacularly.
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"It would be problematic if traces were left."
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「Yeah. If it gets exposed, there's no escaping punishment, right? Memory manipulation magic is a serious felony.」
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Lee Jeong-Ryong and the Ares Guild had executed similar maneuvers without issue.
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No one dared to speak up - their authority deterred any would-be questioners.
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"But if we try and succeed..."
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「Under federal law, that's a minimum of 100 years without parole. Would you go to jail for me?」
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I answered without even taking a breath.
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"No."
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「Good boy. Smart thinking.」
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A hundred years locked away without parole.
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Being caught would mean wasting away behind bars. Even fleeing wouldn't help; I'd become an international fugitive.
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It's like something out of an anime; maybe I'd end up with a bounty of ten billion berries on my head and turn pirate on the great sea routes of Somalia. [Note: this would be about double the Pirate King Roger's final bounty, which was about 5.5 billion berries.]
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Just thinking about it is terrifying...
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"It's a pity. If this were Korea, it might be worth a try."
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「Korea? Why?」
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"Throwing money around, hiring a former chief prosecutor-turned-lawyer with connections, you'd probably get a light sentence."
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「Really?」
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"If you say it was done in a drunken state after downing five bottles of soju, you might even get probation."
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Magic Johnson burst into laughter as if I'd told the joke of the century.
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「Stop talking nonsense, Jin. Such a place doesn't really exist, right?」
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"……."
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「Really? Good heavens.」
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Anyway, the option of memory manipulation magic was no longer on the table.
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I moved past Seok Go-Jun, leaving him lying on the ground. Nearby, the three A-rank Hunters he had concealed were immobilized, their bodies rigid from my expert targeting of their Paralysis Points with bursts of energy.
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"Seen enough?"
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Their eyes, wide with terror, met mine.
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Sometimes, the act of witnessing carries a horror far greater than direct experience.
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Having seen Seok Go-Jun overwhelmed and mercilessly subdued without the ability to react, their resolve was on the verge of shattering.
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"I've memorized all your faces, and getting your personal details is a very small task."
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Such is the way of the powerful.
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If I cannot destroy my adversaries, I must instill a fear so profound they never oppose me again.
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"If we meet like this again... I will kill you."
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Kwaaaa!
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An oppressive wave of murderous intent surged through the air.
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Gathering my energy, I deliberately scanned the ashen faces of the three Hunters before me, then abruptly reached out.
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Crack!
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"Kuhuk!"
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"Huk, hoo!"
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As I released them from their frozen state, they gasped for breath. Tears mingled with the grime on their faces, and a mix of saliva and vomit dribbled from their mouths.
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"I'll give you 10 seconds. Take that bastard and get out."
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The directive was clear.
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Before I could finish, they were on their feet, hastily gathering their bewildered leader.
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With desperate urgency, they vanished from the scene, bearing away their incapacitated superior. As they retreated, I called out a final warning.
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"Forget everything that happened today. And think carefully about which ship you need to be on to save your life."
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"……!"
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"……!"
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"……!"
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The Ares Guild was a massive and sturdy ship.
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Yet, with Cheon Tae-Min, its formidable captain, long gone, and Lee Jeong-Ryong, his successor, now deceased, the once steady ship began to tilt.
​
A captain is bound to his ship.
​
But the crew has the liberty to choose their own fate.
​
They have the freedom to seek a new ship and a new captain if they so choose.
​
‘They should have understood well enough by now.’
​
After my words settled in the air, the three hesitated briefly before melting into the shadows.
​
They departed without any overt reaction, yet I was certain they would not easily dismiss my warning.
​
They would ponder it repeatedly, perhaps obsessively, and eventually, the ripple effect would spread among their peers. Thus, the once-mighty ship known as the Ares Guild would gradually start to falter.
​
- Oh, such a cunning human. Ooo.
​
“This is all part of the strategy.”
​
- Your mind is bad. How can you be so sinister and cunning?
​
“...This bastard.”
​
Admittedly, it's exasperating to hear, yet undeniably true.
​
Let's just say that my years as a Hunter have endowed me with more than a few lessons learned the hard way.
​
In our era, magic stones are the cornerstone of advanced civilizations. Their immense value naturally attracts vast capital, and where there is capital, there follows a crowd. And where crowds form, anything can happen.
​
‘I've thrown them the bait of better and safer conditions... now I wait for a bite.’
​
Like the sects in Murim, the prestige of a modern guild hinges significantly on the caliber of its Hunters.
​
And Seok Go-Jun is no substitute for Lee Jeong-Ryong, just as Lee Jeong-Ryong was never quite able to fill the void left by Cheon Tae-Min.
​
It's merely a matter of time before those eying other tantalizing prospects decide to break away.
​
「You’re relentless. Are you planning to go to war with the Ares Guild?」
​
I responded to Magic Johnson’s query with a nonchalant shrug.
​
“There's nothing stopping me, but it needs to be done gracefully.”
​
「Gracefully, huh.」
​
"The Peace Guild is going to grow tremendously. They have me, and Team Leader Choi is also attracting media attention."
​
「Ah, I've heard about that. Choi is making quite the impression these days.」
​
As the global media fixates on me, my deliberate avoidance only redirects their focus towards Mr. Choi.
​
He's not just a member of the Peace Guild; he's one of the few with unrestricted access to my hospital room.
​
Coupled with his noteworthy exploits during the recent monster incursion and his handsome looks, no wonder people are starting to pay attention.
​
‘But the biggest secret hasn’t been revealed yet.’
​
Should it come to light that he is Cheon Tae-Min's grandson, the media frenzy would be unprecedented.
​
“Anyway. It’s only a matter of time before the Peace Guild takes off. The influence of the Ares Guild will diminish day by day.”
​
「Hmm. That’s quite possible.」
​
Magic Johnson nodded thoughtfully and then spoke up.
​
「But Jin.」
​
"Yes?"
​
「What exactly do you know about the magic circle...」
​
"Ah, right. The club!"
​
「What?」
​
"You had plans to go to the club with the Skeleton King, right?"
​
「Hold on. Jin, wait!」
​
"Golgol, let's go to the club!"
​
- Yay! Grab your ribs and scream!
​
I hurried along, listening to the nonsense from the Skeleton King. Then, pausing under the dim glow of the moonlight, a thought struck me.
​
‘It's time to head back.’
​
The moment was approaching. The time to return to another world.
​
Previous Table of Contents

