Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@kyleforrester87 Why can one 'chat' and 'chit-chat', but never just 'chit'?

@Kairuuu according to Google, chit has several meanings, most commonly it refers to “a small note”, apparently 🥹

@GirlVersusGame fudge! Why didn't I think to borrow a sheep 🤦‍♂️ I mean, the opportunity was right there. It could have been a bit of a change of scenery for it, just pop it on the lead and act like it's 'dog' and no one will know! Might have made its day 😅 and you're right, I did laugh. Totally. Unacceptable. Behaviour. I. Would. Never. Encourage 👀

Sounds like its high time you get to the countryside then, or find a way to be able to do that more often (not the borrowing animals bit), the spending time somewhere you love bit, especially if that is like a safe space, comfort zone or whatever 🙂

Yeah, I think I meant if there is a way to do stuff like that (photography, gigs), not as a job, but just as something you still love. But I suppose the access came from the job element. Btw, i'm going to randomly say a Roadrunner band one day and see if it catches you out or if you knew of them. I'm half confident it might catch you out, but then again... maybe it won't.

You are pretty good with advice, you should do something with that skill too. I warned you that your brain is far too powerful for me. But also, if you saw my talk with Tjuz you may get a sense that I did maybe realise some things recently with all our chats. First had to come the surviving then the rebuilding of a normal life, but I think I needed to realise I was probably now coasting along whilst still kind of shutting an important part of myself away, shutting my emotional brain off out of old survival instincts. Like the Moby song, but then maybe I forgot to actually re-awaken that important part of me. And I wouldn't worry about my baseline feeling about myself and the world, that is part of the gentle background hum I have always known, and i've been both immensely happy in life, badly broken, and kind of middling head down getting along, too, and that aspect never changes, and like I said, it actually gives me a freedom and a confidence. Like, if I don't like me, and yet other people seem to consistently insist that they in fact like me, then I must be doing something right 😛 Maybe that isn't healthy, it has, I admit, led to some interesting, confusing, and at times volatile relationships and interpersonal dynamics, but it is all i've ever known and i'd rather that than be a boring empty void of a person or something like that, for better or worse it always makes things interesting 😁

I hope at sometime you find inner peace in regards to how things went with your sister. Whether through silent contemplation or even personal prayer 🫂 and also hope that one day you realise that some of the things that once scared you no longer do. I think sometimes that is all that can be said. It is part of your journey, and things you might not be able to imagine at the moment can one day be part of your life just as naturally as anything else, and you might not even realise how you got there 🙂

Didn't see the update. I agree it isn't necessarily good for people, but it is convenient. I have never really loved the act of regular shopping that much (typical male) so trying to think of something I actually can say I genuienly miss. A lot of the time I do kind of just accept that online store culture is quite convenient and time saving now, even though I'm getting back into physical media, it is still easier to just quickly grab it online and have it appear at some point.

Record stores (cds) were cool, especially in America, where you could just go and chill out with the headphones and try out album without a care in the world (this was sort of a thing in the UK, too, but I find towns a bit more run down and depressing in comparison here) there was more of an alt culture in record stores in the US, where the UK was still a bit chavvy. I did used to spend moderate time actually flicking through album covers and picking up stuff I might like to try, and that was kind of exciting, as you'd have to wait and see. Stuff was definitely bigger and more exciting in the US by default, though. And as you say, a lot of media is now just streamed and online, which is kind of sad.

Music (instrument) stores hopefully survive because you have to physically try the instruments to know if you like them and feel comfortable playing them. I can't imagine people relying on online for that, but maybe they do

Actually movie stores and rentals were cool too, that was a more social way of picking up movies, the rentals died quite a while ago though, to be honest. Especially in smaller highstreets. I still have some dvds probably with bargain bin stickers on, too! but i'm in the process of replacing all of that stuff, really. Maybe it is a bit sad. They are almost relics now, and modern life has changed so much.

What do you think, do you miss the tactile nature and excitement of having to really search for hidden gems in hobby based stores? And if you do, then one last bastion of the tactile and real experience you might also like to try would be antique stores, if that kind of social and crafting history interests you? But then some can see that type of thing as just 'nick-nacks' and some people do use that just to be showy.

The next level for people is that throwaway Temu culture that has taken over. I don't like the way that kind of thing is going. But I think the highstreets are doomed either way. The smaller the town, the more they struggle.

@Ravix That was my idea with the goat. To try and hide it as a pet, in a matter of minutes I'd pictured our life together. I didn't know they eat everything and jump on cars. They have hard feet so they leave marks too. I don't know what a sheep would do in that situation, maybe just stand there and technically lamb is tasty but I'd never eat a goat (knowingly) I've had some strange pets, I won't mention but most got too big then got dangerous.

I've been thinking of the countryside, I go every so often to check on my dog. He can't stay here, there were fights with the other dogs and it's not worth getting either side injured. He was raised as a kind of guard dog, he's able to push you to one side while aggressively bark at whoever is approaching from the front, it's hard to describe but he uses his weight to push you out of the way in a kind of constant movement. He wasn't raised to be around other dogs. So maybe, I'll be going home soon either way and that's technically the countryside, except now there are a lot of passing aircraft etc, for obvious reasons. Part of me wants to watch because I find aircraft interesting but the other knows where they are going and then I don't.

I might catch the Roadrunner Band, the company I was with handled PR for them, Nuclear Blast and a couple of other labels who came through Europe. I might miss it too, I have really selective taste in some music. A lot of press releases went through for much smaller bands that were picked up as support, that's why I respect the music grind. It's very hard to make it now for Metal bands, if you don't get a good support slot you might never be seen or heard. It's actually webzines that are keeping a lot of names out there, not magazines or websites, it's very fan-heavy. Labels aren't sending people out there to find talent anymore.

I warned you that your brain is far too powerful for me.

• I think I've just found ways to slot things and hyper focus to avoid other things. I'm still technically in school too, I still have tutors for languages and things, that's not counting a personal trainer, I don't like sitting still, that's when people start to dwell on things. I already had an hour of mathematics today.

I was probably now coasting along whilst still kind of shutting an important part of myself away, shutting my emotional brain off out of old survival instincts. Like the Moby song, but then maybe I forgot to actually re-awaken that important part of me.

• That sounds like me when I get insomnia. That touch wood thing means I can't fall asleep if I'm alone. For a time I'd ask someone to sit there and read their paper or book while I slept, then it worked. I woke up one night when they weren't there, grabbed a blanket and went looking for them. I still do that. I'd rather sleep on a sofa or the floor than sleep alone. That whole thing, being taken away from people like that is something that happens to very very few people, it sticks to you for life. Your logical mind says 'I'm safe now' but one loud noise and you are right back there. I leave London every time Guy Fawkes Night comes up, it's just pop pop pop all evening. That's me avoiding the issue for mental/emotional self preservation. I don't think you should shut your emotional side off, it will just keep layering up until you'll develop anxiety or worse. If you don't have it already.

You are pretty good with advice, you should do something with that skill too.

• That's where charity work comes in, I discretely help victims of grooming and other things. There's been a shift of 'it happens to everyone', so they don't talk about it. In a way it does happen to a lot of young girls especially over social media, it's become 'just get a thick internet skin', that tough skin breaks years later when you realize what actually happened. That's where the extent of my advice goes, the rest is just me trying to be human. People on those online games told me things they'd never told anyone, I didn't realize people held onto things so long and kept it so closed off. The reality is that the mental health service especially in the UK is a shambles, they don't focus on actually helping people. Instead they hand them a bag of drugs and tell them it will pass, then those same drugs have side-effects. That's not medical help, that's putting a small plaster on a problem.

Also that Moby song, you know what's weird? I've heard that many times and not once did I see the lyrics or even 'hear' them. It was always the mix and piano that I focused on until you mentioned it. I can't explain that at all, I'll sometimes return to a song and because my English improved and I'll maybe understand the meaning. Maybe I heard something else. I don't even think First Cool Hive had lyrics. I think with Moby I got used to listening to the tempo and instruments more than the words. Portishead was a lot easier, they had similar acoustics but sang so slow.

I have a question for you. When you mention having a normal life, what does that actually entail to you. Do you mean from a relationship standpoint or are you sort of secluded too? You mentioned physical at some point too, is there some physically stopping you from pursuing relationships or and such or is it just all of that self doubt?

Like, if I don't like me, and yet other people seem to consistently insist that they in fact like me, then I must be doing something right. Maybe that isn't healthy, it has, I admit, led to some interesting, confusing, and at times volatile relationships and interpersonal dynamics

• That word volatile is never good. I've been there and it's never worth the novelty of what comes with it. That girl I talked about was fine at first, then she started to drink heavily, take drugs, she turned into a completely different person. So maybe I have the wrong word but that volatile part came out and it was a tornado.

I hope at sometime you find inner peace in regards to how things went with your sister.

• Thank you and I have. She was living with that and with what I call a mind that wasn't her own, that was volatile too. I know partying didn't help, I think it amplified things and brought something to the surface. I'm glad she's somewhere much better. I've been to a lot of funerals and they didn't touch me the same way, it just made me realize how important it is to tell someone they matter to you. I'd had given everything to get her better but we don't always get that choice, a strong lesson came from it, something I'll never forget.

Sorry, the volatile in this case is maybe misplaced or just a bit too strong a sounding word and it was not that big a part of what I was saying. I meant it more to do with the raw emotion that can sometimes lead to ups and downs, unpredictable changes in feelings, teary arguments, small, or maybe sometimes large fallings out 😅 but I didn't intend to bring up any bad experiences for you with my word choice. To me, volatile is just something that can happen when you're raised a giant emo, things can get dramatic and emotionally charged as that is what you know and how you are built. It is perhaps not healthy for settled relationships, but that specifically is not something worth dwelling on and was only relating to a small sample size when most other cases are more about the interesting or confusing relationship dynamic rather than volatile. I mean, really the volatile part mostly relates to one, specifically 😬 but it was a hell of a one (i'm trivialising it, but we were rather over dramatic, at times). But again, apologies if the word seemed extreme. I was actually trying to keep the tone weirdly positive by the point I mentioned that, hence the faces 😅 so it is maybe the way the word can be taken, rather than what I meant.

To your question. No, not really, I mean while I have had traumas, they are things I have taught myself to survive and push past, and my negative thought is, like I say, more a constant hum in the background that i've always had and dealt with regardless of how perfect, middling or bad times are anyway. Like, that aspect doesn't really stop me being me, and in a way it helps. But because I did also have to shut down part of myself for a time, well, that isn't exactly good for relationships either.

So honestly, I'm happy to just see how it goes at this point. I know it isn't a good idea to shut off emotionally, but I simply had to do that at times, it was the same kind of self preservation you mentioned. I know I have survived through some stuff where I was physically and mentally incapable of doing pretty much anything at all, and I had to rebuild a normal enough life from that low point, but I realised I could maybe have fully opened up again a little sooner to be the real me again, the weirdly confident version, the one people tend to like for some reason, but once you get into a routine you can end up coasting and not realising that some important parts of you were still missing.

So yeah, i'll still chat to you, emotionally or otherwise. But I think it's best if I move on from bringing all of the messy everything together here as the fabric of me spans too much time, and there are various points of good, bad and middling, and it is all getting mushed together as my thoughts fizz around about everything. Things were dark, but right now things are middling. And I can at least aim for the good again. Maybe I am and always will be a little fudged up, and that's okay 😛

The charity sounds like a very good use of your effort. That song Tjuz made me listen to I can only assume is 100% based on what the artist went through. And it is not a very subtle song. It had me wet faced in seconds as I realised what it related to and probably what the title alluded to, as well. I don't think I have the strength to even read about things like that actually happening in the real world, let alone imagine the strength it takes to get through something like that and then even support others. So you will forever have my respect there 🙏

@Ravix Understood, just take care of you for you. I understand shutting down parts of yourself for other people, if you do it for yourself they'll linger. I didn't notice the song, I saw it was tagged to you so I kept scrolling, if that makes sense.

I don't think I have the strength to even read about things like that actually happening in the real world.

• That's just reality, I use really bad experiences to help where and if I can. I see it as another asset in a way, an extension of my usual philanthropy that way I recycle the experience into a positive outcome. Maybe that's the business side speaking, I see stagnation of my feelings to be a lot like analysis paralysis. It might sound blunt, but that's how I view a lot of it and it's helped me move out from that grid-lock and onto better experiences.

