commit ce5168ff443c9d7d6d9f5f2ac6ac4adda034852c Author: Solstice Avaroe Date: Wed Mar 27 02:55:34 2019 +0000 epic lol diff --git a/about.txt b/about.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce83e93 --- /dev/null +++ b/about.txt @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +About me / FAQ +============== + +(last updated 3-3-2019) + +// Who are you? + +You can call me Seliph, or Lucina, or Vane, or Solstice, or whatever other name best represents how you know me. I answer to all, although my reaction might be slightly different. + +Consider me the red-headed black sheep of the unixverse. Your quirky little brother who has no idea what he's doing, but tries his best all the same. + +I write books and complain about the modern internet. + +I'm nineteen years old. I'm nonbinary, if that kind of thing matters to you. + +Also, I really apologise if you don't like HTML. I find it works better in screenreaders- more varied voice inflection- and I don't know how long I'll be alive, let alone how long until my eyes give out. + +// What's a MayVaneDay? + +It's the name of my website, formerly just my blog, that I started mid-2015. It started off as a terrible WordPress roleplaying log, then slowly branched out into more and different things as my family ceased surveilling my internet usage. I converted it into a plaintext website early 2018, where it sat solely on Neocities for about seven months before a misunderstanding regarding a post I made about my poor experiences in the Tumblr fictionkin community got me harassed off the site. Now I have three HTTP mirrors and four Gopher mirrors of the site, so if one place goes sour, I can up and leave and resettle elsewhere without a replay of the devastation of October 2018. + +// Are you mentally okay? + +It's debatable. + +// How can I contact you? + +email: rennica@tutanota.com (checked once a week) +xmpp: seliph@disroot.org (checked daily) +fediverse: lucina@mastodon.sdf.org (checked rarely) + +My GPG public key is in the /mayvaneday folder. + +// Gopher mirrors + +tilde.team: gopher://tilde.team/1/%7esolstice +circumlunar.space: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/1/%7eseliph/ +sdf.org: gopher://gopher.club/1/users/lucina/ diff --git a/abstain/aws.md b/abstain/aws.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b931dc --- /dev/null +++ b/abstain/aws.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +# GOOD WEBSITES THAT DON'T USE AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS) AND ARE THUS DOUBLE GOOD + +- tilde.team + +- searx.me + +- bitwarden.com (suspected Google Analytics, though) + +# GOOD WEBSITES THAT USE AWS (VERY BAD. VERY DISAPPOINTING) + +- keybase.io + +- duckduckgo.com + +# NEUTRAL-BAD SERVICES THAT USE AWS + +- aptoide.com + +- literally every preinstalled samsung app on Android diff --git a/docs/anarplex/bridging-the-gap.txt b/docs/anarplex/bridging-the-gap.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c41a62 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/anarplex/bridging-the-gap.txt @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +Bridging the Gap - From Etienne de la Boetie to Global Guerillas + +In his famous essay, the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, french philosopher +and political thinker, Etienne de la Boetie, makes the one observation that +can explain every revolution, every political change and every advancement in +freedom. If the people stop supporting their tyrants, not even actively +bringing him down, but just removing their support for his actions, he will +fall under his own weight. After all, every tyrant and even every group of +tyrants is in the minority - by far. Even the bloated Big Governments of +today are just tiny percentages of the overall population. If the people +removed their support in the form of paying their money as taxes, no police +hug, politician or bureaucrat would get paid day after tomorrow. The state +lives hand to mouth all day, every day. The state doesn't save. + +There is one problem of course - there is no such entity as The People(tm). +There are only individuals. And while The People might count millions and be, +overall, immune to the tyrants' attacks, the individual is only a single +erson and quite vulnerable to any punitive or retributive action of even a +small group of tyrant thugs. Think of the tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown. +Think of Ghandi, who was put in jail for years. Scaring the individual is the +only tactic the tyrant has. For if all individuals feel alone and scared, +they won't dare remove their support. They'll fear being the one who gets hit +by overly cruel and over the top punishment for stepping out of line. + +So how does one advance the cause of freedom for himself and others? + +Think superempowerment. Coined by John Robb of GlobalGuerillas.typepad.com, +the term superempowerment describes technology, infrastructure, knowdledge +and systems that enable the individual to have an impact far beyond his own +means. It could be described as the capitalization or arming of every +individual. A single man must work all day just to feed himself and stay +alive. But a man working in a highly capitalized factory and armed with +knowledge about production is able to earn hundreds of dollars in only eight +hours each day. Those dollars will buy him food, shelter, clothes, energy, a +car and much more. The productivity of the single person is greatly elevated +due to capital being invested in his work. + +This seems like an obvious answer. Capitalize the individual. Superempower +every person on the planet to opt out of the system if they so desire. When a +voter dislikes the behaviour of a politician, removing his support for the +politician should be as easy as sending out an email or stopping a monthly +transfer on his bank account. + +John Robb describes single individuals creating millions of dollars of damage +per day by cutting oil pipelines or removing other vital bottlenecks in +resource flow. That's not what is needed for toppling the tyrants. To remove +their support of the government, what people need most is quite simple. The +ability to stop paying taxes, and the safety from government retribution for +doing so. + +As almost all countries nowadays force employers to pay taxes from their +employees' wages, few people have the choice to not pay taxes. To make this a +possibility, there needs to exist a simple and obvious way to pay employees, +shop owners and other trade partners without using the traditional routes. +This could take the form of cash, encrypted online-payments or silver coins. + +To make sure that nobody, while wagering the possibility to stop his support +for tyranny, has to fear the tyrant's retribution, there need to exist safety +mechanisms. This means the ability to hide payments from government control. +In principal, this is easy. One just has to keep ones cash under the mattress +instead of putting it on a government-inspected bank account with Bank of +America. While neither trade partner tell on each other, government has +little knowledge of their activities. That is, if they stick to untracked +methods of payment, not bank wires, official cheques and credit cards. +Government has historically been desperate enough to crack down on ordinary +citizens, searching their premises for "illegal" money, gold, jewelery and +other forms of possible barter or payment. But technically, this is +impossible to do with everyone, as long as the tracked methods of payment are +avoided. Government cannot possibly break into the houses of 300 million +people each and every day, looking if there's a bundle of cash under the +mattress this time. Only the superempowerment of government thugs, by way of +cooperating credit card companies and bank institutions can enable this. If +one stays clear of those, one should be able to hide every cash transaction. + +While government may collapse if The People(tm) all started using +crypto-currencies today, it's not very likely that everyone will do so at the +same time. There will be people who are first do go off the radar, and those +people might get unneeded attention for just that - getting of the +governments financial radar. If Joe earns $200,000 a year in 2010, but $0 in +2011, yet still drives his Mercedes and moves into a new, luxurious home, the +tyrant will smell deceit. Thus, especially in the beginnings, one must find +ways to hide the move from tracked payments to free payments. There are many +ways to accomplish this. Slowly reduce your official working hours, but +continue working for free payment on the side. Take a year off to live off +your savings, while secretly working for free money. Move your company off +shore. Don't drive your new car around the IRS building while claiming you've +lost your job. Actually, lose your job. Big Government will be happy to hide +your ass for you. + +But protecting individuals willing to opt out from government is only one side +of the coin. There also needs to be protection from those willing to exploit +the opting out and the concurring loss in government power on ones side. For +example, I can't go to the police and claim someone didn't pay me the 500 +gold coins he promised without attracting a lot of unwanted attention. In +fact I'd probably go to jail for trading something worth 500 gold coins and +not giving government it's fair share. Private institutions that protect free +individuals, without forcing them to resort to government power to enforce +their contracts, need to step in. There are of course countless forms and +niches. Private arbitration of contract disputes. Private defense. Private +insurance against theft, accident or other loss. Third party guarantors that +make sure both parties consent to the trade before releasing the payment. As +these are free institutions, not backed by coercion or goverment power, they +can't rely on either to work. They need to function on a purely voluntary +basis. This can be accomplished by systems of trust, recommendation, +ostracizm and many other techniques. + +For these to function properly, secret communication is key. Nobody can help +others defy the tyrant if the tyrant can read their emails. That means +encryption, private darknets and alternative intra- or internets. + +Consider an example. A group of free entrepreneurs decide to form an insurance +pool against being robbed by tyrant thugs. In case any one of them is being +robbed by a government entity, they all split the loss. What is needed to +make this insurance against robbery work? For one, they need a form of paying +each other without drawing attention of the thugs. If each insurance payment +led to further robbery, the pool wouldn't work. The person suffering the +damage and receiving the payment also needs ways of using his compensation +without drawing attention. This most likely means ways of shopping for goods +and services without being tracked by the government. To make the whole +insurance system work, the participants need to communicate in secret. Even +sending encrypted email to one another is likely suspicious. Tyrants can draw +connections between them even without knowing what they actually wrote each +other. Any messages between them need to be sent over channels that disguise +both the sender and the receiver to outsiders. + +All considered, most of the technical infrastructure is already developed. +There are encrypted currencies. There is encrypted email. There are multi-hop +VPN services, proxies and darknets. To superempower an individual willing to +opt out of supporting tyranny, these technologies must be available to the +layperson at the tip of his finger. He must first learn about their +existance, be able to use them without much hassle and trust them with his +money. + +The technological part is developed enough. What's needed is entrepreneurs, +delivering those technologies in the hands of the people waiting for them. +For if the people each decide to withdraw their support of the tyrant, and +for $9.99/month are able to do so, the tyrant will indeed topple. + +*** + +http://anarplexqtbch57j.onion/hosted/files/bridging_the_gap.txt \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/anarplex/declaration-of-separation.txt b/docs/anarplex/declaration-of-separation.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27da540 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/anarplex/declaration-of-separation.txt @@ -0,0 +1,194 @@ + +Declaration of Separation + +[ + + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- + Hash: SHA1 + + = A Declaration of Separation = + + ==== To The Governments & People of Earth: ==== + We claim the right to exist, and we will defend it. + We do not seek to overthrow anything. We do not seek to control anything. We + merely wish to be left alone. + All we ever wanted was to live in peace with our friends and neighbors. For a + long, long time we bore insults to our liberty; we took blows, we did what we + could to avoid injury and we worked through the system to get the offenses to + stop. That has now changed. + We no longer see any benefit in working through the world?s systems. At some + point, working within a system becomes cowardly and immoral; for us, that + point has arrived. + Regardless of the parties in power, their governments have continued to + restrict, restrain and punish us. We hereby reject them all. We hereby + withdraw from them all. We hold the ruling states of this world and all that + appertains to them to be self-serving and opposed to humanity. + We now withdraw our obedience and reclaim the right to strike back when + struck. We will not initiate force, but we do reserve the right to answer it. + We did not choose this ? it was forced upon us. + + ==== To The Governments of Earth: ==== + You are building cages for all that is human. In the name of protection, you + have intruded into all areas of human life, far exceeding the reach of any + Caesar. You claim ultimate control of our property and our decisions, of our + travels and even our identities. You claim ownership of humanity far beyond + the dreams of any Emperor of any previous era. + Understand clearly: We reject your authority and we reject your legitimacy. We + do not believe that you have any right to do the things you do. You have + massive power, but no right to impose it upon us and no legitimacy. We have + forsaken you. We are no longer your citizens or your subjects. + Your systems are inherently anti-human, even if all their operators are not. + We are not merely angry young people. We are fathers and mothers; aunts, + uncles and grandparents; we are business owners and trusted employees; we are + mechanics and engineers and farmers. We are nurses and accountants and + students and executives. + We are on every continent. + This is not a burst of outrage; this is a sober declaration that we no longer + accept unearned suffering as our role in life. + For long decades we sat quietly, hoping that things would turn around. We took + no actions; we suffered along with everyone else. But after having our limits + pushed back again and again, we have given up on your systems. + If our fellow inhabitants of this planet wish to accept your rule, they are + free to do so. + We will not try to stop them. We, however, will no longer accept your + constraints upon us. + - - From now on, when you hurt us, we will bite back. If you leave us alone we + will leave you alone and you can continue to rule your subjects. We are happy + to live quietly. But if you come after us, there will be consequences. + You caused this because of your fetish for control and power. The chief men + and women among you are pathologically driven to control everyone and + everything that moves upon this planet. You have made yourselves the judge of + every human activity. No god-king of the ancient world ever had the power that + your systems do. + You have created a world where only the neutered are safe and where only + outlaws are free. + + ==== To The People of Earth: ==== + We seek nothing from you. We do not want to rule you and we do not want to + control you. + All we wish is to live on earth in peace. As always, we will be helpful + neighbors and generous acquaintances. We will remain honest business partners + and trustworthy employees. We will continue to be loving parents and + respectful children. + We will not, however, be sacrificial animals. We reject the idea that others + have a right to our lives and our property. We will not demand anything from + you, and we will no longer acquiesce to any demands upon us. We have left that + game. We reject all obligations to any person or organization beyond honesty, + fair dealing and a respect for human life. + We will shortly explain what we believe, but we are not demanding that you + agree with us. All we ask is that you do not try to stop us. Continue to play + the game if you wish; we will not try to disrupt it. We have merely walked + away from it. + We wish you peace. + + ==== To Those Who Will Condemn Us: ==== + We will ignore you. + We welcome and seek the verdict of a just God, before whom we are willing to + expose our innermost thoughts. Are you similarly willing? + We would stand openly before all mankind if it were not suicidal. Perhaps some + day we will have to accept slaughter for our crime of independence, but not + yet. + Your criticism and your malice are much deeper than mere disagreements of + strategy or philosophy. You do not oppose our philosophy, you oppose our + existence. Our presence in the world means that your precious ideals are + false. Some of you would rather kill us than face the loss of your ideologies, + just as those like you have either hated or killed every sufficiently + independent human. + You present yourselves to the world as compassionate, tolerant and + enlightened, but we know that your smooth words are costumes. Oh yes, we know + you, servant of the state; don?t forget, we were raised with you. We played + with you in the schoolyard, we sat next to you in the classroom. Some of us + studied at the same elite universities. We watched as you had your first + tastes of power. We were the boys and girls standing next to you. + Some of us were your first victims. We are not fooled by your carefully + crafted public image. + + ==== What We Believe ==== + #1: Many humans resent the responsibilities that are implied by consciousness. + We accept those responsibilities and we embrace consciousness. Rather than + letting things happen to us (avoiding consciousness), we accept + consciousness and choose to act in our own interest. + We do not seek the refuge of blaming others, neither do we take refuge in + crowds. We are willing to act on our personal judgment, and we are willing + to accept the consequences thereof. + + #2: We believe in negative rights for all: That all humans should be free to + do whatever they wish, as long as they do not intrude upon others; that no + man has a right to the life, liberty or property of another; that we oppose + aggression, fraud and coercion. + + #3: We do not believe that our way of life, or any other, will make life + perfect or trouble-free. We expect crime and disagreements and ugliness, and + we are prepared to deal with them. We do not seek a strongman to step in and + solve problems for us. + We agree to see to them ourselves. + + #4: We believe in free and unhindered commerce. So long as exchanges are + voluntary and honest, no other party has a right to intervene ? before, + during or after. + + #5: We believe that all individuals should keep their agreements. + + #6: We believe that honestly obtained property is fully legitimate and + absolute. + + #7: We believe that some humans are evil and that they must be faced and dealt + with. We accept the fact that this is a difficult area of life. + + #8: We believe that humans can self-organize effectively. We expect them to + cooperate. We reject impositions of hierarchy and organization. + + #9: We believe that all humans are to be held as equals in all matters + regarding justice. + + #10: We believe that the more a man or woman cares about right and wrong, the + more of a threat he or she is perceived to be by governments. + + #11: We believe that there are only two true classes of human beings: Those + who wish to exercise power upon others ? either directly or through + intermediaries ? and those who have no such desires. + + #12: Large organizations and centralization are inherently anti-human. They + must rely upon rules rather than principles, treating humans within the + organization as obedient tools. + + ==== Our Plans: ==== + We are building our own society. We will supplement traditional tools with + networking, cryptography, sound money, digital currency and anonymous + messaging. Our society will not be centrally controlled. It will rely solely + on voluntary arrangements. + We welcome others to join us. We are looking for people who are independent + creators of value, people who act more than talk, and people who do the right + thing because it is the right thing. + We will develop our own methods of dealing with injustice, built on the + principles of negative rights, restitution, integrity and equal justice. + We do not forbid anyone from having one foot in each realm ? ours and the old + realm - although we demand that they do no damage to our realm. We are fully + opposed to any use of our realm to facilitate crime in the old realm, such as + the hiding of criminal proceeds. + We expect to be loudly condemned, libeled and slandered by the authorities of + the old regime. We expect them to defend their power and their image of + legitimacy with all means available to them. We expect that many gullible and + servile people will believe these lies, at least at first. + We will consider traps laid for us to be criminal offenses. + Any who wish to join us are encouraged to distribute this declaration, to act + in furtherance of our new society, to voluntarily excel in virtues and to + communicate and cooperate with other members of the new society. + + Free, unashamed men cannot be ruled. + + We are The Free and The Unashamed. + + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- + Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) + + iEYEARECAAYFAkqDOrsACgkQfTNN/LMh9oPejwCgqchXQ3VehtQb8xmsYR1Rd4Sa + xYIAoIfE0e+ESBaqaoI5TKS29jeGEtBO + =lDT4 + -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- + +] + +*** + +http://anarplexqtbch57j.onion/hosted/files/declarationseparation.html \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/anarplex/fifty-things-to-do-now.txt b/docs/anarplex/fifty-things-to-do-now.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e7c7ff --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/anarplex/fifty-things-to-do-now.txt @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ + +Fifty things to do NOW + +[ + + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- + Hash: SHA1 + + Fifty Things To Do NOW! + + 1. Become a part-time entrepreneur, garage-market-dealer, urban farmer, + welder, whatever. Just be productive under your own command. It doesn't + matter what it is; just be directly productive, and directly deal with + suppliers and clients. You'll find it awesomely liberating and it will + be highly useful for the free underground market. + 2. Switch off the TV. Read books! + 3. Socialize with people that share your ethics and that are productive and + respectful. Eat together, discuss, challenge each other, help each + other, have a good time. + 4. Get a safe or safe deposit box. Start moving all the cash you can get in + there, convert at least 30% of your cash to silver and/or gold coins. + 5. Invest in trust. Do minor deals for people on a trust basis. Taking + others at their word, and let yourself be challenged by yours. + 6. Start looking for matches. When you talk with people, memorize what they + do, and if an opportunity comes up, connect them with someone else for a + minor finders fee (a burger, a few beers, whatever). + 7. Join your local LIMA house. (We'll explain this in a future post.) + 8. Travel, but don't go sight-seeing - spend your time getting to know the + people there. Think about business opportunities with them. + 9. Start using aliases and pseudonyms. Get comfortable using them in + real-life situations. + 10. Learn to use cryptography. + 11. Learn ethics and law (not the government law!). + 12. Study logic, especially the fallacies. + 13. Put more cash aside. Use your part-time job as the source of saved cash. + 14. Start to invest cash with people you know, in off the books projects. + Start making micro-loans to people or buy shares in their operations. + 15. Learn basic double-entry book-keeping. Don't waste effort on the + account-numbers they teach you - understand the concept and use it. + 16. Learn to write in code. We all have to use recordings, bookkeeping, + contact books, transaction notes etc. These should be hard to decipher + for someone taking a quick glimpse, and even hard for someone taking + time to analyze them. Use tricks like date-shifting, shorthand, making + up your own terms, etc. Or, if you want to spend a little more effort, + learn to use memorized ciphers, such as memorizing some longer text, + then apply it as a simple shifting-key to what you write, with the page + number or a marker as a keypart. + 17. Tell other producers, entrepreneurs, traders etc that you appreciate + what they do. + 18. Buy primarily from others like you, stay away from the on-the-books + market as much as you can. + 19. When in conflict, ask someone to mediate. Solve conflicts yourself + wherever you can. Use a mutually respected and trusted third party when + necessary. Stay away from state 'justice' whenever you can. + 20. Start respecting secrets. Secrets are good most of the time; + transparency is bad most of the time. Detox yourself from the + 'everything should be in the open' propaganda. + 21. Slowly make your part-time, off-the-books business, your main line of + income. Things like underground dental hygiene are very cool. + 22. Learn that 'off-the-books' means that you really have to excel in what + you do. You have to provide quality. + 23. Don't invest in single deals; invest in relationships with the market. + 24. Get over it: Voting doesn't help at all. + 25. Work with friends to create buying associations and selling + associations. This will give you and others lots of money to save and + lots of money to hide. + 26. Harbor a fugitive. (Good ones, obviously.) + 27. Help someone cross a border without documents. + 28. Offer small merchants silver or gold rather than fiat currency. + 29. Sell your products in silver or gold. + 30. Accept and use digital gold, such as Pecunix or C-gold. + 31. Start a community currency in your town. + 32. Use digital cash, such as eCache. + 33. Use Loom, Truebanc. + 34. Get serious about protecting your Internet traffic. + 35. Get comfortable working your will in the world. + 36. Learn how to work your will beneficially. This is not about being + 'right,' it is about causing benefit. + 37. Fix your mistakes (you will make them). Learn not to repeat them. + 38. Learn how to communicate effectively. Again, this is not about proving + that you are right - this is about getting true ideas into other minds + effectively. + 39. Stop obeying the state in some new way. Tell your friends about your + success doing so. + 40. Get comfortable with the term 'Economic Civil Disobedience.' + 41. Spread the idea that the state is not magic - it is nothing more than a + collection of your neighbors - no more ethical and noble than the lamer + next door. + 42. Learn how to find the false assumptions in arguments. Most public lies + sound okay if you don't find their unspoken assumptions. If they pass + too quickly, find the written version and search for the lie it + contains. + 43. Learn how to disagree with kindness. + 44. Accept the fact that most people are confused and are just barely + hanging on to their last shreds of self-esteem. Understand that state + intellectuals like this condition, as it makes people easier to keep in + line - a little shame goes a long way. + 45. Don't waste your energy on the political crisis de jour. Busy your mind + with more substantial things. Daily political dramas are a time-sink, + and the statists like it. Stop following their script. + 46. Use jurisdictional arbitrage to deprive the state of your money. Work + with friends if the setup costs are too large for you. + 47. Learn to defend yourself, your family, your neighbors and your town. No + state means no military. Until you take this upon yourself, your plans + will always have a gaping hole in their middle. There is no free lunch + here either. Get weapons and be mentally prepared to use them. Decide in + advance how and when you would use them - do not leave it to the emotion + of the moment - that will make a shipwreck of the whole venture. Learn + how to use them safely. + 48. Do something nice for your neighbor. The people who live near you are a + far more important part of your environment than any other. + 49. Help people who suffer undeservedly. No state means you are responsible + for charity. Sure, it will be much easier when the state isn't stealing + all your extra money (or chasing you in hope of theft), but do what you + can now and get used to the process. + 50. Watch over your friends. Notice when they are having a bad day, show + some kindness and concern. If they are overloaded, carry some of their + burden. We all have bad times, and your bad day may come too. Help one + another. Restore one another. + + F&U + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- + Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) + + iEYEARECAAYFAkqDPrQACgkQfTNN/LMh9oOmQwCglh264R2uU04ZP8nJofr14z+q + oKwAn12nd+nevCRt+e7naGViXYWWBEbM + =eM9m + -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- + +*** + +http://anarplexqtbch57j.onion/hosted/files/fiftythings.html \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/gophermap b/docs/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acd6b37 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +A collection of snippets and documents found around the web. +Archived here, in case the originals disappear. + +* diff --git a/docs/poetry/baltimore.txt b/docs/poetry/baltimore.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5610152 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/poetry/baltimore.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +You're such a pretty young thing +bored and apathetic +what do you care if the world +falls down around you +have you retreated +so far from the surface +that you've forgotten +the feel of the sun +on your skin? +Are you here or not +buried in your ipod +wishing this all would +come to an end? +and what if it did +would a twinge of regret +pass the hairs of you're neck +as old systems die +and a new world begins? +crawl back into +that familiar embrace +the comfort of conformity + +such a poor complacent +meek little sheep +looking for a master +waiting for the shepherd +to lead you to the slaughter +on the alter as you die +will you smile satisfied +knowing how he loves +his shepherds pie? + +*** + +gopher://sdf.org/0/users/abaka/poetry/baltimore diff --git a/docs/poetry/starry-eyed.txt b/docs/poetry/starry-eyed.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8b6f77 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/poetry/starry-eyed.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +Don't be surprised +if the stars in your eyes +leave you blinded + +if the things that we dream +fall apart at the seams +they're misguided + +you can't hide that you tried +that it hurt and you cried +don't deny it + +and now you think twice +as your new dreams arise +afraid one more time you might buy in + +then go the days +slipping away +they're behind you + +fading away +the seconds each day +will not try to + +remind you each day +is a step towards the grave +that's our due + +though you're here in this place +one of these days +the world will go on without you. + +*** + +gopher://sdf.org/0/users/abaka/poetry/starry_eyed diff --git a/docs/prim/postmodernism.txt b/docs/prim/postmodernism.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..6722b73 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/prim/postmodernism.txt @@ -0,0 +1,157 @@ +The Catastrophe of Postmodernism + +John Zerzan + +Madonna, "Are We Having Fun Yet?", supermarket tabloids, Milli Vanilli, virtual reality, "shop 'till you drop," PeeWee's Big Adventure, New Age/computer `empowerment', mega-malls, Talking Heads, comic-strip movies, `green' consumption. A build-up of the resolutely superficial and cynical. Toyota commercial: "New values: saving, caring -- all that stuff;" Details magazine: "Style Matters;" "Why Ask Why? Try Bud Dry;" watching television endlessly while mocking it. Incoherence, fragmentation, relativism -- up to and including the dismantling of the very notion of meaning (because the record of rationality has been so poor?); embrace of the marginal, while ignoring how easily margins are made fashionable. "The death of the subject" and "the crisis of representation." + +Postmodernism. Originally a theme within aesthetics, it has colonized "ever wider areas," according to Ernesto Laclau, "until it has become the new horizon of our cultural, philosophical, and political experience." "The growing conviction," as Richard Kearney has it, "that human culture as we have known it...is now reaching its end." It is, especially in the U.S., the intersection of poststructuralist philosophy and a vastly wider condition of society: both specialized ethos and, far more importantly, the arrival of what modern industrial society has portended. Postmodernism is contemporaneity, a morass of deferred solutions on every level, featuring ambiguity, the refusal to ponder either origins or ends, as well as the denial of oppositional approaches, "the new realism." Signifying nothing and going nowhere, pm [postmodernism] is an inverted millenarianism, a gathering fruition of the technological `life'-system of universal capital. It is not accidental that Carnegie-Mellon University, which in the '80s was the first to require that all students be equipped with computers, is establishing "the nation's first poststructuralist undergraduate curriculum." + +Consumer narcissism and a cosmic "what's the difference?" mark the end of philosophy as such and the etching of a landscape, according to Kroker and Cook, of "disintegration and decay against the back- ground radiation of parody, kitsch and burnout." Henry Kariel concludes that "for postmodernists, it is simply too late to oppose the momentum of industrial society." Surface, novelty, contingency -- there are no grounds available for criticizing our crisis. If the representative postmodernist resists summarizable conclusions, in favor of an alleged pluralism and openness of perspective, it is also reasonable (if one is allowed to use such a word) to predict that if and when we live in a completely pm culture, we would no longer know how to say so. + +The primacy of language & the end of the subject + +In terms of systematic thought, the growing preoccupation with language is a key factor accounting for the pm climate of narrowed focus and retreat. The so-called "descent into language," or the "linguistic turn" has levied the postmodernist-- poststructuralist assumption that language constitutes the human world and the human world constitutes the whole world. For most of this century language has been moving to center stage in philosophy, among figures as diverse as Wittgenstein, Quine, Heidegger, and Gadamer, while growing attention to communication theory, linguistics, cybernetics, and computer languages demonstrates a similar emphasis over several decades in science and technology. This very pronounced turn toward language itself was embraced by Foucault as a "decisive leap towards a wholly new form of thought." Less positively, it can be at least partially explained in terms of pessimism following the ebbing of the oppositional moment of the '60s. The '70s witnessed an alarming withdrawal into what Edward Said called the "labyrinth of textuality," as contrasted with the sometimes more insurrectionary intellectual activity of the preceding period. + +Perhaps it isn't paradoxical that "the fetish of the textual," as Ben Agger judged, "beckons in an age when intellectuals are dispossessed of their words." Language is more and more debased; drained of meaning, especially in its public usage. No longer can even words be counted on, and this is part of a larger anti-theory current, behind which stands a much larger defeat than the '60s: that of the whole train of Enlightenment rationality. We have depended on language as the supposedly sound and transparent handmaiden of reason and where has it gotten us? Auschwitz, Hiroshima, mass psychic misery, impending destruction of the planet, to name a few. Enter postmodernism, with its seemingly bizarre and fragmented turns and twists. Edith Wyschograd's Saints and Postmodernism (1990) not only testifies to the ubiquity of the pm `approach' -- there are apparently no fields outside its ken - - but also comments cogently on the new direction: "postmodernism as a `philosophical' and `literary' discursive style cannot straightforwardly appeal to the techniques of reason, themselves the instruments of theory, but must forge new and necessarily arcane means for undermining the pieties of reason." + +The immediate antecedent of postmodernism/poststructuralism, reigning in the '50s and much of the '60s, was organized around the centrality it accorded the linguistic model. Structuralism provided the premise that language constitutes our only means of access to the world of objects and experience and its extension, that meaning arises wholly from the play of differences within cultural sign systems. Levi- Strauss, for example, argued that the key to anthropology lies in the uncovering of unconscious social laws (e.g. those that regulate marriage ties and kinship), which are structured like language. It was the Swiss linguist Saussure who stressed, in a move very influential to postmodernism, that meaning resides not in a relationship between an utterance and that to which it refers, but in the relationship of signs to one another. This Saussurian belief in the enclosed, self-referential nature of language implies that everything is determined within language, leading to the scrapping of such quaint notions as alienation, ideology, repression, etc. and concluding that language and consciousness are virtually the same. + +On this trajectory, which rejects the view of language as an external means deployed by consciousness, appears the also very influential neo-Freudian, Jacques Lacan. For Lacan, not only is consciousness thoroughly permeated by language and without existence for itself apart from language, even the "unconscious is structured like a language." + +Earlier thinkers, most notably Nietzsche and Heidegger, had already suggested that a different language or a changed relationship to language might somehow bring new and important insights. With the linguistic turn of more recent times, even the concept of an individual who thinks as the basis of knowledge becomes shaky. Saussure discovered that "language is not a function of the speaking subject," the primacy of language displacing who it is that gives voice to it. Roland Barthes, whose career joins the structuralist and poststructuralist periods, decided "It is language that speaks, not the author," paralleled by Althusser's observation that history is "a process without a subject." + +If the subject is felt to be essentially a function of language, its stifling mediation and that of the symbolic order in general ascends toward the top of the agenda. Thus does postmodernism flail about trying to communicate what lies beyond language, "to present the unpresentable." Meanwhile, given the radical doubt introduced as to the availability to us of a referent in the world outside of language, the real fades from consideration. Jacques Derrida, the pivotal figure of the postmodernism ethos, proceeds as if the connection between words and the world were arbitrary. The object world plays no role for him. The exhaustion of modernism & the rise of postmodernism ut before turning to Derrida, a few more comments on precursors and the wider change in culture. Postmodernism raises questions about communication and meaning, so that the category of the aesthetic, for one, becomes problematic. For modernism, with its sunnier belief in representation, art and literature held at least some promise for providing a vision of fulfilment or understanding. Until the end of modernism, "high culture" was seen as a repository of moral and spiritual wisdom. Now there seems to be no such belief, the ubiquity of the question of language perhaps telling as to the vacancy left by the failure of other candidates of promising starting points of human imagination. In the '60s modernism seems to have reached the end of its development, the austere canon of its painting (e.g. Rothko, Reinhardt) giving way to pop art's uncritical espousal of the consumer culture's commercial vernacular. Postmodernism, and not just in the arts, is modernism without the hopes and dreams that made modernity bearable. + +A widespread "fast food" tendency is seen in the visual arts, in the direction of easily consumable entertainment. Howard Fox finds that "theatricality may be the single most pervasive property of postmodern art." A decadence or exhaustion of development is also detected in the dark paintings of an Eric Fischl, where often a kind of horror seems to lurk just below the surface. This quality links Fischl, America's quintessential pm painter, to the equally sinister Twin Peaks and pm's quintessential television figure, David Lynch. The image, since Warhol, is self-consciously a mechanically reproducible commodity and this is the bottom-line reason for both the depthlessness and the common note of eeriness and foreboding. + +Postmodern art's oft-noted eclecticism is an arbitrary recycling of fragments from everywhere, especially the past, often taking the form of parody and kitsch. Demoralized, derealized, dehistoricized: art that can no longer take itself seriously. The image no longer refers primarily to some `original', situated elsewhere in the `real' world; it increasingly refers only to other images. In this way it reflects how lost we are, how removed from nature, in the ever more mediated world of technological capitalism. + +The term postmodernism was first applied, in the '70s, to architecture. Christopher Jencks wrote of an anti-planning, pro-pluralism approach, the abandoning of modernism's dream of pure form in favor of listening to "the multiple languages of the people." More honest are Robert Venturi's celebration of Las Vegas and Piers Gough's admission that pm architecture is no more caring for people than was modernist architecture. The arches and columns laid over modernist boxes are a thin facade of playfulness and individuality, which scarcely transforms the anonymous concentrations of wealth and power underneath. + +Postmodernist writers question the very grounds for literature instead of continuing to create the illusion of an external world. The novel redirects its attention to itself; Donald Barthelme, for example, writes stories that seem to always remind the reader that they are artifices. By protesting against statement, point of view and other patterns of representation, pm literature exhibits its discomfort with the forms that tame and domesticate cultural products. As the wider world becomes more artificial and meaning less subject to our control, the new approach would rather reveal the illusion even at the cost of no longer saying anything. Here as elsewhere art is struggling against itself, its prior claims to help us understand the world evaporating while even the concept of imagination loses its potency. + +For some the loss of narrative voice or point of view is equivalent to the loss of our ability to locate ourselves historically. For postmodernists this loss is a kind of liberation. Raymond Federman, for instance, glories in the coming fiction that "will be seemingly devoid of any meaning...deliberately illogical, irrational, unrealistic, non sequitur, and incoherent." + +Fantasy, on the rise for decades, is a common form of the post- modern, carrying with it the reminder that the fantastic confronts civilization with the very forces it must repress for its survival. But it is a fantasy that, paralleling both deconstruction and high levels of cynicism and resignation in society, does not believe in itself to the extent of very much understanding or communicating. Pm writers seem to smother in the folds of language, conveying little else than their ironic stance regarding more traditional literature's pretensions to truth and meaning. Perhaps typical is Laurie Moore's 1990 novel, Like Life, whose title and content reveal a retreat from living and an inversion of the American Dream, in which things can only get worse. + +The celebration of impotence + +Postmodernism subverts two of the over-arching tenets of Enlightenment humanism: the power of language to shape the world and the power of consciousness to shape a self. Thus we have the postmodernist void, the general notion that the yearning for emancipation and freedom promised by humanist principles of subjectivity cannot be