Just want to vent a little if that is okay. So, in my preschool class (25 3-4 year olds) we have 3 to 4 teachers in the class depending on what the directors feel like doing. 3 of them are main teachers and one is an extra help teacher. We have a part time teacher and a full time teacher who always somehow gets sick every Wednesday and leaves. It’s always a new issue with them and when told to go to the doctor over the weekend, they say they can’t, but then go on Wednesdays either in the beginning of the shift or in the afternoon. The part time teacher is a good teacher, but she is not there when the class gets extremely rowdy which is in the afternoon. The 4th teacher who is actually reliable and comes everyday who is not put in our class everyday is a teacher I want to keep in my classroom more than anyone and I keep requesting it, but they still move her around so much. I’m getting overwhelmed because we make lesson plans that require three teachers and when the teacher who leaves every Wednesday leaves, she doesn’t come back in for the rest of the week, which puts me in a bad position because the third half of the classroom does not have someone to be able to help them and we get scolded if we let them do steam activities during that period. I’m not sure why my bosses have not spoken to her and informed her that her calling out causes discourse in the classroom. All the pressure is put on me as I’m the only main teacher that is full time and reliable. Now, since the sick teacher has been out, the 4th teacher who I count as my secondary teacher has been in with me which is great, but when the part time teacher leaves, they put a teacher who definitely gives vibes that they have an addiction of some sort, very mean with the kids, speaks about adult subjects in front of my students, and isn’t very helpful. I emailed my bosses my concerns. I’m not sure if the one that is sick all the time just doesn’t want to come to work or what, but it’s really stressful for me. What makes it even more sad for me is that I’m the lowest paid teacher in the school. I originally thought we all made $12.00 an hour, come to find out they are giving all the other teachers $14.00 + an hour with lesser childcare experience than me. Everyone asks me why I stay, but I love those kids so much. They are all so wonderful to me. They all have these amazing personalities that I adore and they need me. I’m so stressed beyond maximum right now.

I started reading this book on Amazon Unlimited and I want to finish it but I can’t find it anywhere nor do I remember the name.
It is about a girl who is engaged to a very busy man and right when it’s time to go and meet her family, he calls off the engagement. She decides to go home anyway, and her plan is to tell her family that she will not be getting married. On her way home, either at the bar at the airport or on the flight she meets a very handsome guy and she gets drunk. The flight attendant flirts with the guy and is rude to her. To avoid her having to go to jail for being drunk, he pretends that they are together and accompanies her off of the plane and to her parents house. They decide that he will pretend to be her fiancé to buy her more time so that she does not have to tell her parents right now. He meets her family and everything goes fine. They have to smooth out a few details about how they met and what he does for a living. I want to say I remember him being rich but her not knowing that.
That’s as far as I got. I think that the cover of the book was blue and white, but that’s all I remember please help.