@GirlVersusGame oh, i'm not shutting down again now or anything. Can't tell if we have crossed signals because my posts are a mess 🙈

The stagnation of your feelings part: is that those past feelings, or something you are still dealing with? I may have misunderstood. Or do you mean it is why you are happy to give up that control, as choice can still feel overwhelming or paralysing to you? 😕 the fact you can help others is a great strength, and that is a choice, an inspiring choice 🙂

@Ravix We may have crossed streams Winston. See I can make jokes too. I think what I mean is that in business if you stay going in circles without make a decision, it's what's known as analysis paralysis. It means you can't progress forward and you then spend a lot of time procrastinating about how you wish to proceed on a project. That's kind of how I look at events, feelings in my life. If I don't deal with the issue, and if I spend time dwelling on something I'll hit that stage where it's just a loop of procrastination. That's part of how I compartmentalize things of the past that would otherwise try to drag me down into the water. I don't drown in my emotions if that makes sense? I just slot each event, analyze, sort it and move to the next one. I can do that with almost everything but that touch wood situation. The outside part isn't bad because obviously there's the actual security and that's part of life regardless, I'll never be outside alone so I don't have to worry about that part. I grew up that way too with what Tjuz called bodyguards and what I called friends, that's very normal.

The rest, the loud bangs, the fear from sudden movements, that's just something that can't be fixed. The sleep thing is different, I'll go into light details. I don't even have many.

Last night I went to sleep with my Partner, I woke up at maybe five in the morning and he was there but then I heard a woman's voice to my left, she always comes from the left. I have no idea why. She was one of the people who were wherever they took me. It sounded like she was in the room, obviously she wasn't. It's some kind of loop, the brain playing tricks.

Then I went back to sleep and had a dream of those same people chasing me and my dreams are always incredibly vivid, they grabbed me and I woke instantly. That's a kind of loop of a dream I get every so often except last night I tried to shoot them with a rifle that was much too small and missed all three shots. Also the sky was purple and walls were red, it changes now and then. The part where I instantly wake up has happened more times than I can count.

That's the part that can't be fixed. The actual event itself is very blurry, I remember things like being driven off the road from the back, being somewhere, being asked questions and not being able to answer a single one, them saying things/doing things/etc then either it was hours or days but actual soldiers came at night, there were noises, fire crackers etc, then I saw a soldier in uniform and he put my face in his arm (probably so I didn't see what happened)

Then nothing, I should remember being brought home to my family but I don't. To me now as an adult I'd assume that would be a key memory. I remember the car/part clearly, even the song I was listening to then flying forwards because they drove into us from behind and then another something turned to pin us in. I think most of the scratches and bruises were the crash. My driver blamed himself for a long time but he did his job, he was shot and injured but was fine. He's still with us in the job and I'm close with his children, I spoil them on birthdays and holidays. When it's political and these things happen it doesn't go to the press, especially in Russia. I don't know what they wanted, I can't remember even one of the question they asked. I never asked my parents if it was hours or days, I'd assume it was days because sleep must have been involved.

I know who did it, I just don't like blaming an entire nation for the action of six people. I'd like to be able to sleep alone but I don't hate them. There are words like PTSD but I don't personally subscribe to that, there are always people I can bring a blanket to so either way I'll sleep. I'm just glad it doesn't affect the daylight, probably because it was dark there all the time and those soldiers came at night too. The voice is the weirdest part, and obviously I don't like the dark. When I try to see the other five I just see shapes, and when I try to hear them it's jumbled, I've had all of the therapy, best doctors etc, I think it just is what it is. I can't dwell on it, there are things I could have seen but the soldier blocked my eyes so I'm grateful for that.

I feel it more in December because it's dark so early. I think sleep is incredibly important so I'm glad I do have my people etc, like most things I just make what I do from the situation. He's not away without me all that often, it's mostly the dreams. I did some anonymous victim support things but no one in that server/chatroom experienced the political kind so it didn't really go anywhere. I don't think the jumping from loud noises will ever go away, but some people are naturally jumpy too. I have full faith in my people, I'm not afraid of being out with them. It's the idea of being outside/or inside without them that's terrifying but I'll never have to worry about that. There's good, there's bad and I always just pick myself up (or someone else does) and just keep on trucking as they say.

I can't help anyone who's been through that, it's too blurry and so much was either not recorded by my brain or it was cleared by someone else. It would be un-ethical to even try to offer advice on something that is so discombobulated. The internet stuff, definitely, I saw three years worth of that psychology at work and gained a strong understanding of that kind of mind. It's ghastly but it's a unique perspective, I'll keep using it until either I break ties with that organization or they dissolve. Technology is always changing, methods change but that kind of mindset is more or less set in stone. There are all kinds of other things I've slotted away that'd you'd call trauma (in English) but they are dealt with too. Well maybe not the fox, I still get a bit odd when I see one but eventually that too will lift. If I didn't have this attitude I'd get how you say bogged down? like in the game Snow Runner, no forwards, no backwards. I'm no use to anyone if I'm stuck like that, I'd rather just switch to manual and push through the mud than let the vehicle idle and do nothing. And like in the game I don't care if I get dirty, it washes off.

@GirlVersusGame I wish I was smart enough to be able to say the right thing, something that actually mattered or made a difference. But I have nothing. I am glad you do find a way, though, and how you manage it and still make a difference for others makes me want to do more for other people if I am ever able to.

I assume it is best not to delve deeper. So if you want this can be the last we reference this? 😕

@Ravix I really don't mind, other than the sleep part and that strange voice the rest never really gets to me, it should but so much was lost/memory wise that it's not been able to get the better of me. I think it's because it was political and not business, when it's politics things like that happen for a reason. All through Iraq etc contractors and workers were taken at one point by one group or another. Maybe I shouldn't normalize it but I think when you do come from a place where these kinds can happen you already expect it in a way. I didn't but my parents did and reacted in kind. Sometimes I think I'd like to remember more so I can take a closer look but it's probably for the best that I don't. I don't show people my art because I try to draw or paint memories like that, it helps me get more of a grip on things. The voice is more strange than scary, that's how I was able to get back to sleep, I knew it wasn't real. When I'm out I switch to a different mindset and have trust in whoever I'm with so it doesn't really come up, I'm hyper aware then for the right reasons.

The question I asked Tjuz was if you go outside is there a reason? Like for example is there always a goal maybe groceries/games/clothes, a park or do people just randomly wander sometimes for air? That's something I was never sure about, is outside always goal orientated or is it because of boredom due to being indoors. And if it's random wandering at what point does a person decide they wandered too far and then turn around and head for home. Or is it like cycling and a person just does a lap or laps. I never understood where everyone is going other than the obvious which would be shopping.

@Ravix This forum truly feels like a remnant of the old times sometimes where we'll self-censor to preserve a PG audience. The funniest part is that the PG audience could absolutely care less about a forum, and the people on here actually reading our replies are most likely to have lived through World War I. I suppose they could be prudish as well... so maybe it's better to keep the self-censoring going. Good luck explaining to a 120 year old veteran what a bi party where you're drinking sambucas is supposed to mean! But yeah, I'm sure that more urges than just linguistically were satisfied at these "bi parties", haha. 😉

Don't worry about leading me on. I like some ungrounded flirtiness as much as the next person. I've been gay for long enough to not look into anything with straight people! Not to mention online long enough to not look into anything from people who I haven't talked to on a face-to-face basis... for, god forbid, they are the embodiment of grease! Not you of course. Only sweat from the manly, very masculine five-hour gym sessions you have to do on a daily basis to stay the king of the bi parties. Lest they overthrow you! We'll have to get back to the fringe at a later point, as I still sense some rejection from you. I don't take it personal nor do I take it to heart. I simply recognise I will have to break you down a bit more before I can get you vulnerable enough to give into the fringe. Maybe another listen of "15" is appropriate here? Just a suggestion!

I'm not sure I like the image of the rebuilt Ravix you've put in my head right now, as he seems somewhat feral. I'll read it as I was supposed to in that you have grown a person... in the mental ways. And no, I haven't felt like you've been mocking me at all. I totally recognise your humurous approach and am happy to match it, because I deal with just about everything negative in my life with humor. Probably more than I should. I get in more trouble from people laughing at bad situations right in front of their face than the actual bad situations do for affecting them. Like you said, life's a comedy. I don't want to live in a drama. The Leftovers is a fantastic piece of TV, but I don't want to be them. Sad and depressed all the way through! At least give me funny and depressed so there's some light in my life at the least. On a more serious note though, would you care to share more about how you feel you've been rebuilding your life? I have to admit I haven't been fully able to keep up with the messages between GVG and yourself so you might have already discussed this, in which case simply point me in the right direction!

I apologise that you weren't able to see my incredibly handsome face. Imgur has been sabotaging me on more occasions than once this week! I was fully counting on it to turn you gay. Alas, I'll have to keep acknowledging straight people's existence for now. Just wait until I get my hands on the world's water supply and it's all over. I'd definitely engage in an awkward thread! I've screwed up in hilarious ways so often in my life. Well, we all have, but there's only the select few of us who can put shame to the side and share it as the funny anecdote it is. Shame, hmm... another concept I will never understand, much like heterosexuality.

It seems you've successfully broken through my "pompuous, somewhat arrogant" facade that comes naturally to me when writing on forums. You've exposed me as a silly goober after all! Darnation!

@GirlVersusGame I've probably finished about half of my response so far, so I'll post it here for now and post the rest when I finish it in full!

I’m shocked that your story with your cousin went to the point of actual saucers of milk! It definitely sounds like a more extreme version of what you mentioned of her being the stylist (or some might say the dominant one) in the relationship. Of course since you were kids, it outed itself in a way that seemed innocuous more than anything. After all, I can understand why adults wouldn’t quickly say anything about their children playing pretend. That said, the way you’re saying it sounds like it went a lot further than that and someone should have intervened at some point while it was happening. I’m sure you didn’t even give me all the examples you could have. I suppose their version of intervening was to send her to the school for girls with behavioral problems, but that seems extreme and somewhat like handing off their parenting responsibilities. I can’t help but think but a six-month stint like that could’ve been avoided if someone simply took the time to teach her that what she was doing was inappropriate behaviour. Maybe I’m too optimistic on that front, since I don’t know how much of it came from a place of nature vs. nurture, but the way you described the situation made it sound like the parents were entirely uninvolved until it reached a point where they went for the extreme.

Even then, it doesn’t even sound like them sending her to a school like that ultimately changed her for the better. Maybe I’m presuming and there were a lot more to her issues that you didn’t discuss beyond this that it did actually help with, but if she continues this behaviour into adulthood whenever you see her, it seems to me like both the (lack of) parenting and her sequestering were for naught. Not that I’m saying she’s not a well-adjusted adult at this point except for those moments obviously. I don’t know her beyond what you’ve told me and I’m simply basing an image off of this story, so maybe I’m being harsher on her family than I should be. I will say as a side note, why do you think they brought you with them to the school while your uncle went inside and left you alone for hours? I was thinking this might serve as a warning, but you said you didn’t find out the actual reasoning for the visit until a long time later. I’m not sure what the whole purpose of bringing you along to that as well as creepily leaving you locked in the car for that time was. I’d assume some sort of power play, but even then I don’t really understand to what end that would’ve been. Were you just supposed to put two and two together as a child and realise that you were where your cousin was and to not land there yourself?

I’m not sure what you mean in terms of why your parents think you stay goal-oriented by matching you with a man twenty-six years older than you. Is the goal in this case being put in your place with an older man and knowing your “goal” would be to keep him happy at all costs? I suppose I can see how that aligns with wanting to keep you in line. I do fully understand what you’re talking about with how cruel people can be to those they consider strangers. Obviously we have different experiences on that front, but I think it comes down to the same necessary empathy. In your case it’s the treatment of hired employees within your circle. In my case it’s not my own employees, but I’m still able to see how people treat and respond to people offering them a service in shops and such. I’ve had a harder time noticing the bad with the language barrier in Germany, but some of it transcends boundaries. I work in customer service myself, though thankfully exclusively through phone calls, mails and chats. Not sure how good I would be at keeping up a happy facade with a difficult customer in-person. I’m fairly easy to read when it comes to my tone and facial expressions, which are nicely hidden in my current line of work. I’ve seen the dehumanising things people can do against those in service of them as well as been on the side of the people attempting to dehumanise me. I’m not surprised at all that the situation only worsens when you have people in actual measurable power. I appreciate that you aim to be different on that front, as I do on a daily basis.