satisfied. Pm views the self as a linguistic convention; as William Burroughs put it, "Your `I' is a completely illusory concept." + +It is obvious that the celebrated ideal of individuality has been under pressure for a long time. Capitalism in fact has made a career of celebrating the individual while destroying him/her. And the works of Marx and Freud have done much to expose the largely misdirected and naive belief in the sovereign, rational Kantian self in charge of reality, with their more recent structuralist interpreters, Althusser and Lacan, contributing to and updating the effort. But this time the pressure is so extreme that the term `individual' has been rendered obsolete, replaced by `subject', which always includes the aspect of being subjected (as in the older "a subject of the king," for example). Even some libertarian radicals, such as the Interrogations group in France, join in the postmodernist chorus to reject the individual as a criterion for value due to the debasing of the category by ideology and history. + +So pm reveals that autonomy has largely been a myth and cherished ideals of mastery and will are similarly misguided. But if we are promised herewith a new and serious attempt at demystifying authority, concealed behind the guises of a bourgeois humanist `freedom', we actually get a dispersal of the subject so radical as to render it impotent, even nonexistent, as any kind of agent at all. Who or what is left to achieve a liberation, or is that just one more pipe dream? The postmodern stance wants it both ways: to put the thinking person "under erasure," while the very existence of its own critique depends on discredited ideas like subjectivity. Fred Dallmayr, acknowledging the widespread appeal of contemporary anti-humanism, warns that primary casualties are reflection and a sense of values. To assert that we are instances of language fore- most is obviously to strip away our capacity to grasp the whole, at a time when we are urgently required to do just that. Small wonder that to some, pm amounts, in practice, to merely a liberalism without the subject, while feminists who try to define or reclaim an authentic and autonomous female identity would also likely be unpersuaded. + +The postmodern subject, what is presumably left of subject-hood, seems to be mainly the personality constructed by and for technological capital, described by the marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton as a "dispersed, decentered network of libidinal attachments, emptied of ethical substance and psychical interiority, the ephemeral function of this or that act of consumption, media experience, sexual relationship, trend or fashion." If Eagleton's definition of today's non-subject as announced by pm is unfaithful to their point of view, it is difficult to see where, to find grounds for a distancing from his scathing summary. With postmodernism even alienation dissolves, for there is no longer a subject to be alienated! Contemporary fragmentation and powerlessness could hardly be heralded more completely, or existing anger and disaffection more thoroughly ignored. + +Derrida, deconstruction & diff'rance + +Enough, for now, on background and general traits. The most influential specific postmodern approach has been Jacques Derrida's, known since the '60s as deconstruction. Postmodernism in philosophy means above all the writings of Derrida, and this earliest and most extreme outlook has found a resonance well beyond philosophy, in the popular culture and its mores. + +Certainly the "linguistic turn" bears on the emergence of Derrida, causing David Wood to call deconstruction "an absolutely unavoidable move in philosophy today," as thought negotiates its inescapable predicament as written language. That language is not innocent or neutral but bears a considerable number of presuppositions it has been his career to develop, exposing what he sees as the fundamentally self-contradictory nature of human discourse. The mathematician Kurt G�del's "Incompleteness Theorem" states that any formal system can be either consistent or complete, but not both. In rather parallel fashion, Derrida claims that language is constantly turning against itself so that, analyzed closely, we can neither say what we mean or mean what we say. But like semiologists before him, Derrida also suggests, at the same time, that a deconstructive method could demystify the ideological contents of all texts, interpreting all human activities as essentially texts. The basic contradiction and cover-up strategy inherent in the metaphysics of language in its widest sense might be laid bare and a more intimate kind of knowing result. + +What works against this latter claim, with its political promise constantly hinted at by Derrida, is precisely the content of deconstruction; it sees language as a constantly moving independent force that disallows a stabilizing of meaning or definite communication, as referred to above. This internally-generated flux he called `diff�rance' and this is what calls the very idea of meaning to collapse, along with the self-referential nature of language, which, as noted previously, says that there is no space outside of language, no "out there" for meaning to exist in anyway. Intention and the subject are overwhelmed, and what is revealed are not any "inner truths" but an endless proliferation of possible meanings generated by diff�rance, the principle that characterizes language. Meaning within language is also made elusive by Derrida's insistence that language is metaphorical and cannot therefore directly convey truth, a notion taken from Nietzsche, one which erases the distinction between philosophy and literature. All these insights supposedly contribute to the daring and subversive nature of deconstruction, but they surely provoke some basic questions as well. If meaning is indeterminate, how are Derrida's argument and terms not also indeterminate, un-pin-downable? He has replied to critics, for example, that they are unclear as to his meaning, while his `meaning' is that there can be no clear, definable meaning. And though his entire project is in an important sense aimed at subverting all systems' claims to any kind of transcendent truth, he raises diff�rance to the transcendent status of any philosophical first principle. + +For Derrida, it has been the valorizing of speech over writing that has caused all of Western thought to overlook the downfall that language itself causes philosophy. By privileging the spoken word a false sense of immediacy is produced, the invalid notion that in speaking the thing itself is present and representation overcome. But speech is no more `authentic' than the written word, not at all immune from the built-in failure of language to accurately or definitely deliver the (representational) goods. It is the misplaced desire for presence that characterizes Western metaphysics, an unreflected desire for the success of representation. It is important to note that because Derrida rejects the possibility of an unmediated existence, he assails the efficacy of representation but not the category itself. He mocks the game but plays it just the same. Diff�rance (later simply `difference') shades into indifference, due to the unavailability of truth or meaning, and joins the cynicism at large. + +Early on, Derrida discussed philosophy's false steps in the area of presence by reference to Husserl's tortured pursuit of it. Next he developed his theory of `grammatology', in which he restored writing to its proper primacy as against the West's phonocentric, or speech-valued, bias. This was mainly accomplished by critiques of major figures who committed the sin of phonocentrism, including Rousseau, Heidegger, Saussure, and Levi-Strauss, which is not to overlook his great indebtedness to the latter three of these four. + +As if remembering the obvious implications of his deconstructive approach, Derrida's writings shift in the '70s from the earlier, fairly straightforward philosophical discussions. Glas (1974) is a mishmash of Hegel and Gent, in which argument is replaced by free association and bad puns. Though baffling to even his warmest admirers, Glas certainly is in keeping with the tenet of the unavoidable ambiguity of language and a will to subvert the pretensions of orderly discourse. Spurs (1978) is a book- length study of Nietzsche that ultimately finds its focus in nothing Nietzsche published, but in a handwritten note in the margin of one of his notebooks: "I have forgotten my umbrella." Endless, undecidable possibilities exist as to the meaning or importance-if any-of this scrawled comment. This, of course, is Derrida's point, to suggest that the same can be said for everything Nietzsche wrote. The place for thought, according to deconstruction, is clearly (er, let us say unclearly) with the relative, the fragmented, the marginal. + +Meaning is certainly not something to be pinned down, if it exists at all. Commenting on Plato's Phaedrus, the master of de-composition goes so far as to assert that "like any text [it] couldn't not be involved, at least in a virtual, dynamic, lateral manner, with all the words that composed the system of the Greek language." + +Related is Derrida's opposition to binary opposites, like literal/metaphorical, serious/playful, deep/superficial, nature/culture, ad infinitum. He sees these as basic conceptual hierarchies, mainly smuggled in by language itself, which provide the illusion of definition or orientation. He further claims that the deconstructive work of overturning these pairings, which valorize one of the two over the other, leads to a political and social overturning of actual, non- conceptual hierarchies. But to automatically refuse all binary oppositions is itself a metaphysical proposition; it in fact bypasses politics and history out of a failure to see in opposites, however imprecise they may be, anything but a linguistic reality. In the dismantling of every binarism, deconstruction aims at "conceiving difference without opposition." What in a smaller dosage would seem a salutary approach, a skepticism about neat, either/or characterizations, proceeds to the very questionable prescription of refusing all unambiguity. To say that there can be no yes or no position is tantamount to a paralysis of relativism, in which `impotence' becomes the valorized partner to `opposition'. + +Perhaps the case of Paul De Man, who extended and deepened Derrida's seminal deconstructive positions (surpassing him, in the opinion of many), is instructive. Shortly after the death of De Man in 1985, it was discovered that as a young man he had written several anti-semitic, pro-Nazi newspaper articles in occupied Belgium. The status of this brilliant Yale deconstructor, and indeed to some, the moral and philosophical value of deconstruction itself, were called into question by the sensational revelation. De Man, like Derrida, had stressed "the duplicity, the confusion, the untruth that we take for granted in the use of language." Consistent with this, albeit to his discredit, in my opinion, was Derrida's tortuous commentary on De Man's collaborationist period: in sum, "how can we judge, who has the right to say?" A shabby testimony for deconstruction, considered in any way as a moment of the anti-authoritarian. + +Derrida announced that deconstruction "instigates the subversion of every kingdom." In fact, it has remained within the safely academic realm of inventing ever more ingenious textual complications to keep itself in business and avoid reflecting on its own political situation. One of Derrida's most central terms, dissemination, describes language, under the principle of difference, as not so much a rich harvest of meanings but a kind of endless loss and spillage, with meaning appearing everywhere and evaporating virtually at once. This flow of language, ceaseless and unsatisfying, is a most accurate parallel to that of the heart of consumer capital and its endless circulation of non-significance. Derrida thus unwittingly eternalizes and universalizes dominated life by rendering human communication in its image. The "every kingdom" he would see deconstruction subverting is instead extended and deemed absolute. + +Derrida represents both the well-travelled French tradition of explication de texte and a reaction against the Gallic veneration of Cartesian classicist language with its ideals of clarity and balance. Deconstruction emerged also, to a degree, as part of the original element of the near-revolution of 1968, namely the student revolt against rigidified French higher education. Some of its key terms (e.g. dissemination) are borrowed from Blanchot's reading of Heidegger, which is not to deny a significant originality in Derridean thought. Presence and representation constantly call each other into question, revealing the underlying system as infinitely fissured, and this in itself is an important contribution. + +Unfortunately, to transform metaphysics into the question of writing, in which meanings virtually choose themselves and thus one discourse (and therefore mode of action) cannot be demonstrated to be better than another, seems less than radical. Deconstruction is now embraced by the heads of English departments, professional societies, and other bodies-in-good-standing because it raises the issue of representation itself so weakly. Derrida's deconstruction of philosophy admits that it must leave intact the very concept whose lack of basis it exposes. While finding the notion of a language-independent reality untenable, neither does deconstruction promise liberation from the famous "prison house of language." The essence of language, the primacy of the symbolic, are not really tackled, but are shown to be as inescapable as they are inadequate to fulfilment. No exit; as Derrida declared: "It is not a question of releasing oneself into an unrepressive new order (there are none)." + +The crisis of representation + +If deconstruction's contribution is mainly just an erosion of our assurance of reality, it forgets that reality -- advertising and mass culture to mention just two superficial examples -- has already accomplished this. Thus this quintessentially postmodern point of view bespeaks the movement of thinking from decadence to its elegiac, or post-thought phase, or as John Fekete summarized it, "a most profound crisis of the Western mind, a most profound loss of nerve." + +Today's overload of representation serves to underline the radical impoverishment of life in technological class society -- technology is deprivation. The classical theory of representation held that meaning or truth preceded and prescribed the representations that communicated it. But we may now inhabit a postmodern culture where the image has become less the expression of an individual subject than the commodity of an anonymous consumerist technology. Ever more mediated, life in the Information Age is increasingly controlled by the manipulation of signs, symbols, marketing and testing data, etc. Our time, says Derrida, is "a time without nature." + +All formulations of the postmodern agree in detecting a crisis of representation. Derrida, as noted, began a challenge of the nature of the philosophical project itself as grounded in representation, raising some unanswerable questions about the relationship between representation and thought. Deconstruction undercuts the epistemological claims of representation, showing that language, for example, is inadequate to the task of representation. But this undercutting avoids tackling the repressive nature of its subject, insisting, again, that pure presence, a space beyond representation, can only be a utopian dream. There can be no unmediated contact or communication, only signs and representations; deconstruction is a search for presence and fulfilment interminably, necessarily, deferred. + +Jacques Lacan, sharing the same resignation as Derrida, at least reveals more concerning the malign essence of representation. Extending Freud, he determined that the subject is both constituted and alienated by the entry into the symbolic order, namely, into language. While denying the possibility of a return to a pre-language state in which the broken promise of presence might be honored, he could at least see the central, crippling stroke that is the submission of free-ranging desires to the symbolic world, the surrender of uniqueness to language. Lacan termed jouissance unspeakable because it could properly occur only outside of language: that happiness which is the desire for a world without the fracture of money or writing, a society without representation. + +The inability to generate symbolic meaning is, somewhat ironically, a basic problem for postmodernism. It plays out its stance at the frontier between what can be represented and what cannot, a half-way resolution (at best) that refuses to refuse representation. (Instead of providing the arguments for the view of the symbolic as repressive and alienating, the reader is referred to the first five essays of my Elements of Refusal [Left Bank Books, 1988], which deal with time, language, number, art, and agriculture as cultural estrangements owing to symbolization.) Meanwhile an estranged and exhausted public loses interest in the alleged solace of culture, and with the deepening and thickening of mediation emerges the discovery that perhaps this was always the meaning of culture. It is certainly not out of character, however, to find that postmodernism does not recognize reflection on the origins of representation, insisting as it does on the impossibility of unmediated existence. + +In response to the longing for the lost wholeness of pre-civilization, postmodernism says that culture has become so fundamental to human existence that there is no possibility of delving down under it. This, of course, recalls Freud, who recognized the essence of civilization as a suppression of freedom and wholeness, but who decided that work and culture were more important. Freud at least was honest enough to admit the contradiction or non-reconciliation involved in opting for the crippling nature of civilization, whereas the postmodernists do not. + +Floyd Merrell found that "a key, perhaps the principal key to Derridean thought" was Derrida's decision to place the question of origins off limits. And so while hinting throughout his work at a complicity between the fundamental assumptions of Western thought and the violences and repressions that have characterized Western civilization, Derrida has centrally, and very influentially, repudiated all notions of origins. Causative thinking, after all, is one of the objects of scorn for postmodernists. `Nature' is an illusion, so what could `unnatural' mean? In place of the situationists' wonderful "Under the pavement it's the beach," we have Foucault's famous repudiation, in The Order of Things, of the whole notion of the "repressive hypothesis." Freud gave us an understanding of culture as stunting and neurosis-generating; pm tells us that culture is all we can ever have, and that its foundations, if they exist, are not available to our understanding. Postmodernism is apparently what we are left with when the modernization process is complete and nature is gone for good. + +Not only does pm echo Beckett's comment in Endgame, "there's no more nature," but it also denies that there ever was any recognizable space outside of language and culture. `Nature', declared Derrida in discussing Rousseau, "has never existed." Again, alienation is ruled out; that concept necessarily implies an idea of authenticity which postmodernism finds unintelligible. In this vein, Derrida cited "the loss of what has never taken place, of a self-presence which has never been given but only dreamed of..." Despite the limitations of structuralism, Levi-Strauss' sense of affiliation with Rousseau, on the other hand, bore witness to his search for origins. Refusing to rule out liberation, either in terms of beginnings or goals, Levi-Strauss never ceased to long for an `intact' society, a non-fractured world where immediacy had not yet been broken. For this Derrida, pejoratively to be sure, presents Rousseau as a utopian and Levi-Strauss as an anarchist, cautioning against a "step further toward a sort of original an-archy," which would be only a dangerous delusion. + +The real danger consists in not challenging, at the most basic level, the alienation and domination threatening to completely overcome nature, what is left of the natural in the world and within ourselves. Marcuse discerned that "the memory of gratification is at the origin of all thinking, and the impulse to recapture past gratification is the hidden driving power behind the process of thought." The question of origins also involves the whole question of the birth of abstraction and indeed of philosophical conceptuality as such, and Marcuse came close, in his search for what would constitute a state of being without repression, to confronting culture itself. He certainly never quite escaped the impression "that something essential had been forgotten" by humanity. Similar is the brief pronouncement by Novalis, "Philosophy is homesickness." By comparison, Kroker and Cook are undeniably correct in concluding that "the postmodern culture is a forgetting, a forgetting of origins and destinations." + +Barthes, Foucault & Lyotard + +Turning to other poststructuralist/ postmodern figures, Roland Barthes, earlier in his career a major structuralist thinker, deserves mention. His Writing Degree Zero expressed the hope that language can be used in a utopian way and that there are controlling codes in culture that can be broken. By the early '70s, however, he fell into line with Derrida in seeing language as a metaphorical quagmire, whose metaphoricity is not recognized. Philosophy is befuddled by its own language and language in general cannot claim mastery of what it discusses. With The Empire of Signs (1970), Barthes had already renounced any critical, analytical intention. Ostensibly about Japan, this book is present- ed "without claiming to depict or analyze any reality whatsoever." Various fragments deal with cultural forms as diverse as haiku and slot machines, as parts of a sort of anti-utopian landscape wherein forms possess no meaning and all is surface. Empire may qualify as the first fully postmodern offering, and by the mid-'70s its author's notion of the pleasure of the text carried forward the same Derridean disdain for belief in the validity of public discourse. Writing had become an end in itself, a merely personal aesthetic the overriding consideration. Before his death in 1980, Barthes had explicitly denounced "any intellectual mode of writing," especially anything smacking of the political. By the time of his final work, Barthes by Barthes, the hedonism of words, paralleling a real-life dandyism, considered concepts not in terms of their validity or invalidity but only for their efficacy as tactics of writing. + +In 1985 AIDS claimed the most widely known influence on postmodernism, Michel Foucault. Sometimes called "the philosopher of the death of man" and considered by many the greatest of Nietzsche's modern disciples, his wide- ranging historical studies (e.g. on madness, penal practices, sexuality) made him very well known and in themselves suggest differences between Foucault and the relatively more abstract and ahistorical Derrida. Structuralism, as noted, had already forcefully devalued the individual on largely linguistic grounds, whereas Foucault characterized "man (as) only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a simple fold in our knowledge that will soon disappear." His emphasis lies in exposing `man' as that which is represented and brought forth as an object, specifically as a virtual invention of the modern human sciences. Despite an idiosyncratic style, Foucault's works were much more popular than those of Horkheimer and Adorno (e.g. The Dialectic of Enlightenment) and Erving Goffman, in the same vein of revealing the hidden agenda of bourgeois rationality. He pointed to the `individualizing' tactic at work in the key institutions in the early 1800s (the family, work, medicine, psychiatry, education), bringing out their normalizing, disciplinary roles within emerging capitalist modernity, as the `individual' is created by and for the dominant order. + +Foucault, typically pm, rejects originary thinking and the notion that there is a `reality' behind or underneath the prevailing discourse of an era. Likewise, the subject is a delusion essentially created by discourse, an `I' created out of the ruling linguistic usages. And so his detailed historical narratives, termed `archaeologies' of knowledge, are offered instead of theoretical overviews, as if they carried no ideological or philosophical assumptions. For Foucault there are no foundations of the social to be apprehended outside the contexts of various periods, or epistemes, as he called them; the foundations change from one episteme to another. The prevailing discourse, which constitutes its subjects, is seemingly self-forming; this is a rather unhelpful approach to history resulting primarily from the fact that Foucault makes no reference to social groups, but focuses entirely on systems of thought. A further problem arises from his view that the episteme of an age cannot be known by those who labor within it. If consciousness is precisely what, by Foucault's own account, fails to be aware of its relativism or to know what it would have looked like in previous epistemes, then Foucault's own elevated, encompassing awareness is impossible. This difficulty is acknowledged at the end of The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), but remains unanswered, a rather glaring and obvious problem. + +The dilemma of postmodernism is this: how can the status and validity of its theoretical approaches be ascertained if neither truth nor foundations for knowledge are admitted? If we remove the possibility of rational foundations or standards, on what basis can we operate? How can we understand what the society is that we oppose, let alone come to share such an understanding? Foucault's insistence on a Nietzschean perspectivism translates into the irreducible pluralism of interpretation. He relativized knowledge and truth only insofar as these notions attach to thought-systems other than his own, however. When pressed on this point, Foucault admitted to being incapable of rationally justifying his own opinions. Thus the liberal Habermas claims that postmodern thinkers like Foucault, Deleuze, and Lyotard are `neoconservative' for offering no consistent argumentation to move in one social direction rather than another. The pm embrace of relativism (or `pluralism') also means there is nothing to prevent the perspective of one social tendency from including a claim for the right to dominate another, in the absence of the possibility of determining standards. + +The topic of power, in fact, was a central one to Foucault and the ways he treated it are revealing. He wrote of the significant institutions of modern society as united by a control intentionality, a "carceral continuum" that expresses the logical finale of capitalism, from which there is no escape. But power itself, he determined, is a grid or field of relations in which subjects are constituted as both the products and the agents of power. Everything thus partakes of power and so it is no good trying to find a `fundamental', oppressive power to fight against. Modern power is insidious and "comes from everywhere." Like God, it is everywhere and nowhere at once. + +Foucault finds no beach underneath the paving stones, no `natural' order at all. There is only the certainty of successive regimes of power, each one of which must somehow be resisted. But Foucault's characteristically pm aversion to the whole notion of the human subject makes it quite difficult to see where such resistance might spring from, notwithstanding his view that there is no resistance to power that is not a variant of power itself. Regarding the latter point, Foucault reached a further dead- end in considering the relationship of power to knowledge. He came to see them as inextricably and ubiquitously linked, directly implying one another. The difficulties in continuing to say anything of substance in light of this interrelationship caused Foucault to eventually give up on a theory of power. The determinism involved meant, for one thing, that his political involvement became increasingly slight. It is not hard to see why Foucaultism was greatly boosted by the media, while the situationists, for example, were blacked out. + +Castoriadis once referred to Foucault's ideas on power and opposition to it as, "Resist if it amuses you -- but without a strategy, because then you would no longer be proletarian, but power." Foucault's own activism had attempted to embody the empiricist dream of a theory- and ideology-free approach, that of the "specific intellectual" who participates in particular, local struggles. This tactic sees theory used only concretely, as ad hoc "tool kit" methods for specific campaigns. Despite the good intentions, however, limiting theory to discrete, perishable instrumental `tools' not only refuses an explicit overview of society but accepts the general division of labor which is at the heart of alienation and domination. The desire to respect differences, local knowledge and the like refuses a reductive, totalitarian-tending overvaluing of theory, but only to accept the atomization of late capitalism with its splintering of life into the narrow specialties that are the province of so many experts. If "we are caught between the arrogance of surveying the whole and the timidity of inspecting the parts," as Rebecca Comay aptly put it, how does the second alternative (Foucault's) represent an advance over liberal reformism in general? This seems an especially pertinent question when one remembers how much Foucault's whole enterprise was aimed at disabusing us of the illusions of humanist reformers throughout history. The "specific intellectual" in fact turns out to be just one more expert, one more liberal attacking specifics rather than the roots of problems. And looking at the content of his activism, which was mainly in the area of penal reform, the orientation is almost too tepid to even qualify as liberal. In the '80s "he tried to gather, under the aegis of his chair at the College de France, historians, lawyers, judges, psychiatrists and doctors concerned with law and punishment," according to Keith Gandal. All the cops. "The work I did on the historical relativity of the prison form," said Foucault, "was an incitation to try to think of other forms of punishment." Obviously, he accepted the legitimacy of this society and of punishment; no less unsurprising was his corollary dismissal of anarchists as infantile in their hopes for the future and faith in human potential. + +The works of Jean-Francois Lyotard are significantly contradictory to each other -- in itself a pm trait -- but also express a central postmodern theme: that society cannot and should not be understood as a whole. Lyotard is a prime example of anti-totalizing thought to the point that he has summed up postmodernism as "incredulity toward metanarratives" or overviews. The idea that it is unhealthy as well as impossible to grasp the whole is part of an enormous reaction in France since the '60s against marxist and Communist influences. While Lyotard's chief target is the marxist tradition, once so very strong in French political and intellectual life, he goes further and rejects social theory in toto. For example, he has come to believe that any concept of alienation -- the idea that an original unity, wholeness, or innocence is fractured by the fragmentation and indifference of capitalism -- ends up as a totalitarian attempt to unify society coercively. Characteristically, his mid-'70s Libidinal Economy denounces theory as terror. + +One might say that this extreme reaction would be unlikely outside of a culture so dominated by the marxist left, but another look tells us that it fits perfectly with the wider, disillusioned postmodern condition. Lyotard's wholesale rejection of post-Kantian Enlightenment values does, after all, embody the realization that rational critique, at least in the form of the confident values and beliefs of Kantian, Hegelian and Marxist metanarrative theory, has been debunked by dismal historical reality. According to Lyotard, the pm era signifies that all consoling myths of intellectual mastery and truth are at an end, replaced by a plurality of `language-games', the Wittgensteinian notion of `truth' as provisionally shared and circulating without any kind of epistemological warrant or philosophical foundation. Language-games are a pragmatic, localized, tentative basis for knowledge; unlike the comprehensive views of theory or historical interpretation, they depend on the agreement of participants for their use-value. Lyotard's ideal is thus a multitude of "little narratives" instead of the "inherent dogmatism" of metanarratives or grand ideas. Unfortunately, such a pragmatic approach must accommodate to things as they are, and depends upon prevailing consensus virtually by definition. Thus Lyotard's approach is of limited value for creating a break from the everyday norms. Though his healthy, anti-authoritarian skepticism sees totalization as oppressive or coercive, what he overlooks is that the Foucaultian relativism of language-games, with their freely contracted agreement as to meaning, tends to hold that everything is of equal validity. As Gerard Raulet concluded, the resultant refusal of overview actually obeys the existing logic of homogeneity rather than somehow providing a haven for heterogeneity. + +To find progress suspect is, of course, prerequisite to any critical approach, but the quest for heterogeneity must include awareness of its disappearance and a search for the reasons why it disappeared. Postmodern thought generally behaves as if in complete ignorance of the news that division of labor and commodification are eliminating the basis for cultural or social heterogeneity. Pm seeks to preserve what is virtually non-existent and rejects the wider thinking necessary to deal with impoverished reality. In this area it is of interest to look at the relationship between pm and technology, which happens to be of decisive importance to Lyotard. + +Adorno found the way of contemporary totalitarianism prepared by the Enlightenment ideal of triumph over nature, also known as instrumental reason. Lyotard sees the fragmentation of knowledge as essential to combatting domination, which disallows the overview necessary to see that, to the contrary, the isolation that is fragmented knowledge forgets the social determination and purpose of that isolation. The celebrated `heterogeneity' is nothing much more than the splintering effect of an overbearing totality he would rather ignore. Critique is never more discarded than in Lyotard's postmodern positivism, resting as it does on the acceptance of a technical rationality that forgoes critique. Unsurprisingly, in the era of the decomposition of meaning and the renunciation of seeing what the ensemble of mere `facts' really add up to, Lyotard embraces the computerization of society. Rather like the Nietzschean Foucault, Lyotard believes that power is more and more the criterion of truth. He finds his companion in the post- modern pragmatist Richard Rorty who likewise welcomes modern technology and is deeply wedded to the hegemonic values of present-day industrial society. + +In 1985 Lyotard put together a spectacular high-tech exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris, featuring the artificial realities and microcomputer work of such artists as Myron Krueger. At the opening, its planner declared, "We wanted...to indicate that the world is not evolving toward greater clarity and simplicity, but rather toward a new degree of complexity in which the individual may feel very lost but in which he can in fact become more free." Apparently overviews are permitted if they coincide with the plans of our masters for us and for nature. But the more specific point lies with `immateriality', the title of the exhibit and a Lyotardian term which he associates with the erosion of identity, the breaking down of stable barriers between the self and a world produced by our involvement in labyrinthine technological and social systems. Needless to say, he approves of this condition, celebrating, for instance, the `pluralizing' potential of new communications technology -- of the sort that de-sensualizes life, flattens experience and eradicates the natural world. Lyotard writes: "All peoples have a right to science," as if he has the very slightest understanding of what science means. He prescribes "public free access to the memory and data banks." A horrific view of liberation, somewhat captured by: "Data banks are the encyclopedia of tomorrow; they are `nature' for postmodern men and women." + +Frank Lentricchia termed Derrida's deconstructionist project "an elegant, commanding overview matched in philosophic history only by Hegel." It is an obvious irony that the postmodernists require a general theory to support their assertion as to why there cannot and should not be general theories or metanarratives. Sartre, gestalt theorists and common sense tell us that what pm dismisses as "totalizing reason" is in fact inherent in perception itself: one sees a whole, as a rule, not discrete fragments. Another irony is provided by Charles Altieri's observation of Lyotard," that this thinker so acutely aware of the dangers inherent in master narratives nonetheless remains completely committed to the authority of generalized abstraction." Pm announces an anti-generalist bias, but its practitioners, Lyotard perhaps especially, retain a very high level of abstraction in discussing culture, modernity and other such topics which are of course already vast generalizations. + +"A liberated humanity," wrote Adorno, "would by no means be a totality." Nonetheless, we are currently stuck with a social world that is one and which totalizes with a vengeance. Postmodernism, with its celebrated fragmentation and heterogeneity, may choose to forget about the totality, but the totality will not forget about us. + +Deleuze, Guattari & Baudrillard + +Gilles Deleuze's `schizo-politics' flow, at least in part, from the prevailing pm refusal of overview, of a point of departure. Also called `nomadology', employing "rhizomatic writing," Deleuze's method champions the deterritorialization and decoding of structures of domination, by which capitalism will supersede itself through its own dynamic. With his sometime partner, Felix Guattari, with whom he shares a specialization in psychoanalysis, he hopes to see the system's schizophrenic tendency intensified to the point of shattering. Deleuze seems to share, or at least comes very close to, the absurdist conviction of Yoshimoto Takai that consumption constitutes a new form of resistance. + +This brand of denying the totality by the radical strategy of urging it to dispose of itself also recalls the impotent pm style of opposing representation: meanings do not penetrate to a center, they do not represent something beyond their reach. "Thinking without representing," is Charles Scott's description of Deleuze's approach. Schizo-politics celebrates surfaces and discontinuities; nomadology is the opposite of history. + +Deleuze also embodies the postmodern "death of the subject" theme, in his and Guattari's best-known work, Anti- Oedipus, and subsequently. `Desiringmachines', formed by the coupling of parts, human and nonhuman, with no distinction between them, seek to replace humans as the focus of his social theory. In opposition to the illusion of an individual subject in society, Deleuze portrays a subject no longer even recognizably anthropocentric. One cannot escape the feeling, despite his supposedly radical intention, of an embrace of alienation, even a wallowing in estrangement and decadence. + +In the early '70s Jean Baudrillard exposed the bourgeois foundations of marxism, mainly its veneration of production and work, in his Mirror of Production (1972). This contribution hastened the decline of marxism and the Communist Party in France, already in disarray after the reactionary role played by the Left against the upheavals of May '68. Since that time, however, Baudrillard has come to represent the darkest tendencies of postmodernism and has emerged, especially in America, as a pop star to the ultra-jaded, famous for his fully disenchanted views of the contemporary world. In addition to the unfortunate resonance between the almost hallucinatory morbidity of Baudrillard and a culture in decomposition, it is also true that he (along with Lyotard) has been magnified by the space he was expected to fill following the passing, in the '80s, of relatively deeper thinkers like Barthes and Foucault. + +Derrida's deconstructive description of the impossibility of a referent outside of representation becomes, for Baudrillard, a negative metaphysics in which reality is transformed by capitalism into simulations that have no backing. The culture of capital is seen as having gone beyond its fissures and contradictions to a place of self-sufficiency that reads like a rather science-fiction rendering of Adorno's totally administered society. And there can be no resistance, no "going back," in part because the alternative would be that nostalgia for the natural, for origins, so adamantly ruled out by postmodernism. + +"The real is that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction." Nature has been so far left behind that culture determines materiality; more specifically, media simulation shapes reality. "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." Debord's "society of the spectacle" -- but at a stage of implosion of self, agency, and history into the void of simulations such that the spectacle is in service to itself alone. + +It is obvious that in our "Information Age," the electronic media technologies have become increasingly dominant, but the overreach of Baudrillard's dark vision is equally obvious. To stress the power of images should not obscure underlying material determinants and objectives, namely profit and expansion. The assertion that the power of the media now means that the real no longer exists is related to his claim that power "can no longer be found anywhere"; and both claims are false. Intoxicating rhetoric cannot erase the fact that the essential information of the Information Age deals with the hard realities of efficiency, accounting, productivity and the like. Production has not been supplanted by simulation, unless one can say that the planet is being ravaged by mere images, which is not to say that a progressive acceptance of the artificial does not greatly assist the erosion of what is left of the natural. + +Baudrillard contends that the difference between reality and representation has collapsed, leaving us in a `hyperreality' that is always and only a simulacrum. Curiously, he seems not only to acknowledge the inevitability of this development, but to celebrate it. The cultural, in its widest sense, has reached a qualitatively new stage in which the very realm of meaning and signification has disappeared. We live in "the age of events without consequences" in which the `real' only survives as formal category, and this, he imagines, is welcomed. "Why should we think that people want to disavow their daily lives in order to search for an alternative? On the contrary, they want to make a destiny of it...to ratify monotony by a grander monotony." If there should be any `resistance', his prescription for that is similar to that of Deleuze, who would prompt society to become more schizophrenic. That is, it consists wholly in what is granted by the system: "You want us to consume -- O.K., let's consume always more, and anything whatsoever; for any useless and absurd purpose." This is the radical strategy he names `hyperconformity'. + +At many points, one can only guess as to which phenomena, if any, Baudrillard's hyperbole refers. The movement of consumer society toward both uniformity and dispersal is perhaps glimpsed in one passage...but why bother when the assertions seem all too often cosmically inflated and ludicrous. This most extreme of the postmodern theorists, now himself a top-selling cultural object, has referred to the "ominous emptiness of all discourse," apparently unaware of the phrase as an apt reference to his own vacuities. + +Japan may not qualify as `hyperreality', but it is worth mentioning that its culture seems to be even more estranged and postmodern than that of the U.S. In the judgment of Masao Miyoshi, "the dispersal and demise of modern subjectivity, as talked about by Barthes, Foucault, and many others, have long been evident in Japan, where intellectuals have chronically complained about the absence of selfhood." A flood of largely specialized information, provided by experts of all kinds, highlights the Japanese high-tech consumer ethos, in which the indeterminacy of meaning and a high valuation of perpetual novelty work hand in hand. Yoshimoto Takai is perhaps the most prolific national cultural critic; somehow it does not seem bizarre to many that he is also a male fashion model, who extols the virtues and values of shopping. + +Yasuo Tanaka's hugely popular Somehow, Crystal (1980) was arguably the Japanese cultural phenomenon of the '80s, in that this vacuous, unabashedly consumerist novel, awash with brand names (a bit like Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 American Psycho), dominated the decade. But it is cynicism, even more than superficiality, that seems to mark that full dawning of postmodernism which Japan seems to be: how else does one explain that the most incisive analyses of pm there -- Now is the Meta-Mass Age, for example -- are published by the Parco Corporation, the country's trendiest marketing and retailing outlet. Shigesatu Itoi is a top media star, with his own television program, numerous publications, and constant appearances in magazines. The basis of this idol's fame? Simply that he wrote a series of state-of-the-art (flashy, fragmented, etc.) ads for Seibu, Japan's largest and most innovative department store chain. Where capitalism exists in its most advanced, postmodern form, knowledge is consumed in exactly the way that one buys clothes. `Meaning' is pass�, irrelevant; style and appearance are all. + +We are fast arriving at a sad and empty place, which the spirit of postmodernism embodies all too well. "Never in any previous civilization have the great metaphysical preoccupations, the fundamental questions of being and the meaning of life, seemed so utterly remote and pointless," in Frederic Jameson's judgment. Peter Sloterdijk finds that "the discontent in culture has assumed a new quality: it appears as universal, diffuse cynicism." The erosion of meaning, pushed forward by intensified reification and fragmentation, causes the cynic to appear everywhere. Psychologically "a borderline melancholic," he is now "a mass figure." + +The postmodern capitulation to perspectivism and decadence does not tend to view the present as alienated -- surely an old-fashioned concept -- but rather as normal and even pleasant. Robert Rauschenberg: "I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable." It isn't just that "everything is culture," the culture of the commodity, that is offensive; it is also the pm affirmation of what is by its refusal to make qualitative distinctions and judgments. If the postmodern at least does us the favor, unwittingly, of registering the decomposition and even depravity of a cultural world that accompanies and abets the current frightening impoverishment of life, that may be its only `contribution'. + +We are all aware of the possibility that we may have to endure, until its self-destruction and ours, a world fatally out of focus. "Obviously, culture does not dissolve merely because persons are alienated," wrote John Murphy, adding, "A strange type of society has to be invented, nonetheless, in order for alienation to be considered normative." + +Meanwhile, where are vitality, refusal, the possibility of creating a non-mutilated world? Barthes proclaimed a Nietzschean "hedonism of discourse;" Lyotard counselled, "Let us be pagans." Such wild barbarians! Of course, their real stuff is blank and dispirited, a thoroughly relativized academic sterility. Postmodernism leaves us hopeless in an unending mall; without a living critique; nowhere. + +*** + +http://www.primitivism.com/postmodernism.htm diff --git a/docs/prim/youth-regression.txt b/docs/prim/youth-regression.