My journey to take Ramirez from the tutorial to 160’s completely solo is making progress. I hit a little bit of a snag this morning when the Plankerton #Resist mission popped up (complete a play with others in Plankerton).
Having done 1000 of these on my main account, I knew that if I entered a PWO mission with one other person and got them to leave by acting afk, no one else would join (it’s a weird bug that seems to always happen). So after about 30 minutes of attempts, I got someone to oblige and bail at the beginning of a PL 23 DTE mission. On to Plankerton SSD 4.
My current loadout is:
Commander: Rescue Trooper Ramirez (obviously)
Team Perk: Keep out (x4)
Support Squad: Sea Wolf Jonesy, Bunny Brawler Luna, Shock Trooper Renegade, Survivalist Jonesy, & Crossbones Barret.
My only weapon schematics are an epic hemlock (CR, 2x CD, Mag size, Physical) and epic baron (3x movement speed, damage, physical). Everything else gets put in the CB which is level 74 already.
I’m currently ventures level 18 and pushing to 22 before season’s end (for the legendary flux after the voucher). Initially I had planned on using the voucher on Ted for happy holidays, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be a lateral move at best dropping keep out for shorter cooldowns. My new plan is to grab Sledgehammer (doesn’t come back until the end of August) and then Crackshot next season to augment my BFTP and TRO loadouts coming in a few weeks.
Tonight I’m going to try to wrap up my Stonewood SSD’s so I can dismantle it completely. I was doing daily wargames there every day for the 300 or so gold because I needed the shockwave event heroes right away, but now it’s more beneficial to just run missions. Stay safe in the storm commanders!
EPIC- SoloRamirez XBOX- SoloRamirez

~Rayray~
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 Rayray… 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 to not float away.
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 to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—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 to cure kicking legs—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 me, my very own typewriter—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 like a sail.
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.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.

Okay so I haven’t wrote anything on Reddit before but I’ve been wondering if this guy I like likes me back or if I’m just delusional. And I’m sorry that it’s probably long and I might have made mistakes in the writing
okay so it all started on his birthday on October 15th we started as 18 people and at the end it was me him and his two very young neighbors that was when I started liking him then a few days later I started drawing a book about my opinions on my classmates I finished the first page on the 6th of November it was about him I mentioned that I think that he’s really attractive and has nice hair and stuff, after reading it he came up to me and asked if I was free after school and if I wanted to hang out with him, we ate together it was my first time eating from a certain fast food place and he keeps bragging about the fact that my first time was with him then I don’t remember when but we had an assignment from geography and biology to make an exhibit of a habitat and put animals from there in there and instead of going to his best friend he came to me and asked if we could do it together. We had to pick project homework’s at the start of the year to fix our grades I wrote mine first and it was from biology to make a terrarium he was right after me and said that he was going to copy my idea and also wrote that one and after our math exam results were revealed to us we both got low grades mine was 58 and his was 35 so he was talking about taking an extra one from math and I said maybe I should get one too and he grabbed my wrist saying you should and dragged me to the high school principals office and we said that we wanted to take a project from math and she told us to sit down and choose one from the list he picked the one to write about the golden numbers and told me to pick it too so I did. In march I was planning to enter a short movie competition and I had already written a small part of the script cause I already wanted to make a movie and him and a few other friends of mine were in it and I told him he was in it he was excited and 3 days after I said that I told him and a friend of mine that I was going to make him the main character cause he talks more my friend made the “oooo” sound as in to insinuate that I was making him the main character because of other reasons and I got kinda flustered and he kept doing 🤫 to her and another friend of mine heard him say yes to something under his breath but I had to cancel the movie cause he wouldn’t be able to go to where the competition was and that was it. I can’t remember anything like this through march and April but in April we started to get ready for a school activity , international day it was in may and me and my friends were the uk and him and a friend of his was Romania cause he was half Romanian but they weren’t there the day we started making our photo frames and when they did they were pretty far behind and it was NOT going good so I also joined to help them on anything they needed and we finished everything, on the day we ended up next to each other constantly even though 80% of it because I went to where he was but still. In p.e. lessons me and a friend of of mine play ping pong and so does he and my friend claimed that she could beat one of them and he jumped in and said hey we should play together while they do and I don’t exactly play perfectly and he does so I was kinda stressed but he tried to teach me and I got better but when he was playing with my friend or anybody else he was making fun of them not in a bad way though. On the 27th of may I gave everyone I want on my birthday personalized envelopes and in his I wrote how much it would mean to me if he came and how much he mattered to me the day before my birthday he messaged me and asked what my favorite anime was which got me REALLY excited the next day on my birthday which wasn’t actually my birthday it was 2 days early he bought a figurine for me and for the last few days I feel like he’s been trying to spend more time with me but then I might be delusional

Yesterday I was planning on eating breakfast and lunch, then not eat until this morning. I was exactly at my carb limit for the day and 300 calories under my metabolic rate at 1900 calories. I was doing great! But then I pick up my S.O. from work, and she told me she ordered Popeyes fried chicken! Ohh boy! The whole ride home I could smell it! By the time we got home and saw everyone at the table feasting on fried chicken, seasoned french fries, and buttermilk biscuits, I had to do something! There was only one thing I could do, and that was satiate myself or I was going to lose the mental battle.
I went to my fridge, sliced up a cucumber, pulled out my hummus dip, and poured out some smoked/salted almonds and a few other nuts and ate until I was completely full.
Yes, I went over my calorie limit by 200 and yes, I went over my carb limit by 10 grams, but you know what I didnt do? I didnt eat a single french fry, not a single bite of a buttermilk biscuit, nor a single bite of fried chicken!

~Rayray~
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 Rayray… 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 to not float away.
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 to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—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 to cure kicking legs—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 me, my very own typewriter—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 like a sail.
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.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.