The story with the burger is absolutely disgusting. The whole part with giving you the idea you would get toys to the point they’d let you pick them all out only to take the chance away right in front of you is one thing. To hold so pettily to an unfinished burger to the point of having you throw up is just inexplicable behaviour. Or so it should be, but I think you’re right on the money pinning it on psychopathic tendencies. I’ve heard these kinds of stories even from regular folks. I’ll never understand why anyone would want to humiliate a child like that, which I’m rather glad about. These are not the types of people that should ever have children or even be in charge of children for a short spell. I’m glad your other grandma was a lot more loving and caring, but holy shirtballs! That’s an absolutely insane story, but judging what you’ve told me about how you feel your father likely died, far from a rare occurrence in the oligarch lifestyle. I’m so glad that you survived with (seemingly) no lasting injuries! Most importantly, I’m just happy that despite having all those kinds of experiences and being exposed to witnessing horrific situations, you had the stronger mentality to avoid those habits and apparent joys. The more you tell me, the more I’m surprised you were ever able to turn out as empathetic and kind of a human being as I’ve read you are. Everything in your life was against you turning out that way, from the social circles you were mingling with to the familiar relationships you grew up with, and yet here you are. A better person than, I imagine, most if not the whole lot of them. If anything, I have to give you props just for that. It’s honestly impressive. Nature won over nurture in this case, it seems.

I definitely recognise what you said about false figures and false news on social media in regards to horrific conflicts like Ukraine. I’m probably fooled more often than I’m not, but I do tend to take everything with a small grain of salt nowadays. Terrifying to think that we slowly have to be on the lookout for AI generated content that’s looking more and more realistic as well. One of the things that also annoys me about social media in these situations is the way some will use their support of a cause for clout or to aggrandise their importance to the cause. The amount of people whose entire shtick on their social media for example is stuff like “leave a . for this or that”, which is just clear engagement-baiting where you are adding nothing of value to the conversation nor helping the cause. They’ll go after influencers for not speaking out about specific causes they “care” about, but their “caring” only shows in the moments where it’s hip to be for the cause and quickly dissipates as soon as it’s not the major conversation anymore. Not to mention that said “caring” is exclusively through the means of that kind of engagement-baiting and harassment, or maybe they even put a flag in their bio, which is all just so incredibly surface-level that it constantly pisses me off. Not everyone is like that of course and some do genuinely empathise and actively try things to help, but they’re a small minority in my experience.

It saddens me to see you compare your relationship to this person you cared for as him having tried to blind you in poker. To think that, like you said, you weren’t even a player in the game, but simply the jackpot he tried to win. It’s so dehumanising, but I imagine this kind of behaviour happens fairly often whenever you come into contact with someone who isn’t as financially well off as yourself. There’s going to be vultures in every class waiting for their time to strike. You’ve said you’ve learned from that experience, which no doubt you have. I wonder if you learned from it in the sense that you recognise the signs better and are able to avoid those types of people for the most part or if it has resulted in you being less open with people you know to not let them so close? As for your physical protection, what you said about you being marked as weak and therefore vulnerable by the gender divide is very interesting. I don’t think I’d ever seen it as a knife that cuts both ways like that, but it makes total sense. I think I would resent needing security on me at all times, so I’m glad you at least have your times in London where it’s less present than others. That said, I understand the need for preventative measures in a situation like yourself. You never know when the next psychopath might show up, and they’ve harmed you in the past as you’ve told me. When you live that kind of life where such dangers are realistic and happen, it’s only natural to be more protected. I’m happy that you can at least find common ground with the people who protect you and that you can see them more as friends. The benefits of having empathy!

It’s a shame that the education you initially came to the UK for collapsed, because I think I would’ve loved living in the English countryside! I am a small-town boy after all, so I very much romanticise that image even if I think that I would find it highly inconvenient nowadays. It sounds like your time with your dad’s close friend was highly positive though, both in terms of your general development as a human being as well as just a pleasurable experience overall. He sounds like the opposite of the grandma you talked about earlier, where he is disciplinary on a fair level instead of on a sociopathic one. He sounds like someone who genuinely tried his best and had a good influence on you, which I cannot say for every person you’ve mentioned to me, so that alone is almost worthy of acclaim. I had no clue people even did school role-play in some chatrooms! Maybe it was highly specific to the one you were in, but it reminds me of doing Hogwarts roleplay on Habbo Hotel. I guess that’s not all too far off, so maybe I’m a hypocrite for questioning it at all! I know what you mean with the feeling where you rush to your computer to talk to this person over and over again, having butterflies in your stomach on the way there. I’ve been there, though it didn’t last nearly as long as I had to cut him off after about six months when I realised he betrayed me in a certain fashion. In retrospect, it’s bad that he had the power over you to dictate your schedule and all, but I can understand how that felt comforting at a time where the real-life adults around you were just happy to leave you by yourself. It gave you a routine like you said and things to look forward to. The way you elaborated on the lie with the girls he pretended to be is absolutely horrific… I can’t believe anyone would lie about being able to bring people you cared for back to life. Not to mention that he was at least eight of the girls you spoke to himself. You’ve really given so much reason to lose belief in the basic humanity of people.

It’s interesting to hear about how Russian society has evolved to be way more capitalistic when the Western image of the country remains rooted in its communist history. I suppose once you give into the greed that naturally comes with capitalism, there’s not much holding you back to stick with the communist ideals. In general, I personally feel like communism is more of an ideal than a sustainable political system to begin with. I’ve had some heated conversations with certain people (like the aforementioned six-month stint) regarding that, but I think it’s overall a fairly accepted position. It doesn’t seem to ever really work on a long-term basis, because sadly the greed of people will always overpower any true aim towards equality. When you say you were able to buy jokebooks about oligarchs and such, I assume you mean even within Russia? That surprised me a bit, as I thought that kind of stuff would be censored by the people in power as well. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with having people in a less fortunate financial position make fun of you however, since it doesn’t actually change anything about the situation they or you are in. Let them feel like they have some power over you with their words without it being anything substantial.

I do envy that your position allows you to travel across the world to all those countries and learn all those languages however! That’s certainly a benefit to it, especially with how interested you seem to be in different cultures and the people within them. Are you one of the family who takes more advantage of that by actually immersing yourself into the countries as opposed to just visiting, or would you say that’s actually a similar approach many oligarchs take? I imagine many might not feel the need to meaningfully engage at all. I like the song you shared! Every country has their own version of Madonna apparently (though I couldn’t think of a Dutch equivalent really). It’s interesting how even the harsh realities of living in a more unstable country like in the Balkans seep into their pop music. I’m equally not very well-versed in German or its music yet, but I try here and there… and there’s definitely some German songs I’ve found that I really like. Fun fact: Germany is obsessed with rap and it’s their leading music genre I’ve found. At least among the young generation that I mostly interact with. I saw someone mentioning Breton recently and I think it was probably you. I did a little deep dive into the language after that. It was fascinating to learn about it! I love learning about those little tidbits of cultures and languages that are near-extinction.

What you said about musicians doing it for the love of the music versus filmmakers doing it for the money rings true to me. I think there is a contingent of filmmakers who are big enough to be able to make what they want and truly care for the art, but a lot of it is commercialised and there exclusively for profits. It sucks that the finances are such a huge part of the industry, because I feel like if given the opportunity, plenty of filmmakers would kill for the chance to bring their vision to life in a way that stays true to their passion. That’s where I imagine it helps that music will always have a lower barrier of entry than a medium that requires full crews to create something people will want to watch. I think with the tech industry taking over film, it’s only going to get worse than it already is on that front. They don’t see anything but numbers. Do you know the saying “one for them, one for me” in film? It’s a transaction of wealth and continued prominence as much as any. As for the more ethical seeming rich still being inhuman behind the scenes, I wouldn’t say I’m fooled by that. That’s why I only offered those people as a possibly a few exceptions, but even then I’m thinking in numbers I can count on one hand if any. I feel like the people in power have become only more brazen in recent times as well and nowadays are more likely to say the quiet part out loud.

Haha, calling your partner a husband was the unconscious stereotyping of yore seeping through, as I’m well aware that’s not how your relationship functions! I understand you paint the difference between married and owned as a different type of dynamic, with the former being the more negative one. I do view marriage in somewhat of a romantic light personally, which is another spot where the naïveté comes through, I’m sure. I’ve never actually been in any committed relationship, so I still have a lot of hurt to learn first-hand. That said, I’ve never understood sharing ownership of all your valuables and your life with someone else, so I think you’re on the right side of that by keeping everything in your name. I’m sure it’s practical as well for someone in your position, but either way, I don’t think I would want anyone to lay claim to anything I have just by the way we adhere to each other on a legal basis. Have you ever heard of a TV show called You’re the Worst? I’m going to spoil a part of how it ends now, so if you’re interested just skip over this part. What I want to say about it is that the way that show ends with them canceling their wedding, sitting in a pancake restaurant and deciding they don’t want to get married and instead choose each other each day might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen. There’s something much more powerful about the concept of you specifically choosing someone at all times and being able to leave without hassle if ever you fall out instead of being locked into a life you’ve come to resent. I’ve heard of CHVRCHES and it doesn’t surprise me that they’re very queer-friendly, but I’m shocked that even that can get you blocked now within Russia. I don’t even know if they’ve been openly expressing that throughout their music. Even having that opinion on the backside can already result in censorship. Crazy.

My parents let me online without supervision from a very young age. I think I was diving into avenues of online socialising as early as eight or nine years old. That said, they would always talk to me about what I did online and make sure that I knew what to avoid and how to deal with certain situations. I always really appreciated that they trusted me to make the right decisions as that gave me the freedom to meet people and explore society from my own room. Not that I didn’t have any friends in real life, far from it, but I was the kind of social butterfly kid who never wanted the interaction to stop. Or you could alternatively call me an attention-seeking kid (and adult)! What they did was dangerous, but luckily I got through it without any scars and had enough guidance to avoid bad situations. I count myself lucky there, as I’m sure not everyone in my position there would’ve had the same experience. I imagine for women it can be all the more dangerous. Even as a kid, I already saw the differences in how girls were being treated compared to myself. I’m just happy I was never a part of those types of behaviours, and was more likely to call them out and become protective if anything. The types of messages you mentioned are exactly what I think of when it comes to that. I’m glad that you’re paying it forward with your privilege to work with organisations to avoid those types of engagements for the young folks nowadays. With how much more accessible everything’s become, the danger has only spread as well. Speaking of Roblox, I heard recently that the CEO made comments regarding the amount of predators on their platform and essentially refused to refute or condemn it. The least he could’ve said was that they are actively working against anything like that on their platform, but he wouldn’t even go that far.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to start asking questions about queer people? Obviously they shut it down quickly, so I’m sure it wasn’t much of a conversation, but I wonder how old you were when the thought of that first crossed your mind. But yeah, when you even discuss it with your partner nowadays and he reacts like that, I can imagine how the topic stays confusing in your head. I’m assuming it always feels like you’re making progress in the way you’re thinking about things only to be told different views towards it in your daily life. I’m glad that your compass is strong enough that you know from yourself that there is no issue, but no one is immune to having their thoughts scrambled simply from having conflicting thoughts put into them. For what it’s worth, I obviously feel like you have the right end of the stick there. All the danger that comes with being queer is purely from society and nothing that inherently comes from within. You could quote suicide rates and such, but that’s all societal pressure. You could argue STDs, but that would be less of an issue if it was broadly accepted in these places as proven in the West. You could argue surgeries or hormone therapy in the case of transgender people, but that would also be way better if trans people would have better access to medical care.

What I’m most aware of when it comes to Chechnya is the mass killing of queer people in the last decade. You told me that Russia invaded the region in the 90s. I’m wondering if that then means that it came from a Russian directive or whether Chechnya still has their own people in charge despite being under Russia in modern times. Either way, what happened to them to start with sounds like a bad situation. It’s so often where terrorist attacks performed by few end up being negatively impactful to so many. I won’t say much more about it as I don’t want to tread where I don’t have much knowledge, but it reminds me of the way Europeans or the US looked at Arab countries after certain terrorist attacks. In the US, they went as far as to invade as well. It is all racism in the end. A person of non-native ethnicity performs a bad act and you don’t hear the end of it. A person of native ethnicity does a bad act and it gets a lot less publicity. There’s no other way to look at it other than what you said: racism. That said, countries are so diverse nowadays in terms of ethnicity that it’s hard to even say one ethnicity is the rightful native, but I had to put it in some terms that made it obvious what I meant and didn’t sound prejudiced.