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..1bdc56b --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/prim/youth-regression.txt @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +Youth and Regression in an Infantile Society + +John Zerzan + +Among the young there are quite a few examples of a tendency to regress or turn back. Whether or not these phenomena are characteristic of something called "Generation X" we must leave for media to determine; after all, it's their job to define and make intelligible social reality. That aside, I think there are aspects of regression that are noteworthy/possibly significant, and which need to be put in context. + +Childhood was once a place of refuge, a secure zone of protection and innocence. For some time, however, as with every other part of life, the commodity and its attendant forms of violence have invaded this sphere. And yet it continues to represent a sort of haven, if some youth fashions are any indication. The waif look and Dr. Seuss-style clothes reflect this yearning to go back to a relatively better time and place. Seeing teens in oversized shirts and sweaters, for example, the sleeves hiding their hands, gives one a pronounced impression that they fear where they're headed and would like to be small children again. + +Popular forms of speech are another site of regression, it is possible to argue. Making statements into questions by the use of rising intonation is a type of stepping back from reality. The declarative sentence becomes an entreaty, "am I right in making even the most inoccuous assertion?" The speaker unconsciously questions his or her ability to say anything straightforwardly. + +The infinitely overused "like", as ubiquitous qualifier, also seems to signify a reversion, or evasion of adulthood. As in the case of putting a question mark on every utterance, "like" bespeaks an indirectness that borders on fear of connecting with reality. "We like went to the heach." Did you go or not? Reigning pop culture screenwriter Quentin Tarentino cannot seem to refrain from "like" in his own speech, an instance of postmodern semi-literacy. In the high-tech age of virtual reality perhaps reality is becoming virtual in a less noticed sense than VR. + +Which brings to mind the tendency toward illiteracy itself. While certainly not confined to the young generation, this development is less one of others' losing their literacy that it is of youth having less interest in adopting it than in previous times. The young Sartre once proclaimed that "No-one has written a word of truth about us." Non-literacy is in a very important sense a reaction to the tremendous accumulation of lies that comprises modern culture and everyday life. + +Television, a passive and in that respect childish form of mass media, has never been so widely consumed. Today's youth are not the first TV generation, but are more and more subject to what is often even stupider than before. Sociologist Vicki Abt revealed in fall 1994 her estimation, based on the study of 1,000 hours of Oprah, Donahue, and Sally Jessy Raphael, that 90 percent of the guests are illiterate. She draws the unmistakable conclusions as to the effects on viewers' literacy levels. To be obsessed with entertainment is reportediy a characteristic of "twentysomethings". And why not? Who could feel more betrayed in the desert of late capitalist nothingness than those most immersed in its recent worsening, and more desperately in need of diversion from its horrors? + +Today's music exhibits the themes of regression with a vengeance, or, I suppose one should say, without a vengeance. Doe-eyed gamin Kate Bush ("Mother Stands for Comfort," "The Warm Room") tends toward a retreat to childhood, while album cover art displays takes on kiddies, dolls, and the like (from groups like Dinosaur Jr., Stone Temple Pilots, Mutha's Day Out, Babes in Toyland, Sonic Youth). Nowhere was this more graphic than with Nirvana, whose third and final album was called In Utero. Returning to the womb was a recurring theme of Kurt Cobain, the anguished wail of one whose childhood could certainly not be taken for an idyll, in life or art. His regression was driven to its furthest point, in life and art. + +If punk in the late '70s drew on a vital rage, rock today, to generalize grandly, is more about powerlessness, fear, violation, confusion. Not that any of this is exactly new. The notebooks of Theodor Adorno fifty years ago were the basis for his Minimalia Moralia, a collection of short pieces that was subtitled Reflections on Damaged Life. He referred to his own damage; life in divided society is no abstraction, it damages each of us increasingly. In The New Yorker (March 7, 1994), reviewer Terrence Rafferty complained that the movie Reality Bites failed to give a clear picture of the new generation; it left one feeling "puzzled and vaguely crummy." Soon after, a letter to the editor by Josh Cohen provided this reply: "I hate to be the one to tell him this, but feeling puzzled and vaguely crummy pretty much is the experience of the new generation." + +Under "regression" one might add the seemingly more common occurrence of young adults returning to live with their parents. In a context of so few jobs that pay relatively decent wages, many cannot afford to do otherwise. Beyond that fact of life, there is a widespread rejection of white-collar careerism. But this refusal, in the absence of grounds for idealism, does not translate into freely chosen poverty or marginality. Thus, unlike the young in the '60s or even '70s, more choose to live with parents or accept, where possible, major support from them. + +Depression has been widely touted as endemic to the twentysomething generation, which explains the resonance of books like Elizabeth Wurtzel's confessional Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America (1994). As psychologist Martin Seligman's best-selling 1990 Learned Optimism put it, "Severe depression is 10 times more prevalent today than it was 50 years ago, and it strikes a full decade earlier in life on average than it did a generation ago." Among the news of rising drug use and its incidence among younger and younger age groups, there were two national studies in 1994 concerning the "startling" increase of binge drinking by college students, especially women. 'They reported rampant alcohol abuse leading to violence, vandalism, and other types of aggression. + +Such feelings and behaviors testify to frustration and despair that have nowhere to go when the social landscape is so frozen. Disaffection or even opposition are quickly marketed into salable style images; alienation as fashion. Meanwhile suicide, perhaps the ultimate regression, has been on a steady rise for several decades. And not just in the U.S., by the way. In Japan, Wataru Tsurumi's Complete Manual of Suicide (1993) sold over 200,000 copies in its first few months, chiefly to those under thirty. + +Eating disorders are trademark afflictions of today's young people and mirror the powerlessness of one's very early years.To not eat harks back to the stage at which this choice is almost the only option for protest. Retreating from the world of school, occupations, etc., it constitutes, according to Kim Chernin's The Hungry Self (1985), "an extremely effective way to stop the movement into the world." + +For the past couple of decades or so, the psychological model of the individual has been that of Narcissus, named for the self-absorbed mythological figure. The popular Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch (1979) was part of the shift from the earlier long-standing Oedipus personality paradigm. Today's dominant type is now one of longing for the absence of unsatisfied yearnings, a harkening back to an original unity/wholeness/perfection. The young, as might be surmised, are pre-eminently bearers of this recently arrived ethos, one which is primarily defined as a regression. Narcissistic disappointment, often termed "unrealistic," cannot accept the essentially "mediocre" nature of ordinary life (Kernberg 1988). Thus it is easy to see that narcissism is part of a general movement away from sacrifice and repression and thus has subversive potential. Of course, it is also true that there are common weaknesses in this personality orientation, such as self-absorption which takes no notice of the nature of society and hence neglects to question it. New Age solipsism is a perfect example of this tendency. + +All narcissistic types, according to Bursten (1986) are capable of flying into rages. This is related to the commonly-seen trait of narcissistic humiliation; the intolerable sense of injury and impotence contains the implicit threat of its forceful reversal. In this context, it doesn't seem out of place to mention that there has been, since the 1960s, a large literature linking narcissism and "terrorism." + +Taking account of regressive features among some of the young, one has to recognize in these features at least a somewhat justified strategy, on whatever level it could be said to be such. The world that youth are expected to enter and reproduce is bankrupt, fearsome, and without prospects. + +In fact, it is far more infantile in its workings and categories than in the defenses against it that youth erect for their own integrity. Not only, as a foundation of modern life, does the encroaching high-tech principle render us all daily more dependent; the institutions of society--and media is only the most glaring example--are themselves infantile and infantilizing. Who would legitimately feel anything but the need to "regress" in the opposite direction of such a non-future? + +*** + +http://www.primitivism.com/youth-regression.htm diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/autism-represents-the-next-stage-of-human-development.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/autism-represents-the-next-stage-of-human-development.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bad4ce --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/autism-represents-the-next-stage-of-human-development.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +>>281245 (OP) +It's real in that it represents the next stage of human development. It's nature's way of making a human suited for modern civilization where strength and speed are irrelevant and those that specialize the most are the fittest. + +Normalf*gs are obsolete and will, in time, be depreciated. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/combat-the-botnet.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/combat-the-botnet.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b44f096 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/combat-the-botnet.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +To practice: +Stop feeding the botnet. (this includes sunshine/8chan) +Practice hacking/homebrewing old hardware or consoles. +Reduce e-junk by recycling old tech. +Use ferrite cores. +Program more GPL code to combat the botnet sooner. +Always log your network connections +Wear cap on public walks to avoid CCTV botnet +Get a non-shit WLAN card or router or non-part 15 FCC modem. +Use very string wifi password +Wipe or spoof IMEI. Some cellular networks still work with blank IMEI. + +Never use or do +Nosec Windows +Any internet service which requires your face ID or government issued ID. +^protip: the government uses windows internet explorer so (((they'd))) still somehow get your information straight through the backdoorOS +Fingerprint and eye scan software on the phone or other digital device +Barebones smartphone (even those marketed as privacy phone) +Shit Apps. They literally log your serial number, fcc ic, imei, imsi. +^ protip: other people who should have with them by default a botnet app would leak your contact number and contact name to 3ds-letter parties in case you'd given some people your contact info +Bluetooth +^ protip +Leave computer not meant as server unattended (bonus for unclosed and leaky ports/protocols) +Key escrow diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/free-yourself-of-the-modern-web.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/free-yourself-of-the-modern-web.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71d5e43 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/free-yourself-of-the-modern-web.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +>like it or not, a modern web standards-comliant browser is kinda essential for basic usability these days. +No. 90% of my internet use is mail, ftp, irc, ssh, torrent, ppp, and gopher. You *really* need to free yourself of the modern commercialized web; I only really use chans with browsers like Lynx/Links/w3m. + +>>917602 +This is my thinking too. And yet we live in an era where the average man cannot do a thing unless their [sic] is an "app for that". diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/getting-normies-onto-floss-social-media.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/getting-normies-onto-floss-social-media.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5899c6a --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/getting-normies-onto-floss-social-media.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +>>925878 (OP) +Nope. The only way to get normies onto "FLOSS" social platforms us to repudiate the very things that make non-normies interested in them in the first place. + +What do I mean? Take diaspora for example. Neat concept. Anyone can host a pod. COncerned about privacy? Host your own! FAIL! The normie is confused and angered by these terms. Pod? As in pod people? Host? Like in the Bible? He'll stick with Facebook, tyvm! Oh you don't have to "host" your own, whatever that means? Oh, there are plenty of different diaspora "pods" out there that I can sign up for? FAIL! The normie is terrified and confused by choice. How does he choose!? He doesn't want to get a bad one that will steal his bank info!!! + +Normies want one website (or phone app) that "everybody" knows and that everybody else is using. In order to position a "FLOSS" social platform as the successor to, say, Facebook, or Twitter, you're going to have to get the normies on board, and that means one website (or app) where "everybody" is. That means millions of dollars in hosting costs. That meansyou either sell advertising like it's going out of style, or you get venture capital. That means you may be using open source software, but you've just become what you hated. Try competing with Facebook or venture-backed startups without datamining the fuck out of your users (or useds, as Stallman says). Memes aren't going to push normies onto diaspora et al., and no matter how horrifying the Zucc is, normies are going to kee zuccing his flensed pecker if it means they get to be on Facebook where "everybody" is. + +To get normies off proprietary social media platforms in large numbers, you're going to either have to: +1. Destroy proprietary social media, OR +2. Kill billions of normies. + +Either is fine by me. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/giving-up-to-a-mass.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/giving-up-to-a-mass.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e988ed --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/giving-up-to-a-mass.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +>>50 +Religions, social movements, all that sort of stuff is there to deviate you from your own self. +Giving in to the ideas of a mass means giving up on yourself, which is very comfortable if you are afraid of walking your own path +There's nothing inherently right or wrong about it, but if you have a propension for it, you may as well follow any ideology that falls on your lap diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/i-swear.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/i-swear.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..876d8cb --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/i-swear.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +>>10173387 (OP) # +"I swear, by my life and by my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/just-throwing-my-two-cents-in.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/just-throwing-my-two-cents-in.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..738d033 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/just-throwing-my-two-cents-in.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Just throwing my 2c in. Been online since '91 + +I think it all really went downhill when monetization took hold of the internet. + +Creativity has been stifled. Humor suppressed. Entitlement to outrage & offense. Designs are all homogenized. Psychologists could probably articulate why this is happening. I really don't like it. Depresses me. + +Will be a tipping point when I give up. End up moving to the outskirts of the Simpson desert with my solar panels and caravan. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/little-brother.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/little-brother.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..680aeea --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/little-brother.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +>>262180 +OP here. I've tried talking to my little brother about all of thos. But he doesn't share the feels. He can't understand me. I am stuck. The days go by, draining my life. Nothing happens. I just want to run away, but it's impossible to go out there and escape in this modernized world where your movement is monitored everywhere you go and you literally need to wagecuck to be able to live anywhere. the worst part is not the actual work you do, but the people you have to deal with. + +Pics related are early 2000s pants vs current year f*ggot pants. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/normies-are-empty-vessels.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/normies-are-empty-vessels.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ae17f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/normies-are-empty-vessels.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +>>15017866 +They're empty vessels. It's no joke when that anon called them NPCs, because that's what they are. They don't have a single individual thought in their minds. They have no concept of liking or disliking something personally, but need to patiently wait for the talking heads on the Talmud Vision to tell them what is and isn't kosher for them to consume. + +It's why their parasitism of established cultures and communities is so poisonous. These people come in, overwhelm the old fans by sheer weight of numbers and then sit idly by, waiting for the Anita Sarkeesian of this world to tell them what part of the hobby they're in the process of ruining is in need of pozz. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/once-met-a-guy.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/once-met-a-guy.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04b183a --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/once-met-a-guy.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Once met a guy on a chan who claimed to have not spoken face to face with another human in nine years. Something about the way he typed made me believe him, he had this sense of calm that even managed to be conveyed through the computer, he managed to live entirely isolated for nine years. +The fat one couldn't make it five hours. Isolation is the gate to transcending something that most normalf*gs just seem to accept blindly. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/self-reflection-poison.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/self-reflection-poison.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a16a51 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/self-reflection-poison.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +>>249325 +Self-reflection is poison to normalf*gs because without their relationships they are at their core boring, mediocre and empty. It's always starling [sic] to see it but they truly don't have any sort of depth beyond being a piece in a larger group consciousness. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/the-buddhists.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/the-buddhists.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09734c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/the-buddhists.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +> lamented my life for so long that disappointment has evolved into self-hatred for being a useless unwanted nobody +> now I'm so far down the hole I actually get excited when this sickness morphs into something new, even the hurting is fun now + +On the bright side anon at least you can think (maybe). I believe it's the Buddhists who say knowledge/progress comes from suffering, and i think they're right. Theres [sic] a saying, that engineering comes from necessity, because only when one notices a problem can one think about it. Only when one finds issue in something, or lack thereof, will they suffer enough to encourage their minds to do something about it. Its [sic] why normalcattle is a term, because they are hopped up on narcissistic, hedonistic containment, blind to the issues around them, to the issues with themselves. Lemming is a term i hear thrown around, but i dont [sic] know how that started. They're satiated slaves anon, at least you aren't. Autism flurisheds [sic] through curiosity, curiosity is the urge to know more, for you know you know too little. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/you-can-never-forget-about-them.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-can-never-forget-about-them.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c69725 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-can-never-forget-about-them.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +You can never forget about them, you can only use them as fuel for your rage. Anger is the only response to these people. They benefit from the same people who ruined your life. + +The best case scenario would have been for you to die while you still had hope. Hell, it would have been best for all of us. Now all we have is the hate. If we learn to accept our position they win. Do not accept anything less than what you want. If what you want is impossible to achieve, don't settle for the next best thing. Make those who keep you from your goals suffer. + +They need to know we won't take shit from them anymore. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/you-do-not-owe-the-world-anything.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-do-not-owe-the-world-anything.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ae32d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-do-not-owe-the-world-anything.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +>>66403267 +>People can't even read a book. +I read difficult literature every single day and actually participate in trying to learn from what I'm reading and to understand the author. However that hasn't changed my opinion that living up to your best potential isn't something you owe to society or the world. If you have only one life to live it's not the wrong choice to make bad decisions. The free will to make bad decisions is the first sin of man and also the defining trait of what makes us human. If I want to spend my time reading, watching anime, and playng videogames instead of using my best cognitive ability to better myself and the world I have every right to do it. If people don't like it they can exile me, or kill me I guess. I'm not giving the world a single ounce of genuine creative energy. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/you-have-to-federate.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-have-to-federate.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ded8e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/you-have-to-federate.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +>>993534 +You have to federate. These huge corporations are your enemy. They have autocratic power without recourse from you. Honestly, the chans are in the same boat. Too much centralization poisoned all the waters and we gave up too much control. Flee and scatter to the wind and found your own communities like the INternet of old. That is the only salvation. diff --git a/docs/quotes/8chan/your-brain-on-4chan.txt b/docs/quotes/8chan/your-brain-on-4chan.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5398b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/8chan/your-brain-on-4chan.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +Not only are most of the people on here deranged- it's like an addiction. + +This is your life on 4chan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHoxaphbEs + +Because of all the stimuli it ruins other forms of entertainment. You can't read books, practice an instrument, program, write a novel or anything else because it doesn't have the same stimuli. And another problem is all the fucked up shit that comes with that stimuli. You may think you're immune because it hasn't changed you yet, but it changes you gradually without you realizing it. + +For example, there's all the trap and sissy shit, everyone invalidates each other and puts each other down or they outright attack your self-esteem. In threads like this everyone talks about how much of a failure they are, and overtime you'll start to apply that shit to your life, accept and stop putting up any resistance. + +All the time that you spend on here is time you could have ut into programming, making music, reading, writing, studying Chess or whatever else you idealize. You could become an expert in any of those things and you would be so proud of yourself for getting so good. You wouldn't feel like a failure, but if all you've done is endless browsing threads instead then you would have nothing to show for it. + +If you have hobbies you can also make friends or find a gf through finding other people who do the same. This site is bad for you. diff --git a/docs/quotes/discord/being-broken-is-being-human.txt b/docs/quotes/discord/being-broken-is-being-human.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e9ecfd --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/discord/being-broken-is-being-human.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +cereal diddler 09/15/2018 +[@Nikku4211: Anime Hunter] being broken is being human, and humanity is worth it diff --git a/docs/quotes/discord/systemspace-discord.txt b/docs/quotes/discord/systemspace-discord.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4646de --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/discord/systemspace-discord.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Something that this has taught me that I want to share with you all before I go: If you don't take charge of your own desiny, you risk letting yourself be steered and used by others more driven than you. Even if you have no goal, take the helm, and steer for yourself. Whether that's good, bad, or otherwise, at least you can say it was you who got you there. diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/anarcho-nomadism.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/anarcho-nomadism.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d80a899 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/anarcho-nomadism.txt @@ -0,0 +1,59 @@ + I ran into two interesting articles today, that both seem to be missing the same point. There's this article from iron_dwarf on the Ran Prieur subreddit and this article from MakeTotalDestr0i. + +To summarize, one of these articles is David Graeber's critique of the grand myth of civilization, in which we assume that we lived in egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers, until eventually we invented agriculture and everything went to shit. Graeber rightly points out that there were egalitarian cities without monarchs for hundreds of years, that tribes of hunter-gatherers can have oppression too and that it seems to have been more difficult for us to maintain freedom and equality within families, than within societies as a whole. Even those North American cultures that had egalitarian gatherings during some seasons had families ruled by patriarchs and tyrants for the rest of the year. + +Amir Taaki, like David Graeber somewhere at the top of my list of people I admire, is an anarchist of Persian origins who saw revolutionary potential in Bitcoin and went to Syria to fight for the Kurds against the genocidal Islamists of ISIS. He's back now and hopes to transform Bitcoin into something other than a multilevel marketing scheme of frat-boys staring at charts hoping to buy lamborghini's. + +So, Taaki thinks he can bring Bitcoin back to its quirky revolutionary roots, Graeber thinks the archeological evidence demonstrates we can create the kind of society we want for ourselves, rather than being forever stuck with inequality as some sort of permanent bug in our social operating system that has to be chronically treated by a class of technocrats studying GINI coefficients and other metrics. + +In both cases, it seems to me that the more important point goes unmentioned. Yes, there are certainly exceptions, but hunter-gatherer tribes were taken as a whole more egalitarian than most neolithic societies. We have genetic evidence demonstrating a rapid decline in genetic diversity in our species during the Neolithic revolution, simply because a small minority of men take control over society. + +At the same time, Bitcoin did in fact transform into a cult of greed, far removed from its founding principles. You have to be really dense to assume that a system that utilizes 400,000 times more electricity per transaction than VISA has any sort of future as a payment option. The coders and fanboys cling onto this system, because it gave them some sort of meaningful social role and earned them some money. + +Corruption, inequality, greed, these are ailments that slip into systems. The question Graeber and Taaki are asking is: How do we reform these systems back into something that functions again? The question you need to be asking yourself is: How do we avoid becoming dependent upon systems that will inevitably become corrupt? + +As an example, consider the state of modern jobs. Inequality has surged in our society, but it has had a different impact on the nature of labor, depending upon the kind of skills and background you have. If you're working a low-skilled blue collar job, you can expect to be treated as a slave nowadays. You'll have schedules that dictate where you need to be standing and how many times you're allowed to use the bathroom. The reason this happens, is because employers know you have no choice. They have no need to treat you like a human being, because you can't quit your job as you're lucky to have a job in the first place. + +Now imagine having a social role that's in high demand. You're now flexible. If your boss treats you like a slave, you'll quit and move to another employer. Your boss knows this and as a result chooses to treat you with dignity, because he has no other option. Your freedom ultimately depends, on your ability to have a choice and to say no. The pain imposed upon you will gradually increase as long as it benefits your employer, until the employer fears the pain imposed upon you might exceed that of the alternatives you have. + +I first figured this simple principle out when I was around 12 year old, forced to attend some terrible school for rich kids. I had two kids I hung out with during the breaks, one of whom was the typical kid who programs websites as a hobby. I once mentioned in passing that I had made a website once myself with a friend. He insisted I had to show it to him, but I told him I didn't really want to, as it was very personal and not very good looking. He told me eventually that if I didn't want to spend my breaks by myself, I had to show it to him. + +Of course this kid is 12 years old, so although he has the right mentality to grow into a petty office tyrant who makes a schedule for your bathroom breaks, he doesn't have the cognitive ability yet to be subtle about it. Note however, that his desire to impose his will on me is based on the fundamental assumption that I don't have a choice. Like a Silicon Valley employer who thinks he's the only alternative you have to living in a tent city, this kid thinks he is the only alternative I had to social ostracism. This wasn't true, I quite readily found other kids to hang out with. + +This principle exists everywhere however. Consider spousal abuse. The reason women were abused by husbands for generations, and modern boys are now regularly emotionally abused by their girlfriends, is because one partner has power over the other partner. The reason this power exists, is because the person has no genuine alternative, or at least believes themselves to have no genuine alternative. + +A big solution to this problem, would be non-monogamy. People who have multiple partners have little incentive to put up with a partner who behaves in an emotionally abusive manner. As non-monogamy becomes more widespread, relationships in general will become less abusive. When we return to work, the same principle can apply. A person who works for multiple bosses, will have greater freedom to terminate his arrangement with a boss who behaves in an abusive manner. + +Similarly, we need to have the freedom to move to different locations. A government that doesn't have to fear its citizens leaving, is a government that's free to behave in a tyrannical manner. The rich already have this freedom to move to foreign places, which is why corporations and wealthy individuals now find that governments around the world now dramatically reduce their taxes. However, poor people need to have this freedom too. + +There are multiple ways to go about this. The European Union allows you to move from one nation to another. However, because the Union itself has a government that makes increasingly more decisions, it means you're practically still stuck with the same government. Instead of unification, we need devolution. Consider the example of Spain. It would be ideal to have not just Spain as a country, but to have an independent Basque country, as well as an independent Catalonia, Galacia and Andalusia, with citizens free to migrate between these nations. This is how Europe effectively functioned in the 19th century, as citizens were typically free to move to another country and America as a whole functioned as an alternative to the tyranny we endured in our own nations. + +The current situation however, is a mere start. Ideally, we wouldn't have a single government operate within a particular geographical location, but to have multiple governments we can choose from. This sounds far-fetched to us, but this is exactly how Europe functioned before the emergence of the sovereign nation states of the post-Westphalian era. Living in a particular territory of the Holy Roman empire could mean being subject to a local count, as well as to a prince, a bishop, the Holy Roman Emperor, and even the Pope himself had a say in a nation's domestic affairs. There was no clear ultimate ruler of a particular geographic location. Today, the emergence of supranational organizations like the IMF, the European Union, the World Trade Organization and a wide variety of NGO's has similarly led to a situation where nobody is genuinely in control anymore. + +Finally, ideally we wouldn't just have the option to choose between employers, but to choose freedom from work. Far fetched? This situation has existed throughout history. Today we call it retirement and apply it to old people. In the past it was called the "rentiers class" and simply meant being rich. The black death decimated the population of Europe, leading to an era of unprecedented liberty, as wages grew dramatically. Peasants spent large parts of the year idle and could simply choose to refuse to work. + +What matters more than the conditions you live under, is whether you choose the conditions you live under. With choice comes freedom. For this reason, for much of human history, we didn't see the city as a source of oppression, but as a source of freedom. The countryside was a place for oppression, in the city you had a choice. You could apply to join a guild, you could beg, you could play music, you could steal, you could work as a prostitute or you could jump aboard a ship. In the countryside, you're just stuck toiling the fields. + +For the same reason, cryptocurrency is ultimately a source of liberation. Before the current era, you had government controlled currencies and that was all you had to work with. Today we have Bitcoin, but more importantly, we have the means to design our own currency with which we choose to perform economic transactions. Rather than working on "improving Bitcoin", we need to realize the simple fact that we have a choice to seek out alternative systems. There's nothing out there that requires us to participate in Bitcoin. + +The problem that leads to hierarchy, is that humans have a habit of slipping into stasis. From stasis comes dependency, from dependency comes power, from power comes hierarchy, which then leads to the loss of freedom. Bitcoin leads to a hierarchy, because the people who run the subreddit, the forum, the exchanges, the miners and the Github repository control the system, your "full node" doesn't decide jack shit. True freedom requires never being dependent upon any single phenomenon in your environment. + +To achieve such freedom, the solution has always been to forever be on the move. To stay stuck in a particular situation, means to develop dependence on the factors that surround you. The means to nomadism have always differed, but those who desire freedom and autonomy have historically tended to seek out nomadism. In the past it meant wandering around with herds of cattle, trading goods between cities. Today nomadism can mean many things. Some achieve it by playing music, others become digital nomads, whose source of income is entirely derived from the work they perform on their laptop. + +This is what the archeological and anthropological evidence demonstrates. There are hierarchical societies that don't practice agriculture. However, what tends to be going on in those cases is that people depend for nutrition on a particular location that delivers large amounts of food. As an example, a tribe might live in a desert near a river that's full of fish, or a tribe might live on an island. This leads to the emergence of hierarchies, because there is property over which ownership can be enforced and people have no real option to leave. Egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers exist, because anyone who wants to make a bathroom-break schedule for the whole tribe or expects you to fill in a TPS report for every mongongo nut you bring back to the campfire wakes up in the morning and finds that half the tribe has left. + +Finally, the most important thing to understand is that freedom in our society is ultimately a mental choice. If you're working as a minimum wage slave for Amazon, you're stuck in that position because of the mental space you're stuck in. You come to believe you have no choice, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems to me that such mental inflexibility itself is a problem many people suffer from, it's a problem that tends slips in as we age. The personality trait openness declines as we age. When you take psychedelics however, your openness can be increased to levels of a young person again. + +Most people are mentally bound to conditions they shouldn't live in. As an example, consider my own case. With the salary I earn, I could be considered rather poor if I had to live in Amsterdam. However, I live in a small town in a house that's going to be demolished, so I manage to save roughly a third of my salary every month. Similarly, there are people who earn huge wages, but live in San Francisco. The problem in those cases is that people are geographically bound to conditions that lead to poverty. The New York Times recently had an article, insisting that even wealthy people are actually poor, because if you consider the lifestyle they lead their salaries are inadequate too. + +However, there's nobody out there forcing them to attend diners with their colleagues after work or to send their kids to private school. This is a case of mental poverty, a poverty of imagination. There are people in their thirties who had such jobs back in their twenties, retired and never work a day in their life again. The worst form of mental bonding however, is found in the form of religions, ideologies and traditions. Even if you have all the choices in the world available to you, you won't make use of them if you believe there's a guy who showed up thousands of years ago and appointed a bunch of guys in fancy dresses who can judge on his behalf how you should live. + +I'm an anarchist, but I'm more of an individualist anarchist than most, in the sense that I think freedom is a choice you have to create for yourself, it's generally not going to come about by a revolution. I believe in propaganda of the deed, but I think the best propaganda is generally not to go out and kill someone, but by living the kind of life you wish to live. Consider the case of the trainhoppers who were immortalized in Mike Brodie's photo series. This is what effective propaganda looks like. + +I struggle to think of people who are more free. They are free in ways we don't even think about. Consider the fact that you spend every morning dousing every part of your body in water, using soap to remove grease from your hair, then using a brush to cleanse your teeth, before applying a variety of perfumes to your body. This is a social obligation I would happily go without. I feel less oppressed by Peter Thiel and Bill Gates than I do by minimum-wage earners who frown when I'm not wearing clean clothing. + +Freedom is found by being perpetually on the move. We should aim to be like the wild grazers, who are perpetually journeying. Any place we graze too long is a place that will lead to our deaths. As human beings, we inhabit multiple spaces, mental as well as geographical. The overpopulated tech-boom cities should be fled from as readily as we should flee from toxic relationships, toxic cultures and toxic mentalities. If you think there is some kind of system, some ideology, some kind of government, or some group of people who can liberate you, you are mistaken. The liberators of today are the tyrants of tomorrow. Freedom is always going to have to be something you'll have to seek out for yourself. Keep moving. + +*** + +https://www.reddit.com/r/accountt1234/comments/82osw1/anarchonomadism_the_perpetual_flight_from/ diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/antisocial-media-manifesto.