-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 - --- title: "Foreword" date: "1970-01-01" section: "0" chapter: "01" - --- If there’s one lesson that writing essays in high school taught me, it would be that the beginning and end are the hardest parts of creating something. Whenever it came time to write an essay, I would always know what idea I wanted to get across, but I wouldn’t know how to introduce it. I struggled with this for a while. Eventually I found my niche: I would put a few sentences at the beginning of the essay that would sort of summarize the point I was trying to get across. My teachers called it a hook, and it definitely served that purpose. But, for me, it served as more of a guide point than an introduction. It would help me make sure that I was staying on track and on point for the essay. This entire foreward fulfills that same purpose for this entire book. I’ve been thinking about writing a book for a while, but I don’t know why. I should be done with writing under this pseudonym. I’ve mostly healed my trauma. My writings were mostly a way to help me understand in a weird roundabout way what I was frustrated or anxious or scared about. They're hard for even me to follow. And yet, I’m continuously drawn to the idea of writing a book. I’ll maybe go a week without thinking about it, but then some scene pops into my head and I really enjoy playing it out. To get you caught up on how weird the world I've made is, let me summarize: * The protagonist of the story is a gay teen named Anthony. He suffers from mild anxiety, depression, and a social skill deficit. His main interests are basketball, videogames, and hacking. * The stories were primarily about Anthony interacting with his friends, who have an interesting array of sexualities, interests, social backgrounds, and their own social/psychological problems. * Anthony is part of a crime family with the last name “Bayer”. They have immense wealth and technological will. They use their crime skills to manipulate the stock market to grow their wealth. * The antagonist of the story, Trevor, is Anthony’s half-brother. Trevor Is gay, and is part of another crime family in Los Angeles. They both go to the same high school, and they both understand each other really well. They sort of fall in love. Trevor ends up killing himself. * Anthony’s crime family is part of a massive worldwide organization called “The Insurance Company” they stated out as well, an insurance company that wagered and allowed for more efficient allocation of resources. It’s since grown and provides a lot of other services. * Anthony goes to a charter school which is kinda a weird experiment/proof on what would happen if a public school had immense funding. The school has a budget of around $50,000 per student per year. It receives the regular funding as a charter school but relies on donations to fund itself. This is the brain child of the school’s principal (who is a pedophile and child pornographer). She also is well aware that the school caters to people like Anthony and his sister. * The school also has very strong social support, including paying any costs for students who can't afford them (including three meals a day). It can also permanently house students when needed. * The Insurance Company is headquartered in a self-sustaining facility somewhere under Züruch. Thousands of people live in a small city-like town that has a simulated day-night cycle.. The facility expands down for kilometers. * The Insurance Company is very technologically sophisticated. The director of The Insurance Company, Mr. Sanchez, possesses multiple bodies. He’s the heir of the organization’s founder. He prefers to be a 10-12 year old ish version of himself because he finds it intimidating. He is in at least a dozen places at any given time. If you haven’t read the stories you’re probably wondering what the actual fuck is going on. The latter bits of that list are really weird. Like, seriously, what the actual FUCK is going on with Mr. Sanchez? As I understand it—and yes, I don't understand a lot of it—all the details ranging from the name Anthony to Mr. Sanchez's weirdness are just projections of emotions I had at the time I wrote the first story featuring the detail. Even if you have read the stories you might still be at least dazed by that list. My friend Tim sure was when I first showed it to him. I didn’t really do a good job depicting a lot of those points. You might have a better shot if you read the stories all at once instead of across years. I improvised a lot, and I made a lot of continuity errors that I kind of handled but not directly. So if these stories are just a way for me to express my emotions, and those emotions are properly handled, why the fuck do I wanna write a book version of them so bad? I think it’s for two reasons: posterity and fun Like I said, my stories are kinda bad. I want to properly explain what I was feeling, and why I think it was particular to me. I will be publishing chapters linearly and in real time, meaning that the date listed on each chapter is the date the event happened. This also means I will not be able to go back to change or fix anything, so I will need to plan well ahead. Maybe that planning will teach me something. I also really fucking like the world I’ve created and would love to properly explore it. So if this sounds interesting to you, please read ahead. All of this will be available for free on the Internet, so if it sucks there’s no harm no foul. Do be warned, however, that this book will touch on a lot of heavy topics. I do exaggerate them and dramatize them, but you should understand that real people suffer from these problems. They also heal from them all the time. If you feel like you need to take a break, you probably should. 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