It really shows how times have changed that you were able to unapologetically listen to Lady Gaga, but that now something as mild as CHVRCHES is getting blocked. I didn’t realise until talking to you that even within Russia, queer topics were getting progressively taboo. I just assumed it was taboo to begin with for the most part and that a regression was practically impossible. Clearly I underestimated quite how much a society can regress on “controversial” topics like these. I’ve definitely heard the thought that gay people will spread their “affliction” to others. It’s basically what every ignorant person thinks in the West as well. Think of the situations like with drag queens reading books to kids and how that was allegedly going to make the kids queer. It somehow makes sense in their brains, because they don’t consider the other side of it at all where I wasn’t turned straight just by consuming so much straight media. Like I said, I do find it funny to joke about it, but like you said, it’s only because I’m in a position of privilege geologically that I am able to without repercussions. If I knew I was in a place where this was less accepted, I’d do a lot more to hide queerness as much as I can. Unfortunately, I have been blessed with a high voice and the typical gesturing people associate with gay people, so it takes a lot to do that! They wouldn’t be wrongly assuming in my case, which would just make it all the more dangerous for me.

so after reading you last post @GirlVersusGame i thought i could give you some answers to why people go outside, since iam an outdoorsman myself. So why do people go outside? Shopping, work, training or obvious things that need to be done are some reasons. Here in Norway people also go outside to experience the nature. Shopping and all that stuff i avoid as much as possible, too many people and too much noise. I usually walk or go jogging every day in the nature.
Why do i do it every day? Well, it is good to move your body and use your senses, in many ways it is intoxicating to be outside. It is also quite like meditation but instead of sitting you are walking. It gives you time to think and reflect if you have something on your mind or you can just walk and immerse yourself in the nature and try to clear your mind. I find it quite absolutely brilliant to be outside and alone in the forest, away from culture and people. Its an experience that is free of charge.
Its not boredom or just random walking around, its more of something you want to do and that gives a sense of pleasure. If somebody told me that i could never go out in nature ever again, i would just lay my head down and die.
There is also the historic angle that tells you that humans have coexisted and survived in the wild for thousands of years. The idea of being inside the most of the time is quite new seen in a historic context. Its funny but the thing i miss the most from my hometown is the nature. Shops and people you can find everywhere but the nature isnt so easily replaced

@Tjuz I've sent a quick sample to the lab for testing so I will let you know my confirmed grease content when I hear back from them, then we will know if we can indeed continue this fancy fling 😛

Oh, that would have got me for sure. Especially if the picture is blown up to the size of a billboard. That is actually my secret preference, the bigger the face, the better 😁

Aaaaand I had written more and gone a bit serious, as you asked, but i've since cut it to my clipboard, as I have seen the stupid news pop up on my feed and instead want to take this moment to tag in @GirlVersusGame and just say to both of you, argh f***ing hell, world. Rawrrrrrrrrrrr! (I noticed you spelled roar the emo way a while back, GvG 🙈) but yeah, this roar is maybe more gutteral, and relates back to a thing I said somewhere where I posed the question: could the world maybe just fudge off and leave us all to just get on with our lives in peace? I can't be doing with it, the bluster and hate and just everything, tbh. I hope you're doing alright and this isn't going to end up fudging sherbert up for you, GvG.

Tjuz, you can read back a bit if you want, it won't make stuff that much clearer vis-á-vis the 'rebuild' as it is formatted in a mess. It was literally a moment in my life I had to recover from both physically and mentally, while not really telling anyone what I was actually dealing with as I went into a mental lockdown to get through it by myself. Job done, satisfactory results. But perhaps I should have strived for more than satisfactory once getting out the other side instead of coasting. But now I feel we may have to return to silly anecdotes and laughing at ourselves in the adventures of GoatGirl, EmoTw@ and The Basic Bi*ch, for our own goddamn sanity. I definitely cba focusing on my own past nonsense (unless funny, anecdotal or in a way that can help someone else) I can still scream into the void (or a pillow) for anyone that wants that kind of release (don't laugh at that sentence or you forfeit the game and must crown me champion) And if you do still want to talk deeper about any aspects of your own experiences then I'll still happily do that, but we must meet the now officially mandated 'funny and depressed' guidelines Tjuz has set 🙈

@Tjuz I’m shocked that your story with your cousin went to the point of actual saucers of milk! It definitely sounds like a more extreme version of what you mentioned of her being the stylist (or some might say the dominant one) in the relationship.

• I don't know where she learned it from but her Father absolutely knew what was going on and even now I try to avoid him when I can. He's the one person in my family who I can't look in the eyes. I think generational wealth breaks something. If you are raised by a parent you get some kind of natural bond and it trickles down into being able to reflect that bond onto others. If it's a nanny, staff etc you are a client or an asset of a client, they see you as part of the job and her household was no different. When she stared at me that night she was trying to figure out what I was, not who but what. She knew who I was but her mind hadn't decided on the rest and she had no actual pets. Neither did I, for the longest time I asked but 'you can't handle the responsibility' so then when I was sent to live with someone else he did get me pets, he made up for it in a big way, the same Person who cares for my horses and dog, him. It was the first time I visited a zoo too.

My cousin was there for me as someone my own age and now I find comfort in some very strange ways, I can absolutely trace that back to her. It's not a nanny's job to do something tactile, they just watch you, maybe bring you places, and that's about it. I'm not saying they are cold people, they have specific parameters, once they meet those there's no going outside the lines.

One family I know they had what was called (I'll mix the words up) an executive of entertainment. This means a person tasked with things like what a child sees, the video-games they play, perhaps days away, that's an actual job title. I thought it was normal until I did start to talk to people in games and the internet. Some people might see a luxury in that, I don't because I've been there.

After all, I can understand why adults wouldn’t quickly say anything about their children playing pretend. That said, the way you’re saying it sounds like it went a lot further than that and someone should have intervened at some point while it was happening.

• This was far past pretend, if we were alone and no one saw then I'd say otherwise but there were adults around and no one raised a question or an eyebrow. It's strange for me as an adult to look back at that now and say 'that's weird' but now as an adult if it's with my Partner 'this is normal' and maybe because it was a comfort thing, and it still is I don't attribute it to some strange deviant act like a lot of people do when they would hear something like that. I think she was starved for that normal contact people get from pets, it got to her like it didn't get to me. It was some kind of void she was trying to fill, and I think like everything else she understood that power over someone meant getting what you needed. Money could for example buy a kitten but there's still the permission from a parent, that's how money loses value from an early age. They hold onto the power of permission even into adulthood, it's still no different for me in that regard. Even right now.

Even then, it doesn’t even sound like them sending her to a school like that ultimately changed her for the better.

• I'm starting to wonder if she ever went. I was told she did but she never talked about school when I saw her, not once. No 'Teacher told us about numbers today', and I never remember her even wearing a school uniform. At times my education surpassed hers because I took to home schooling, I wanted to learn and still do.

but if she continues this behaviour into adulthood whenever you see her, it seems to me like both the (lack of) parenting and her sequestering were for naught.

• She hasn't changed in how she sees me, not at all. I saw the look on my Partner's face, I think it was a kind of 'so this is where she got it from', kind of realization. A Keyser Soze moment, he'd never asked me before. Instead of the coffee cup like in Usual Suspects it was a saucer of milk, sometimes I have to laugh at certain things like that. I try to find it weird but it's too rooted.

you think they brought you with them to the school while your uncle went inside and left you alone for hours? I was thinking this might serve as a warning, but you said you didn’t find out the actual reasoning for the visit until a long time later. I’m not sure what the whole purpose of bringing you along to that as well as creepily leaving you locked in the car for that time was.

• It wasn't a school or a hotel. It was some kind of psychiatric hospital that from the outside looked like it was keeping up appearances. All of those bags and cases were clothes and supplies. I don't know what happened but she had to actually go 'inside'. I think he may have considered allowing me to see her that day then either she said no when he got there or he did. Those bellboys were orderlies but much like everything it's hidden behind a luxurious venier. She was in there from what I can tell was six months. Something must have snapped, something even I didn't see. We don't really get warnings per-say, it's more like if you do something wrong there's an instant response, then you learn and don't do it again. It creates a situation where you only find out something is wrong after you've done it. Then I suppose you just don't do anything and it's easier to do as you're told than to go off the behavioral reservation so to speak. You stay on track and do nothing.

I’d assume some sort of power play, but even then I don’t really understand to what end that would’ve been. Were you just supposed to put two and two together as a child and realise that you were where your cousin was and to not land there yourself?

• My Partner said that. Everything is some kind of power play, I see it every day, through action, courtesy, handshakes, I don't see money I see mannerisms and learn to read that language. She did snap, I don't doubt that for a second. What I saw was a 'hotel lobby', the rest was just confusion. It's possible it was a 'if you get stubborn, don't follow the rules you'll get the same treatment', I didn't register that, my Partner thinks it was. He's certain, which means he knows something I don't.

I’m not sure what you mean in terms of why your parents think you stay goal-oriented by matching you with a man twenty-six years older than you. Is the goal in this case being put in your place with an older man and knowing your “goal” would be to keep him happy at all costs?

• In one word, yes. I think 'young love' seems like rebellion to some people, you cross into different communities, leave your own group and risk falling in love with someone who's values of rather Family values don't align with theirs or yours. Just like that song 'I don't want a boy, I want a man like Putin', it's very specific a man not a boy. Maybe I like to read Romeo and Juliet but I wouldn't dare to go outside of those boundaries, even if maybe he is cute. Everything has a meaning, even the quote I've used here for a year, it wasn't random. That's what I do, I make my Partner happy and of course our Families are linked through that connection too. It's odd to Western culture, even to some Russians, we just follow some very old ways, hence decades behind. I'm with someone I really like so I can't and won't complain, he treats me well, it's enough I think.

I’m fairly easy to read when it comes to my tone and facial expressions, which are nicely hidden in my current line of work.

• In words too, you have some kind of clarity that I can't put a finger on. Maybe it's because you can loosen your grip on gender roles, it's like reading the words of a person who has both if that makes sense. It's a good quality, you'd make a good language tutor. Your heart shows in your words.

I’m not surprised at all that the situation only worsens when you have people in actual measurable power. I appreciate that you aim to be different on that front, as I do on a daily basis.

• I have to be. If I let myself slip even once and take out even a sliver of anger out on one person I'm done for. It's too much of a slippery slope, I want to keep who I am and what I believe. I've never raised my voice at anyone in my life and never will. I've found healthy cathartic ways to take an emotion, feel it, deal with it, put it aside and keep going. I did almost throw a bottle at that Oligarch kid but I saw what he did as an act of humiliation on another person and had to say something. He won't forget that night, I had to scare him, he needed it. Maybe he'll think twice about treating another person like that, impossible to know. We're too different in our behavior. Their parents gained wealth overnight, they weren't raised to respect money and didn't even know what power was, he knows the difference now. A life lesson. They run around trying to play a certain image like it's some kind of costume. They are paper, maybe cardboard, not stone. When they meet the real thing they crumble and run. They ran from London too, we stayed, we'll go when we choose.

The story with the burger is absolutely disgusting. The whole part with giving you the idea you would get toys to the point they’d let you pick them all out only to take the chance away right in front of you is one thing. To hold so pettily to an unfinished burger to the point of having you throw up is just inexplicable behaviour.

• I never understood that woman. Not once. She attended my sisters funeral (recent, hence I don't mention her) and she sat stone-faced through the whole thing. There was a moment where they go around and say something about the person like 'I remember Tjuz he took great photos in The Outer Worlds', she said nothing. Then afterwards I was invited back to her home (we hadn't seen each other in years) she pretended that she wanted to see me more often, then deleted my number. I think giving actual toys was keeping up appearances. That's something I see a lot of. My Partner will get me a bear (not alive) then my Step Papa will try to give me something even bigger, he's always done that. He sees a plush and then thinks car, I can't say no and it put me in an awkward position. He would see it as a kind of insolence. He's done it for years. That woman is just another kind of strange, my Mum doesn't even know about the burger. My Partner does because I couldn't eat that recent one. It has to be psychopathy. Even today I struggle with knowing something is left on a plate so I eat small portions. Part of it is knowing some people fight and struggle to even eat, part of it is her too. Maybe she was doing that for years and I'd forgotten or because it was 'normal' it didn't register. When her husband passed she didn't tell me, I saw it on the TV news. He was a very prominent person, they didn't send a funeral invite. My Dad hit the police lights (the blue ones you've seen) he drove even faster than any motorcade, we got there just before the final flowers went down. She said to me 'how did you find out?', my Dad actually thought I was with them. I wasn't, they left me into the house and told everyone else I was with them. Then of course when my Dad was gone (her son) who do you think she blamed for his 'accident', she's still alive and still blames me. Death doesn't want her.