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/antisocial-media-manifesto.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8335bc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/antisocial-media-manifesto.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +Antisocial Media Manifesto + +Version 1 + +1. Large social media systems have too much power over what content we view and how we interact with others over the Internet. + +2. They have this power because we users have freely given it to them in exchange for convenience. + +3. By granting so much power to others, we risk losing our freedom of expression and freedom of choice. + +4. We can reclaim our freedom by exercising it. + +5. The process is never-ending. There is no permanent safe haven for us in this world. + + +2018/3/14 papa + +*** + +gopher://grex.org:70/0/~papa/pgphlog/2018/alm-Antisocial_Media_Manifesto diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/even-if-otherkin-is-not-a-delusion.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/even-if-otherkin-is-not-a-delusion.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c48e38 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/even-if-otherkin-is-not-a-delusion.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Even if being otherkin isn't a "delusion", there are reasons not to focus on it. You may have been a fairy or dragon in a past life; but for whatever reason, your soul chose to be human now. There are some lessons that are best learned by being human and you cannot truly be human if you're constantly trying to recapture the magick of your past incarnations. You'll stagnate and be stuck in a form your soul is not entirely comfortable with... over and over and over again, until you learn to be human. diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/mental-patient.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/mental-patient.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb1c860 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/mental-patient.txt @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +To Be a Mental Patient +by Rae Unzicker (1948-2001) + +To be a mental patient is to be stigmatized, ostracized, socialized, patronized, psychiatrized. + +To be a mental patient is to have everyone controlling your life but you. You're watched by your shrink, your social worker, your friends, your family. And then you're diagnosed as paranoid. + +To be a mental patient is to live with the constant threat and possibility of being locked up at any time, for almost any reason. + +To be a mental patient is to live on $82 a month in food stamps, which won't let you buy Kleenex to dry your tears. And to watch your shrink come back to his office from lunch, driving a Mercedes Benz. + +To be a mental patient is to take drugs that dull your mind, deaden your senses, make you jitter and drool and then you take more drugs to lessen the "side effects." + +To be a mental patient is to apply for jobs and lie about the last few months or years, because you've been in the hospital, and then you don't get the job anyway because you're a mental patient. To be a mental patient is not to matter. + +To be a mental patient is never to be taken seriously. + +To be a mental patient is to be a resident of a ghetto, surrounded by other mental patients who are as scared and hungry and bored and broke as you are. + +To be a mental patient is to watch TV and see how violent and dangerous and dumb and incompetent and crazy you are. + +To be a mental patient is to be a statistic. + +To be a mental patient is to wear a label, and that label never goes away, a label that says little about what you are and even less about who you are. + +To be a mental patient is to never to say what you mean, but to sound like you mean what you say. + +To be a mental patient is to tell your psychiatrist he's helping you, even if he is not. + +To be a mental patient is to act glad when you're sad and calm when you're mad, and to always be "appropriate." + +To be a mental patient is to participate in stupid groups that call themselves therapy. Music isn't music, its therapy; volleyball isn't sport, it's therapy; sewing is therapy; washing dishes is therapy. Even the air you breathe is therapy and that's called "the milieu." + +To be a mental patient is not to die, even if you want to -- and not cry, and not hurt, and not be scared, and not be angry, and not be vulnerable, and not to laugh too loud -- because, if you do, you only prove that you are a mental patient even if you are not. + +And so you become a no-thing, in a no-world, and you are not. + +Rae Unzicker © 1984 + +*** + +http://antipsychiatry.org/unzicker.htm \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/the-small-internet.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/the-small-internet.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2fb852 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/the-small-internet.txt @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ + +==================== + The Small Internet +==================== + + +If you want to say something to 1,000 people, +Twitter is right over there, +next to Facebook and Instagram. + +Good luck. + +Have fun. + +If you want to talk to _me_, though, +then sit next to me. +I want to hear what you have to say. + +You'll have to do some listening too, of course, +but that's all part of the fun. + +On the Large Internet, +communication is ubiquitous, +but conversation is a radical act. + +On the Large Internet, +communication is cheaper than water, than air. +"Too cheap to meter." + +But _conversation_, +full, deep conversation, +with kindness, consideration, mutual respect: +where exactly is that +on the Large Internet? + +Maybe I just haven't found the right Reddit forum yet. + +In practical terms, +when it comes to winning the lottery, +there's no significant difference +between buying a lottery ticket +and not buying one. + +What are the odds +you will have a real conversation +or make a real connection +on the Large Internet? + +You can comb through the Large Internet +and take that chance if you like, +but if it was me, +I'd just as soon +buy that lottery ticket. + +If you want deep connection, +true community, +the Large Internet will disappoint you +over and over again. + +I think we can do better. + +Right here, right now, +with me writing these words +and you reading them, +you and I are creating +the Small Internet. + +The Small Internet happens +when a few people +use simple protocols +to talk with each other +and nobody else. + +Nothing special. + +No tricks. + +Just you and me, +reading, writing, +having a conversation. + +What the Small Internet offers +easily, naturally, simply, +the Large Internet can't provide at all, +any more than a bulldozer can feed a baby. + +Here's the problem, though: +the Large Internet, someone made it for us. +The Small Internet, we have to create ourselves. + +There aren't any spectators +on the Small Internet, +only participants. + +Me, I think that's a good thing. + +It means you and I have work to do, +and our work matters to our colleagues, +our neighbors, our companions, +our friends. + +So let's get started +while we are still young and eager. + +That's what I think. + +How about you? + +*** + +gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-16__The_Small_Internet.txt diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/tomb.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/tomb.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67a4567 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/tomb.txt @@ -0,0 +1,242 @@ +abeautifulresistance.org +The Tomb of the Atheist — GODS & RADICALS PRESS +Rhyd Wildermuth +25-32 minutes + +I’m standing, dazed, along the shores of Lake Michigan, staring into my distant reflection in the parabolic, ethereal polished glass of the Cloud Gate. The air’s chill, icy—a thin layer of rime had begun to form that morning along the edges of the sand. + +I’d stopped in Chicago to visit a man I love deeply, a man to whom a god had introduced me. I’d just spent several weeks traveling in Ireland and Wales, speaking to gods and meeting the dead of Ireland, and this was the last stop of my pilgrimage before returning to Seattle. + +The reflections in the Cloud Gate are fascinating, both distorted and yet hyper-realistic. It takes you awhile to pick yourself out of the throngs of others in the public square in which it sits, but once you do, it’s hard to lose yourself again. It seems as if you’re what the sky sees of you, rather than others. A strange perspective, but one you can get used to. + +The man, for whom I’m waiting before the Cloud Gate, appears with his partner. We don’t know each other very well, have never met before, but it seemed we ought to meet. And I’m never in Chicago. + +He smiles and introduces himself. And then, he places a gift in my hand. + +“The only thing I could think of to give another Druid was an Acorn,” he said. + +I held it, smiling. Here, in a sea of concrete, in the deepness of winter, my future quite unclear to me, I stare at the promise of an oak in my hand. It warmed me against the chill, grounded me into the world below the concrete. + +I stood there, considering the acorn in my hand, the reflection of myself in that strange glass, and began to realize who had just died in a tomb in Ireland a week before. + +On a grey and beautiful September morning I had woken, smiling, and kissed my lover before stumbling out of bed and making tea. He’d been visiting me all month, a long visit to determine whether we’d work out living with each other, as he lived several thousand miles away. + +I made my morning tea and checked email as I sipped it, waiting for the morning to come to consciousness. And then I spilled my tea. + + “You won’t believe this. I don’t myself, either. Check your email—I’ve forwarded it to you.” + +My hand trembled, but not from excitement. Dread, perhaps. I knew what the email would say before I opened it. The friend who’d sent it would only have one reason to forward a message to me. + +I opened it, scanned its words to confirm my terror, and then rolled several cigarettes, smoking each in turn until enough nicotine coursed through my brain to put me into that half-trance some smokers know quite well. + +“Really?” I asked aloud, but no one answered, only a breathing, autumnal silence. + +I waited to wake the beautiful man in my bed. The fur of his chest matted, his face peaceful, contentment radiating from his dreaming form. I wanted to watch him that way, perhaps keep him that way forever in my mind, stilled in the moment before I told him of my great fortune, fortune which we both probably knew, without saying, would make impossible many of our plans. + +Even now, I see him sleeping there, before I nuzzled him awake, before I spoke the words which would change not just him and I, but everything else I knew. +Sunlight on Newgrange + +“I’m going to Newgrange.” + +The hiring manager looked at me. “What’s that?” + +“Uh. An ancient burial mound. Aligned with the sun, sorta. Um, solstice. It’s in Ireland.” + +“Oh,” he said. “That sounds cool. When—Oh. You can’t start yet, then, huh?” + +“Not unless you’d let me take a few weeks unpaid leave at the beginning of hire?” + +“Uh—I think HR would say now. Maybe you can start when you return…” + +That’d be nice, I thought. Though I’d been hoping to start sooner, returning to the full-time social work position I’d held before my…uh, last pilgrimage, the one that’d sent me away from Seattle for almost a year. I was back in Seattle, working per diem, happy to finally be sitting still, with a permanent address. Also, my lover planned to move in with me, and my writing was going well—I might finally get to do the sort of grown-up life that I’d had before gods started talking to me. + +Returning to full-time social work would cut into my writing. To write well, and often, one requires unoccupied time, and lots of it. It’s never just sitting in front of a computer and touching fingers against keys. It’s about the walks to a forest in the middle of the night, the hours spent staring listlessly out of windows or watching incense smoke curl from the glowing ember-tip. Sometimes it means getting drunk when you shouldn’t or don’t even want to. Lots of listening, thinking, with relentless false starts and stops. It’s an awful lot of work, actually + +But writing doesn’t pay rent, or buy food, so you have to also work elsewhere. This is the plight of any artist, finding work that doesn’t detract too much from art. Few ever find work which helps one’s art, though such does exist—photographers who work in camera shops, potters and painters who take jobs as art teachers for access to kilns and cheap canvases. + +Social work doesn’t help writing, but it doesn’t hurt it too much, either. On the worst days, it’ll make you distrust humanity completely, but on the better days, one at least goes home with a vague sense of having done something less horrible than what one could have. + +Full-time job, a lover to become a partner—this is what I’d been hoping for, working towards, ready to embrace. Enough money to survive in the brutal inflationary city of Seattle and perhaps a little to save. Maybe I’d join a gym, get my teeth fixed, purchase a third pair of pants and a second pair of shoes. Even, I’d hoped, I might start my medieval rock band again, the one I broke up when the gods came and… + +Uh, yeah. I’d been here before. Even the lover bit. + +The Druid who handed me the acorn before the Cloud Gate asked me a question I didn’t quite answer fully. He’d asked about the gods, stating he hadn’t done much with them and wasn’t sure he would. They seem to demand a lot, he’d suggested, but it was also a question. + +My answer sounded pretty, anyway. “If land spirits, the dead, and ancestors are all like notes in a symphony, a god is the melody.” + +Pretty, but untrue. + +A god’s like all the music written upon the pages of your existence, all the songs you hear wherever you go, each melody and each refrain. You are their instruments and they are the reason you’re sitting in a chair before a conductor in front of thousands of silent strangers straining to hear your notes. + +Gods re-order the world around you, shut fast doors and destroy keys as if to say, “you won’t need these anymore. We’ve other places for you to go.” And then they hand you new keys and show you new doors to take you to different places that you’d never even considered visiting. +grange-one.jpg + + +One of those places for me, apparently, was Newgrange. + +The email from a friend that morning in late September was a forwarded message from the Brú na Bóinne visitor center, announcing I’d been selected by local schoolchildren for a chance to observe the Winter Solstice light from within the tomb. Access to Newgrange is relatively open the rest of the year—anyone can go and be part of the guided tours into the 5000-year old tomb. Lights are turned off during the guided tour, and artificial lights are shone into the chamber to mimic the effect which occurs the five mornings adjacent to and including the Winter Solstice. + +The phenomena was rediscovered in 1967 by the archaeologists who’d taken it upon themselves to restore the ancient burial site. Knowledge of the alignment of the entrance to the Winter Solstice sun persisted much longer, encoded in folk tales. Archeologists and anthropologists too often end up ignoring the oral accounts of the peoples they study. But time and again, letting the stories of peoples inform academia rather than the other way around restores truth to the world. + +It’s said that the smallpox vaccine, for instance, was developed after a researcher heard and than observed the folk custom of rubbing the pus of cox-pox wounds into the skin of children. The researcher gets credit for the “discovery,” as this is how The Science works. + +The Science can tell us lots about how things work or how they were done, but it begins to look quite ridiculous when it starts to try to tell us “why.” Why did the inhabitants of Ireland, some five millennia ago, build a massive (and enduring) tomb in the valley of the Boyne river and align it to the rising sun one day a year? Why Stonehenge? Why the pyramids, or ziggurats, or colossal statues along the Nile or on Easter Isle? + +Theories abound, and The Science is faddish. The Science hasn’t quite stopped doing lobotomies yet, but that exciting trend is happily almost over, replaced with chemicals to “right” what’s wrong with the brain when people start talking to gods or the dead. What comes next is as unpredictable as next decade’s hair fashions, and as permanent. + +Another thing The Science cannot quite explain were the emails that my friend Joseph sent me from Dublin. “I saw you in Dublin today, at least five times.” + +I’d read that email 8 months before the solstice. It was a curious thing. I wasn’t in Dublin, nor had I been before. It’s never been unusual for people to think they saw me, and even less unusual for others to recount vivid dreams involving me. My best friend dreamt of “Druid Rhyd” years before I decided to study Druidry; another friend told me where to find a god because he recalled me telling him later where I found him. I’m accustomed to such things and think little of them. One can only shrug when someone tells you that they taught you to shapechange in their dreams and remind them that you haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yourself yet. + +The week after Joseph thought he saw me, he put my name in to the drawing for Sostice in Newgrange. He didn’t put his own name in, though he could have. He never quite explained to me why this was, nor why he did it in the first place. +Poster informing winners of the lottery for solstice how slim their chances had been. + +Poster informing winners of the lottery for solstice how slim their chances had been. + +It was to him they’d sent the selection email. 30 thousand others had put their names in hopes of attending, and only 50 are selected each year. Each selectee is allowed to bring a guest, and the 100 total attendees are divided up into three groups to be inside the tomb either December 20th, the 21st, or 22nd. I was invited to the first of the three days. + +So I was selected to go. I hadn’t put my name in. I’d never planned to go to Ireland, despite how many others had suggested I ought to, despite the voice of an Irishman met on a previous pilgrimage, showing me his spiral tattoos and insisting that I “must go” to Newgrange one day. The selection was exciting, and also eerie. + +One can’t go attributing every bit of strange fortune to the gods, of course. + +One also can’t go not attributing bizarre bits of fortune to the gods, either, at least if you’ve gone about worshiping them and telling them you’ll do what they’d like. + +Going to Ireland would mean not taking the full-time job I’d been offered. I wouldn’t be able to get the approval for unpaid time off during the holidays, and they couldn’t start me early enough to have sufficient paid-time for the trip. I’d also intended to help my lover with expenses for the move to Seattle. We’d planned on the first of December, but this would mean he’d be in a new city on his own during the week of Christmas while I traipsed about ancient holy sites without him. And I would already have to do a fundraiser to pay for the trip, as last-minute tickets to Ireland during the holidays aren’t something my income could ever hope to cover. + +I’d asked a diviner about a different matter, a question I’d not been able to answer on my own. She hadn’t known about the Newgrange trip, but had mentioned Lugh had my attention for some reason. + +“Huh,” I’d said. “So I just got selected to go to Newgrange in Ireland. I can’t afford to go, but maybe…” + +“Oh, you’re going,” she said, and her laughter almost scared me. “That much is very, very certain.” + +The next day I started a fundraiser, an Indigogo “campaign” and asked for 500 dollars. I raised that in the first 4 days, and received another 500 the next week. + +So I was going. + +The night before I left, my lover told me he was not ready to move. The specifics were unimportant—underlying the reason was an unspoken statement, the unacknowledged hesitancy which makes easily-surmountable obstacles suddenly impossible to overcome. Suddenly, going to Newgrange seemed the most unreasonable thing I could possibly have chosen to do, and it wasn’t even my idea in the first place. +Llyn Dinas, the lake where Ceridwen is said to have sought the wisdom of Awen and where two dragons were said to be buried in perpetual war. + +Llyn Dinas, the lake where Ceridwen is said to have sought the wisdom of Awen and where two dragons were said to be buried in perpetual war. + +I woke at 5am the morning of my flight, hefted a rucksack full of books and clothes, stones, an altar box, gifts for people along the way. I was ‘told’ I didn’t need to pack certain things, like my alder wand. “One will be provided for you,” I’d heard. I played with the words, waited to see if they changed. They repeated, the same tone and certainty as before. So I left it on my altar, perplexed. + +“But bring the bee.” + +I stared at the yellow and white patch in my hands. I’d meant to sew it on my coat months before, soon after it was given to me. I was never certain why I’d waited, put it off. I’ve many intentions like this, intentions I rarely find the time to manifest. But perhaps I’d find a needle and thread along the way? So I placed it, without much thought, in my wooden altar box before packing it into my giant rucksack. + +I stayed a few days in Florida with family before leaving to Dublin. I’d visited them last year at the end of a pilgrimage; it seemed poetic to visit them again just before the next. My sisters and I laughed and talked and ate, catching each other up on our lives and hopes. They’d been as perplexed and amazed as I was regarding the Newgrange selection. “It seems really weird, right?” I’d asked. “The probability of getting chosen without even putting in your name…” + +They understood, agreed. Though I’d met no one who had shrugged off the serendipity of the trip, and even my more cynical friends had suggested it seemed “something wants you there,” without reference to other people’s conceptions of causation, the mystic becomes forced to ely on self-generated checks against magical thinking. + +These artificial “devil’s advocates” can be ridiculous, a caricature of the angry and cynical voices of others. Mine has the arrogant certainty of Richard Dawkins, the drunken wit of Christopher Hitchens, and the pop-appeal of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a curmudgeon with a grudge always eager to tell me, “that’s not a god—you need psych meds. And oh, you’re poor because you’re lazy.” + +But even that compound, inner atheist naysayer was having trouble convincing me this wasn’t all about what I’d suspected it was, and the perspective of my sisters demolished all my inner cynic’s attempts. They knew what we came from, the abject poverty and misery, all the leaden weight of fate crushing every dream. When you’ve seen all the horrible things which can happen to a human, every nice thing already seems a miracle. Perhaps it’s why the poor, the homeless, the downtrodden and miserable are more likely to believe in gods and spirits than the middle-class lawyer or IT worker. Voltaire’s atheism was as elitist as Sam Harris’s, and both have enjoyed steady diets. + +Still. I liked that atheist in my head. Unlike Harris and Dawkins, he didn’t justify the torture of Muslims and suggest we should eradicate Islam off the face of the planet. He mostly just told me I’m insane and should be more reasonable and stop believing in crazy stuff and go shopping for nicer clothes. +Light on the Boyne River, Drogheda, Ireland + +Light on the Boyne River, Drogheda, Ireland + + +The first thing I noticed about Dublin was the dead. + +I didn’t always hear the dead and wasn’t always aware of their presence. I have the city of Eugene, Oregon, the grave of Demetria and Dionisia Palazios, and a Guédé that I met under an Elm tree to thank for that, as well as a drunken priest, who helped me stay on this side of the living after I met them. + +The streets of Dublin breathe the dead. Signs point the way to famous graves of revolutionaries and poets, but there’s no clear marking for the Croppy Acre along the River Liffey. You hear them before you find out why, what the large field before you precisely is: a mass grave of Revolutionaries, Republican fighters, their bodies dumped together in pits by the British. When we think “mass grave,” we like to kid ourselves that such things happen in “other lands,” though everyone in America is virtually living upon one. + +The connection between starved and slaughtered native and starved and slaughtered Irish-folk isn’t hard to make; if anything, it’s awfully hard to ignore. The dead scream, too, in the signs and graffiti smeared across the city proclaiming more revolution, more resistance, this time directed against the very system which drives colonial occupations for the last 300 years. + +Dublin isn’t far from Brú na Bóinne, a 45 minute bus ride away. I’d traveled already several thousand miles to get to Ireland, had just taken a several day detour to view Caer Arianrhod and speak to giants near the ancient Welsh town of Beddgelert, so the bus-ride from Dublin to the village of Donore wasn’t long at all. + +Still. That dread that I had felt when I first learned of my selection returned, this time accompanied by a spiraling, physical terror upon stepping foot off the bus. + +My inner Atheist had little to say about the matter. “Maybe you need a nap, that’s all. There’s no god here.” He was always saying stuff like that. + +I slept with my clothes on, clutching an Alder wand that washed up on shore by Caer Arianrhod in Wales. + +“You know Brân attacked the Irish, right?” This was a priest talking, one I’d hoped might explain to me why the earth seemed to want to shake me off into the sky around Brú na Bóinne. + +“Yeah,” I assented. “But it was their fault.” + +“Still–” he replied, rather patiently. “Newgrange is the home of The Dagda, and, well…” + +Another priest I asked confirmed my dread. “You have to buy passage. Dirt money, beer, spit. Pay the same on the way out. Someone will help you–you know who, I don’t.” + +And I checked a third oracle, just because my inner Atheist was having fits. “His mother’s body lies rotting in the summer ground.” + +Neil Dawkins Harris was gritting his teeth. It was actually interesting to hear from him again, though, as he’d seemed to have gotten lost on the ferry ride to Wales and wasn’t with me when I climbed 100 feet up a cliff face to ask some giants for help rebuilding the Cult of the Blessed Raven. He wasn’t there when Bran showed up to me in a dream and told me he’d be waiting after this was all over. He’d been silent when a Druid pulled my beard and wouldn’t let go until I pulled his back. + +I had three confirmations from others. Three other people didn’t think I was crazy. Druids like threes. + +I bought a beer, put a coin in my mouth, swished the beer around and then spit it all out on the ground, asking the Dagda for passage, and reminded him that the god who’s mother lied rotting in the summer fields had called me there in the first place. My inner atheist was awfully pissed at me, more than The Dagda had been. + +Reason told me that I’d done an awfully silly thing, maybe even a crazy thing. One doesn’t just risk a relationship and one’s livelihood to go on a pilgrimage to try to resurrect a god’s cult. + +Joseph and I talked a lot about this sort of thing while he hosted me in Dublin. He was as shocked as I about the selection, and I relied heavily on his narrative to help place my own. He moved to Dublin the year before to work in IT. He doesn’t like IT, didn’t know anyone in Dublin before taking the job. Didn’t quite even know why he put my name instead of his for the drawing. + +His best friend had died recently, and it’s a strange thing that I’m aware of dead spirits clinging closely to the living. His beloved friend wasn’t far, and I accepted quietly how much she was present to him when I was near. She and I even shared a birthday, and were both social workers. + +Because I could take a guest into Newgrange with me, I took him. It seemed the gods wanted him there as much they wanted me there. + +We walked that morning mostly in silence to the Brú na Bóinne visitor center, joining 20 other groggy but excited people awaiting something very few humans ever get the chance to try to see. And it was a chance, of course: there’s never a guarantee the sun will shine into the tomb on solstice morning, on account of clouds. There’d recently been a 6-year stretch where none of the visitors saw what we got to see that morning. + +We ate cookies and drank tea and waited for the bus that would drive us to Newgrange. Others had gone on ahead, a crowd of people waiting who hadn’t won the drawing but still hoped for a chance to watch the sun rise from outside. + +The awkward anticipation of the others in our group was as exhilarating as my own excitement. Listening to strangers speak of what may come, how they’d been chosen, how they’d never dreamt of such a chance filled me with such warmth that I almost didn’t care if the sun would rise that morning. Gods written on the faces and the lips of others are as present as those whispering in dreams, and more tangible. + +When we arrived at the site of Newgrange, Joseph and I walked silently up the hill, both turning at once to stare at the hundreds of corvids which had taken to a barren tree just at the base of the mound. I’d told him of Brân and what I’d been doing in Wales. He smiled, wordlessly, and I was glad of a witness even as my inner atheist stamped his feet angrily, reminding me I’d have a lot more money if I stopped buying peanuts to feed crows in Seattle. + +Just outside the tomb was a man who drew my attention immediately. I noticed my hand rubbing the fabric of the bee patch in my pocket, the one that I ran back into our hotel room to grab because I heard a voice say I’d need it. + +And then we entered. + +It’s dark inside a tomb. + +We were led in by a guide who kindly walked us through what we might see, her voice assuring us in the darkness once the lights had been extinguished. We were allowed no photography, since it would distract from the experience of others, but she encouraged us to speak to each other, adding that she’d kindly guide anyone out who experienced any sudden terror in the claustrophic blackness in which we huddled. + +She spoke of the history of Newgrange; what The Science knows and particularly what The Science doesn’t know. She spoke fondly of the archeologist: the one who had confirmed that the folk stories about the chamber becoming illuminated in the Solstice sunrise, and then she reminded us that it was not certain we’d see it. + +“There was no light yesterday. We keep solstice vigil for 6 days each year, and I’ve only seen it a handful of times since I started working here.” + +And then her voice caught in her throat. “Ah,” she said, all awe. “Here we are.” +Light within Newgrange. + + +Just at sunrise, the angle of the sun shines into a small window-box above the entrance to the tomb. From inside, one cannot quite see this window due to the angles of the construction, nor can one see the exit from within the inner chamber. We stood in complete darkness, and then suddenly, just as she spoke, the thinnest shaft of light, a spear of sun, shot through the window into the chamber. + +I still feel that great, collective inhalation of the gathered crowd huddled in the tomb at that first thin needle of light. There was nothing to say, nothing to understand, nothing to be done except watch. + +The light grew, and as it did a few people put out their hands to touch it, tentatively. They seemed so hesitant, unsure if it was appropriate, uncertain what it might do or mean. One could almost hear their inner atheists thumbing copies of Stephen Pinker’s latest drivel as mine was, but then, like a storm, the exuberance released, acceptance descended, and we basked in the sight. + +It was difficult to see what others were doing, but I noticed, just to my right, a man put on a pair of glasses that were not his. I’d seen those glasses: they were on Joseph’s mantle, next to the picture of his deceased friend. They’d belonged to her, and he’d put them on to gaze upon the light with her eyes, to see the way she might have seen, and perhaps to help her see, too. + +I left my inner atheist impaled upon Lugh’s shining spear in that tomb. + +Outside the tomb, the voices were raucous, full of joy and wonder. Those outside waited word from we who’d been within to hear what it was like. We who’d been inside tried to find the words to describe what we’d seen to faces full of as much wonder as we. + +Behind the tomb, I found the man I was supposed to find. He was standing in front of a stone that a friend had asked me to say a prayer before, and so I waited until he moved, my hand clutching the fabric in my pocket. + +There was no voice to tell me “no” any longer, no inner atheist to chide me for entertaining such ridiculous thoughts. + +I said hello to him. “Hey–I…can I give this you? I’m supposed to, I think.” +Alley Valkyrie’s bee patch within Newgrange + +Alley Valkyrie’s bee patch within Newgrange + +The man looked at the patch in his hand. “It’s a bee.” + +I nodded. “Yeah. It’s from my friend Alley Valkyrie.” + +“I keep bees,” he said, his face betraying confusion and awe. + +Of course he keeps bees, I thought to myself. That’s why it’s for him. “It’s definitely for you, then. Happy Solstice.” + +Joseph and I left Newgrange soon after. I had to, as The Dagda had made it clear I was to take the first bus out. + +I got what I’d came for, though, saw what I needed to see. I’d recited the prayers I’d been asked to, delivered the bee I’d been directed to by unseen voices I’ve learned to trust much more than the suddenly silent, sadly deceased corpse of my inner atheist. + +I figured The Dagda could use some overly-reasonable company for a little while. + +*** + +https://abeautifulresistance.org/site/2018/12/20/the-tomb-of-the-atheist \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/why-use-gopher.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/why-use-gopher.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04dbeb7 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/why-use-gopher.txt @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ + Why Gopher? + +Deep beneath the realm of the world wide web lives the hidden world of the +gopher, a forgotten curiosity seemingly inhabited only by computer geeks who +refuse to have the common sense to use the web as it exists today. To the +casual observer, gopher usually elicits a scowl followed by a condescending +"Text only?", "Monaco?" or, most commonly, "Why!?" Despite Cameron's excellent +retort to the gopher-scoffers, I thought I might comment briefly on the last +common scathing retort of "Why." + +And to that "why?", I reply: "Why not?" In forgotten days of yore, we traveled +by buggy, by stream trains, horse, foot and many other obsolete and even absurd +forms of travel. Yet, to this day, we still use these slow forms of travel. +Many find such inefficient forms of travel to be enjoyable, calling such +activities "quaint" or "nostalgic" with no reference to their efficiency at +getting them from point A to B. + +For example, the fall time ritual of the "Hay Ride" is a most ridiculous +and absurd form of travel imaginable yet, come autumn, people routinely +give up their comfortable car seats, conditioned air, and spring/shock +suspension to endure a bumpy, uncomfortable, hay fever filled ride that +usually costs more than if you had simply drove your car around the +block. Indeed, I have seen them - they flock in droves to country +tractor trailer, gleefully exhorting their somewhat doubtful children +with gleeful pleas, exclaiming "Isn't this FUN?" (Not to be overly demeaning of +hay ride participants, in most fun is a fair bit of absurdity) Can a person +not, with all this in mind, consider an alternate form of traversing the +Internet? + +But, more so - with that in mind, imagine, if you will, finding a forgotten +walking trail in the woods, hidden from the view of the world of mass transit, +accessible only by those who don sneakers and take the proverbial road less +traveled. Would you not be tempted to explore? Imagine, all the more, if the +trail turned out to be a shortcut? Who, other than the dullest of the +dullards, would not find that of at least some interest? + +You may say it's a stretch, but I argue it's not far off base from gopher. +Indeed, here is that forgotten trail in the woods, that abandoned railway, that +Internet superhighway of days of yore hidden from view beneath the surface of +the World Wide Web. Not only does it still work but, for some purposes, it +works quite well! Be your destination simple news (thanks floodgap), a or a +quick weather report, gopher fetches your information with a speed that is very +hard to beat! + +Dwell not on missing pictures, but think instead on what else is missing: Ads? +Tracking cookies? Animated gifs or, worse, flash video ads? All gone in the +realm of the gopher! Java vulnerabilities? Browser vulnerabilities? Java +script nonsense? Not in the gopher tunnels. Computer old? Got windows 95 or +even dos? Gopher doesn't care. With a half way decent firewall in front, a +hacker is hard pressed to find any holes in gopher. Slow connection? Got a +56k modem? That's plenty more bandwidth than gopher needs. Ad sponsors make +you carefully consider what you write on your blog? Write as you want on +gopher. + +Come one, come all - see the gopher holes of the Internet! Pull that 486 out +of the closet and put it to good use! Enjoy the pure text goodness that the +Internet founders intended. Pure text is the best, and even Courier can be +cool! And, who knows, you may actually find something worth reading. That +much I can't guarantee, but this I can almost certainly guarantee: You won't be +disappointed with its speed. + +-Helpdeskdan + +*** + +gopher://sdf.org/0/users/helpdeskdan/why.txt diff --git a/docs/quotes/misc/you-are-magickal-enough-without-delusions.txt b/docs/quotes/misc/you-are-magickal-enough-without-delusions.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c18845 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/misc/you-are-magickal-enough-without-delusions.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +And guess what? You don't have to be a god to be an effective magician. You don't have to be a fairy to work with them or be a powerful Witch. You don't have to be a dragon to have a hoarding problem. You don't have to be a therian (wolf or otherwise) to be a wonderful shaman. You are MAGICKAL ENOUGH without giving into delusions. diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/capitalism-consumerism.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/capitalism-consumerism.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c84641b --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/capitalism-consumerism.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Hot take: Capitalism isn't the same thing as consumerism. Just because I think voluntary exchange is moral doesn't mean I have to approve of greed, avarice, waste, excess, decadence, or selfishness. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/fandom-is-cancelled.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/fandom-is-cancelled.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f0968b --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/fandom-is-cancelled.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Fandom is cancelled, we're going back to casually enjoying media and not basing our fucking identities around the shit we consume. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/irresponsible-kin-community.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/irresponsible-kin-community.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9fae39 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/irresponsible-kin-community.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +it's irresponsible, narrow-minded, and at times dangerous how the communities refuse to give other explanations for behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. + +> food cravings can be because of normal, human nutritional deficiencies + +> an overwhelming, recurring desire to eat non-food objects is a real psychoatric disorder called pica + +> a recurring need for certain sensations can be a symptom of anxiety + +> there are numerous sensory conditions which lie on spectrums + +> but not every uncomfortable sensation means a condition, there are plenty of sensations/sounds/things people just don't like and this isn't because they're otherkin it's because of *individuality*. and not every want for certain things is a need + +> just because you really like an animal, thing, or character doesn't mean you are it + +> healthy outlets for escapism and such identification include writing, roleplaying, and art diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/kin-is-bullshit.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/kin-is-bullshit.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..12bf587 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/kin-is-bullshit.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +"i didn't choose to be kin! i've always been kin with [insert character]!!!" is honestly so mind-numbingly stupid. like in no possible way did you think you were a fictional character until you were exposed to whatever piece of fiction they belonged to, whether that be a tv show, a cartoon/anime, a book, whatever. you aren't born fictionkin, it's something you consciously choose to be. your kin "memories" that you possess aren't real. they're scenarios you conjured up in your mind. before finding out about that character, you didn't have any recollection of being them in a past like and you know it lol and the fact that you people think it's possible to even be something that only exists in a fictional reality in a past life is hysterical \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/rebirth.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/rebirth.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..763345b --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/rebirth.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +you know what's more freeing than killing yourself? running away to a small town and getting a job as a waitress. buying a cheap car and sticking a bed in the back and driving southwest. adopting a cat. learning a new instrument. moving apartments. visiting a friend in another city. chopping all your hair off. + +you can kill your current life without dying. you can kill this version of you and make a new one. + +maybe I'm just a bipolar sucker for rebirth but sometimes that thought is all that keeps me alive \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/docs/quotes/tumblr/son.txt b/docs/quotes/tumblr/son.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b236a42 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/quotes/tumblr/son.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Sun, ur getting older now and it's time u knew the truth. There is no justified hierarchy, that's just something we tell liberals so they'll feel better. diff --git a/gophermap b/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27d857a --- /dev/null +++ b/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ + ___, + the muses pull me .' .-~\ + to cleave the night / / + and leave this world unseen | | + \ '.___.; but my work on this coil + '._ _.' is not yet complete + `` I thus mar my hands unclean + +1MayVaneDay mayvaneday +1a tomb dripping dank and wet seliph +1a tome from mediuth paranoidsbible +1mori's little library docs +1an abandoned black feather viridi +1software software +1Rennica rennica +0recent statuses statuses.txt +0about about.txt diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f577bdf --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +2016 + +hJuly 1 - What do privacy, a crapton of puppies, and tea have in common? july/privacy.html +hOctober 30 - There's something in the air. october/change.html diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/july/privacy.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/july/privacy.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0bb964 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/july/privacy.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + What do privacy, a crapton of puppies, and tea have in common? - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