I’ll never understand why anyone would want to humiliate a child like that

• Do you think it was that simple? I wish I understood. I really wanted a relationship with her, there's just nothing there she's hollow and cold. The only other instance I know where that happened and I knew it was happening was the fox. Remember the guy who said 'that girl died' then 'I can bring her back to life'. One day I was outside playing and I could see far away the tree line. Something went slowly walking past, then dropped like it was given too much to drink. I waited to see it pop up again and it didn't, I went over and found it. You obviously know what a fox is, it was a big one one. It wasn't dead but it was in a bad way. I ran back and got some guys, showed them and asked for a Doctor. A veterinarian came but it was too late. They think a vehicle struck it and then it managed to find a way in under the parameter walls. I was told to go back inside and to play on my computer instead (which meant that chatroom) I signed in, saw my Groomer as 'busy'. He had a kind of headset that worked with his office phone and the computer program he chatted through. He'd talk, I'd listen and type back. It means no one heard me, something I never even noticed (see the predator mindset?) If I sign into my first PSN account I see so many instances of that, it's how they operate in games too (I just signed in)

That's what parents miss, that was all across the PSN and I don't think I had a single real friend for years because almost all of my chat messages are that back and forth. It's a conversation where they talk, you listen then quietly type back and if you even say 'maybe this is wrong' you get 'but don't you care about me? I care about you'. That PSN account was used to report so many people in the end. See the mention of a laptop? that's when it becomes a kind of 'how can I get her to another App'. I can scroll over one hundred contacts now and it's all the same thing, did they network? I don't know. They seemed to have a lot of the same mutual friends, play the same games, and always the typing back quietly method.

My Groomer was obviously in a call that day, I started casually talking to the other members and of course the 'I brought her back to life' guy was there. I was upset and telling them about the fox and how I couldn't bring it back to life. He erupted into laughter and thought it was hilarious. Maybe ten minutes later my Groomer's status went to 'online' he asked what was the matter, the guy explained thinking he'd laugh too. He didn't. I'd never heard him shout before and I don't know how he didn't break that microphone, he kicked them from the group. That's when his attitude changed, he become more of a protector, I think he was seriously concerned. His secretary had to hear, she would walk into that room sometimes and once heard my music then said some words and left quickly. It didn't end there either.

Weeks later my parents brought in a stuffed fox, to show me he couldn't come back to life. Bad idea. I put him on my dresser and waited, for days I'd bring him everywhere I went. If we were going shopping he stayed in the car, I'd talk to him before bed, first thing in morning, he'd attend the dinner table and have his own chair. One night my parents were entertaining guests and I walked into the room and 'what is she doing with that thing?', the next day he was gone and there was a letter from 'the fox' saying he met another fox and went to live in the woods with her. It was almost my thirteenth birthday. That one idiot managed to do all of that damage. When you say humiliation, that's what he did. I won't repeat the words he said, he thought it was funnier than anything he'd ever heard or saw, and thought the others would agree. They didn't. Even monsters police themselves. People were so angry.

That’s an absolutely insane story, but judging what you’ve told me about how you feel your father likely died, far from a rare occurrence in the oligarch lifestyle.

• He was a business man but not an Oligarch, a diplomat of sorts too. They said he shot himself, so I started to read up on forensics. People fall out of windows all over Russia, it's something we're known for, I learn to see through it, my Dad was no exception. Someone went down, another came up, I can't say who but I think you obviously have an idea.

The more you tell me, the more I’m surprised you were ever able to turn out as empathetic and kind of a human being as I’ve read you are. Everything in your life was against you turning out that way, from the social circles you were mingling with to the familiar relationships you grew up with, and yet here you are.

• That's life. Russians are resilient by nature yes but I still see and experience things, not daily, maybe weekly that are what Ravix called traumatic, like I said we have our own laws and it's not the law of the land. Moscow is Disney Land yes but it's not family friendly. My Partner is a saint compared to my Ex. Previously maybe people didn't understand but now they have Ukraine and can say 'what kind of people would green-light that?', people with no empathy. I really think it's that simple, if you can remove empathy you have someone who will do anything for their Family/Country/Party, and of course why wouldn't they care about the laws when they make them.

I definitely recognise what you said about false figures and false news on social media in regards to horrific conflicts like Ukraine. I’m probably fooled more often than I’m not, but I do tend to take everything with a small grain of salt nowadays.

• I don't know anymore. I was given very minuscule access to live TV and media growing up and now there's actual fake news so it just becomes a ball of confusion. I couldn't tell you five things that happened around the world in the last week or the week before because of that same reason. I'm not saying it's defeatist but I just don't even try anymore.
  The amount of people whose entire shtick on their social media for example is stuff like “leave a . for this or that”, which is just clear engagement-baiting where you are adding nothing of value to the conversation nor helping the cause.
• I don't even know what that means. I haven't had social media in years. This to me is social media. Do you mean if tomorrow a plane crashed people would start to talk about ts as in 'I care so much' but they are actually using it as a podium to get some dialogue out because they have nothing else to talk about? Like they have nothing else to post about? I think I understand the mindset but have no word for it. I saw something like that in Israel, I've never been back. It's off-limits for my health, I can't go there knowing what they've done. Like I said to Ravix I'd rather sleep on the floor than go there, the only word I have is why. All those people, it's just wrong. I think caring to me is where both your heart and mind sync in unison and see that's somethings wrong, not when your status message says so.

It saddens me to see you compare your relationship to this person you cared for as him having tried to blind you in poker. To think that, like you said, you weren’t even a player in the game, but simply the jackpot he tried to win. It’s so dehumanising.

• Sorry I didn't notice? it was automatic. I've been around a lot of poker tables, casinos. They think I'm not following the game but I am and I just naturally apply what I see to myself and my way of thinking. He was after that jackpot, it became a transaction and he saw me as a commodity, nothing more. I switched off. I'm not talking to you out of some kind of self-pity, I believe in analyzing something and moving to the next something. I think it could be seen as dehumanizing to have someone compare you to a cash-machine but I've bought a lot of friends over the years, either knowingly or unknowingly. I sent him more games than you've probably ever played. I did think he cared about me, I thought he was different. They were all like that in the end.

but I imagine this kind of behaviour happens fairly often whenever you come into contact with someone who isn’t as financially well off as yourself.

• Only outside of my Family and social circle. Every online friend I ever had went down that route. Playstation, xBox, it didn't matter what format. Only the girl in Saint Petersburg was different. The first time we talked she knew who I was without even saying, she knew my Dad. Cities apart and she knew straight away. She was the one friend where I had to learn not to spoil someone, she would get angry at gifts and call my Dad and tell him I had to stop. She didn't want that. Even up to the day she fled Russia, I don't know what made her different. She wasn't even wealthy, she just wouldn't take anything I offered. I wanted to make her happy because she made me happy.

That was the old way. I don't need friends anymore, I don't mean that as a slight to you. I'm just never touching an online game again, or social media. I'd rather play tennis with the wall.

I wonder if you learned from it in the sense that you recognise the signs better and are able to avoid those types of people for the most part or if it has resulted in you being less open with people you know to not let them so close?

• I didn't. My offline security people started to open PSN accounts and sneak their way into our group conversations. They watched weeks of communications and then decided it was time to pull me out. I found out when I went home one Christmas (no gaming at home) and when I returned the status of our group changed, I wasn't there to do it. Someone slipped up while logging my account out. It resulted in someone else thinking it was a hacker and tried to report my account. Then they told me. I'm not even sure what to say about it. I liked online gaming, but I understand the risk. I trust them but that whole thing was a nightmare. Every log was gone through, they knew everything. If I liked a certain boy, or girl it was there.

As for your physical protection, what you said about you being marked as weak and therefore vulnerable by the gender divide is very interesting. I don’t think I’d ever seen it as a knife that cuts both ways like that, but it makes total sense.

• Maybe it's so normalized that I don't feel the cut. I accept who I am in our system.

I think I would resent needing security on me at all times

• I see it as an extension of myself. I need water to hydrate, food for nutrients, air to breath, security to stay safe. I've never once resented it, it's sort of like having a brotherhood and you are their little sister so they watch out for you. The ones at home I do see as big brothers, they teach me how to shoot, how to find bad eighties movies, I've done what you call survival training with them. I think maybe for you it might be privacy? As in where do you draw the line? My line are my rooms, bedroom obviously. That's why if I'm alone I'll take a blanket and sleep where they are. The kind of preemptive snooping slowed down after I lost online gaming/social media. Obviously now I'm using tricks to bounce my browsers etc but that's mainly because I don't agree with war and there's no way of me being able to talk about it offline. They understand on the DeepWeb. I try not to think about why I need it, if that makes sense? and like I said there's no compromise on their decisions when we are out, they observe things differently, if we have to leave a place we go. Some of my happiest moments involved them in some way, like the borrowed goat, and my love of bad movies.

You never know when the next psychopath might show up.

• If it's politics or money there is always someone. I'm in a Family of both so the risk doubles. Kidnappings are a lot more common than people think. It's something that rarely ever gets reported, it's dealt with internally. For others they have what's known as K&R, kidnap and ransom insurance. It's an external company who comes in and deals directly with people who take people, usually it's a money transfer, with something like shipping and piracy it can take months. With me it was internal and political, they sent soldiers and there were no demands met. With someone else I know it was money, messier, but they got her back. With the Father of someone I knew briefly in school they sent the money and got a body back. That was South America. In Russia we just send soldiers, no money, if you pay once you set a precedence of acceptance. If you send force you set the example.

I'll give you an example of something. We have a birthday tradition where we send a heavily armed military unit to someones home to either fake a raid or a kidnapping, that's a birthday tradition. It might sound like insanity but it's just a different life. Toughens you up, no?

It’s a shame that the education you initially came to the UK for collapsed, because I think I would’ve loved living in the English countryside! I am a small-town boy after all, so I very much romanticise that image even if I think that I would find it highly inconvenient nowadays.

• I think about that sometimes but everyone was years ahead, even now today I'm catching up with tutors. If you don't learn the value of money you don't learn to work with numbers. I can't divide, I can add, that's about it. I have multiple languages but no mathematical skill. I didn't even grasp the months of the year until a few years ago because my schedule was daily, weekly but not monthly. It's still daily but obviously I pushed to learn. I stayed in the country-side for years, I still go back. He's a complex man, he understands the mind because it was part of his actual job. When things get a little trying I go to stay with him for a kind of top-up if that makes sense. That angry nanny as you called her was someone he hired very young, she wanted to move up the ranks and was tasked with me. It started as a kind of big sister thing, we watched movie together, attended shows together. She was no push over, one of the guys once pinched her bum and she swung around and punched him so hard. It was impressive to see, she's warned him though because she didn't play being flirted on by men, that's when her temper came out.

I had no clue people even did school role-play in some chatrooms! Maybe it was highly specific to the one you were in, but it reminds me of doing Hogwarts roleplay on Habbo Hotel.

• It was like a Russian doll, layered. You have the surface web, then the deepweb, then the darkweb. Their rooms had layers too. From what I gathered it was an eighteen plus room with adults who roleplayed, but most of them had no idea I was a child and the ones who knew thought it was funny. They use techniques like that to 'teach', they aren't dumb people they know what they are doing. It's a watch and learn technique, so then you do.

In retrospect, it’s bad that he had the power over you to dictate your schedule and all, but I can understand how that felt comforting at a time where the real-life adults around you were just happy to leave you by yourself. It gave you a routine like you said and things to look forward to.

• Exactly. There was no schedule in place at all, just to make sure to eat when food arrived, go to sleep when I was tired. In a way he gave me a normal sleeping schedule when no one did, but he wanted power. I think when you reduce a person to an actual doll you begin to understand, that's bad to say but I think that was his mindset. Even if my parents weren't there I had to keep up appearances, dress and actual appearance and first and foremost. so to him, doll. A DeepWeb friend calls me that too but he means something differently, endearment.

The way you elaborated on the lie with the girls he pretended to be is absolutely horrific… I can’t believe anyone would lie about being able to bring people you cared for back to life. Not to mention that he was at least eight of the girls you spoke to himself. You’ve really given so much reason to lose belief in the basic humanity of people.

• I lost more faith in the person who 'magically brought that girl back to life', that honestly messed me up for years. The fox was right after that but even then for years there was a part of my mind that had actually believed him. This was three years of daily being around those people, they were on another level. Not even that graphic, just odd which is still damaging. Then of course it happened all over again through the Playstation. I think if it happens once people just know, like sharks when they smell blood. There are things from both of those formats that I can never repeat, I never said it out loud, nor wrote it down, there are no words for some things but it was the head-games more than anything. I think my Groomer just used those eight profiles to really know me, we talked about boys, girls, everything. But obviously it was him and don't forget he knew me offline, he knew my Family and still did that. He was in my actual home. Only once did a redflag go up and it was brushed off as me being odd. I think people covet what they see, he did.

It’s interesting to hear about how Russian society has evolved to be way more capitalistic when the Western image of the country remains rooted in its communist history. I suppose once you give into the greed that naturally comes with capitalism, there’s not much holding you back to stick with the communist ideals.

• It's just my Family, we're old money Nomenklatura, we go back very far, even before that. That Communist ideal is in the blood but that's only one side, my Family is very mixed, most are Capitalists, others support the current Party rule, others are something else and somewhere in the middle we all meet. I don't believe in Communism. I saw it in North Korea, how could anyone want that.

When you say you were able to buy jokebooks about oligarchs and such, I assume you mean even within Russia? That surprised me a bit, as I thought that kind of stuff would be censored by the people in power as well.

• So if you went to a train-station there might see a kiosk? (sorry never been on a train) Inside magazines, books and such. You could at a time buy a novelty joke-book with jokes all about Oligarchs. They were something that sprung up so quickly and that's how society reacted. The same with little statues of business men and their bodyguards. Oligarchs aren't power, they are pawns. Real power goes unseen, hence why I called that kid paper or cardboard. It might be censored now, it wasn't always.

Here's an example.

A "New Russian" is in a terrible car wreck. He crawls out of his smashed Mercedes, screaming, "Oh, my Mercedes! My poor, poor Mercedes!"
A passerby notices the man's arm is missing and says, "Your car? Who cares! Look at your arm!"
The rich Russian gazes at where his arm used to be, then moans, "Oh no! My Rolex!"

New Russian means Oligarch. New because they got to where they were quickly by looting the system. We didn't, we're older than that. They value money, we value something else, you might call it legacy. So now they flee to the UAE, but we don't because they created that problem for themselves, we didn't. We both have that level of wealth but the distinction is that we didn't plunder our country men, they did. The irony is those seized assets are a drop in a massive ocean.

I do envy that your position allows you to travel across the world to all those countries and learn all those languages however! That’s certainly a benefit to it, especially with how interested you seem to be in different cultures and the people within them.

• Don't. It's not travel like you think. It's not vacations, it's not tourism, it's learning a language so I can be seen as providing a courtesy, by knowing their language, by knowing their ways. Most of my languages I had to learn, not always by choice. My interest comes in trying to learn about the culture after the fact. It's really is car to car plane to plane and house to house, it's being everywhere and big nowhere at the same time. I'm so tired so much, and when I do try to get my sleeping under control there's all the rest. It's like being a vampyre but instead of blood it's champagne. I struggle to think of times where it was something more. Morocco was this year, I saw stray animals everywhere, they couldn't hide that. I asked the guys to round up all of the food and we just gave it to them. The army turned around and walked off after some choice words were exchanged, they were fining Westerners for giving them even a scrap. I think they were trying to kill them off. That was 'outside' but not tourism, I won't watch animals starve, never.

Are you one of the family who takes more advantage of that by actually immersing yourself into the countries as opposed to just visiting, or would you say that’s actually a similar approach many oligarchs take?

• Absolutely, they are there for business and nothing else. I do want to see more of those countries but they don't, it might be the age difference too or just the fact they aren't interested in that more surface level of the society. If we have no ties to a culture we rarely mix like that, it's just business. They saw me getting involved with the music industry as running away with the circus and they still managed to rig that too, when I found out I left the position. I'm not sure what Oligarchs do when they travel because I tend to not like them. They have security to protect their money, we have security to protect our Families. I think a lot of it is that they just had to adopt an image in such a short amount of time. They took that image from what they thought money meant, it was a kind of willingness to conform to a stereotype for the sake of being seen. We're more discrete, except in that gender divide. The girls are less discrete, with my Partner he chooses a look he likes on me, I don't choose. I trust that it fits his tastes, which are I would say rather refined. We are a good match and I'm thankful for that.

It’s interesting how even the harsh realities of living in a more unstable country like in the Balkans seep into their pop music.

• The Balkans are strange, serious and strange. People went through so much and their politics are hard sometimes to try to grasp. It reminds me of Lebanon, some of the people have been through the worst times and they still manage to smile. I think with that pop singer I like she was seen as a trophy and so the most powerful warlord in the country claimed her. He was a really bad person.

Fun fact: Germany is obsessed with rap and it’s their leading music genre I’ve found. At least among the young generation that I mostly interact with. I saw someone mentioning Breton recently and I think it was probably you. I did a little deep dive into the language after that. It was fascinating to learn about it! I love learning about those little tidbits of cultures and languages that are near-extinction.

• That actually is a surprise, I thought maybe Techno, or Hardcore Music, maybe that's a stereotype. The last time I was in Germany they were testing ballistics on some cars. It's to show the client that you are buying a product that works. They thought if I went along it would give me some kind of piece of mind. It didn't, technically it was Bavaria. They do a lot of that kind of thing in that region, usually because those German car companies have a presence there. I'll have to find some German rap to try out.

Breton is really interesting and Brittany, Normandy are both beautiful. It's sort of like England, but with French people. It's very quiet too, and quaint which is probably why I like the language. I toured the battlefields there with that man from the countryside, he was determined to teach me the actual results of conflicts and war, then he brought me to concentration camps. I'll never forget that, never.

What you said about musicians doing it for the love of the music versus filmmakers doing it for the money rings true to me. I think there is a contingent of filmmakers who are big enough to be able to make what they want and truly care for the art, but a lot of it is commercialised and there exclusively for profits.

• I think it's down to genre/type. Some of the biggest names in Metal and Rock played to so many people those nights and when I talked to the more humble ones they said I often just play for myself and see it as jamming out with my friends. I then understood that once the house lights were off the crowd was pitch black unless they had phones. Phones aren't all that Metal, people just want to enjoy the music not a screen. Metal artists don't get paid a lot unless you are talking about the big three like Slayer/Metallica/Megadeth but some will say the big three are Sabbath/Maiden/Judas Priest, that's a matter of perspective and taste and I have a lot of taste when it comes to Metal. As a whole Metal doesn't make the same numbers as Rock so a lot of those guys are just there for the music. There are no fans like Metal fans, they are keeping the genre alive, Youtube isn't, nor Spotify, it's concert/festival goers.

With film I saw the director, producer and actor side. The producers were words I can't use here, the directors were approachable and very friendly, cinematographers were always amazed that anyone even knew them but I adore cinematography so I made it a point to spend as much time watching them work. I wasn't there to meet Actors, I enjoyed the practical side, the cameras. Actors were something else, actually I'll use myself as an example. That need I have to make my Partner happy, the overwhelmingly urge, that's how I saw them behave in relation to the camera. Like a drug almost, they needed it but ultimately film was all about the numbers. There are exceptions on the British side like with Pinewood Studios, they were further from that sickly glare that makes you need to be seen. Some Actors went to local pubs, they were more casual. Pinewood was or is the biggest sound stage in Europe, franchises like Bond, Batman, Starwars, Aliens, some Marvel etc all go through there. It has a legacy that goes back to the forties, it was major access to just sit on sets and watch. Nothing happened there that was unsettling, as I said they went to local pubs, mixed with people. Hollywood itself is just vile, it turned me off movies for years. I'll never go back.

Do you know the saying “one for them, one for me” in film? It’s a transaction of wealth and continued prominence as much as any. As for the more ethical seeming rich still being inhuman behind the scenes, I wouldn’t say I’m fooled by that.

• That's what we call legacy. There was a financing connection I can't elaborate on, that word legacy opens doors. Some doors you don't want to see behind.

I feel like the people in power have become only more brazen in recent times as well and nowadays are more likely to say the quiet part out loud.

• It's because they don't care. People did wake up, but did nothing other than throw comments around social media. Then of course they allowed the truth to be swallowed up by conspiracy and when real truths come out they are so peppered with the fantastic that normal people will say that's nonsense and switch to the next channel. It's conspiracy that prevented the actual truth from coming forward, they shoot themselves in the foot by taking something real and adding so many bells and whistles, the truth becomes carnival and the cycle continues. It's hiding in plain sight.

I understand you paint the difference between married and owned as a different type of dynamic, with the former being the more negative one. I do view marriage in somewhat of a romantic light personally, which is another spot where the naïveté comes through, I’m sure. I’ve never actually been in any committed relationship, so I still have a lot of hurt to learn first-hand.

• I don't really see marriage as a negative thing, I understand why two people would do it. I do want two people but I want myself too, so three. I also have a kind of libertine outlook to love, I understand that people see it as normal to only give that part of yourself to one person. I see it differently, but only for my own circumstances, good for whoever conforms to what they believe is their way, especially with love. We're just very old families and our ways are more about the bond between business and association than traditional values, I have values but they are very specific and dated in parts. Ownership to me just like submission means willingly giving yourself to a person, not them taking you by force. It's the ultimate form of trust, and a gift that not many people should or will ever give to another person.

That said, I’ve never understood sharing ownership of all your valuables and your life with someone else, so I think you’re on the right side of that by keeping everything in your name.

• If we did get married it would stay in the Family. I'd keep my name, we do that differently too, no one marries for assets and if they try to take them they have to deal with the consequences. It protects both parties. Everything that's mine is mine, everything that's his is his. I don't even know what he does for a living, his business is his own. He deals with people all day, comes home, and that's where I can help that part of his day. What those stresses are I don't ask, and never will, it's not my place to pry into such things.

I’m sure it’s practical as well for someone in your position, but either way, I don’t think I would want anyone to lay claim to anything I have just by the way we adhere to each other on a legal basis.

• Then you'd like our 'legal system', that kind of thing isn't allowed. I don't believe that you should marry someone, decide to leave one day and then be entitled to half of what they worked for throughout their life. I see it as marrying for who they are, not what they own.

Have you ever heard of a TV show called You’re the Worst? I’m going to spoil a part of how it ends now, so if you’re interested just skip over this part. What I want to say about it is that the way that show ends with them canceling their wedding, sitting in a pancake restaurant and deciding they don’t want to get married and instead choose each other each day might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.

• I've seen very little TV that didn't come on a DVD box-set, they were talking about game-shows on the DeepWeb last weekend and I thought they meant the game awards. I couldn't name a single one. I know they have an island one, a CCTV one, a weight-loss one. Do you watch a lot of TV shows? do you have a favorite? I liked Gilmore Girls, When Calls the Heart, Buffy, Ally McBeal, and a lot of old British comedy.

Is a pancake restaurant a restaurant that only serves pancakes?

I’ve heard of CHVRCHES and it doesn’t surprise me that they’re very queer-friendly, but I’m shocked that even that can get you blocked now within Russia. I don’t even know if they’ve been openly expressing that throughout their music. Even having that opinion on the backside can already result in censorship. Crazy.

• There's a kind of system, a list of sorts. It takes information from all over the web and monitors certain topics and subjects then either censors or limits access. That's how my browser should work, but I use tricks to get around things. I don't know if they are are blocked as in completely, they must have been vocal about gay rights and mentioned my country. That was picked up, analyzed and then fed into that system, that same system is supposed to limit what I see even so far away. It's like how we censor and have control over State TV, just an another extension. If you speak out about gay rights it's like I said an extremist act. They'd think you were trying to pollute my values, I see it as learning.

My parents let me online without supervision from a very young age. I think I was diving into avenues of online socialising as early as eight or nine years old. That said, they would always talk to me about what I did online and make sure that I knew what to avoid and how to deal with certain situations.