+

 

+

What do privacy, a crapton of puppies, and tea have in common?

+

published: 7-1-2016

+

 

+ +

(Before I begin: Yes, I know that I didn’t put ON A SIDE NOTE in the title, but that’s because this isn’t just a short status update about a hiatus or a family trip just gone by.)

+ +

Alternative title: what I learned from marking as many of my social media profiles as possible “private” +So what do privacy, a crapton of puppies, and tea have in common?

+ +

The answer is this, quite simple: immature teenagers (mostly girls, although sometimes boys) thinking that they can one-up a person by mocking their appearance, personal tastes, etc. instead of addressing the problem at hand. Maybe you’ve seen some of these people at work in your social media feed or noticed some of the colloquial terms used to endorse, describe, or glamorize this behavior: “salty”, the frog and tea emojis put together at the end of an unnecessarily rude sentence (as if that constituted an argument), “roasting”…the list could go on and on. There are new words passing into the vernacular each day.

+ +

There is a problem among many teens nowadays, and I say this as a teen myself: being nasty to other people is being glamorized beyond belief. Have teenagers always been rude to each other over the pettiest of arguments? Yes. But with the advent of the first generation raised with the internet, the repercussions of this behavior can be much worse, and a spat can cross multiple continents and involve thousands if not millions of people within a few seconds. A reputation can be ruined faster than one can find a Spanish tongue-twister and struggle through it.

+ +

About two weeks ago, at the end of one of my poems, I made an announcement that I was setting both my Twitter and Instagram on private in order to prevent butthurt LGBT pride celebrators from hurling personal attacks on me for choosing to not celebrate my gender or my sexuality. When you’ve burned through three Tumblr accounts and have seen both the nicest and the most nasty people sides of the website, one can become quite scared for their personal privacy on the internet. On one hand, you’re just a few clicks away from countless galleries of puppies and other baby animals being adorable for hours on end of enjoyment. But on the other hand, you make one mistake- innocent intentions or not- and butthurt fandomites will descend on your sorry ass and leak your private information (an action known as “doxxing“), flood all your possible pipes of interacting online with death threats akin to a DDoS, and otherwise render your experience of the internet to be painful at best. One misstep, and you’re the next zamii070.

+ +

However, if you set your social media profiles to be the most private they can be and carefully filter through follower and friend requests to only be people that you trust, how are angry hormonal girls supposed to snatch pictures of your face, send doctored screenshots to your employer, and lead harassment campaigns to smear your name? There’s a reason I’ve ceased to post my face anywhere. Nobody can photoshop my face into a grotesque mess if the closest thing they can find to a face is the Zorphian four-chambered heart, dubbed a “wonton” by the little girls of my unit last year at Girl Scout Camp.

+ +

So what if it’s harder to get post notifications? It’s easy enough to pop an RSS feed into Nextcloud and enable notifications that way. If there’s enough of a will, there’ll always be a way- which I hear is a bastardized English proverb.

+ +

Anonymity is a powerful thing, and I’ll gladly have far less likes on Instagram and no comments praising my appearance if it means I get to preserve it.

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/october/change.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/october/change.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..950dfc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2016/october/change.html @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ + + + + + + warning: change ahead - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

 

+

warning: change ahead

+

published: 10-30-2016

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+ +

There's something in the air.

+ +

And no, it’s not turkeys- although we saw plenty of those on the way there. +Over the past few months, there has been an impending sense of doom hanging over my head with no specific due date. It’s like I’ve forgotten to study for a big test right around the corner, like there’s some important date that all my peers know about and have been preparing for but that I’ve been left in the dark about- maybe on purpose, as I’ve never really been liked by my peers, maybe on accident.

+ +

Do you know the feeling?

+ +

I spent the day in a new town yesterday. Let’s call it Wychester as I don’t want to accidentally dox myself in the extremely minuscule chance that someone from Wychester reads my blog and particularly cares about the senior girl moving in to a small abandoned loop of road. We were originally going to be spending the day there in order to see a musical taking place at the school my father works at, but the day grew infinitely more interesting to me when we got a call from a realtor asking if we wanted to look at a house.

+ +

The impending sense of doom was that, at the end of my junior year at high school, we would be moving to this Wychester so that my father didn’t have to spend multiple hours in a commute to and back from his job. It would help my younger brothers, my parents said. I concluded that everything else, like the friends that I’d just finally been able to make and the town that I adored, would just be collateral damage.

+ +

That I'd just be collateral damage.

+ +

There’s something in Wychester’s air, something that I haven’t yet been able to describe. It’s part loneliness, like I know that I’ll be emotionally isolated. High school has never been nice to me. Pair that with subpar social skills (although I’m improving all the time!) and the climate of a bunch of hormonal high school students that I know nothing about, and you’ve practically got yourself a recipe for a depressive sort of bump in the road of life. It’s part wistful longing, like I know that I’m caught between a rock and a hard place and wish that it wasn’t so, even though I know that there’s no other way that these cards could have fell.

+ +

There are so many memories in this house here. How am I supposed to leave them all behind? Merely taking the objects with me won’t help much- it’s like trying to pull a bug out of a spider web. A trinket tipped over and resting on the same bookcase it has for five years isn’t the same as moving the trinket, placing it on a bookcase somewhere else, and then trying to emulate the tip. Something feels forced.

+ +

And yet, something inside of me is eager to get out of this house, out of this stale city. Things are too predictable here, this section of my mind says. Too much same old, same old kills a writer, and the air of Wychester feels like a fresh breath after being underwater for too long.

+ +

But my mind doesn’t particularly like having to deal with conflicting feelings, so it invents characters like Nox and Adelaide Audette and Lank from Walmart as methods to escape them for a little bit. They exist somewhere in between imaginary friends and anthropomorphic emotions. Maybe they’ll get fully-fledged stories one day, or at least more than a passing mention in a disorganized blog post. They won’t need boxes or loads of packing tape to come with me. They follow me everywhere- even to places where I would much rather prefer to be fully in my own mind. Would they follow me to Wychester, to the large living rooms of the second house we visited?

+ +

There’s change in the air.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/february/valentine.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/february/valentine.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae15143 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/february/valentine.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + + obligatory valentine's day post - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

obligatory valentine's day post

+

published: 2-14-2017

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+

You thought this was going to be another poem, didn’t you? Another poem where I complain along with millions of other people how nobody wants to date me on this day that has no overall significance in my daily existence. Although I do have finals the next two days, so maybe I should put in some contingency plans just in case I don’t end up surviving.

+ +

So why am I alone, you ask? I don’t particularly like answering that question, usually choosing to brush it off with the cliche answer of “I just haven’t found the right person yet.” And in a way, that’s true- I haven’t found a person yet, and I probably never will, because my expectations have been so warped by all the time I spent with my head in books and code and focusing in myself that I seem to have completely lost touch with reality.

+ +

My perfect partner would probably be just as passionate about writing and privacy as I am- there’s something strangely romantic in proposing not to get a ring and increase oneself’s tax burdens but in purposely choosing to evade the constant unwarranted spying we live under. Not to give you spoilers for my next book, of course… But any pact to mutually improve each other would be just as devoted. I’d like to not get tangled up in romantic cliches. I’d like to believe I was destined for greatness, and reenacting some sappy fanfiction from the depths of the hellsite that is Wattpad isn’t exactly what I’m going for.

+ +

But all the seemingly eligible candidates for a completely voluntary role seem to not be present or even existent. I don’t want to be a selfie prop to continue some meaningless streak- don’t make me go under the dog filter; tell me about your dogs, their habits and how long it takes for them to roll over and expose their bellies when you get home from school. Let’s not fume over others; let’s discuss the fumes polluting the environment and how we can carve out an existence that hurts the least amount of people as possible, if even anybody at all. A small stone ring in the garden encircling a small crop of plants to ease the grocery bill is better than an overpriced gemstone ring any day.

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..870708e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +2017 + +hFebruary 14 - obligatory valentine's day post february/valentine.html +hMarch 17 - class march/class.html +hSeptember 8 - fame.exe september/fame.html +hOctober 12 - dispatches from nowhere october/dispatches-from-nowhere.html +hNovember 2 - 8:18 p.m. (or, the antithesis of wanderlust) november/wanderlust.html +hNovember 28 - infierno:// november/infierno.html diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/march/class.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/march/class.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d670a2f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/march/class.html @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ + + + + + class - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

class

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published: 3-17-2017

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+

My room has been darkening for some hours and I’ve only noticed it now. But nothing can quite capture the feeling of dying sunlight on somebody else’s windowsill, hitting the half-dead fish surrounded by waters just as murky as your own intentions. Not to mention those of the strangers around you- constantly fiddling with a small purse, trying to find the best place to safeguard it from pickpockets without disturbing the gracious hosts or yourself.

+ +

It had been eight months since I had last slept in that bed, unless my memory is playing tricks upon me again. And in that eight months, the obsessions had neither ceased nor waned- just changed their subjects, looking for another cheap thrill that would not have any result on the world.

+ +

But corrupted alphabets have to end somewhere, unfounded fears put to rest and resurrected anew in other languages- tongues doing double duty, triple, tea bubbles and hasty words dissolving, sometimes sweet and sometimes bitter. A hit or miss event; mostly miss, something always amiss.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/infierno.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/infierno.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07e1b0d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/infierno.html @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ + + + + + infierno:// - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

infierno://

+

published: 11-28-2017

+

 

+ +

The concept of “hell” is many different things to many different people. To some, it is a physical place where people rot and burn forever, whether justified or not. For others, it might be a child dying, or a foot aching forever, or being physically separated from a loved one and never being able to see them again.

+ +

Hell can also be the computer lab, locked in with an aging and decrepit teacher convinced that the absolute kindergarten basics of a computer- logging in, how to use the save button, how to type things into a spreadsheet- need to be revisited despite being a high school class.

+ +

I signed up for a class plainly named “Computer Applications” thinking I’d learn something. Maybe I’d finally find the motivation to wrap my head around C++ or JavaScript or Ruby or some other language I might need someday. Maybe I’d finally make sense of the mystifying terminal, Windows or one of a trillion Linux distros or whatever system it be on. Maybe I’d learn how to make a mini-server out of an old computer and deploy Nextcloud or whatever self-hosted apps I could possibly find useful.

+ +

I really shouldn’t have expected as much. This is a school that thinks Chromebooks are the absolute gold standard of computing and thinks throwing their network behind a captive portal could possibly be a good idea. (I used to go to a much bigger school that had an open network, and while that has the same security issues concerning potential sniffers, everything still turned out okay.)

+ +

There are a great many reasons why I only use my own hardware and not the school’s or anybody else’s. I can install whatever the hell I want on my own laptop, I can be reasonably sure that there aren’t any school-mandated spyware programs running in the background (the school network is a completely different story), and, most importantly, I can use whatever operating system I want.

+ +

I run Linux Mint on my computer. It’s fast, it’s far easier to update all my software all at once (and doesn’t take two hours just to reboot and apply system updates like Windows does), and I can sleep easy at night knowing that I’m not gonna wake up the next morning and see all my files deleted because the fools at Microsoft decided to use whatever backdoors they’ve cooked into OneDrive and arbitrarily deem me a violator of their Terms of Service.

+ +

But this teacher seemingly has a fetish for Microsoft Office, and, even if we have Office installed on our own machines, she forces us like a tyrant to use the spyware-riddled school machines. Never mind that I already have a fully functioning copy of LibreOffice on my own computer and that it can do everything the class teaches and more. Never mind that the spacebar on the computer I’ve been assigned is almost completely broken. If she can’t shut down the entire computer at the push of a button from her lazy seat at her desk, it might as well be a one-way ticket to the… office.

+ +

Funny how words work, isn’t it?

+ +

I could also rant about how, by only teaching corporate-made products and not the alternatives, this school and thousands others are essentially creating future customers for the companies they’re sucking up to. But others have made this point already, and, knowing my horrid memory, I probably already have as well.

+ +

Yes, there’s a network folder that the teacher requires all the work be put into that only resides on the school’s infrastructure, but that’s what we have flash drives and metadata scrubbers for. But, hell, even the network folder doesn’t work most of the time: all but a few of the kids in the class have no goddamn idea what they’re doing, all piling into the folder at the beginning of class to make a subfolder for themselves and rewriting over each other over and over and over again.

+ +

Is this what college is going to be like? A bunch of Snapchatting fools who can’t even capitalize the name of their own school and need someone to explain that the “Insert” tab in Excel is for… inserting things? (Who would have guessed?) I know all of this stuff already. I learned how to use PowerPoint in elementary school because that’s all we had at the time, and that’s all I knew.

+ +

And guess what? LibreOffice works just the same. And it doesn’t make me feel disgusting inside.

+ +

But there’s still the entire trimester, minus one day, left to go.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/wanderlust.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/wanderlust.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27f3dfe --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/november/wanderlust.html @@ -0,0 +1,61 @@ + + + + + 8:18 p.m. (or, the antithesis of wanderlust) - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios +

+

 

+

8:18 p.m. (or, the antithesis of wanderlust)

+

published: 11-2-2017

+

 

+

August 2016 was a weird period in my life. I was still riding off the high satisfaction of completing my first novel, The Samhain Files, and was rushing as fast as my trembling fingers could type on my grandma’s clackety keyboard to complete The White Line Fever before school started. A goal which I didn’t meet, resulting in having to drag myself through writing on the school-issued iPad with the almost draconian restrictions on what could be installed on it. (I mean, I understand you don’t want any porn or games on it… but, come on, why allow Blogger but not WordPress? They both serve the same purposes. I mean, the latter is far superior because Google doesn’t have their grubby hands on it…)

+ +

Something snapped in the last third of summer vacation. I don’t remember the date exactly, just like a lot of events I’ve found instrumental to my becoming in hindsight: the story of meeting my “waifu” in a lucid dream (a story I might have the courage to share one day), the angry rant about a certain subset of goths (that I won’t link here because Onionboy doesn’t deserve any more views)….

+ +

But I remember exactly where it was- in the purple room in my grandmother’s house, curled up on the bed with a freshly pirated book.

+ +

The Circle by Dave Eggers is a terrifying book. And I don’t mean that lightly. I’ve never been the most perceptive of sarcasm or satire, often accidentally taking things face value and only realizing it after the fact. And as I read along those few aging summer days, watching the main character Mae stumble her way up the corporate ladder, I… I cheered everything on. Supported the advances of a predatory corporation as it swallowed more and more of the Wild West of the Internet up and coerced all peoples into its net, willing or not.

+ +

And I finished the book after a few days, and I sat there like blood was dripping down my hands from a fresh murder. A murder it was- the slaughter of a long-hanging remnant of innocence, a rip in the veils, fluttering tattered in a fierce wind.

+ +

That was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning.

+ +

It’s all semantics anyways.

+ +

The school system I’d grown up in switched from using Microsoft’s products to Google’s around fourth grade- or was it fifth? I don’t remember too much, but I do remember the poorly made games made in Google Slides and the drama I still haven’t been able to will myself to forget. They never taught us to use anything else- whenever the school WiFi went down, you’d have thought that the teachers would have marched us down to the computer labs and spent a few days slaving over the aging Microsoft Word installation just to keep the show running. But instead they just shrugged their shoulders and threw more money at the already incompetent IT department.

+ +

The minds of young children are impressionable. And if you instill in them a deep-seated need for getting good grades, and then you make satiating those needs dependent on a dysfunctional system with little regard for the privacy of its users with no recourse other than to opt out of using the computer systems altogether, you set them up for a rude awakening down the road.

+ +

Either one of their beloved companies shuts down and takes all their data with them, or something they entrusted to one of these corporations gets handed over to the police in order to convict that person for a law they didn’t know existed…

+ +

Or one day they’re slapped in the face with the reality that these online services won’t last forever and that maybe having their only copy of their most precious files (or any files, really!) in one place is a horrible idea, and that they shouldn’t be trusting one single corporation with some of their most intimate digital possessions.

+ +

That’s the danger of systems like Google’s. They just “work”, pure and simple with little to no configuration on the user’s part. No installation of software, no need to keep anything up to date, no need to even have anything more than a browser on the system. (I hate Chromebooks, but that’s a story for later.) There’s no impetus to download files as backups or to create backup plans in case of failure. Just keep creating files in the same system, years and years of work poised to go down the drain with the switch of a button thousands and thousands of miles away, one single point of failure.

+ +

If Google goes down, I’ll still be able to access my files because they’re stored locally on my machine. If my machine gets borked, I’ll still be able to access my files because they’re backed up into an offsite Nextcloud server.

+ +

If both happen? Well, both of us are screwed then, and it won’t matter.

+ +

When things just “work”, there’s no incentive to try new ways of doing things, to expand one’s horizons before something breaks and the mere alternative becomes the necessary. I knew about Linux for a long time, but when the sound stopped working on my laptop in Windows mid-July, I finally downloaded my first Ubuntu ISO and started learning how to use it, not out of curiosity but necessity. (I eventually got it fixed by reinstalling the sound drivers, but by then, I’d already fallen in love with the Debian ecosystem.) And from there, I learned about the virtues of FLOSS (free/libre open source) software, and from there… Well, it felt incredibly liberating. A system that I had complete control over and a world of software I never even knew existed to help with the things I’d always had to do by hand since Google had never thought them important enough to implement.

+ +

That’s not to say it was easy at first, or that I did it correctly right off the bat. In the beginning, I didn’t really care about privacy or the morality of the services or the people running them. I just wanted to be as far away from Google as possible while sacrificing as little mobile functionality as possible, since, at the time, I didn’t have a computer.

+ +

But school still forces me to use Google products in order to submit assignments. Sure, the vast majority of the work can be done offline with LibreOffice or on S Note (which I only use because it has stylus support for my phone), but eventually I have to touch that dreaded white login screen, so simplified it’s almost beautiful.

+ +

I absolutely hate this forced dependence. Given a few days, I could probably come up with a better system with one arm tied behind my back. But it would be rejected immediately because A) it would be almost nigh impossible for the school to spy on the students’ work to make sure they’re not exploring the ecosystem they’re forced to use, and B) they’d have to remember more than one short easily-guessable password. Boo hoo hoo, you have to learn how to not reuse your passwords across sites. Cry me a river.

+ +

(I mean, seriously? What kind of shoddy overpaid IT department sets mere lunch numbers as passwords? Or birthdays? You just get a few pieces of information about a person you hate, and then you can wipe out all of their schoolwork with no recompense for the victim as they didn’t make any damn backups.)

+ +

But then again, it’s all about the comfort of the teachers, isn’t it? Sacrifice the souls and privacy of the students in order to save a few minutes grading?

+ +

And what of my peers? When they go out into the workforce, these are going to be the services they’ll know how to use best. And they’ll stay with what works for them without so much as a second thought.

+ +

And there goes off yet another batch of lifelong users manufactured and sold hook and sinker until their beloved services sink. And I’ll still be here, typing away in LibreOffice with the status bar turned off so I can’t see the word count on whatever chapter I’ll be working on (I find that number a major distraction), ready to disappear and rematerialize at the drop of a hat amidst everyone else’s chaos.

+ +

Flexibility was supposed to be a school virtue, right?

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/october/dispatches-from-nowhere.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/october/dispatches-from-nowhere.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d199730 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/october/dispatches-from-nowhere.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + dispatches from nowhere - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

dispatches from nowhere

+

published: 10-12-2017

+

 

+ +

The last few weeks have been an absolute mess, and I suppose I owe an explanation.

+ +

My basement flooded a week and a half ago. The sky cried itself to sleep and made the sump pump in the lowest level of my house fail, causing unknown structural damage and destroying a great deal of personal possessions. Lots of mementos of my childhood are just gone. All the video game systems in my house either have their power cords destroyed, their controllers either outright broken or out of whack, or don’t have the correct output cords to be compatible with the TV in the first basement, which is where my room is. I’ve essentially become a refugee to whatever emulators I can get running on my computer, which, seeing as Windows has apparently decided to actively work against me whenever I boot into it to play games, really isn’t that fun of an experience.

+ +

Except for last Saturday, a birthday party for several members of my family. Getting my rear end handed to me while playing several bootlegs of Wii games that took half of the day to download was pretty… interesting.

+ +

The Duality of Mankind, my next book, is now a third of the way done through the first draft. I’ve had to restart writing on it four times- first, two teenagers trawling their way through high school and the death of one of the main character’s family members; second, some sort of pseudo-anarchist utopia with a kid who fell form the sky; a third rewrite I won’t mention that only got half a paragraph before I gave up; and now the fourth attempt, which I’ve almost completely plotted.

+ +

And what has become of me?

+ +

I’m not quite sure. Halloween has become a balance of trying not to embarrass myself by dressing up as someone I’m not physically fit enough to be and not sucking up to anyone else by being so generic as to be unmockable and unremarkable. I remember almost half a decade ago wandering in my neighborhood with only a glowstick to illuminate my way, trampling among high hills and valleys with my cousins and brothers, a plastic pumpkin bucket swinging from my arm. The neighborhood was friendlier back then. Adults were a lot less terrifying, and checking over every piece of candy was just a stupid rule that could just be circumvented by stuffing your face full of chocolate while in the back of your van on the way home.

+ +

But then the family scattered across the state, and we stopped waiting for the sun to leave, and we started waiting for parents to chaperone us instead. And eventually I stopped going out at all, waiting for a friend’s invite that never came.

+ +

I’m not so sure that I want to be here anymore, but wanderlust isn’t so useful when you’re not even sure where “here” is.

+ +

There are so many responsibilities that I’ve been neglecting, and I know that this is one of them. I’m coming back. I promise.

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/september/fame.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/september/fame.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ecf0a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2017/september/fame.html @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ + + + + + fame.exe - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

fame.exe

+

published: 9-8-2017

+

 

+ +

I am still so afraid of life.

+ +

The college spam is beginning to pile up. Gym class makes every day a living hell, days strung out one after the other. I keep finding myself clinging onto each day as they come if only to spread out the time between each torture session, stuck in a stark contrast from summer, wanting each day to lengthen as the sun wanes instead of speeding through every week with not much to do.

+ +

It’s my own damn fault, and I’m very aware of it, and yet I find it hard to believe that anything is supposed to get better in adulthood- especially considering the future I see myself inevitably speeding straight to.

+ +

I’ve said it before. I don’t want to be famous. I want to be well-respected– and yet, in this current climate, a hand slicing and dicing a fellow human to shreds is more profitable to the general public than a hand outstretched in aid. The former generates outrage, which drives news ratings, which creates spaces for advertisers to sell their products. It creates opportunities for celebrities and other public figures to wank about their self-declared intellect and eject worn-out platitudes for the sole purpose of racking up upvotes. A genuine act of philanthropy may help the downtrodden of humanity, but it doesn’t boil the collective blood like a good dose of outrage can and does.

+ +

The road to fame is paved with inconsequential spats on social media and a constant cycle of creating drama with other people and then claiming innocence. Spreading the seeds of inaudible discord, normalizing borderline slander- and for what? To feed superiority complexes? To set oneself on an imagined throne at the top of the world, every single fame who propelled you to fame and success just another serf on your land, farming money and worthless retweets?

+ +

This isn’t a system I don’t think I could ever be compatible with. This isn’t a system I don’t want to be compatible with. I don’t want to spend all my time wasting away on social media, having meaningless spats with other competitors for people’s time when I could be writing books, when I could be taking care of myself, when I could be caring for the people I love the most. I don’t want to lust after the cool musician of the day, pretending to be someone I’m not just to bait their fans for cheap follows.

+ +

But if I continue to put myself out on the public sphere, to contribute to public dialogue instead of hiding from criticism and writing everything down in my journal, never to see the light of day again- then eventually I’m going to attract the scum of humanity. The fangirls* mindlessly retweeting every little piece of drivel their “idols” shit out of their mouths. The fangirls who create countless roleplay accounts as their favorite celebrities with often only appearance and name in common- jacked-up ultra-gay caricatures of their former selves with all the parts of them that can’t be rabidly fetishized taken out, neatly packaged and fine-tuned to generate the maximum amount of “feels”. The fangirls who hound their “favorite” content creators to insanity if the works they produce so much as stray a hair from the path of ultra-political correctness.

+ +

The day I see some teenage girl jacking off to a Twitter roleplay account of one of my characters bent beyond recognition into one of her hormonal fantasies is the day the last piece of my soul will die.

+ +

Those are not the kind of people I want associated with me. Those are not the kind of people I want to be spamming me 24/7 with requests to follow them or random scraps of thought or accusations of not following public opinion. Hopefully not having a Twitter or Instagram or Tumblr will stave most of them off- but at what cost? Am I purposely crippling my own chances of being discovered by potential readers or a publisher or some other kind of literary agent that’ll get me out to the masses because I don’t consent to the privacy invasion nightmare that is modern social media? Am I cutting myself off from people who might otherwise be my friend, who otherwise might be potential fans because I’m not Snapchatting every moment of my life? Am I pushing away people I used to be close to because I’d rather use a platform that I can trust not to harvest my data** for advertisers?

+ +

There have been moments where I’ve considered throwing in the towel. Reinstalling all the Google apps I uninstalled on the devices I was able to root*** and disabling them on the devices I couldn’t root. Reactivating my Instagram account and creating a new Twitter. Ceasing to resist every time a member of my family posts a picture of me on Facebook without my consent.

+ +

But I wouldn’t be here right now, speaking to you over the internet across the restrictions of time and space, if I ever gave up that easily.

+ +

Even though I might not be able to win against a system that requires me to sacrifice my soul to reach my goals, that doesn’t mean I should stop fighting for things to change for the better. For the opening of publishing systems that cut out the middleman and let content creators reap the full benefits of their fruits. For decentralized and distributed systems that allow me to communicate with other people no matter what servers we’re using or what our individual perspectives on privacy or digital freedom are.

+ +

For a system I could be compatible with without having to compromise any part of myself- a life less frightening where trust wouldn’t carry such a high burden.

+ +

For a change in heart, if such a thing will ever be possible.

+ +

*Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals. You know what the hell I meant. Surely you’ve encountered one of these people before.

+ +

**At the time of writing this, I still have a Facebook account, which I know is massive hypocrisy on my part. I will send in the deletion request before this year is over- I’ve been meaning to do so for quite a while. The only thing that held me back for this long was the constant guilt-tripping of… certain family members.

+ +

***My current phone and my old tablet. (Which have been pretty much replaced with my computer, although current obligations force me to use my phone, and I still use the tablet from time to time.) My old phone consistently unroots itself within half an hour of running Kingroot on it, which is the only method that works on the software version it’s currently on.

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/irl.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/irl.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fd0c73 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/irl.html @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ + + + + + irl - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

irl

+

published: 8-23-2018

+

 

+

This story starts in the dead hours of the morning, where I get a text from an unknown number.

+

"Maybe it's my college roommate?" I wonder, and then I start panicking, because how in the world would my roommate have gotten my number? Or maybe it's one of my family members whose contact I lost in the migration to my new phone since I forgot to configure DavDroid before the move. Or maybe it's one of my old friends trying to get in contact with me again.

+

It was spam from some shitty app called IRL, calling me by my deadname and saying that someone had "complimented" me.

+

I remember the dregs of high school, the old one I went to before I moved and everything went to hillbilly hell. There was this app called "After School" that required you to sign in with a Facebook account so it could "confirm" that it went to the school whose stream you were trying to access. Never mind that one could easily create a fake profile with said school for the sole purpose of accessing that app... But once one got in, they could leave any kind of anonymous message for everyone else who was accepted into that school's stream to see.

+

It wasn't any kind of intellectual haven. 99% of the posts were either people talking about their crushes or calling each other whores.

+

IRL is along the same strain of apps. Except this one automatically tried to snatch my contacts, leading me to frantically dive into the system settings and cut off all of the app's permissions except for phone, which it apparently needed in order to... sign up. Once I got past the five hundred questions to set up a profile (all of which I fudged or outright lied on), I finally got to my notifications to see what was worth spamming me on three different numbers.

+

Someone nominated me for "Brave AF".

+ +

Was it worth it, anonymous internet person? Was leaking my number to a shady shitty social app worth the accolades without the social consequences? Was praising me without revealing your name worth knowing that my phone number and full birth name is now floating around on the internet, at the mercy of whoever coded and runs IRL not to sell to marketers and data aggreggators and spammers alike?

+

IRL sucks up all your contacts by default. They have your name and phone number, and the names and phone numbers of all the people in your phone, and those of all the other people using their service, and they have the power to connect the dots. So what if a small handful of people are kind and put my preferred name in their contacts? One person puts my deadname in with my phone number, and it's game over for my anonymity.

+

You think this won't be exploited? You think this can't be tapped into by the government with a single subpoena?

+

I hereby nominate you for "Asshole AF", and I don't need a closed-source proprietary app to tell you that.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/thunder.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/thunder.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac41b7a --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/thunder.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + early on a thundery Friday morning - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

early on a thundery Friday morning

+

published: 8-3-2018

+

 

+

I woke up at three in the morning after a nightmare where I was someone’s patron-saint, guarding them from the dog my grandma’s neighbor has even though their backyard consisted of a giant maze of fenced-in partitions. Almost like a petting zoo. And there were kids running about all through the maze, dodging the dog, and then somehow I ended up doing sick tricks on a motorcycle on a track that looked like it was straight out of Video Game Maker Tycoon while explaining to someone over the phone why so many unwashed men flock to Melee like it were the last boat leaving the Titanic.

+

On the waking side of the world, I have no goddamn idea why I was even thinking about Melee in the first place, considering that I only played it a grand total of once and I always get roped into playing Subspace on Brawl with my brothers because they’re scared of playing any Smash game where I’m not on their side.

+

I didn’t get to see the sun rise this morning, but I got to see the sun cast its golden tones over the house of one of our neighbors and then promptly disappear when a tiny thunderstorm rolled in.I got to hear the birds chirping outside and see a spider crawl across the outside side of my bedroom window.

+

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Some of it in a panic-fueled rage after having a mental breakdown thanks to my parents incessantly hounding me about college financial aid. Some of it right before I go to bed, making me pick up my phone after I already said good night to my internet friends and jot down a few notes before my eyes threaten to burn to a crisp. Some of it in the car, blaring music through my headphones so I don’t have to hear my brothers screaming about the latest copy-pasted Teen Titans Go episode.

+

I have autism. Did you know that? It affects almost every part of my day-to-day existence, even if I’m good at masking as neurotypical for short periods of time or like to delude myself that it doesn’t affect me. For example, there are some textures that I cannot stand, like scrambled eggs or whipped yogurt. I can choke them down so I don’t hurt the cook’s feelings, but then I want to puke after. And I don’t like shirts with words or pictures on the front, although I don’t know if that’s genuinely because of autism or because anything more than solid colors leads to people knowing what I like and then being able to use that knowledge to embarrass me. I can “social” enough to order my own food at a restaurant or email a teacher about a problem I have, but afterwards I feel like I want to nap for a hundred years in a big dark cave. Repetitive sounds drive me up-the-wall insane.

+

And I have special interests, apparently. Things that I’m inexplicably drawn to like a moth to a flame, even though the only moths I’ve ever seen not on the internet were outside or curled up and dead underneath a table at my grandma’s house when I drummed a TV remote beside it to scare it too much. They’re not addictions, because, while looking at pictures of our dear Poot or Lonk gives me a flutter in my heart, there are times when I need to momentarily forget that video games exist and do adulting. And I can with litle trouble.

+

When did we decide that being passionate about something was childish? When did we decide that adulthood was to be drab and boring and slave away at a job to accumulate mere wealth and then roll over and die?

+

I’m not an immature little kid. I’m still me, vehemently so, an individual who works best when allowed to be an individual- but, I’ll admit, setting yourself against the world all the time is so damn tiring. Not every waking moment can be devoted to improving oneself, and I’m ashamed that I even have to say that. People aren’t self-sustaining- people aren’t vacuums. We need to get inspiration from somewhere, from art, no matter what form that art takes- books, music, games.

+

Part of what lead to my mental crash of early summer this year was the chan mentality of, if something is mainstream, it is trash regardless of its quality. If something couldn’t contribute to a superiority complex over the “normie” masses, then it wasn’t “good enough”. Places like /r/StopGaming are wrong, to an extent: yes, it’s bad to spend seven hours a day playing WoW or DoTA, farming for worthless virtual monies. But there’s nothing wrong with, say, occasionally playing Smash with my friends and family or maybe sinking an hour into a strategy game by myself when I can’t get up the spoons to write. It’s not the medium that matters, it’s the message, it’s what you get out of something that you enjoy. There are lots of things I can study in a game that aren’t just “durr how do I play this game”. There’s the visuals- character design, and the art style used, and all the little intricacies of the game’s map. There’s the audibles- one of the things that gets me through a long day is just sitting down in a quiet place with my headphones and a long playlist. And studying the voice acting in games that have it helps me to recognize other people’s emotions when I encounter them in real life. And there’s lore, which studying can help me recognize common tropes and why people like them and improve my own writing.

+

Yes, I could do some of these with a book. And I still love to read. But sometimes I just don’t have the mental spoons to quiet my brain enough to read.

+

But I digress.

+

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been trying something of an experiment with myself. Maybe, if I stop treating everything my brain wanders back to when I’m idle as an “addiction”, maybe my mental health will improve. Maybe my writing block will finally end. Maybe I’ll stop being so much of an insufferable misanthrope.

+

And guess what?

+

Big fuckin’ whoop, I was right!

+

Wow! For the first time in a long time, I don’t see a depression meme and instantly relate! What a foreign sensation, loving and accepting oneself and reaping the benefits is!