• That's the thing I wasn't diving anywhere. At the age of twelve all I had was that ice skating forum. No one dreamed someone would use something like that to reach a child, and maybe they wouldn't but he already knew me offline and knew I was on there. I wanted to see other peoples routines, learn tips from more accomplished figure skaters and make my parents proud. Everything he did was off the surface web. I had no other sites, my entire internet at the time was that forum and that DarkWeb room. I didn't even know what the internet was, no one told me. Then later I found bands by reading peoples social media pages, then I think Youtube but at the time the internet to me was one page and one room. Then with Playstation it became people, but the same cycle.

Question, if you had friends offline why did you talk to people online? Just very a different look at cultures, hobbies and interests that weren't local? Did you just want to talk offline and online too?

I count myself lucky there, as I’m sure not everyone in my position there would’ve had the same experience.

• I think it can happen to any isolated child who's handed a computer, a tablet, a phone of a games console. Someone always finds a way in and they are experts. Isolation made me naive but it also provided a blank slate, I was whatever they needed me to to be because in reality I was nothing. That might sound harsh but I understand how they did it, if I didn't own it I'd never be able to live with myself.

I imagine for women it can be all the more dangerous. Even as a kid, I already saw the differences in how girls were being treated compared to myself.

• I think there are two sides, perhaps girls are seen as easier targets, we long for a kind of recognition, to be told we are worth it, a Groomer looks for that. With boys I think it's more about a gift (in video games) or 'you're parents are jerks, I'll be your friend'. They adapt and understand what makes each child tick. If you saw the hundreds of hours of just my PSN logs you'd understand how easy it is. When I do look I see me, but at the same time I don't. Also I kept journals, I wrote and doodled about these people, no one even checked what I was doodling about all the time. In a car, at home I'd do it, not once 'what are you drawing?'. The last time I looked at those journals (yesterday) I sort of detached, I wanted to reach back and say something to the girl who wrote all of that down. Obviously I couldn't.

The types of messages you mentioned are exactly what I think of when it comes to that. I’m glad that you’re paying it forward with your privilege to work with organisations to avoid those types of engagements for the young folks nowadays.

• That's what I see all the time now when and if examples get shared. We're all part of this messed up club where people provide logs and try to understand how to combat it. Entirely anonymous, they don't know me and I don't know them. And yet we see the same thing over and over again.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to start asking questions about queer people? Obviously they shut it down quickly, so I’m sure it wasn’t much of a conversation, but I wonder how old you were when the thought of that first crossed your mind.

• I'm not that old, so this wasn't all that long ago. I've been playing catch-up with media, music etc so if for instance I like a band from a certain year it doesn't mean I was there to even see them. I collect retro games to gain that kind of perspective. With movies it's different because I was raised on older media like Audrey Hepburn, it's probably why I love classical music. It would be t.A.T.u. who made me ask the first question but they were already a known band, if that helps in the time-line. I was cut off from Western TV/media but I did watch some Russian TV and I'd watch their shows. The song Ya Soshla S Uma which you call All The Things She Said, made me ask why they kissed and they kissed on stage too. I was told it's okay for girls to kiss if they have boyfriends, which they did. Then I asked can boys kiss if they had girlfriends and was told absolutely not. It was explained as a kind of tactile thing, as in girls hug sometimes but boys never do. Then I asked what if I kissed a girl and was told that's acceptable (because they planned on getting me a boyfriend) That was basically it. When I joined this site last year I saw people talking about something gay related and when I read the comments (why I originally joined) it became clear that I'd missed something. So I asked a year ago almost to the day. I essentially went my whole life thinking that you are straight if you date girls but already have a boyfriend, and you are gay if two men are involved in any way. Now I don't know what to believe about it. I wasn't meeting Gay groomers online, they all wanted girls and some of them had women who joined the group so actually now that I think of it I saw the same thing there. So no wonder I believed it.

But yeah, when you even discuss it with your partner nowadays and he reacts like that, I can imagine how the topic stays confusing in your head.

• We actually don't talk all that much in general. He likes to talk and I like to listen but we don't talk like say in these posts. Sometimes maybe it might be for half an hour a day, we go out almost every night and we socialize of course but talking not so much. I don't know how stressful his job is but we each know how to comfort each other/etc. I'm not being funny, but how many talking kittens have you met? Sometimes I just look at the humor, but it's true I'm not very vocal at all.

(I need to expand on vocal/next day)

I'm not sure if I have the right word, I see vocal as outward speech, vocal cords. It might sound blunt saying this but if you are in a situation when no one talks to you then you don't talk back. Obviously you learn to talk but it's like learning to swim and not actually getting in the pool. Take for example those three years, they talked and I quietly typed, that became the normal way to communicate. Then once again on the PSN it was the same thing, discord too because I was hiding having those friends. Years later I did work hard to become more vocal but I developed what was called a selective mutism, it means you talk to some people, whisper to others, and shut-down to the rest. I beat that, it's gone but I won't talk to a person until They initiate the conversation. For example if tonight I was out socializing, once my Partner makes the introduction then I will and if it's another language it's a reflection on him too, and my Family. They see it as 'these people make a real effort we can work with them'.

We don't talk the finer points of FromSoft because they don't know what that even is. Neither does my Partner. I'll show him maybe an art-book and say this is the game I'm playing, a translation occurs where he sees the 'game' but through art which he already has an interest in. It's how bridge gaps. He might ask me what I read today and ask for a brief synopsis, today it was a book about Exoplanets and Pulsar Planets by James Trefil a physicist and Michael Summers astronomer. I'll condense what I read and he might find it interesting but my other interests are not as you say economically viable so they aren't discussed. We'll talk about maybe fine art, fashion, theater but that's because we'd just visited an art-show, Fashion week or the theater. I call those shared interests, I have certain old-fashioned tastes. When I do want to jump in the pool so to speak I use different techniques. I developed two methods of singing, inward and outward. One is singing along in your mind, one is out loud. I'm aware someone might hear so I'm not singing along to something heavy, it's lighter. Maybe FlyLeaf is a good example, Lacey Strum has a lot of lighter solo work which seems to be about God and I'll sing that but I'll listen to something like Fire Fire or Reconcile and obviously that's not out loud, absolutely not. Nor would I even attempt to Screamo RarrghrrRR.

It's still selective in a way. I kind of look at music as a language and gaming as a language, the same for all my interests. I'll take each one then learn all I can about it, slot it to the side and switch or toggle to it when I need it, speech is kind of like that. I've used the same way to slot what I needed to be for the other person throughout my whole life, in everything, hence the pet thing, that's just one aspect of a bigger picture and I'm able to select that mind-space and tap into it, some are very automatic it's like a switch, I just don't have it for external speech and it's not something I even think about. There's a song by Depeche Mode called Enjoy the Silence, I enjoy it at times, the silence I mean. I don't know how it works for everyone else, it's something I find normal. I enjoy observing, if I see a car I'm not thinking 'how fast can I go in this', I'm rotating the image in my mind and taking it apart to see how it works, much like my cousin right? We're really not all that different, I just view things more technically. That's why Ravix said I sounded like A.I, I'd read a book about the topic, was able to pull the information from my mind and give the required feedback or answer. You might think that's mechanized thinking, I think it works in my favor.

All the danger that comes with being queer is purely from society and nothing that inherently comes from within. You could quote suicide rates and such, but that’s all societal pressure. You could argue STDs, but that would be less of an issue if it was broadly accepted in these places as proven in the West. You could argue surgeries or hormone therapy in the case of transgender people, but that would also be way better if trans people would have better access to medical care.

• I actually don't know about any of that. I thought the danger was that gay people make weaker soldiers or something, I'm not trying to offend at all, I was told some strange things and look where our armies are right now, more soldiers. It was a kind of on-going Cold War attitude in my life of 'don't trust Westerners' and it was not always subtle, it caused a lot of confusion because they sent me there to live then forbid me from mixing with people. I never thought I'd ever see actual war. I was never given an explanation, no one mentioned STDs. I thought they meant gay men were more feminine and that was seen as part of the strong/weak gender divide. I was never given any kind of explanation. It was something that was never mentioned, never shown to me, and yet I was dating girls too. Hence my preference was a commodity, and still technically is.

What I’m most aware of when it comes to Chechnya is the mass killing of queer people in the last decade. You told me that Russia invaded the region in the 90s. I’m wondering if that then means that it came from a Russian directive or whether Chechnya still has their own people in charge despite being under Russia in modern times.

• I really don't know. I just know I can't sleep at night because of what people who flew that flag did to me. I was told to hate them, I don't. It was six people out of a nation of many. We invaded their country, innocents die in war, men, women, children. Their culture isn't mine so I can't talk about them when I don't have a genuine reference point other than what they left me with. I really do try to not judge people with the same paint brush, that's how things spiral into endless conflict. Did they really kill gay people? did they say why? I don't understand killing people because they love someone.

Either way, what happened to them to start with sounds like a bad situation. It’s so often where terrorist attacks performed by few end up being negatively impactful to so many.

• It's on-going, major attacks make the news media, small things like what happened to me get kept internal. It's seen as politically weak to give into any demands, they always send in soldiers. I asked not to know the other details. I remember some parts clearly, I can hear some of it like a tape on replay but I don't let that one event define their country.

A person of non-native ethnicity performs a bad act and you don’t hear the end of it. A person of native ethnicity does a bad act and it gets a lot less publicity. There’s no other way to look at it other than what you said: racism. That said, countries are so diverse nowadays in terms of ethnicity that it’s hard to even say one ethnicity is the rightful native, but I had to put it in some terms that made it obvious what I meant and didn’t sound prejudiced.

• I understand completely but there's something I didn't mention. I don't see ethnicity when I look at a person. My cousin had her way at slotting people, things, etc. I slot groups, as in my Family, our social circle, our business structure, it's all internal. The external world isn't mine. We technically live on the same globe but our lives are worlds apart. We just go unseen, unheard, move where we move, I have no external friends, no interaction with anyone but the people W/we know. As a core rule ethnicity is not something that stops us from from networking. I could be Albania one day, and maybe Africa days later. We don't see skin colour, we don't get involved with the politics of the region only our country, we're equal opportunists in every sense of the word. That's also where we differ from Oligarchs, it's in our blood to go to where the opportunity is. Their blood is the blood of the people they plundered to get to where they are, we don't plunder, we expand business interests and that means travel. We might not mix with the culture but that doesn't mean we don't respect it. Therefore it's not mine to judge, I don't see skin colour either. I think racism was put in place to destabilize countries, cities and towns. I think it's a tool used to bring in new laws and to distract people from the real problems that exist in the world. It's a follow the Leader attitude. All you need to do is have someone in power point the finger and say 'this is why you have no job', when enough people believe this you have anarchy. The truth is that person ran the country into the ground and needs that distraction. I don't think there are that many racists in the world, just networks with very loud mouths and the means to spread hate. If they do point the finger at a specific country I'd ask them to read a history book, there is a reason for people leaving their lands. I know it too well.

It really shows how times have changed that you were able to unapologetically listen to Lady Gaga, but that now something as mild as CHVRCHES is getting blocked. I didn’t realise until talking to you that even within Russia, queer topics were getting progressively taboo. I just assumed it was taboo to begin with for the most part and that a regression was practically impossible.

• When I started listening to Lady Gaga no one knew she was a gay icon, I even met her and was so nervous I threw up. She had her back-up dancers at that party, she saw everyone as equal, not less than her. I was mortified and she called me darling. I'll never forget that, she was amazing and made what should have been a night from hell something so memorable. I don't get experiences like that a lot but she was different. I was there for someones birthday and she did a show that night in London (never saw it) her crew/etc went back to the same establishment for an private after-party. I knew instantly it was her and ran into the bathroom to hide. I wanted to meet her but I was so nervous. I rarely get that way. Then someone came in, marched me over to her and did the introduction, I'm nervous even typing it. It happened again with a singer you won't know called Sophie Ellis Bextor. I adored her music and when I saw her the first time in person my legs went. It never happened with Metal, I think it was more about the music than the person. I find Metal as a way to connect certain dots, feelings and it kind of serves a way to release those feelings, it was never 'he's handsome', I couldn't even see their faces with all that hair. I saw them both of those women as so glamorous, obviously I liked the music too but they were just so amazing. They both had a certain style, a je ne sais quoi that escapes me.

Q topics are really that extreme now. I know it's terrible to hear, I watched it go from taboo to where it is now and I'll never understand why. I had Lady Gaga CDs at home, I know they are gone. Things sometimes just vanish like that and 'you have far too many things, you misplaced it', I didn't.

Clearly I underestimated quite how much a society can regress on “controversial” topics like these. I’ve definitely heard the thought that gay people will spread their “affliction” to others. It’s basically what every ignorant person thinks in the West as well.