+

I’m nine chapters into the sequel to The Duality of Mankind. I’m still putting the finishing touches on the first book, and then I’ll release it for peer review. Maybe tomorrow? The next day? Sometime real soon, because it’s coming out August 15, exactly two years to the date The Samhain Files came out and I celebrated my first book by going on a walk to a park and catching some Pokemon.

+

I’m still here! And I’ll always be here!

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/tumblr.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/tumblr.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abb191b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/tumblr.html @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ + + + + + tumblr blues - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

tumblr blues

+

published: 8-29-2018

+

 

+

Oh joy, another post complaining about why I left social media. Tumblr this time, if we’re being specific. Or might leave, if we’re being so specific that I’ll soon need to dig out the microscope from my brother’s bedroom and take it with me to college.

+

But I won’t, because he’ll be starting high school in a few days, and it’ll probably come in handy.

+

About two months ago, I made yet another Tumblr account. For my personal safety, I won’t be giving you the link. A month before that, while I was in the midst of my 8chan-fueled black hole, I’d made a different account in a vain attempt to force myself to write a diary novel about an angel sent down to Earth in order to “thot patrol” the planet. Safe to say, it only lasted about three days, and then it was quickly deactivated. Nobody noticed, because there were no followers, and, honestly, the angelkin community on tumblr probably doesn’t appreciate someone yelling the word “THOT” every three posts.

+

But this new one was supposed to be an exercise in working with all the quirks and problems in myself instead of against them. Accepting that I was autistic and had special interests instead of labeling them as “obsessions” and publicly flagellating myself for having them, mostly. It wasn’t meant to ever get tied into this website right here, although, since Rinea’s a dumbass, it eventually did.

+

More on that later.

+

The first few days were rather peaceful. My mental health soared. My writer’s block lifted, and I finally started work on my next book, A Lonely Signal Burns. I started repairing my relationships with my brothers (although a sort of enmity exists between us, just subdued this time). I quickly befriended someone who I’m going to assume for the sake of this post was a minor, although I suppose I’ll never know, because our last interaction was this:

+

“I’m not going to have WiFi for four more days, so this is the last time we will be able to talk.”

+

I sent a sad emoji. “Have fun on your vacation!”

+

“Thank you!”

+

Several heart emojis ensued, and then I never heard from them again.

+

We shared a special interest in the short time that we knew each other, and we laughed at joke posts, and we sent each other funny pictures of Poot. And although I soon befriended other people who liked many of the same things I did, this one person never came back.

+

And I grew very, very scared.

+

Soon after, I found myself embroiled in the anti-MAP community. Not a hate group against cartographers, but people striving to rid Tumblr of “minor-attracted persons”, a sugarcoated term for what is essentially a pedophile. I made a great deal of internet friends there, but eventually, seeing the same points made over and over again made me tired, and so I distanced myself from the anti-MAP community in hopes of going back to why I joined Tumblr in the first place- to satiate my autistic streak and give my recovering self a reason to wake up in the morning.

+

And then I found the otherkin again.

+

Otherkinity, if you don’t know, is essentially believing that you have a nonhuman soul inside of a human body. Whether this is due to reincarnation or some weird magic thing I don’t understand is up to the individual person to figure out. I, naturally, found myself falling into the angelkin communty, soon surrounded in my dashboard by fluffy feathers and people whining about how angel names all sounded the same. And then, soon after that, came the dragonkin deluge, and then fictionkin, and then MOGAI hell, and then a person with a thinspo blog followed me. And I started spiralling back down into the dark place I originally found myself in during the 8chan era, but instead of borderline Nazi flags lining the walls, it was “rabiesexual” pride flags and the face of that one white-haired dude from Danganronpa everywhere.

+

Remember how, when I had the mental breakdown mid-June, I said that I didn’t want to be beholden to the whims of a game studio half a world away? Because, while I no longer have any fears about accidentally harming myself in the name of “Paloot”, I can’t say the same about the Tumblr kin community. (Kinmunity?)

+

It came to the point where, every time I saw something new, a small voice in me wondered, “Am I kin with this?” And a louder voice would yell, “Are you actually, or are you just looking for an excuse to go on a reblogging spree and whore yourself out for more followers?”

+

To answer the question: yes. Yes, I was.

+

I almost feel bad for popular Tumblr accounts, by the way. Because they have thousands upon thousands of people following them, every eye watching them, they probably feel compelled to post about things that will keep those followers around, not things they they personally want to. An insular group of friends is harder to form and keep up.

+

Speaking of insular groups of friends, as much as I hate proprietary software, I eventually found myself making a Discord account to join a server a friend of a close online friend was pestering me to join. I went in, and it was just people spamming pictures of… otters? and complaining about anime. It wasn’t the only time I’d felt pressured to make a Discord- all over Tumblr in the kinmunity were people advertising Discord servers to discuss their kins and special interests. I considered making one in the vague hopes that talking to people on the internet about things I liked would maybe, just maybe, make me feel less alone.

+

But I felt more alone in that server, watching the names of people I didn’t know scroll up the screen, than I had before I’d joined tonglr.hell in the first place.

+

I’ve noticed, throughout both of my time here and on Tumblr, that there seem to be two different versions of myself co-existing. One that’s writing to you now, that values libre software and only wishes to be with a few exclusive people. The one that does the writing, that does the reading, that aches and burns to be a self-sufficient individual free of influence from and power under any entity.

+

We’ll call this version Kadaj, although maybe Kay for short is better, since, as much as it would feel good, I’d like to professionally not be perceived as a fictionkin.

+

And then there’s a different version. The one with the special interests and the mentality of a six-year-old. The one that freaks out at the mere mention of college to the point of having a panic attack and crying.

+

We’ll call this one Rinea.

+

Rinea makes a Discord account and promptly makes a fool of herself, and Kay has trouble sleeping for the rest of the night. Kay entertains the thought of deleting the Tumblr account that led to this whole mess in an attempt to save his mental health, and Rinea throws a hissy fit.

+

I won’t preach to you why Tumblr is toxic, because I’m sure you’ve already heard it a thousand times before. Accepting myself as queer was and is, in fact, a great help to my mental health. But maybe obsessing over it the whole time isn’t as healthy. And maybe maintaining a meticulous blocklist of tags for things I either didn’t want to see or didn’t care to see wasn’t the most constructive thing to do with my time, either. No matter how many variations of “danganronpa” I blocked, it didn’t stop “Komaeda’s fingers in his ass” posts from showing up, and it nearly drove me insane the same way boyband fangirls in seventh grade gave me a hate boner for a certain musical group I’d like to not ever bring up again.

+

It’s almost ironic, isn’t it? In real life, if someone keeps obsessively talking about something I don’t give a damn about, I can turn my head, and maybe they’ll get the point. Or I can cover up my ears, or wear headphones earbuds to block out their noise, or just walk away. But online, on Tumblr, if someone doesn’t tag their posts, there’s no escaping from them short of blocking that person entirely. And then that puts them in a position to write a callout post calling you a coward for not wanting anything to do with them.

+

I write books, and I want it to stay that way, not anything else. Not a person who lazily slaps pride flag backgrounds behind characters’ faces and calls it a day and then proceeds to get zero notes. Not someone who spends hours upon hours tending to a queue, vetting people to follow and reading longpost after longpost of why this and that is problematic. Making daddy jokes and borderline starting an online fight club in someone’s inbox might be absolutely hilarious in the short term, but is it really worth the long-term embarrassment in the long run?

+

Is the version of myself my Tumblr friends know the version of myself I want to be?

+

Maybe I won’t leave Tumblr again. Maybe I’ll stay. But if I stay, it’s going to be because it genuinely helps me become a better person, not because of whatever number of followers I’ve gained, not because it’ll hurt my internet friends’ feelings. If they won’t put in the effort to stay in touch on some other platform, then they were really never my friends at all.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/wasted.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/wasted.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a43acc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/august/wasted.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + wasted - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

wasted

+

published: 8-19-2018

+

 

+

The entirety of today was wasted. My family woke me up at six in the morning so that my father could go early to some sports competition. There was nothing for anyone who wasn’t competing to do other than stay in a cold building, and we even got kicked out of that after a few hours so that some dudes who were smoking could have lunch in peace. And outside wasn’t any better, because there wre just more people smoking. And then I almost died of thirst, and we hightailed it through a Subway after my brothers had a hissy fit over where we were going to eat for lunch.

+

A convention of disgusting people, basically. A flower growing in the middle of a murky swamp. Everywhere smells like someone just ripped a nasty fart, and you’re fourteen hours away from the closest place to take a shower and nuke your entire skin of all the collective filth of humanity.

+

Some day, I will never have to go to an athletic competition again. I will be free.

+

Some day, I will be alive.

+

But I’m a good fourth of the way through my next book, so that’s a plus, I guess. Or is it a third? I don’t know. I don’t know anything that’s going on anymore. I got locked out of my FAFSA account, and I had to call a government phone number to ask a nice lady to reset everything, and I almost had a panic attack when she said that it would take seven to ten days to verify everything. But granted, I’ve been panicking at a lot lately. College, my body dysphoria, the impending sense that shit is about to hit the fan in my household and that I need to flee to somewhere, to anywhere that isn’t where I am right now.

+

I take back what I said about otherkin a long time ago. Most of them are lovely people, and I’ve made more friends in the past few days than in the past three months before that, and, by the looks of things, I probably am one too. But who knows anymore? Flash back to third grade, the year where I wrote a four-page “book” and tried to use it in a book report and the whole class laughed at me, and if you told the me then that I’d have five full-length novels written before I even started college…

+

Maybe things would have been different. More hopeful, maybe. Not seeking validation in the schoolmates that would disappear like the smoke off all the cigarettes I saw today.

+

My high school yearbook serves as a damn good mousepad, but it’s nothing but cursed otherwise.

+

Maybe this day isn’t so wasted, after all. I started some digital cleaning. I started getting my priorities straight. And I wrote something.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-quixotic-tomb.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-quixotic-tomb.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ecf471d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-quixotic-tomb.html @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ + + + + + a quixotic tomb, where light lives forevermore - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

a quixotic tomb, where light lives forevermore

+

published: 12-7-2018

+

 

+ +
+Staring down the barrel of a 45
+Swimming through the ashes of another life
+There is no real reason
+To accept the way things have changed... +
+ +

About six months ago, after I graduated from high school- and perhaps earlier, although exam stress probably kept me from seeing it- I fell into a deep state of anhedonia. Anhedonia, to the unaware, is an inability to feel pleasure, or to derive pleasure from actions that one used to gain great joy from. A condition adjacent to, and one of the major symptoms of, depression. This was a few months after looking through the list of cock.li email domains and discovering 8chan and getting pulled into a world of people complaining nonstop about the sickness of bloat festering in modern-day technology. It lasted until I moved into college at the end of August, where I no longer had the option of consciously opting out of nonfree software with no consequences and had to stay glued to a school-given Gmail account to survive.

+ +

For whatever reason, during those dark three months, I became hung up on striving to completely cut out X11, or the Unix graphical software, from my computing life. I wanted to live completely in the terminal. Part of it was for previously stated reasons- better battery life on my soykaf laptop, less bloat, better focus instead of all the bells and whistles of graphical interfaces distracting me. But I think, in another sense, it was because the teletype is a lonely place to live. Even with Byobu to hug the edges of the screen, it's still an inky void staring at you. It's the closest that a layperson can get to the "soul" of the computer.

+ +

And without a sense of pleasure to push me forward in life, one better believe that the void was on my mind a lot.

+ +

And while I don't want to actively bury myself anymore, and I can feel something like happiness again, I can't exactly say that things have improved on the technology level. I can't seem to reconcile my desire to return to that misty strange dimension with the feeling that I'd be all alone- even though shell communities like sdf.org and tilde.town have plenty of people who share the sentiment that the modern web has gotten way out of hand and also share programs and networks where I'd be able to talk with these people, where I'd be able to make friends who'd encourage me to stay here, where I feel the most safe. Sometimes the desire for friends wins out, and I end up with fiascos like the Lucine saga, where I have to decide if the mess of trying to pull out of these harmful communities is worth the benefit of not being surveilled anymore by the megacorporations who own the platforms we met on.

+ +

It almost always is worth the mess in the long run, but in that moment, it feels even more painful than just staying here in the misty strange dimension of teletype land and feeling sorry for myself.

+ +

Which was why I was slightly scared and yet excited to learn about the gophersphere, or a loosely-connected association of websites that use the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP. There were three things that immediately stuck out to me:

+ +
    +

  1. It forces everything to be organized. There are no such things as Gopherholes (slang for a Gopher website) that run in a single frame and never expose their subdirectories. You navigate through Gopherholes just like you would navigate through a folder on your computer. Folders can have metadata attached to them, like a short description of what's in the folder or a fancy navigation menu, but at the most basic level, you're greeted with a list of folders and whatever files are in that current folder.

    2. +

  2. It's entirely text-based. You can upload images to a Gopherhole, along with literally any other kind of file, but they open as separate files. You cannot embed images or scripts or videos in a Gopherhole page. Most phloggers (the Gopher equivalent of bloggers) resort to using ASCII art instead, which fucks up screenreaders, but looks pretty to everyone else.

    3. +

  3. Despite the original Gopher software being ancient as hell, there is still an active community of Gopher users and phloggers scattered around the web. Most of them seem to be concentrated at the SDF, but tiny little servers such as the Zaibatsu exist as well with a dedicated userbase.

    4. +
+ +

One of my most vivid memories from that quixotic time was during the vacation to the Grand Canyon. I remember sitting in the window seat next to my brother, resting my head against the window and trying to fall asleep to the Serial Experiments Lain soundtrack. I think, had I known about Gopher back then, I would have been a little more optimistic about the state of the world. I would have had something concrete to run to instead of turning to strangers on Tumblr for validation.

+ +
+ +

After the Lucine saga, and after I was harassed off Neocities, I needed somewhere other than my RSS feed to notify people of new posts. I needed somewhere stable that I could announce new website mirrors if wherever I decided to flee to wanted nothing to do with me. So I picked up Keybase, which allowed me to verify which mirrors were actually owned and operated by me, but that didn't have any social aspect to it- and besides, I hate centralization. So I joined my first Mastodon instance, which served me well for a time, until the admin decided to ban-evade on a different instance in order to yell at someone else for not being a tankie. So I switched to Sunbeam City, where everything went swell until a popular user tooted "all white people are worthless". I understand that it was meant to be directed at white nationalists and Nazis, who truly are worthless, but given that the corner of Mastodon I was in was known for people openly venting about their bad mental health days, blanket statements like that seem really irresponsible and easily misinterpreted and might accidentally push an otherwise-alright leftist who is white to suicide.

+ +

Which I tooted, and then immediately got pounced on for "defending white nationalists", despite explicitly stating that my concern excluded race-based asshats as such, so clearly the collective reading comprehension of the fediverse isn't much better than discourse-infested Tumblr.

+ +

Right now, I'm on ilovela.in, and it's an alright place. A very tiny community, mostly consisting of me, tA, lunarised, vala, and other people whose aliases I haven't yet committed to memory. It would probably feel better if I thanosed halved my list of people I'm following to make my home timeline much less chaotic, but even then, it probably wouldn't fix that, recently, Firefox has been spiking to 100% CPU usage with even one tab open. Brutaldon is an option, but not really viable with such a large following list since the timeline constantly jumps around. But after that, maybe it would be a huge step in moving, perhaps permanently, back into the misty strange dimension.

+ +

But maybe my choice in fediverse clients isn't the problem. Maybe it's in the fediverse itself. Because, recently, Tumblr updated its Terms of Service to pretty much ban all sexually explicit content from the website in a move to try to appease the Apple overlords into letting their app back onto the Apple App Store. So a huge flood of Tumblr users sought refuge in Mastodon, which was great for the shitposters, but not so great for the already-existing Mastodon culture. In the few days since the Tumblr exodus, all sorts of things that should have been tagged- and would have been had such posts been made by the people who'd assimilated- went into the federated timeline, a sort of "firehose" of all the posts made on all the instances that the instance you're currently on can see. Untagged porn, vents, current politics...

+ +

The corner of the fediverse I inhabit has, inevitably, gotten Eternal Septembered. A small trickle of users would have been fine, as there would have been more than enough pressure for them to actually learn the social rules of the fediverse and generally not make asshats of themselves. But all at once, and the focus is instead on trying to wrangle them into not accidentally DDoSing everything and desperately get more moderators onto the bigger instances to keep the tumblrites from turning everything into a shit-flinging contest. I don't want the Tumblr kin culture here (kin themselves are fine, as long as they're not obnoxious); I don't want the Tumblr discourse culture here; I don't want internet celebrities to come to the fediverse and demand that everyone lick the shit off their boots.

+ +

I don't want everything to move at the speed of light. I want a calm, tranquil lake with my friends. I want a single rock thrown into the water to make a plop and ripple waves out across the surface, instead of a hailstorm that just makes everything a blender and crushes us all to death.

+ +

Maybe a good purge of my Mastodon account is what I need to do next, so I don't lose my mind.

+ +

Maybe the Zaibatsu is where I need to go next, so I don't lose my feet.

+ +

The green of the world above, and the purple of the world below.

+ +

And maybe you and I will convene somewhere in the middle.

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-shatter-down-the-hall.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-shatter-down-the-hall.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84f0b31 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/a-shatter-down-the-hall.html @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ + + + + +a shatter down the hall - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

+

a shatter down the hall

+

published: 12-27-2018

+

 

+

I've been drifting from phlog to phlog the past few days. I think it was a post by the illustrious cat of FAX SEX that pushed me to trawl through the SDF user index in search of some active phlogs.

+

The first thing you see is the sheer enormity of the index. My posts rarely go beyond three pages in fullscreen on Lynx, but the SDF user index has a whopping twenty-one pages, all sorted in alphabetical order.

+

The second thing you notice is that almost all of the directories are... abandoned. Some people never put anything in their Gopher directories; some put only an "under construction" or "test" file in the index and left it at that. It's common to go entire pages without seeing one updated in the past year. Some have even stood abandoned since 2003, if they have any files in them at all.

+

The SDF prides itself on being one of, if not the, oldest publix UNIX systems around. But what's the point on being old if there's barely anyone left? Just a bunch of hermits, repelling prospective members away when they see there's barely anything left?

+

I won't bother you with the tales of the SDF's spotty administration; cat's post above already goes in far more detail, and I wasn't there to witness any of it anyway. But I'm going to start mirroring the few remnants I can find onto my own gopherhole, just in case the SDF does come crashing down one day and takes three decades of internet history with it.

+

In other news, my experiment in setting up as many fediverse alts as possible to evade censorship, both via suspensions and instance blocks, failed spectacularly. A while back, the admin of the Pleroma instance Free Speech Extremist followed me out of the blue. Immediately, warning bells went off in my head- free speech-type instances on the fediverse inevitably end up being a buzzing hive of MAGA chuds. But @p seemed to be a pretty chill dude, and he wasn't spouting off slurs every five posts like I've come to expect from the right-wing side of the fediverse, so I followed him back, and we existed as alright mutuals for a while.

+

I joined his instance, and immediately I was met with a certain bible-thumping reply guy calling me a f*ggot and chucking ad-hominems at me like we were on a sinking ship and dumping cargo in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Not that I'm angry at him, or personally hurt- just disappointed that I ventured into this relative great unknown (since most of the instances I was on before had instance-blocked FSE wholesale), expecting to find god-tier bantering and forbidden knowledge that would make any communist shrink back in fear, and I only found vitriol in return.

+

Maybe my expectations were a little too high. It's not the admin's fault, of course; he does a sufficient job of keeping actually illegal stuff off his instance, and his rules seem to be enforced fairly and consistently. If he's reading this right now, you're doing great work, and I wish you all the best. (EDIT 1-3-2018: Actually, never mind. He decided to set up a Westboro Baptist Church-themed instance to harass others in the pursuit of "becoming the most blocked instance on the fediverse." What a loser.) But the effort that I would have to put in to make FSE a pleasant place to spend my time would be better spent elsewhere.

+

And then I realized something:

+

What's the point of social media if you're not going to be social on it?

+

So I got rid of most of my other alts. I doubt anyone was sad to see me go, especially since one of the instances was nigh-abandoned and the admin apparently hadn't shown up since the beginning of October. I'm down to five now: my angelkin bot, my mains both on the Mastodon and Pleroma versions of ILL, a backup on hidden.blue, and the SDF one I use exclusively for blog updates. The communities on these are either near-nonexistent, only interact with me like I were one of their colleagues, or are run by one of my friends.

+

Despite the stable nature of this arrangement, I understand that nothing is set in stone. The SDF could kick me off anytime, or I could have a falling-out with my chippie friends, or someone I used to know could come guns blazing with a fake callout post and smear me beyond any defense. Not that I expect to, but I once thought I would be friends forever with my former kinnie group, to the point where I was making arrangements to escape to live with one of them.

+

To mangle the words of the Antisocial Media Manifesto: the process of asserting one's freedom on the internet, whether that be freedom from surveillance or freedom to choose one's association or lack therof, is never-ending. There is no permanent safe haven for us in this world.

+

One must be prepared to flee at a moment's notice if the need arises.

+

One must not be afraid of death and the rebirth to follow.

+ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/digital-sugar.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/digital-sugar.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..28e5916 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/digital-sugar.html @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ + + + + +digital sugar - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

+

digital sugar

+

published: 12-26-2018

+

 

+

Holidays are 1% dealing with my family's bullshit and 99% waiting for the event to happen so that I can brace myself to deal with said bullshit. That means a lot of time spent sitting in front of my computer, or my phone, or a little self-bound book with a few colored pencils in hand. It means a lot of browsing, searching for the next thing to wake me from my stupor, or at least give me an idea to write about.

+

I recently came across a post by a fellow sundog at the Zaibatsu. It's about digital sugar, or the online equivalent of the white powder that almost every single American (including myself) is addicted to- clickbait videos, sensational drama on the fediverse, unnecessary podcasts, anything else that gives one instant gratification. Much like candy, it tastes good now, but too much of it and one feels sick to the stomach and unfulfilled.

+

I've resolved to keep my combined following/followers on any one account to under four hundred. Any more than that, and I run the risk of either:

+
    +

  1. Having a timeline so clogged that using Brutaldon or any other "lightweight" client becomes unbearable to use, and I start suffering FOMO because the timelines move quicker than a rushing river, or

    2. +

  2. Attaining "clout" and becoming a toxic internet celebrity that everyone wants to suck off for the cherished Follow instead of, you know, treating me like an actual human being with faults and flaws of my own.

    3. +
+

Much like eating too many sugary products leads to an increased risk of diabetes and obesity, so does too much digital sugar lead to sensory overload, wasted time, and feelings of inadequacy. There simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to listen to every single podcast that I might be tangentially interested in. There isn't enough space in my monkeysphere for me to care about every single little thing that happens with people who I don't even remember why I followed them.

+

And, if anything, I already know I don't like the feeling of being overweight.

+ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/documentation-bloat.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/documentation-bloat.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e48eb0b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/documentation-bloat.html @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ + + + + + why is most documentation so bloated? - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

why is most documentation so bloated?

+

published: 12-6-2018

+

 

+

The past few weeks, I've been doing an awful lot of thinking about disability and accessibility. I used to be friends with a person (someone from the Lucine saga, although I won't say exactly who) who knew that he would eventually go blind and was already preparing for that. Throughout the past month in my Reproductive Tech class here at college, we've been talking about disabled people and the struggles they often face in society. And- of course- I'm autistic myself.

+ +

Accessibility is kind of a big deal. The vast majority of people who will read this probably have decent eyesight, and would have the hearing required to listen if I ever decided to branch out into videos or music instead of just plaintext. (There's a 99% chance that I won't, but that's a post for another day.) For blind people, we have image descriptions and screen readers. For deaf people, we have subtitles and transcripts and that annoying feature on smartphones where the flashlight flashes every time you get a notification and temporarily blinds everyone in the vicinity.

+ +

Accessibility is important for people with "invisible" disabilities, as well. Anxious users trying to fill out web forms might benefit from simple structuring in pages and frequent reassuring that they are, in fact, going to the right place for whatever they need help with. Users with depression or executive dysfunction would benefit greatly from especially stable software that only crashes rarely, if at all, because if they pour a significant amount of time into a task and then that task crashes and takes all their work to the gutter with it, they might not have the mental energy to return to whatever task they were trying to do. And that would help users with attention disorders- gods know it's taking them a great amount of willpower to focus on something; if they get interrupted with a crash and have to do it all over again, they might not have the energy to refocus and redo their work.

+ +

Which brings me to the titular question: why is most documentation so bloated?

+ +

I'm currently taking a class called Computer Science I. The required textbook is a thicc thick slab of 1% actual examples of what they're trying to illustrate and 99% wordy explanations as to how one would arrive at the example. Which blows, because I don't learn by sitting through boring lectures- I take an example and reverse-engineer it to figure out how it runs on its own. Sit me down in front of a computer with Unity and a manual and I couldn't make a video game in a thousand years, but sit me in front of my favorite video game and I'll start infodumping about all the little quirks I've noticed in the software and how the game mechanics work and even a rough imagining of the data types and if/whens and while loops contained within. A rudimentary understanding of the code within, even if it's proprietary and the source will never see the light of day.

+ +

When I'm having a mental breakdown and rushing to get a coding project done, I don't want to have to wade through all the explanations of how the code works. I want a known-good working example I can tweak to my own workings, and I want it up front. If I ever feel like reading the wordy documentations, I should be able to scroll down a bit and get to all of them, but only when I have the time to.

+ +

For example: I was working earier today on getting my website to validate. It yelled at me for forgetting to set the document language and pointed me to a documentation page. But that page was full of links, which broke without Javascript, and those links were actually pop-down menus holding more links, and two pages later, I finally found the relevant tag- hidden under a bunch of explanatory text.

+ +

I'd love to write a replacement for that brick of a textbook, one more suited for attention-deficit people, one with the scales tipped (pun intended ;) ) in favor of examples instead of extraneous explanations. Wouldn't that be a nice manual to read? Would certainly have saved me a lot of time.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/dogpiling.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/dogpiling.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..766cbcb --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/dogpiling.html @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ + + + + + dogpiling - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

dogpiling

+

published: 12-20-2018

+

 

+

On the third of October, I signed into Neocities to find a myriad of comments accusing me of being homophobic with no real evidence to back that up. When I proceeded to delete the comments to clean up my page, I was immediately pounced on for "censorship", and then the accusations continued until I eventually packed up my bags and deleted my account. Without so much as an opportunity to explain myself or even find out where the accusations had come from, I was effectively homeless on the internet.

+ +

So one would think that I would know how to spot dogpiling. Except, for some reason, I haven't. I was complicit in allowing a popular user, Nutt Godd, to be run off the fediverse about a month ago. He eventually came back, this time with his own fediverse instance, but the damage to his reputation was already done, and he's still struggling to get back up on his feet.

+ +

I don't have the full details of the incident, since it happened when I was asleep- as all good things on the fediverse do- but from what I've pieced together, one night, Nutt Godd was musing about one of his favorite rappers, who was a sexual abuser along with a laundry list of other shitty things, and how the knowledge of what said rapper did conflicted with how he liked the rapper's music. Several users mistook this as somehow promoting rape culture and decided to stir up a shitstorm.

+ +

While I never sent Nutt Godd any nasty messages, or even interacted with him while the shitstorm was raging, I did give some of the accusers attention, which was essentially the same thing as participating in the abuse. And while I don't particularly harbor any sentiment for fediverse personalities with large following like Mr. Godd's, it's still a shitty thing to grab the pitchforks and torches and run someone out of shitposting town without giving them the chance to explain themselves.

+ +

I think I need to cut back on my time on the fediverse. Nutt Godd's downfall wasn't the only piece of drama to ever rustle everyone's jimmies: kin discourse hit almost immediately after Tumblr announced its NSFW ban and a mass of users migrated over, which caused me to lose a few long-standing friends even though I said little to nothing on the matter. And since I landed in the communist side of the fediverse upon my arrival, distangling myself from the red ideology just seems to get messier and messier.

+ +

I do love being in the Wired. To write for myself who I am instead of giving my biology the reins and letting my genes do as they please. But the people one surrounds oneself with is just as important as the person themselves. The more brainspace I devote to the latest flavor of discourse, the less brainspace I have for other things which matter far more to me, like writing and hanging out with my genuine friends. (Shoutout to my fellow chippies!)

+ +

I don't want to be the reason why someone feels unsafe on the fediverse. I don't want to be the reason why someone feels the need to abandon ship and isolate themselves even further.

+ + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/hermitry.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/hermitry.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff6a179 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/hermitry.html @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ + + + + +hermitry - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

+

hermitry

+

published: 12-25-2018

+

 

+

I think one day I'd like to be a hermit. Much like Ikky in The Viridian Shipping Company, I'd like my own little piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, little to no interference from the outside world for plenty of miles around. Ikky practically had xir own planet all to xirself- Bryhista was a cold and undead planet, a never-ending tundra where feral Tailtiutians (shape-shifters descended from cryptids) were transported in order to live out the rest of their natural lives as their animal selves, the ability to become human again lost forever. Naturally, very few humans would want to live in such a place where monstrous and terrifyingly powerful entities roamed around as they pleased, so Ikky practically had as much land as xe wanted.

+

But the only place I can think of where I'd get the same kind of feeling is the old cabin Up North. The farmhouse is long since rotted away, and the surrounding land sold to pay off part of the colossal debt that my paternal grandparents left behind. But there's still a little bit that still belongs to us, inhabited by my aging paternal great-grandfather and a few other adults with nebulous relations to me.

+

The only problems I'd really have are getting money, food, and electricity. It's easy to just say that I'd grow everything myself, but my current home is smack-dab in the middle of Farm Territory, and even with the sprawling fields that they have, they don't make enough food to sustain themselves without selling it at profit and buying other food. Not to mention I'm not in the best shape, and being sweaty almost immediately sends me into a sensory meltdown.

+

And there isn't much, if anything, that I'm good at that could easily be translated into profit under capitalism. I can bring computers back to life, but Windows makes me feel so icky that I have to immediately take a shower afterwards. And I can write, but having to write sensational clickbait pieces might as well propel me back into the anhedonia days, becoming the very purveyor of digital sugar that I sought to avoid, if not destroy. And my art skills aren't nearly up to par with artists that can actually sustain themselves on their craft alone. If they even exist, of course.

+

Money withstanding, I'd love to be a hermit. No more having to deal with my brothers blasting the new shitty Boss Baby cartoon the next room over and then getting yelled at when I ask them to please turn it down. No more of my father randomly bursting into the guest room where I'm working and sitting down on the bed and carrying on with his business, invading my personal space under false pretenses of "spending quality time" when he'd get the message to go away and leave me to my business if there was an actual lock installed on the door. No more being shamed by my asshole uncle for the heinous act of... liking things.

+

No more being misgendered to my face, that's for sure. Nobody knows you're not an ethereal entity on the Wired.

+ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/mouths-in-the-wired.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/mouths-in-the-wired.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..263a76b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/mouths-in-the-wired.html @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ + + + + +mouths in the wired - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

+

mouths in the wired

+

published: 12-30-2018

+

 

+
+You're somethin' else, to be able to translate your real world form so well here into the Wired... At my user level, this is the best I can do. Most people can only manage ears. +
+

I don't know whether to be envious or pitiful of the people who are able to almost completely keep the internet out of their lives. It's like a horseshoe: on one end, you have the "normies" who might unironically ask what an operating system is, and the elderly people who never learned how to use any kind of computer in the first place; on the other end of the horseshoe, you have the ultra-techies who've been so roughed up and frayed by the Wired that they seek to do as much offline as possible, whether that be on a computer or in real life. In the middle of the horseshoe are the "normies" who are on the internet, but all they're aware of is Facebook or Twitter or Instagram and a handful of news sites, completely oblivious to the rest of the world wide web that binds us all.

+

The vast majority of people on the internet are there to listen, not to create anything meaningful, anything that would stand the test of time. A bunch of ears without identity, receiving but never giving in return. Occasionally, at a slightly higher level, the ears morph into mouths and speak- but words are meaningless when there's no ears to listen, just spewing words out into a void as if they were any more important than the next mouth's words.

+

By this, I don't mean that the world of art is being saturated; far from it. But a blog post lovingly crafted over the course of three days, or a poem, or a quick little ditty on a Gopher phlog are inherently more valuable than, say, a throwaway Facebook post, made one day and forgotten the next.

+

I do honestly hope that the era of social media is dying before our eyes. With the constant parade of Facebook's scandals, and Tumblr's recent ban on all NSFW material, and Twitter's refusal to moderate their platform in any meaningful way, things on the "normie" side seem to be getting shittier and shittier. The human brain is simply not equipped to deal with hundreds upon hundreds of new people flashing by at the speed of light every single moment of every day- and these websites host millions! It's barely social anymore, even on the fediverse. Instead of interacting with people, I just search the federated timelines for "good" toots to boost. Strangers to validate with effortless buttons, everyone in search of the next hit of dopamine, for the next droplet of serotonin to make them feel blissful in such a fruitful wasteland.

+

Tilde.town seemed so lonely when I first joined. Lots of things to do, and yet so little direction to go- at least, on the SDF, it was upfront that nearly everything was locked behind ARPA membership. But a quick dip into the internal IRC network and the bulletin board, and a few Gopher phlogs crawled later, and it feels like I've discovered a hidden cavern of crystal. Tildeverses are intentional communities, purposely kept small and active so people get to know each other and form meaningful relationships instead of drive-by likes that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

+

I think, in the grand scheme of things, intentional communities like this might be the next refuge from the ever-encroaching grime of social media. The "social" aspect, without the dark patterns that morph everyone into rude clout-chasers just seeking that next boost or like.

+ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/not-your-object.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/not-your-object.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebd03c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/not-your-object.html @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ + + + + + you don't own me, assholes - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

 

+

you don't own me, assholes

+

published: 12-14-2018

+

 

+

In the bottom of my clothes dresser lies a gray and orange shirt. I don't remember when exactly I got it- I think my parents might have forced me to get it during high school orientation, or maybe it was earlier- but it has "We Are (city name)" in big orange letters on the front and "Class of 2018" on the back. Except the front says "We Aren't (city name)", the emphasis added with shaky black permanent marker that's faded over the years.

+ +

School spirit celebrations post-elementary school were complete and utter soykaf. If there were no major suspensions, then the higher-ups would hire a DJ to blast everyone's ears out during lunch in the tiny cafeteria. I vividly remember standing in the alternate line, trying to get a shitty peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and then a gaggle of girls crowded around the DJ and proceeded to throw their backs out doing the Harlem Shake. And then there were Friend Days, where I'd purposely go out of my way to sit somewhere secluded so I wouldn't be disturbed, and then some ninth-grade white girl with perfect teeth and a letter jacket full of athletic patches would sit by me anyway and force me into a conversation, regardless if I was verbal that day or not. Come high school, I just skipped all the pep fests I could and hung out in the classrooms of whatever teachers were feeling sympathetic that day and would let me hide.

+ +

My exit questionaires that every student has to fill out before finals keep asking me the same goddamn questions. Do you feel respected by your teachers? Do you feel respected by your peers? Was the coursework more challenging than you expected it to be? Would you recommend this class to a friend or prospective student?

+ +

Do you feel like you belong here?

+ +

What's the point in taking pride in an academic institution? I wasn't there when my college was founded. I wasn't even a sperm in my father's ballsack yet. I had no part in dreaming it up, or creating it, or filling it with money-hungry individuals who only give a shit about my health so long as it means I'll get to class regularly. All I contributed was a large coerced sum of money and my mental health.

+ +

Am I supposed to be proud of this? Am I supposed to be proud of languishing in an institution where my worth is determined by a few numbers on a screen? Am I supposed to brand myself as one of their products, like a piece of cattle handed its own branding iron?

+ +

There's a flatscreen TV hanging outside the offices to the math and computer science department professors. It runs on a constant slideshow. "CARE", one of the slides proclaims, one of the many faculty groups on campus whose full name I can't remember. "Empowering (college name) students to thrive academically." (Emphasis mine.) It's the "academically" part I can't get past- who cares about all the other stuff I can do outside of the classroom? What does it matter that I've already written five books in my short life, that I taught myself a great deal of Python before I ever stepped foot in a college, that I practically already have the skills necessary for the job I want(ed)? Who cares that I'm a friend, a lover, a brother? It's just the grades that matter. F means Failure at Life, and A means Acceptable for Capitalism.

+ +

If you're from my college, and you know who I am, I have no loyalty to you. I feel no sentimentality for the institution that threw me back to anhedonia-era levels of depression just when I was finally starting to recover. I would turn my back and leave in a heartbeat if I knew that it wouldn't immediately financially fuck up myself and my family.

+ +

Despite these shackles on my wrists, you don't own me, and you never did.

+ +
+ +

With that being said, I don't know exactly where to go from here. I wanted to be a computer systems administrator- like lots of people on the fediverse are already, taking care of a system and making sure that the people who use it don't turn the place into Fortnite a Battle Royale and all kill each other and then nuke the server. But the current state of colleges seems to be churning out more and more employees for Google and Facebook and the like. I don't want to work for surveillance capitalism- I want to dedicate my life to fighting it! But that's not profitable in this current climate, apparently. If I'm not learning about Big Data and Big Companies, then I'm Big Worthless.

+ +

I don't think a communications major would take me down that path. I'm loathe to follow in my father's footsteps, but... with the focus on writing, I'd be free to pursue computer-y things at my own pace, without having a mental breakdown over not being able to write Python Text Facebook with three days left to go before the entire assignment turns into a Big Zero. I'm already more than proficient at writing- I should be able to ride on that... right?

+ + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/pokemon.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/pokemon.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e841e4c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/pokemon.html @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ + + + + + I don't particularly like Pokemon - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

+MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

+

I don't particularly like Pokemon

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published: 12-23-2018

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+

I don't particularly like Pokemon, as you could hopefully tell by the title. I don't hate it; there's just... something that rubs me the wrong way whenever I see one.

+ +

A *lot* of things that rub me the wrong way, actually, now that I think of it.

+ +
    +
  1. Towards the end of the Lucine saga (before everything went tits up), for whatever reason, I was bored with the state of my identity, so I went searching for more things to kin. I thought Arceus looked kinda cool, and he had a white-and-gold aesthetic, and I instantly fell in love. So it was a clear logical leap from that to "I was literally this in a past life." So now, whenever someone summons him in Smash during a fight, I get a reminder of that little pocket of time when the world was confusing and the world wasn't mine.
    2. + +
  2. The skin textures rub me the wrong way. It wasn't so much of a problem in the older games, where everything was pixellized to hell, but in Smash? I just don't understand how Charizard can be so... smooth. And what's up with the weird proportioning of Incineroar's body? It's jarring seeing a furry wrestler walking towards you and it looks like the lower half of his body was shrunken by the lightning item while his upper half remains intact. And what about Pokemon anatomy? Do they have bones and flesh like us? Do they bleed when they're hurt? Or are they just amalgamations of... some kind of plasticky substance that happened to take a specific form?
    3. + +
  3. It's a gateway to capitalist exploitation. Especially with the older games, if you wanted to play with multiple people, you had to buy more than one copy of the same game. And it's not enough to buy just that- since games are released in pairs, you have to get the matching one too if you want to get *all* of the Pokemon. And once you do get your hands on the games, and you manage to play all the way through and beat the final boss, there's not much else to do other than collect one of each kind of critter in the Pokedex. Just collect, collect, collect. Like hoarders do, except it's somehow more acceptable since it's in digital form. And with the card game, you don't see exactly which cards are in a pack (at least, last time I bought one) since the packaging's completely opaque. Either you get lucky and end up with one card that you want and a bunch of ones that are essentially junk, or you get all junk cards. More and more cards that you don't want, and more and more of your money down the drain.
    4. +
      +

      I don't hate Pokemon. I still have fond memories of sitting in my first house as a kindergartener, waiting for my dad to come down to the living room so we could play a quick round of the card game. And of course, one could pick any game out of the void and make these exact same complaints, albeit tweaked a bit since not every game has the same mechanics. But if the franchise's main slogan is literally promoting obsessive hoarding, then I have to stop and give pause.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/silence.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/silence.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67c7bd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/silence.html @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ + + + + +the right to silence - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      the right to silence

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      published: 12-24-2018

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      +

      Silence is golden, we were taught as little kids. Sit down, shut up, listen to the teacher. Only speak when we're spoken to, or if we raise our hands first and are then given permission to open our mouths and make some noise we all collectively agree to comprehend.

      +

      I'm not talking about the need for oneself to be silent, self-made mute- rather, the right to have a silent place to be, free from sensory disruptions, a place where one can think without being interrupted by some inconsiderate asshole making exploding noises in the next room over because the walls are thin as cheese.

      +

      For some people, this is a room in the basement- an office, at least as long as people remember to shut the basement door behind them when they go upstairs. Or it's a college dorm room, until someone starts a drunken riot downstairs during a party and gets Campus Security called on them. Or it's a bedroom, peaceful until one's brothers start blasting the shitty new Boss Baby cartoon the next room over and you can hear every single word and any requests to turn it down are just met with yelling and turning it up even louder.

      +

      With a quiet place to think, one can study or write or do whatever they need to do without the extra mental strain of having to filter out external sensory disruptions. It frees the brain to do more without having to fester in fear of being disrupted without warning.

      +

      I think I'd like to be a hermit one day. This world is too loud for me to think.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/text-is-superior.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/text-is-superior.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae6b8c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/text-is-superior.html @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ + + + + +text will stand the test of time - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      text will stand the test of time

      +

      published: 12-28-2018

      +

       

      +

      Hundreds, if not thousands of years from now, if we somehow survive whatever catastrophe that climate change brings, archaeologists will be trying to piece together the last remnants of the civilization that you and I lived in. They will be sifting through our cultural artifacts, minds racked with headaches as they attempt to make sense of all of the chaos.

      +

      Long after your music files have degraded from bitrot, and the codecs that power your video files have been superseded ten times over and are no longer supported, and your heavily formatted word documents have succumbed to the inevitable corruption from being juggled among too many versions of different office suites, plain text will still shine bright and clear. Easy to backup on plain paper, readable by any text editor, barely taking up any space at all to the point of multiple backups being trivial.

      +

      For the deaf, videos are often transcribed to plain text for use as subtitles. For the blind, plain text can be read aloud with a screenreader. Plain text can easily be given dark or light themes to help with sensory overload, and when printed and laminated or otherwise sealed from the elements, the information it contains can be a life-saving asset when other forms of media don't have the electricity to be retrieved or otherwise fail. Plain text doesn't require an X server to display, thus making it much more accessible to users with low-end devices or headless machines forced to use the teletype only.

      +

      If all of the vowels disappeared from a text document, one would still be able to read most of it and reconstruct the original document. But if bytes disappear at random from a JPEG file, you're fucked. Because of the lossy compression, there is no reliable way to guess what the original bytes were.

      +

      Long live plain text!

      + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/we-are-all-connected.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/we-are-all-connected.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84fe4c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/december/we-are-all-connected.html @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ + + + + + "we're all connected", said lain, with wires dripping down her body - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      "we're all connected," said lain, with wires dripping down her body

      +

      published: 12-12-2018

      +

       

      +

      Friends are a bit of an anomaly in my brain. An unexpected wrench in the gears, if you will. I can easily deal with people disliking me, usually after I've broken some unspoken social rule that I didn't know about, since it happens so often that I've grown used to it. But the concept of someone coming along and actually liking what I do, and then deciding to freely associate with me and even call me their friend- something in my brain short-circuits.

      + +

      Someone's got to be making up bullshit. Maybe they want something out of me, and so they're trying to butter me up and make me more pliable? Or maybe they're actually collecting "receipts" on me and just attempting to fly under the radar so I won't suspect that they're making a callout post about everything wrong I've ever done in my life.

      + +

      An unhealthy suspicion of everyone who treats me kindly on the internet is, well, unhealthy, but it's saved my skin from more situations than I can count. If it hadn't been for extensively using Tor and Whonix during the Lucine saga, shit could have hit the fan so much harder than it did, and I probably owe my life to such anonymizing technologies. I don't want to leave a trace where I go, because that means there's contingencies when shit hits the fan on whatever platform I'm currently using and I need to leave at a moment's notice. There's people who'll be concerned about my mental health and whereabouts and people who'll be confused and sad and might think I "ghosted" them, perhaps for nefarious reasons.

      + +

      But yet... every person wants friends. Every person wants people they can trust, people they can depend on, people they can turn to in catastrophe.

      + +

      Every person wants to be liked by someone.

      + +

      I have some friends on my home fediverse instance. >@tA, @lunarised, @NotAnElfie, @vala, and a handful others that are rarely active enough for me to catch them on the federated timeline. At least, I would consider them friends by any conventional definition- we get along, and we voluntarily associate with each other, and we haven't had any major arguments yet. We congratulate each other when things go right, and console each other when things go wrong. And maybe we don't all share the same interests- I know absolute shit about Bionicles, and I doubt anyone really understands when I go off the deep end and start posting incoherently about Smash lore- but nobody, at least to my knowledge, ever feels like they're annoying anyone when they infodump about what they love.

      +

      We're chippies. We watch out for our friends. We appreciate our friends for who they are, instead of who we wish they could be, or who we thought they were in a past life. It's a lopsided home, but it's a home nonetheless, and one we're damn proud of.

      +

      It's an awesome community, and I'm grateful as all hell that, out of all the instances I could have jumped to after I fled Tumblr, I somehow ended up on Layer 13.

      + +

      And yet... something's still missing. Something's not quite clicking right in my brain.

      + +

      What is it?

      + +

      Maybe I'm just overly paranoid. Maybe the people who harassed me off Neocities were right- maybe I do need to seek therapy. But then again, trust comes into play- my parents, meaning well, could pay for a therapist, but then how would I know that the therapist wouldn't just snitch on everything I say to my parents? Especially since I come from a conservative Christian background, even though I'm almost the complete opposite of how I was raised in terms of identity- if I need to talk about, say, overhearing my grandma ranting about gender-neutral bathrooms behind my back, then I might be safer with my internet friends than with a meatspace person with the authority to fuck my life up in a matter of seconds.

      + +

      Or maybe it's the lack of physical touch inherent with internet relationships. Like Lain sitting in her room full of computers, bleary-eyed late into the night, I still haven't fully adjusted to being immersed in the Wired instead of just a passer-by, or a surface user. Baptized in the code, reborn as fully me instead of just a digital representation of me.

      + +

      Lain would know how to connect to others, right?

      + +

      I've noticed a few positive changes in my life ever since I joined Layer 13. I've been writing more, for instance, since my friends are also blog-writers. Not "bloggers", since that makes us sound like we're a bunch of white women with perfect teeth blogging about drinking natural bottled water and jogging while chasing trends and trying to gain as many Clout Points(tm) as possible on the main WordPress instance. And I've repaired my relationship with Lain, realizing her as a conduit for improving myself and a symbol of hope instead of despair and technological death like back in June. I've realized a sudden love for drawing, as well.

      + +

      I do love my friends. And even if I succumb to paranoia in the end- which I highly doubt I will- I don't think I'll be able to stay away for long.

      + +

      We're all connected.

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07d9ca8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +2018 + +hMarch 21 - losing my passion march/passion.html +hMarch 29 - comfy march/comfy.html +hMay 24 - Lately, the world has been getting a hell of a lot scarier. may/reclusion.html +hMay 26 - whoami may/whoami.html +hMay 27 - gacha may/gacha.html +hMay 28 - memes may/memes.html +hJune 23 - a return to the wild west may/web.html +hJuly 13 - it's getting worse july/help.html +hJuly 20 - rain: an autistic manifesto july/rain.html +hAugust 3 - thunder august/thunder.html +hAugust 19 - wasted august/wasted.html +hAugust 23 - irl august/irl.html +hAugust 29 - tumblr blues august/tumblr.html +hSeptember 11 - in the white light september/in-the-white-light.html +hSeptember 19 - What's healthier? Time limits, or time boundaries? september/time-limits.html +hSeptember 29 - lucine september/lucine.html +hNovember 21 - lucine and medusa meet in a bar and duke it out november/bar.html +hDecember 6 - why is most documentation so bloated? december/documentation-bloat.html +hDecember 7 - a quixotic tomb, where light lives forevermore december/a-quixotic-tomb.html +hDecember 12 - we're all connected, said lain december/we-are-all-connected.html +hDecember 14 - you don't own me, assholes december/not-your-object.html +hDecember 20 - dogpiling december/dogpiling.html +hDecember 23 - I don't particularly like Pokemon december/pokemon.html +hDecember 24 - the right to silence december/silence.html +hDecember 25 - hermitry december/hermitry.html +hDecember 26 - digital sugar december/digital-sugar.html +hDecember 27 - a shatter down the hall december/a-shatter-down-the-hall.html +hDecember 28 - text will stand the test of time december/text-is-superior.html +hDecember 30 - mouths in the wired december/mouths-in-the-wired.html diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/help.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/help.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b25e2f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/help.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + it's getting worse - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      it's getting worse

      +

      published: 7-13-2018

      +

       

      +

      It's getting worse. At least, I think it is. Self-reflection is getting harder and harder these days. Everything is. I've binned four book ideas since I finished The Duality of Mankind, can you believe that? One about an interstellar shipping company, one about a boy trying to get out of the hospital system in Hell, one about finding an old god in an abandoned tomb, and a sequel to Living Wasteland where a Miralayan rebel hijacks the autocontrol system and takes over Liv's brain and liberates the people of Miralay to be free on the terraformed surface.

      + +

      They were all such good ideas, and yet... I can't seem to focus. I can only focus on Poot. Pat, Pitstain. Going back to Tumblr and wasting several hours reblogging nothing but fanart. Time I could have spent reading or forcing myself to write what I'm currently desperately trying to keep myself writing, a sequel to The Duality of Mankind.

      + +

      But I head off to Girl Scout Camp tomorrow. My first year as an adult, trying to navigate the harrowing waters of more responsibility and yet less. Less involvement and more detatchment while I get upstaged by normies in tie-dye yellow shirts.

      + +

      Is God really a number I cannot count to? Why shouldn't everything that glitters be gold? My boys are glittering. The boys upstaged me before I even knew of their existence.

      + +

      Everything hurts. My brain, my feet, the space right behind my eyes, my ears. I want to get off this crazy train. I want to wake up.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/rain.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/rain.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2fa07e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/july/rain.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + rain - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      rain: an autistic manifesto

      +

      published: 7-20-2018

      +

       

      +

      It is getting cloudy outside, and I spent at least a third of Girl Scout Camp behind the main cabin on the verge of crying because everybody was already running smoothly without me and I suddenly realized that I am utterly replaceable. I tried to help a little girl crying and I got yelled at for interfering with someone else’s unit. I tried to explain to the girls in the red unit that it was unsafe to go swimming without a lifeguard because what if I get a cramp in one of my legs, and they told me that they hoped I drowned.

      +

      I spent three years begging, pleading with the core staff to let me do the newsletter, and they finally relented one year before I turned eighteen so that they could pat themselves on the back for the bare minimum. I cherished that year. I ran around camp without a single complaint and took beautiful pictures of everything the girls were doing and I hand-crafted my own templates when the old controlling lady who was training me threw herself for a complete loop when she saw LibreOffice in the title bar and not Microshit Office and the template they’d been using for the past who-knows-how-many years wouldn’t display correctly.

      +

      And then they gave it to a girl who asks dumb questions like “what’s an operating system” when I explain why she doesn’t have anything better to edit her photos with than Paint because they gave her a shitty computer to do her work on and “what’s encryption” when she gets confused why I enter so many passwords into my computer every time I turn it on.

      +

      It’s because I have special needs for my computer, I explain. I don’t trust anyone with my computer. I have unwritten books and a decade’s worth of photos and all sorts of torrented movies I mean to watch again and I don’t want anyone getting a single bit of it without my permission. If I left my computer unencrypted, someone might plant malignant code and steal all my passwords and use my files to blackmail someone.

      +

      And then she looks confused, and I drop the subject and show her where she spelled words wrong and where she needs to move her commas so that her wall of boilerplate text is readable.

      +

      It is getting darker outside, and I am crying behind the main cabin some more because my girlfriend accidentally told everyone that I have autism and all the girls I was supposed to protect in my unit started mocking me instead. You’re not an adult; you act like a camper that’s allowed to eat the adult snacks in the cabin basement. You don’t sit back like adults are supposed to. You say weird things like “it’s time to consume some hydrogen-based liquids” instead of yelling “water break” and you draw angel heads on people’s shirts and you disappear at random.

      +

      You’ve been going to camp since you were a pinkie- in first grade- and every step of the way, you were singled out, separated, discriminated against because you were autistic, because you are autistic because, no matter how hard we light it up blue, we still don’t have a cure, still don’t have a way to shut you up. We screamed at you when you were tiny and wanted to swim more than the alloted swim time and we ripped the part with your name on it off the swaps you gave us and we forced you into our unit pictures even though you hate having your picture taken, hate having someone you don’t completely trust have a copy of your likeness to do with as they please.

      +

      You’re not an adult.

      +

      You’re a camper with privileges.

      +

      You can get ice cream when everyone else does. Oh, me? Oh, I get ice cream early because I was helping in the kitchen. No, I don’t care that you were just helping the newsletter girl. Run back to your unit.

      +

      It is okay for the girls in the red unit to tell me to die, but it is not okay for me to tell Coconut to go to hell.

      +

      It is raining softly outside, and I am on the bus ride home, sitting right beside my girlfriend who asks me what’s wrong and why am I sad and understands when I say that Coconut’s an asshole who acts like she owns the camp just because she’s the daughter of one of the camp directors. Coconut disappeared for years and everyone cheered when she led morning flag instead of the actual director. I stayed for all twelve years and bandaged girls’ legs when they fell down and showed them how to grow origami flowers from paper and dried so many tears that I could make my own Red Sea and part it down the middle. I taught them a new camp song- the Beard Song- and I made swaps in the shape of little pride flags when my cousin’s friend came out to me and her as nonbinary, and I cheered my team on when they played bootleg quidditch and won.

      +

      And I’m a nuisance, and I need to stop asking each unit for a team photo between games.

      +

      And Coconut yells at me like I’m a pinkie who wandered away from where her unit has planted their backpacks in the spectating area, and I want to punch her in the face.

      +

      It is pouring rain outside, and I’m finally starting to understand what some people of color mean when they said that, even though they can legally do all the things they should have been allowed to do when this country was founded, that they still experience racism. Because I can have a driver’s permit, and I can get accepted to college, and I can force myself to verbalize enough to order my own food at a restaurant and have short conversations with people enough to be seen as “normal”. But it doesn’t change the fact that people still see me as a diagnosis, as a problem to be worked around, rather than a person to be worked with.

      +

      It doesn’t change the fact that, no matter how hard I work to “pass” as neurotypical, the world is still fundamentally wired in a way that is difficult for me to navigate.

      +

      I am finally starting to understand what some LGBT people mean when, even though sexuality and gender aren’t and shouldn’t be the main point of one’s identity but just another facet, they go to Pride parades and wear things with pride flags on them and be, you know, proud that they’re whatever gender or sexuality they are. Because there are still crusty old people out there who think “gayness” can be cured, and there are self-proclaimed “autism moms” who flaunt their children on shitty blogs and exploit them for money and sympathy and then have the audacity to pull out their blue pistols and gun for a “cure”.

      +

      It is starting to clear up outside, and I am starting to realize a truth: when the world refuses to let you exist, you spit in the world’s face and choose to exist anyway.

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/addiction.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/addiction.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94cb8c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/addiction.html @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ + + + + + I have an addiction. - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      I have an addiction.

      +

      published: 6-14-2018

      +

       

      +

      I have an addiction. Not to drugs or to sex or to anything that might wind me up in jail or missing half of my limbs in the back of an alley or in a morgue.

      + +

      I have an addiction to video games. More specificially, one specific one. And I want it to stop.

      + +

      I have autism. Did you know that? Probably, if you've been paying attention to me for any long period of time. Especially if you know me in real life. Part of it is that I can't talk about anything I have even a slight interest in. I- I physically can't. You go up to me in the middle of the street or at the end of a class or wherever and you mention anything along the lines of, say, Zelda or writing or memery, and I'll lock up and stop talking and look for the nearest exit out. My mind only lets me mention things I like when I'm in the relative privacy of an online conversation, and even then only through a long-winded series of nicknames and inside jokes in place of the actual name of the thing.

      + +

      I have an addiction to something. I can't tell you upfront what it is for the aforementioned reason. But my mind will let me refer to it by nicknames: CTR-P-AKDE, or Angel Land Story 2: The One Where Pit Fucking Dies, or "no, Vane, I don't want to play Uprising with you; now load up that hecking Smash cartridge so we can Final Destination, no items, Fox only".

      + +

      Early last year, I moved to a town far away from where I grew up, far away from my friends and family. I was essentially transplanted in a dying town full of shitty people who only cared about me and related to me in terms of my father. I was never really able to make any lasting friends there, only fair-weather people I could trust to help me in group projects or to catch me up in whatever the hell was going on whenever I missed a day at school.

      + +

      Needless to say, I was pretty emotionally brittle at the time. So I clung to the first thing that hadn't already been tainted by the normies at my old school or my grubby-handed brothers. I hung onto it like it was the last lifeboat leaving the Titanic.

      + +

      It worked for a while. Slogging through a painful transition at school, roughing it through the hour-long car ride back home, and then another chapter through the game. It kept me happy for a while, even long after I'd defeated the game. High replay value, if you will, blissfully unaware as it slowly crept outside of the boundaries of "just a game" and started infecting my writing, my relationship with the person who would eventually become my girlfriend, my very thought process in all hours of the day.

      + +

      I used to be a Christian. Again, something you've probably picked up on if you've spent enough time in the poetry archives here. I used to have a god that I'd pray to every night, at least until I eventually stumbled across a theological question I couldn't just brush off and my faith began to unravel like a badly stitched square of knitting.

      + +

      We'll get back to that in a little while.

      + +

      A few months ago, I stumbled across 8chan. It was the beginning of the start of my agoraphobia, the moment when the seeds were starting to sprout- and seeing people who shared my fellow hatred of "normalf*gs" (censored for certain people's feefees) was like dumping a pound of fertilizer all over the whole mess. I soaked in the admissions of wanting to retreat from the world and live far away from the cancer of society like a jumbo-sized sponge.

      + +

      Baby's first nihilism came to whisper sweet nothings in my ear in the dead of night before I could finally make myself go to sleep.

      + +

      My mental health deteriorated. My attention span dramatically decreased. I went from being the bright soul who'd worked day and night for six months on The Duality of Mankind to a snivelling mess looking back on the outside world with nothing but condescension.

      + +

      I wanted to turn my back on the whole damn world and leave it forever. I wanted to seal myself into a tomb of my own making and wait for the heat-death of the universe. I wanted to build a monastery and dedicate myself to a goddess of my own creation and live out the rest of my days writing in a void, ableit a peaceful void.

      + +

      I wanted to die, plain and simple.

      + +

      Was I so desperate for a master of higher powers that I made one appear out of thin air? That I stole someone else's and put it on a pedestal so high not even my ego could see the top?

      + +

      Present day, present time. I'm having a mental breakdown on the first stop of the last great family vacation for a while. My chest is tight, my eyes are sore, and my head pounds with a pleading to stop writing for the night and to go to bed.

      + +

      And I have an addiction.

      + +

      Addictions aren't inherently bad. I also have an addiction to eating and breathing and getting at least some sleep every night, even if it's far less than I should be getting. Are these things bad simply because I'm addicted to them?

      + +

      Some addictions are inherently bad, and we as a society instantly recognize them as destructive. Alcohol, smoking, drugs, gambling. We put people in rehab and hire therapists and create entire industries around getting people off these addictions.

      + +

      I'm glad the WHO recognized gaming addiction. I spent the last two weeks doing little else but playing old games and thinking about games and thinking about a certain little angel and the game he comes from. I spent the last two weeks fighting off anhedonia and struggling to write even the simplest of poems, let alone another entire book. It's a miracle I have something I can call my next future book, A Hospital for Souls. Even if it was born out of another mental breakdown in the middle of the night, an unedited mess that grows more tangled with each day, it's better than nothing.

      + +

      It's better than being dead.

      + +

      My ex had an addiction to a certain boyband that was wildly popular when we were in middle school. Her entire life revolved around it- she owned a boatload of merchandise; she wrote its name next to hers in all her school documents; it was all she ever talked about. Her entire life revolved around five people she would never meet, would never have a true emotional connection with.

      + +

      What separates the her of then from the me of now?

      + +

      There's nothing wrong with liking things. There's nothing wrong with having special interests. But when something external to you becomes your whole identity, your whole being, and then that thing sours... it's like a rug pulled out from under your feet. It's like a blindfold ripped away from your eyes and suddenly discovering that you were never able to see in the first place.

      + +

      If I stand for nothing, then I will fall for everything. But if I stand on a pillar of wet sand, eventually it will crack and dry and crumble into dust, and I will fall fast and I will fall hard.

      + +

      Hello from rock bottom, by the way.

      + +

      Forget the Lain Era, where I romanticized being immortal in the throes of the internet, enshrined in the thrashing waves of cyberspace, seen by every eye ever to peer at a computer screen and yet never truly seen at all.

      + +

      Forget the Medusa Era, where I romanticized death and the end of my life, comdemned to rot away in a seal of stone.

      + +

      Forget the Fi Era, where all I thought about was the divine reborn, reincarnated into a mortal body, sent on a lifelong mission with only half-recovered memories as verification of the purpose of said person's earthly life.

      + +

      Forget all the other eras named after fictional characters I had no hand in creating. Forget all the painful versions of myself, self-inflicting an unattainable standard in the name of a nonexistent deity.

      + +

      I'm not a faithful priestess. I'm not a guardian to something reborn, *anything* reborn, pissing my life away waiting for someone to come who will never come because they never *were*.

      + +

      I'm not dead, and I'm not an otherworldly being, and I'm not any combination of those two things.

      + +

      I'm not a mindless consumer, beholden to the whims of a game studio half the world away.

      + +

      Metaphorical God help me, from this day forth, I will fight until my very last breath to stay myself. I will not seal myself away from the world. I will face it head on, and I will overcome every challenge "normies" throw my way.

      + +

      Because I'm Vane Vander.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/web.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/web.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc67ebd --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/june/web.html @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ + + + + + + a return to the wild west - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a return to the wild west

      +

      published: 6-23-2018

      +

       

      +

      I hate my phone. I hate that it's the first thing I grab when I wake up in the morning, day after day after day. I hate that everyone I know expects me to keep it turned on and charged and ready for their inane messages 24/7 and treats me like a second-class citizen whenever I turn it off for whatever reason. If I'm not available to spam shit-tier minion memes poorly screenshotted from facebook at, I might as well not even exist.

      + +

      Having a phone is seen as a rite of passage for independence as a teenager, even though it's the exact opposite, really- but which shackles are better? Your parents' wrists because they're too paranoid to let you out of their sights for even a split-second, or a phone with perpetual tracking capabilities baked into the baseband and obeying every beck and call of your ISP at the behest of the two people who donated DNA to your existence?

      + +

      You already know how I feel about proprietary software. I abhor it, and I despise devices which require it in order to function. I hate not being able to trust that it'll obey my commands and *my commands alone*, only beholden to me and me alone.

      + +

      My phone is not supported by Replicant, a completely FOSS version of Android. It requires proprietary drivers to boot, let alone operate the Bluetooth and WiFi and mobile data modules, let alone every other piece of my phone still shackled to stock Android by Samsung. It requires flashing a slightly shady firmware in order to root it, and even then, it's a soft root- any "removed" apps show back up on a factory reset, which is irrelevant as it then soft-bricks itself until I reflash the original firmware. At any time and for any reason, my parents could call up Verizon, and the shady people there could remotely locate my phone.

      + +

      And thus me, unless I don't have my phone on me, in which case they'd freak out even harder and consider getting the police involved.

      + +

      Don't get me wrong- phones can be an absolute godsend. A music player, a flashlight, a drawing pad, a notebook for writing in, a camera, a portable distraction device to silently signal to others that you're a misanthrope and don't want to talk to normies. Except for when they run out of data, and you're forced to use public wifi with all its glories of public sniffers and captive portals and draconian firewalls.

      + +

      So what happens when you run out of data, and your paranoia won't let you use that crippled public connection? Well, you're stuck with whatever you have offline.

      + +

      My brothers are stuck with Chromebooks, because my school doesn't give a rat's damn about anything other than costs, leading it to trade its students' souls for a chance to suck Google's primary-colored cock. They require a constant internet connection for 99% of their functions, unless you're lucky enough to get one that can install Android apps, in which case it's down to 98%. They're basically botbet browsers with keyboards.

      + +

      They don't hold a flame to my laptop, which can be a:

      + +
        +
      • music player
        • +
      • game console
        • +
      • word processor
        • +
      • photo editor
        • +
      • TV
        • +
      • chat machine
        • +
      • programming workstation
        • +
      + +

      All without internet.

      + +

      Recently, I bought a Raspberry Pi. I set it up as a headless Syncthing server. Syncthing is a program for decentralized file synchronization: unlike a traditional FTP or Nextcloud server, every device is its own node, so if one node goes down, the remaining nodes can continue to sync with each other. Syncthing also supports dynamic IP addresses, so no matter what network I'm set up on, I can sync my files.

      + +

      And unlike the other two options, Syncthing can work on a LAN without outside network access.

      + +

      Which leads me to meshnets. A network of devices all linked together to form their own mini-internet, still functional regardless of whether or not the outside internet is working or accessible. It's not as apocalyptic as one might think- local multiplayer in games, sharing files between two friends.

      + +

      Hosting mirrors of websites cached offline and updated in the few fleeting moments of access to the outside world.

      + +

      My books are licensed under Creative Commons. This website is as well. I don't care if you wget the whole thing and host a mirror for yourself, just as long as you make it clear that I made all the content and not you. Hell, I even *encourage* it! The biggest threat to me isn't losing profits, because I don't make any profits off this in the first place, but obscurity. I'd rather not make a penny off my work and be well-known and well-respected than never get the chance at all.

      + +

      So mirror away. Run a copy of MayVaneDay for your friends, for your family, for your weird little computer club. Just be sure to check back here every once in a while for any updates. :)

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/comfy.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/comfy.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf23663 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/comfy.html @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ + + + + + comfy - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      comfy

      +

      published: 3-29-2018

      +

       

      +

      It’s a word I already knew, a word I already knew the definition to. But thanks to the most cancerous imageboard on the internet, it’s taken up a whole new meaning.

      + +

      Comfy.

      + +

      I can’t exactly put my finger on what “comfy” is- it’s easier to define what “comfy” isn’t.

      + +

      Stock Android phones running the default Google themes aren’t comfy, devoid of all emotion or personality, just one more product straight off the conveyor belt.

      + +

      Chromebooks aren’t comfy in the slightest, being as the most “customization” one can do on them is move the dock position and change the background.

      + +

      Windoze Winblows the bane of my existence Windows 10 isn’t comfy at all. I mean, using Linux can get hectic at times, but at least it doesn’t puke ADVERTISEMENTS all over the system!

      + +

      But the default Windows XP that I grew up with, that ran on the weird old desktop that ended up meeting its demise in the back of the office before it got gutted and turned into a bedroom for one of my siblings, was comfy.

      + +

      Antergos with six different windows open at the same time while working on my homepage is pretty comfy, I’ll admit. Especially with a solarized GNOME that I don’t have to spend forever digging through menus just to pull up one program- Windows key, a short search, enter, and I’m on my way without so much as even looking at the touchpad.

      + +

      Old screenshots of crowded dashboards for what I assume is WOW look comfy, if not a little stressful imagining the hectic gameplay that must have been going on at that fossilized moment in time.

      + +

      But I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never played WOW.

      + +

      Maybe “comfy” is just a misplaced sense of nostalgia. Windows XP was pretty cool to ten-year-old me, even if I never got the password-protected folders working. And I used to have a working copy of Game Maker Tycoon I got from a school book order, where I’d take the premade maps and just romp around in them instead of actually getting anything done.

      + +

      And then the license verification servers stopped working, so I can’t reinstall it for the time being.