• What if we were always like that? Russia I mean, my friend was raised by two loving parents and Americanized. She did live openly gay, she just never discussed it with me. As a nation we're very stuck in our ways, it might have been below the surface and war was the perfect opportunity to mold the new society. If you drive through Moscow today you'll see propaganda everywhere telling you to fight for your country, to be strong and join up. People in the West think the numbers are going down, they are going up. People on the side-lines got too angry with the EU pushing and threatening that now they do have an opinion and that opinion is to fight back. It's a very dangerous situation, they poked the bear so to speak. They think freezing some assets will make a difference, they aren't seeing the real economy, the off the books economy. I hope war ends sooner than later.

Think of the situations like with drag queens reading books to kids and how that was allegedly going to make the kids queer. It somehow makes sense in their brains, because they don’t consider the other side of it at all where I wasn’t turned straight just by consuming so much straight media.

• I don't really know a lot about drag queens, I've never met one before. It's a man or woman who dresses as the opposite gender for performance right? I missed the part where they read books to children. Is that the same mentality that if a boy dresses as a girl for Halloween they are going to turn gay? when really it's just cos-play. I never understand clothes turning a boy gay, I've worn army fatigues to do training with the guys, it made no difference to my sexuality. I was running around the woods one day then back to being dolled up so to speak the next day. Dress changes nothing.

Like I said, I do find it funny to joke about it, but like you said, it’s only because I’m in a position of privilege geologically that I am able to without repercussions. If I knew I was in a place where this was less accepted, I’d do a lot more to hide queerness as much as I can.

• I've been thinking about that throughout our back and forth. I hate the idea that you'd have to hide who you are just because of something like that, I don't want to say this like a novelty but I never talked to a gay person before and you just seem so open-minded and happy. I don't see why that's a bad thing and I'm not type-casting you as a person. My logical mind just can't see why being happy and in love can be dangerous to anyone, unless of course your Families are rivals and then it's back to my quote. Do you think it's something more primal like the ability to have children? If you lived in Moscow you couldn't hide, I mean it. Someone would call it out, we're a security state. My friend fled for a reason, she had connections but those connections were me, those same connections turned out to be the worst part of our friendship. I never had a real goodbye, I'm assuming she was leaving Russia as I was attending Geneva. She knew what

@Skarasny Thanks Skarasny, it's really interesting how you yourself combine nature and your countries heritage in a way to a daily routine. I didn't expect meditation to be mentioned either but I can see that. I do meditate, but not in a forest. When you talk about the forest and Norway and being in nature you remind me of a musician known as Kristian Espedal, he has a band called Gorgoroth. When they aren't on tour he lives in the woods, far away from people. What he does in there I couldn't tell you because he is a hermit. That connection to nature features throughout his music and through a lot of Black Metal. They replace God with nature and sort of see it as a return to that old ways. Darkthrone are similar, a lot of their music focuses on the forests, snowy peaks, it's not nature worship it's more like a reverence and appreciation of how the landscape shaped their people (Norwegians) especially the winter. By being in nature they see it as almost ancestor worship, like their forefathers they too use nature in their craft, except that their craft is nature.

Do you see animals out there or is it so well walked that they tend to stay away? In Russia we get everything from foxes to bears, you run if you see the latter. They aren't cuddly at all. There are forests around too but going hunting once was enough for a lifetime. I know people need the kill to eat, we didn't. To them it was just sport.

Shopping and all that stuff i avoid as much as possible, too many people and too much noise. I usually walk or go jogging every day in the nature.

• Then you really wouldn't like London. It's not even that it's all consumerism, a lot would be financial and then in the other areas it's tourists. People are usually walking with their heads down looking at a phone, if there was a bear there they'd be done for. I swim, run, daily but obviously not in nature. When I game I exercise too, I met one person on here who does that too, an exercise machine and a PS5.

If somebody told me that i could never go out in nature ever again, i would just lay my head down and die.

• I understand that as part of your heritage so it's in your blood. I'm thinking of a pet I once had, it was small then as it grew bigger it had to go back to the wild. The thinking was that yes it might injure me but also that you can't keep a wild animal caged, they are born in the wild and it's their home. They need it like we need oxygen, if you remove it you see it in their eyes. If I take what you said and apply it to say a Lion, then I really understand. You see it in their eyes. Something goes out, a light. It's different than what you see in South Africa, those animals are in nature, protected and free to roam.

There is also the historic angle that tells you that humans have coexisted and survived in the wild for thousands of years. The idea of being inside the most of the time is quite new seen in a historic context. Its funny but the thing i miss the most from my hometown is the nature. Shops and people you can find everywhere but the nature isnt so easily replaced.

• I wonder is nature something people take advantage of at the time because it's so normal to their routine, then if they move away and trade that for a bigger town or city, then at some point they grow tired of that more urban environment and want to go back to nature. It does seem that way. Thank you for your answer though really, I didn't expect that at all. It's a really unique perspective and one I didn't think I'd see. Nor did I expect to see The Seventh Seal, I do play chess so I always found that ultimate game of chess with Death to be extremely poetic. The imagery too, it's iconic. Black and what was my first introduction to cinematography. Ted Grand said that if you photograph someone in colour you capture their clothes, if you do it in black and white you capture the soul. That's what Oppenheimer got right too, really the whole movie should have been in black and white except for the actual explosions. They could have easily done what what Schindler's List did, the cast and director would have made up for the lack of colour.

@Ravix Thank you! Please do let me know the results of the lab test. Anyone with 50% or more grease I'm going to have to cut ties with, I'm afraid. It's an allergy thing. I'm happy to hear you'd find my ginormous, billboard-sized head appealing! Attack on Titan really did a big number on us giant-heads. 'twas a lot of bad PR, so it's nice to see someone looking past the propaganda and at our beauty. I know you're straight though, so I'm assuming you found this scene in Silent Hill 4: The Room incredibly attractive.

I haven't opened the news today yet, and after that aggressive roar, I am scared to. I think I'll leave it for now and let myself live in blissful ignorance for a while yet. I'll have to see it eventually! I did hear about Russia banning Roblox to ''avoid children getting in contact with queer content'', because that is obviously a priority over avoiding their contact with predators, but I doubt that's the news you're referring to.

I'll read back to see more of what your rebuilding was about, but for now I'll simply say one thing. It sounded to me like you have surprised yourself in how much progress you've made even lately in getting out of that place in your life. Maybe you initially came out with only satisfactory results, but the fact that you managed positive results at all is no doubt an impressive feat in and of itself. Not to mention that you said you dealt with it completely on your own. Some people might succumb to the pressure or the emotion, but here you persevered and still came out better on the other side. Whether that's a B-rank or S-rank result, it's one worth celebrating. And if you've felt you've only made more progress since, that means there's hope for you to reach the S-rank yet. And even if not, you're one of the ones who made it at all. Be proud of yourself for that!

@Ravix There's a different way to spell Rawr between Emo and Screamo? I always thought an Emo roar was Rawr. I think it comes down to your definition of the world, you have your world and I have mine. Yours is bigger because you roam at will, mine is smaller because it's interconnected by well worn flight paths and routine, like a cross between an economist and a nomad. I see the world as a very small place but I see yours as a lot bigger. So technically 'the world' does leave me alone. I do like sherburt though and it might not be sugar coated, but it is sweetened, I view the world that way too.

You can always kick your door open and say here I come, get back out there so to speak. I just remembered I did mention the goat, that definitely was a funny time. If it didn't scream I would probably have had a chance to sneak it inside at some point. Goats are actually very Metal too, I just couldn't take the screaming. I think he thought there was someone in the trunk. The absolute last thing he expected was that goat. I had to hand that apology note directly to the farmer and compensate him. I don't know what he was thinking. I saw his chickens that day too, not as in I tried to take any. He showed me around, this is a cow etc, it was different. I hadn't really seen where food came from before, I don't think a lot of people do. It was this time of year so here are turkeys translated to, we're going to be eating these soon. Then the Pâté we had translated to, see those ducks? Then the geese were obviously Foie gras.

It should have horrified me but it didn't, it made me appreciate the work that goes into raising/caring for animals, not just the kitchen. In the summer when we had heatwaves, remember some of the worst? I'd go down to the kitchen and sit on some boxes in the freezer and just talk to whoever was cooking. There were no live animals there. I'd only seen a live duck one other time, it goes back to different worlds.

Our versions of normal are quite far apart, even in dining. I'd forgot about that completely, my friend was cooking duck for dinner and asking if I'd ever seen a real duck before so naturally I brought it up. I think now you see where I get some of my strangeness from, but again I don't shoot animals just cardboard and paper. They call home the Wild Wild East for a reason. I forget all kinds of things like that, it's just so normal. Or rather in your world it's not, but in mine it is. Someone once asked me if I played Call of Duty and I replied 'only in real life', I meant going to the forest to learn how to handle everything properly, they just didn't get it. I'm not learning so I can go to another country and take it over, it's self preservation and I treat it seriously. I tried Krav Maga but didn't have enough force to topple anyone.

I've never screamed into a pillow, I might have punched one before. If I screamed into a pillow it would look like the Turin Shroud, except in make-up.

@Tjuz - That last part got cut off, it was supposed to be the following.

I've been thinking about that throughout our back and forth. I hate the idea that you'd have to hide who you are just because of something like that, I don't want to say this like a novelty but I never talked to a gay person before and you just seem so open-minded and happy. I don't see why that's a bad thing and I'm not type-casting you as a person. My logical mind just can't see why being happy and in love can be dangerous to anyone, unless of course your Families are rivals and then it's back to my quote. Do you think it's something more primal like the ability to have children? If you lived in Moscow you couldn't hide, I mean it. Someone would call it out, we're a security state. My friend fled for a reason, she had connections but those connections were me, those same connections turned out to be the worst part of our friendship. I never had a real goodbye, I'm assuming she was leaving Russia as I was attending Geneva.

She knew what was coming and got out. She was/is a very smart woman, very outspoken, even to the point of questioning my role in my Family, you'd like her. I can't say I've ever been proud of a friend because she was the only one but I'm proud of her. I'm sure he's fine. I didn't see her as running, I saw it more like flying out of a cage, like a trapped bird. Some people need to fly, she did. I'm happy for her, she's smart I'm sure she has her own business up and running now. I'm sure she's fine.

If you add more I'll do a new post reply (just let me know first so I notice) there might be some spelling mistakes too. That edit option is being strange.

I need to add because you said older man. Is that odd to you? That's not a forced preference. If you watch that Halsey music video called Blue you'll get it. I can appreciate how a boy my own age looks, recognize they have very nice looks, sharply dressed but I'm missing the part that forms an attraction with them. With girls it's those same features and same age but I do form that attraction. In that music video it's a similar thing but instead of her admitting it things spiral and it all comes crumbling down. Maybe I've not had the other thing so I don't know from experience. She has to hide it, battle with those mixed up emotions, I'm not. If there was a kind of confusion there I wouldn't be able to do what he needs or wants me to do, it just wouldn't work. It would be you like trying to like girls, or worse, pretending to like girls but really you know you liked boys except that I'm switching age with gender. And yes maybe it's a direct result of everything else, and probably is but if your mind and body react to something specific it has to be right.

@GirlVersusGame the spelling thing I was just being silly. I hadn't seen it spelled that way for a while, is all, so I thought I would revert to that whilst genuinely just screaming into the void a bit 🙂 I enjoyed your comment a few days back, paté the duck et al. You should have definitely adopted the duck! And maybe the makeup thing made me laugh too. For context on what I was babbling about the world though, read on

@Tjuz the news was the Nato 'we must prepare for war' thing, I wrote a full reply but never posted it. I've since shut off my mind to it, I fell into the trap of caring too much about things I can't change. A society or community completely free from all that nonsense would be lovely, it really would, it is my deepest desire to be cut off from all of it and exist only with like minded people free from all of that, but i'm not going to dwell. I don't have the energy to rebel. I have been worn down by the world and was simply screaming into the void to get it off my chest. We just have to get on as best we can, there are sadly no ideals.

Also. Grease results came in. Worryingly it sits at 49% so I fear for us. We may not make it 😢

Phwoar! I don't play horror games. But no one told me they had giant faces thrust upon the player like this. I might have to investigate further... for scientific research purposes and nothing more... (why have I invented this weird kink for myself? I am fully commited to the bit now 😂) you must show me more of these giant faces