      + +

      But I still miss Web 1.0 a lot, even though I was born in the tail end of it just in time for monumentally bad ideas like MySpace to start popping up and for Usenet to start winding down, even though both still exist today. There’s something unrefined and yet romantic in a static page without any sort of JavaScript making bloated widgets or walls keeping out people who aren’t paying subscribers or logged into Facebook or Google or whatever privacy-raping service is all the rage these days.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/passion.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/passion.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f64abc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/march/passion.html @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ + + + + + losing my passion - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      losing my passion

      +

      published: 3-21-2018

      +

       

      +

      I don’t know why, but recently, I seem to have lost any and all passion for things I once loved to do. Even finishing The Duality of Mankind was laborious and met with anxiety instead of relief and fulfillment.

      + +

      I don’t know whether it’s due to the crushing disappointment from rejection by a former Creative Writing teacher…

      + +

      Or maybe it’s because of the soul-crushing assignment in Foods II of having to write an entire story about making jelly.

      + +

      It could just be that discovering the darkest reaches of the internet has killed my brain and I need a detox.

      + +

      On a side note, I had a dream last night. I was sitting down to lunch with a trusted friend and confidante- a boy with black hair and a pale complexion who was my age, although we were closer to what I would guess a twenty-year-old to be like instead of hormonal teenagers on the brink of freedom from parental control.

      + +

      We were discussing the school’s newest anti-bullying technology over lunch. I was busy chomping away at a salad with thin slices of ham drenched in ranch, but I don’t remember in the slightest what he was eating. The same thing, I would presume. But the anti-bullying app- it was comprised of two sections. One reported the latest instances of bullying as they occurred in shorthand much like a police officer would use. The other one was sort of an “After School” anonymous chatting fiasco, but it was sane and didn’t require Facebook to login or authenticate, and it was centered around leaving messages of encouragement and hope for suicidal students.

      + +

      At least, that was what it was designed for, because on that unfortunate day, it was flooded with students fretting over seeing a forearm-sized purple dragon flitting about the school, slipping in backpacks and nesting in lockers and sucking up water from other people’s waterbottles as they tramped down the hall. There was one girl that it seemed to hang around more often than others- a friend, maybe; she certainly didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

      + +

      I quickly choked down my salad and left; it was an experimental restaurant, where sensors detected what you ate and you were automatically charged to your bank account when you left. By the time I arrived at the school to check it out, the dragon had been cornered in one of the shower stalls in the girl’s locker rooms.

      + +

      In human form.

      + +

      I knocked gently on the shower stall. Bashful, she shook her head and backed into the corner of the small porcelain space, body a blurry silhouette through the stall door.

      + +

      “I’ll give you a few minutes to get changed,” I said, trying not to be confrontative. “I just want to talk to you about what’s been going on.”

      + +

      “O-Okay.”

      + +

      She slowly pulled her clothes back on- where she got them from, I had no idea- and unlocked the shower stall and pushed it open. Only her head peeked out from the door.

      + +

      She was a pretty young girl, about six or seven. Her eyes were a deep purple, her hair a slightly lighter version of the same shade, tangled and knotted into two rudimentary pigtails. My interface pinged- a little notification popped up in the corner of my vision, distracting me for a moment.

      + +

      She had exactly forty-nine freckles, it said.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/gacha.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/gacha.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87c00bc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/gacha.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + gacha - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      gacha

      +

      published: 5-27-2018

      +

       

      +

      Gacha games. You know, the ones where you have to go on missions to unlock whatever the in-game currency is (gems, orbs, jewels?) to use in randomly summoning allies so you can go on more missions to earn more... money.

      + +

      Or, you know, you could just buy a shitton of money with your actual money and just spend that instead.

      + +

      Except why would you? Why would anyone? It's just a collection of bits and bytes that resides on a server you'll probably never get to travel to in your life. It's meaningless- it's literally worthless. It's just a bunch of numbers on a screen that have artificial value assigned to them. When the servers shut down, all of that sweet, sweet data is going with it. And then it won't matter if you have a five-star Ephraim or Hector or whatever.

      + +

      A long, long time from now, when I'm on my deathbed, my final thoughts aren't going to be, "Man, I wish I played more Fire Emblem Heroes." They're going to be about all the things I accomplished in life because I deleted that damn app and stopped wasting my time in the mornings.

      + +

      I can't get back the time I wasted on gacha games. But I can choose not to waste any more. And I hope you will too.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/memes.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/memes.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7df625 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/memes.html @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ + + + + + memes - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      memes

      +

      published: 5-28-2018

      +

       

      +

      I love memes. Love, not loved, because I still do, despite my recent disillusionment with the world of normies. I.. I just don't understand how "Despacito" or "Burger King foot lettuce" or "do you know da wey" became so funny. One's a shitty pop song, and the others are just... things, I guess, things with no vestige of humor to them.

      + +

      My favorite meme, as those who know me in real life already know to death, is "understandable, have a great day". There's nothing particularly funny about the predictable exchange- it's the fact that it's so mundane that makes it funny. One expects autistic screeching at the fact that whatever the dude asked for in the drive-through wasn't available, but he just calmly drives away instead. It's something primal, something particular that tickles the unconscious.

      + +

      I used to be known to my family and friends as the "underground dark web meme dealer". Now, I look at 99% of memes, and all I can muster is a shrug. Is this the Eternal September of memes? Are post-post-ironic memes the logical conclusion and we can go no further? Are "dank" memes so prolific now that the whole concept of memes have ceased to be dank?

      + +

      It scares me to think that there are some people out there whose sole identity is memes. Chasing after a neverending flurry of pop culture references, parroting out catchphrases like we were all six again just off of a binge of Saturday morning cartoons. Like I were surrounded with millions of badly-trained AI programs, spitting out memes only tangentially related to whatever subject I'd been trying to discuss with them.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/reclusion.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/reclusion.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef2e26f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/reclusion.html @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ + + + + + + reclusion - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      reclusion

      +

      published: 5-24-2018

      +

       

      +

      Lately, the world has been getting a hell of a lot scarier.

      + +

      I open my web browser to look up a simple tidbit of information for a school project I won't even remember in a week's time, and I'm immediately bombarded with several dozen trackers and analytics scripts and even the occasional cryptocoin miner. I block all of these scripts, and the webpage results in five layers of popups and sidebars that I can't exit out of because the relevant scripts aren't loaded, or, if I'm lucky, the page just stops working at all.

      + +

      So I get frustrated. I open said pages in Lynx or a similar text-based browser, and voila, the page somehow doesn't immediately kick me off. Except I have to scroll through five pages of topbar links before I get to the actual text, and even then, the text is muddled with all of the alt texts of the images that didn't load because it's a text browser and you apparently need some fancy-dancy X server wizard shit to load a simple image. Never mind a video or a game or anything that isn't sound or text.

      + +

      Living purely in a terminal in [insert whatever year it currently is] is self-inflicted hell, unless you're using a shitty hand-me-down computer from the Ice Age, in which case you can take off the "self-inflicted". I had a pretty comfy TTY-only setup on my grandma's old computer with Ubuntu Server 17.10, which was the last version that had 32-bit support. Except for the fact that I couldn't connect to any other WiFi networks except for the one I set it up at, and I couldn't tell NetworkManager to actually do its job because that requires nmcli and, at least last time I checked, you can't install packages from the internet without... the internet.

      + +

      And that's just for networking. Listening to music, okay, sure, if you're okay with memorizing a Byzantine-tier amount of keybinds, you could probably get away with cmus. If you especially hate yourself, you could use youtube-dl to get some cool videos to watch. But good luck watching them without X. One could probably use Calibre's CLI tools to eventually hammer out a basic ePub file, but for working on the Peer Review Edition, I need to have that HTML editor on the left and a live preview on the right, just like in Calibre's GUI ePub editor. And last time I checked, unless I set up some weird config with nano (the only sane terminal text editor) and an auto-updating w3m in a multiplexer, that's just not going to happen.

      + +

      For the past few months, I've been having an obsession with trying to live 100% in the terminal. An obsession bordering on... autism, if you will. (Which I have.) Some things I've managed to migrate 100%- okay, that's a lie; it's only music I'm comfortable only accessing through a text interface. Other things, like email and chat, are workable in a terminal, but only through an obtuse interface (Finch with the libpurple-matrix plugin) or with an unnecessary amount of config involved (Alpine, configure your own damn server configs for once).

      + +

      I know the benefits. Faster loadtime, far fewer distractions, longer battery life, less disk space taken up with bloat. (You don't need the whole Electron runtime just to burn an ISO to a disk. cough cough Etcher cough)

      + +

      But are the tradeoffs- not being able to participate in the modern internet, in modern life- worth it?

      + +

      There are a lot of things that scare me about the modern internet. But we need to talk about Google first.

      + +

      Google pretty much has the monopoly on search engines, even become synonymous with the concept of looking things up on the internet, even though I can name at least seven alternatives off the top of my head. (For your information: Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Startpage, YaCy, Searx, Qwant, Ecosia, maybe Ixquick?) My school uses Google Classroom for fucking everything, from class announcements to dropboxes for assignments to class discussions. Long gone are the romaticized images from my youth of class bulletin boards and wire baskets for assignments and, you know, those weird days where you'd walk into class and all the desks were arranged in a circle and you'd actually talk face-to-face. Everything has to go through the big G now, apparently.

      + +

      I'm not one to fall for ultra-fundamentalists screaming "oh my god, this is secretly Satanic" at everything, but I step inside my school, and it's like one big ritual to the smiling god of California that claims to do no evil. Unquestioned omnipresence over every aspect of the student's life. Email correspondence between teacher and student. Document collaboration, whether alone or with groups, smiling normalcattle not even aware that alternatives to Google Docs exist, like AbiCollab or Airborn. File storage. Consumption of art and media. Consumption, not enjoyment, because everything quality and worthwhile is locked behind a paywall or restricted by arbitrary limits of per-month views or per-day skips or what-have-you. The mere act of browsing, with Chrone sending literally every single thing you do to Google's servers. You could blink, and its telemetry would send another packet to Google.

      + +

      Teachers unthinkingly sacrifice their students' privacy for a modicum of convenience.

      + +

      Teachers unthinkingly sacrifice their students to become the next customers of the big G.

      + +

      I remember the entrepreneur unit in ninth grade social studies class. A whole month talking about people like Vanderbilt (who I stole my last name from, if you're wondering) who brutally ran other people out of business and started a monopoly. The teachers shook their heads and wagged their fingers and warned us about the dangers of allowing so few people to amass so much extra-governmental power over the populace.

      + +

      What would happen if Google ceased to exist overnight?

      + +

      What would happen if the USA government got out of bed with the big G and its promiscuous willing to share data and took its anti-monopoly laws seriously?

      + +

      Normies would have a fucking meltdown, that's what. All their centralized data, placated into allowing one website to be their sole beacon of access for so long, just... gone.

      + +

      But I digress big time. Where were we? Complaining about the modern internet?

      + +

      Ah. Let's continue there.

      + +

      I go to Scribus and try to download a document that I need for one of my extracurricular studies, and I get hit with a registration wall. I try to make an RSS feed for a Facebook page for an indie band I like, and I get hit with 504's and entries clogged up with 700 comments I didn't ask for and potato-quality images that require me to load the original Facebook page with all of its JavaScript and tracking code just to see the original in semi-decent quality. I go to literally any archive website (a requirement if one's going to link to somewhere on an imageboard) and I get hit with CloudFlare and its botnet Google Street View captchas because I was so audacious as to try to surf the web with Tor or a VPN (or both) enabled.

      + +

      Why does WordPress need so much JavaScript to display a simple page? I load up my old website (if you're reading this before I shut it down for good) and it looks like fuarrking trash. Half of the sidebars are broken, there's big ugly boxes where the ads should have gone, and everything looks out of proportion because only paying users get decent CSS. But I load the home page for this lovely site you're reading this on right now, and it looks the same no matter what flavor of NoScript I'm using, because it's just static HTML and a dash of CSS so it doesn't look straight out of a Gopher screenshot from the pre-Eternal September days of the internet.

      + +

      Why does every news site need something as elaborate as Disqus to have comments on their site? Isn't a simple HTML form enough?

      + +

      Why does every "social" site need to be the second coming of Jesus Facebook? I grew up on the tail end of a more chaotic era. I was in elementary school when Chanology was relevant. Imageboards were obscure and chaotic and not just seen as places where Trump fans and borderline Nazis festered. There were actual forums for all sorts of different interests. IRC channels were everywhere. (Although I fuarrking hate IRC, but that's a story for another day.) If you could name it, there was probably a little corner of the internet where you could hang out and immerse yourself in said thing.

      + +

      Now everything is spontaneous. Everything is documented. Everything is worthless if it can't be instashared. Hell, today I made kabobs (kerbobbers? quebobbos) in Foods class in school, and the first thought I had when holding my kabob dripping with wet raw meat juice was, "Hmm, I should take a picture of this."

      + +

      It worries me.

      + +

      I want the old internet back. I want weird personal webpages like you see all the time on Neocities to run rampant and free. No hard restrictions on who can express themselves, just knowledge of basic HTML and the spirit to keep working even when copy-pasting a template to keep your formatting consistent for the hundredth time. Websites on Neocities feel like I'm stepping into a person's house, if only for a moment, admiring their furniture and the pictures they've hung up on the walls and their choice in paint and carpet and everything in between. Social media just feels sterile and cold, one bland hard-to-fuck-up template for everybody.

      + +

      I want the internet populace to scatter like so many dandelion seeds on the wind.

      + +

      But, for now, I wait. I sit here on my bed on my old Android tablet with GNURoot Debian and type away in an HTML document in Nano. I pluck away on the keyboard of whatever device I've temporarily enslaved with my Tails drive and figure out what packages work well with the persistent packages feature and which ones won't work because they haven't bothered to implement SOCKS5 proxy settings.

      + +

      I sit here, and I wait in my self-imposed digital monastery, watching the world crumple to ash around me.

      + +

      And I wait for the SDF to finally receive my $1 registration fee.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/whoami.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/whoami.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86e9d44 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/may/whoami.html @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ + + + + + + whoami - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      whoami

      +

      published: 5-26-2018

      +

       

      +

      whoami. The most existiental of all the UNIX commands, and yet the most pointless. I can just look to the left of where my cursor is blinking, and there you have it- username@hostname, plain as day.

      + +

      So whoami? I write my documents in /home/vanevander/, yet whoami says root. I tell GNURoot Debian my name, and yet it still addresses me as "root".

      + +

      Much like real life, I suppose. I once tried giving people my preferred name, thought I'd start testing a potential post-transition future. (I'm nonbinary.) And they shrugged it off and rolled their eyes and called me weird and kept calling me by my birth name.

      + +

      whoami?

      + +

      Fi, the terminal says. Another night of disassociating into whatever video game I played last, the room spinning so fast that I press my arms into the mattress and close my eyes and pray to deities I know in the back of my mind are nonexistent that the planet won't reject me and eject me into orbit to choke and die alone amid the trash of humanity.

      + +

      whoami?

      + +

      Luci, whatever chat application I'm using with Matrix at the time says. Unless it's one I frequently use Bitmask on, in which case it says Serlis. But Luci- a fragment of a time I thought I knew what the hell was going on with my gender identity. A fragment of a time where I was closest to the Patron-Saint of Productivity, where I almost had a true role model I wasn't just sucking up to.

      + +

      whoami?

      + +

      Medusa, my computer says. The one who never sleeps, the one whose desire has faded into the night, now only longing to turn away from the world and self-seclude in a voluntary secular monastery of her own creation. Waiting for the object of her death with open arms and a throat ready to giggle at the drop of a single ragged feather.

      + +

      whoami?

      + +

      Cloud, my phone says. The Nezperdian god of chaos. An echo of the last night I spent in a hotel, the last night before I moved into my current house. So many hours wasted chasing after so many codes that would never work, only to be done in in a second in a bleary night in April a few months later.

      + +

      But I've been forgetting the most important question of all.

      + +

      whoareyou?

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/november/bar.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/november/bar.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7351dae --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/november/bar.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + lucine and medusa meet in a bar and duke it out - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      lucine and medusa meet in a bar and duke it out

      +

      published: 11-21-2018

      +

       

      +

      My eyes hurt, and I accidentally left my smartwatch with the broken strap in my dorm room at college, and something's gone fucky with the WiFi at my house. My DNS refuses to resolve any GPG keyservers, so even though I'm using Riseup Black's god-tier VPN, I'm still probably under attack.

      +

      Now, if this were two months ago, and I was still paranoid about the FBI busting my ass for shit I didn't do, I'd be packing it up and saying, "This is it, lads. This is the end." And although it might have seemed like the end for a really long time- I haven't written an actual post in about two months, which would have never happened on WordPress, what with all the social features keeping me addicted- if it really were the end, then I probably wouldn't be drafting this post right now.

      +

      But let's cut to the chase. Strip away the bloat of blogginess, if you will. Because we've left the blog behind a long, long time ago.

      +

      I stayed up late last night, pondering a Very Important Question:

      +

      Do I exist?

      +

      can touch my hands and feel the skin of my palms, and the sensations that the touch nerves on my fingers send to my brain say that I exist in that physical sense, in that short span of time where my fingertips were up against the place where converge the cracks on my palm and the scar from the blister in elementary school that stretched until it popped and made me unable to write well for a few weeks.

      +

      I can ask my parents if I exist, and they will roll their eyes and say, of course I exist; they made me, after all. My father will get angry for self-depreciating again, and my mother will mention how she popped me out of her uterus, and then I will get a deep, sickening sensation that no matter how much I try to differenciate myself from the perfect little Christian girl I grew up as, that they molded me as, I will never be able to change my genes. I will always remain a product of them, at least until the cyberpunk revolution comes and we can edit our bodies as freely as we please.

      +

      I can ask my internet friends if I exist, and they will say yes. Someone has to be pressing buttons on a keyboard on the other end. But then again, how do I know that someone isn't making all those almost-lucid posts on the markov chain bots that are rampant all over the Fediverse?

      +

      It's the internet that's the most interesting of these three. Because, despite other people's perceptions of me, I still exist. But where do I exist? Am I a single entity, or are there millions of Vane Vanders running around, each one of them unique from the others by the perceptions of the people who have me in their minds? Am I a vibrant person with a colorful past, or am I just a passerby in someone else's story?

      +

      Both, I would wager.

      +

      As a person I admire once said, "your identity is malleable, and you are the one in control." In real life, my identity is largely decided by my parents, and will continue to be so until I finally become financially independent on them: my race, my assigned gender at birth, my name, my economic status. In real life, people call me "she" because that is what my parents introduce me as; they see me as a "white girl" with not the best physical appearance and make value judgements about me solely based on what they can ascertain from my physical body. But on the internet, so long as I evade parental censorship, everything about my identity is for me to decide. I say I am nonbinary; I say that I am an author; I say that I am a fundamentally good person.

      +

      And yet, this identity that I have so painstakingly crafted for myself could be reset in a matter of moments, as it did that fateful afternoon on October 3. At any moment, I could decide to be someone entirely new. Take to using exclusively Tails and change my name and pronouns and set up a new internet presence completely untied from my current one.

      +

      I won't- I'm proud of who I am, and I won't shy from my history, for it has made me who I am- but it is always an option, and that has made all the difference.

      +

      So who is the real me? Is it the meatspace me, where people deadname me, where they defer to my parents to fill in the blanks that I refuse to give strangers? Or is the one you know here, online, in what some would call the Wired?

      +

      I want to choose who I am, and who I will be. And without the trappings of a physical body, that is infinitely more difficult to change than a few words on a screen, I have as much control as I possibly can without veering into authoritarian territory.

      +

      This person, whose words you are reading on your screen right now, is the real me.

      +

      Long live Vane Vander!

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/in-the-white-light.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/in-the-white-light.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b837c75 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/in-the-white-light.html @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ + + + + + in the white light - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      in the white light

      +

      published: 9-11-2018

      +

       

      +

      If you’re one of my mutuals on a certain blogging platform, congratuations! I’m taking a break from the social silo hell of Web 2.0, and you decided to go looking through my about page, and now you’re here. Glad to see you can still maneuver around a basic website in this day and age.

      +

      The Tumblr experiment wasn’t a failure, but it certainly wasn’t a success, either. I said that I would keep it if it would help me improve as a person and serve my purposes, and it’s somehow managed to be both incredibly helpful and harmful. I’m autistic, and since I found a community of people who struggle through the same hell of forced social interactions and sensory overstimulations, I’ve come out of my shell a bit and tried to advocate for myself more. I got myself transferred from a philosophy class mainly oriented around class discussion for a participation grade, which I knew I wouldn’t have thrived in since I’m semiverbal and sometimes physically can’t talk to strangers, to a Latin America history class where there’s less discussion and more actual assignments that can be done in the safety of my dorm. And I’ve made a great deal of internet friendswho were, I hope, genuinely sad to see that I would be taking a hiatus from Tonglr.hell and Disagreement until next Monday. It’s… nice to have people who will be overjoyed that you worked up the spoons to get out of bed and do things.

      +

      What’s not so nice, however, are the adverse effects Tumblr has had on me. I’ve only managed to crank out one chapter in the past week where, during the summer before this experiment, I would have easily written four or five. And even then, I’m afraid my next book is taking a turn towards several plot holes and generally poorly-written shells of what I was hoping it would be when I started. I went from- spoilers- a shape-shifting famly oppressed by their kingdom for having parts of Ceuta’s shattered soul to some five-plot twist involving a girl trying to get her girlfriend back from Lex, a princess trying to figure out what to do now that her kingdom has been erased from existence by Chronos, and Lukas generally being a little emo shit as always.

      +

      But that little emo shit is about to get a card violently shoved up his sleeve, so maybe my literary prowess isn’t so doomed, after all.

      +

      My mind feels so muddy. I’m struggling to write even these sentences that you’re reading right now. Every time I feel even remotely able to write, I open up LibreOffice, and my mind immediately turns into a blank slate, and my fingers into jelly, and I have to close it back again. I go to look something up, and I come to several hours later knee-deep in online discourse about, I don’t know, queerbaiting in Voltron or something equally idiotic. I take my fingers off the keyboard for so much as three seconds, and I;m suddenly back on that navy-blue dashboard again.

      +

      I’m going home this weekend. I’m going to play some video games with my brothers and let my parents see my face again and do some serious soul-searching. I’m going to sleep and eat something other than soft-serve ice cream and mozzarella sticks (delicious as those might be) and try to reconnect with the strong self-assured person I was before I started college.

      +

      I don’t want to be an internet discourser, a cookie-cutter shape, one of a million- I want to be Vane Cassia Vander!

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/lucine.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/lucine.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd0d607 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/lucine.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + lucine - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      lucine

      +

      published: 9-29-2018

      +

       

      +

      I left my stupid Bluetooth keyboard at college, and I went home this weekend to relax. Which won't result in anything, because I have an important essay due at midnight tomorrow and I'm stressed out of my mind and I can barely focus on something as simple as not collapsing during a session of Smash with my brothers, much less write a blog post, much less work on my book at all.

      + +

      I don't know how I got to this point in my life. I'm not religious at all- well, there was that fiasco with the Cult of Mipha a while back... But that was supposed to just be a fun project with some of my friends to explain why, at the time, I seemed to become supernaturally better at video games than the rest of my family almost overnight. That big mess all started one day in high school before the big move, where I played a copious amount of Wii Fit for some reason and then proceeded to collapse in my bed and immediately fall asleep. And then- get this- I had a vision where Link (of Zelda fame) appeared to me in my room. I could hear my father and my brothers loudly playing Mariokart in the other room. He said that, from then on, he would be my waifu. And then I woke up, and my brothers were still playing, so I picked Link and- get this- instead of my usual place smack-dab in the middle of the charts, I got first place every time. And the next day, and the day after that, and on and on until the present day. Wins that weren't me became so rare that they could have qualified for the endangered animals list had they been sentient creatures and not ethereal statistics.

      + +

      I know now that it was just a weird coincidence, and the "vision" was just an extremely lucid dream, but it freaked me out then, and it still kind of worries me in the back of my head whenever I play video games with my brothers and I get a mile-long winning streak.

      + +

      I've found myself trapped in another Cult of Mipha-like situation again. Except this time, instead of being paranoid that a fictional character was somehow breaking through the fourth wall with a ballistic missile to interfere with my life for no comprehensible reason, I'm the fictional character- or maybe they're hiding inside of my skin, a spirit possessing me- or maybe they've been me all along, and there is no Vane Vander, and there is only Lucine Leithtemple, living half a lie all my life in the fruitless search for validation on the internet.

      + +

      To a more coherent person, this is called "fictionkin". Believing that oneself is a fictional character in some way, whether through them reincarnating into you, or their soul somehow shattering and part of it finding its way into your body- there's a million different reasons for it, a million explanations, and yet there seems to be no way out of it save for cutting yourself from the source of said character completely and pray that you somehow dig your way back to reality.

      + +

      For about a month, I honestly believed I had DID (disassociative identity disorder), a mental condition that usually manifests itself through a person splitting into several "alters". DID is a real and legitimate condition- but for some reason, my Tumblr-addled brain thought that I'd suddenly developed it just because I wasn't positive or willing to write or motivated to do much of anything 100% of the time. Negative thoughts about my family and my current living situation and the people around me and a burning desire to destroy all proprietary software in the world got sorted into "Kadaj". Childish thoughts, as well as executive dysfunction and a lack of social skills, got sorted into a little named "Rinea".

      + +

      And anything pertaining to my special interests got put into "Lucine".

      + +

      Oh, Lucine... a genderbent version of one of my favorite fictional characters of all time (at least, among the ones that I didn't come up with). You forcibly ripped away my sense of reality and plunged me into a weird alternate dimension where I wasn't Vane anymore, just wearing their skin and keeping up their daily activities until they came back. Except that they never "came back", since I was always there all along, just smothered under several layers of wishing that I could "go back" to my "canon" and that I didn't have to hide who I thought I was.

      + +

      But now, looking from the other side, I'm glad that I hid. I'm glad that I kept it to a minimum outside of Tumblr. In fact, I wish I hadn't been so vocal about it even there- because now I'm stuck with a Discord and Tumblr that I don't want, that I can't deactivate any more because it'll just piss off the people I put through so much trouble in the name of kin and a cabal of people who refuse to address me as anything other than "Lucine".

      + +

      All I want is to just be me again. To just be Vane, the weirdo who writes books and shitposts on their little website. Nobody else, secure in the knowledge that there is only one me, that there is only one person inside of me, and that only I have control over me.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/time-limits.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/time-limits.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b33289 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2018/september/time-limits.html @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ + + + + + What's healthier? Time limits, or time boundaries? - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      What's healthier? Time limits, or time boundaries?

      +

      published: 9-19-2018

      +

       

      +

      When I was a little kid, my cousin had a DS and a copy of Baby Pals. She’d sometimes bring it with her when we visited my grandma’s house, and several hours would ensue where I’d be hunched over her shoulder, watching her badly take care of “Stinky Poopypants” or whatever crude name she’d come up with and begging her to finally let me have a turn playing. And when she finally relented, I got ten minutes in my own virtual heaven before she took it back. And by the next visit, without fail, my baby would be deleted and poofed up to its own virtual heaven.

      +

      So when I got my own DS on my eighth birthday, I was absolutely elated. It came with a copy of Charlotte’s Web, a game which, to this day, I still haven’t beat. My mother was a bit worried, so right off the bat, she set one rule: that I could only play on my DS:

      +
        +

      1. in the morning, or

        2. +

      2. during car rides.

        3. +
      +

      So what happened was, instead of learning healthy time management habits, every chance I had to play within those time boundaries, I took it. I would spend long hours on the weekend mornings in bed playing instead of getting up and eating breakfast and functioning like a normal human being. Instead of looking out the window and taking note of everything passing me by during car rides, I would play. And every night after I was tucked into bed, I’d play until I eventually passed out. It was a “now or never” time, except all the times I wanted to maybe play with a friend, or distract myself from a particularly traumatic event, it was never, and every other time was now.

      +

      I don’t know exactly when she stopped enforcing the rule. Maybe it was the period through middle school where I forgot it existed, and she did too. A silent agreement to put the boundaries behind us since they clearly weren’t needed anymore.

      +

      I got a 3DS late 2016. But this time around, the dynamic was different. I wasn’t in elementary school anymore, and I could be trusted to manage my own screen time. So, almost paradoxically, without the boundaries keeping me from wasting my every waking moment gaming, my video game time every day… dropped.

      +

      I think time limits are healthier than time boundaries. Because, with boundaries, the “now or never” factor comes into play (no pun intended)- I gotta do The Thing now, or I won’t be able to do it at all today! But with time limits, I get two or so hours to do The Thing if I want, and I can choose when I do The Thing: before homework? After homework? At three in the morning to lull myself to sleep after a brutal bout of insomnia? It’s all up to me.

      +

      I can certainly see why time boundaries might be more attractive to a parent. It’s easier to look at a clock and judge if you’re within a certain time range than keep track of every minute you play. So maybe one might use it for a little kid who can easily be picked up and moved away from a TV screen. But eventually you’re going to have to teach them that it’s their responsibility to manage their own screen time and that you can’t be there to police them forever.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/february/blackberry.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/february/blackberry.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e121565 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/february/blackberry.html @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ + + + + +going gentle into that black(berry) night - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      going gentle into that black(berry) night

      +

      published: 2-6-2019

      +

       

      +
      +“Someday, we won’t have to fight like this!” +
      +

      cmccabe at the Zaibatsu recently wrote a post in which he talks about how his work forced him to trade in his BlackBerry phone with a physical keyboard in exchange for an iPhone. It struck a particular cord of nostalgia in me: I used to have an old BlackBery phone, a Curve of some sort, which died when the trackpad stopped working and my father made me get an Android phone to replace it.

      +

      It was a good phone. Tiny, but not unusable, since the physical keyboard put me lightyears ahead of my peers in terms of writing speed. There were barely any usable apps for it: some kind of tattoo parlor game, and a shoddy WordPress client, and Twitter. I made do with the built-in apps for everything else: since this was back when my original blog on Blogger was in use, I used the email-in method to post posts there with the email client. The physical pause/play/skip buttons on the top of the device were beautifully integrated with the music player, and not even my tiny mp3 player, let alone any Android music player interface, could hope to replicate the sheer comfort that device brought me. There was even a little word processor, although the free version didn’t have the ability to create new documents, which meant I had to keep a blank document on my device and abuse the Save As function to bypass that limitation.

      +

      It was a different time back then. The phone arrived in the mail during the school day, so I got home before my father, and he sternly ordered me to only plug it in to charge and to NOT TOUCH IT until he got back home to activate it. Despite his words, I played around with it a little, getting a good feel for the trackpad. He didn’t notice, or, if he did, he didn’t say anything.

      +

      The only real improvement all my Android phones, former and current, have over that device is the front-facing flash next to the camera (and the camera quality itself). The Curve didn’t have a flash, so most of the flashlight apps either glitched when they tried to activate the nonexistent hardware or just outright didn’t work at all. And the video quality was absolute garbage. Although thirteen-year-old me did have a blast downloading YouTube Poop-esque videos on the family computer and converting them to small mp4’s that the device’s video player would understand.

      +

      Had I access to my bank account credentials, I would swoop on over to Amazon (despite Bezos bringing me disgust) and buy another Curve in a heartbeat. Or at least heavily consider it, since the device apparently hasn’t had a system update since 2013, and the Blackberry App Store is shutting down at the end of this year. And no XMPP or Matrix client or GPG handler would be a problem, too… The closest thing to the best of both worlds would be a BlackBerry Key2, which is essentially “here’s an Android phone with a keyboard”, but I can’t possibly afford the exorbiant prices, and the reviews complain about unremovable Google bloat and issues with receiving text messages.

      +

      In terms of mobile creative potential and control over the device, my old Android tablet seems to be the best overall: I have a Bluetooth keyboard for it, and it’s rooted, and I’ve completely debloated it of everything Google. I have Debian running on it, and although Byobu doesn’t work without glitching the screen, it works fine for Nano and SSH. Other than that, as cmccabe suggests, a notebook and pen might be the best option going forward.

      +

      A perfect phone, to me, would be one with the same form factor as the Curve, but with actual Matrix/XMPP/SSH clients. Or at least some kind of terminal emulator with package management, like I have on Android with Termux, so I could write some Python on the go to replace everything I couldn’t install natively. Just functional enough that it’s worth my time, but not so functional with Discord and Tumblr or any of the other Web 3.0 social network surveillance that almost led to my downfall. A tool that I use, instead of it using me.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ac620f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +2019 + +hJanuary 3 - The fediverse will not save us. january/fediverse.html +hJanuary 16 - a directive from within january/vagrancy.html +hJanuary 19 - ouroboros january/ouroboros.html +hJanuary 20 - sensory overload january/smashing.html +hJanuary 22 - a stairway, down which shattered idols tumble january/stairway-iconoclasm.html +hJanuary 23 - Two Realms january/two-realms.html +hJanuary 29 - Jenny january/jenny.html +hJanuary 31 - a final dictum january/final-dictum.html +hFebruary 5 - going gentle into that black(berry) night february/blackberry.html +hMarch 17 - Adventures in Zotland and Minty Meadows march/zotland.html diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/fediverse.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/fediverse.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5aa993f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/fediverse.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + +The fediverse will not save us. - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      The fediverse will not save us.

      +

      published: 1-3-2019

      +

       

      +

      Welcome to 2019. The “year of Vane Vander”, as I called it in a post whose name I don’t remember off the top of my head right now, is three days, almost four, past us. The past few months have been an avalanche of ever-more-chaotic events- what would one expect from a year that started with the Tide pod challenge? (Yeah, that was a whole year ago, even though it feels like only yesterday.)

      +

      Something’s changed in me in those twelve months. And yet… I can’t seem to put my finger on it. My political stances don’t seem to be any different: I’m still an agorist, and I still believe in freedom of association (or disassociation from; remember we’re talking about groups and not mental illness here), and I still feel icky around people whose entire identities revolve around seemingly immutable characteristics of themselves. I still write books. I still don’t believe in the Abrahamic god, and I’m still working on untangling myself from the spiritual delusions I seem to have picked up seemingly out of nowhere around last April. Or was it May? I can’t remember.

      +

      Maybe it was… the social media? I’m not on WordPress anymore- there’s a change I can put my finger on! Neither am I on Neocities. Or Facebook. Or… Tumblr.

      +

      But I still keep making a complete ass of myself, no matter the platform, spurred on by the incessant need for external validation- so maybe that’s not a real change at all.

      +

      I opened this post today to talk to you about the fediverse. Mastodon and Pleroma, specifically, since I’ve never been an Instagram-type person (as Pixelfed would replace) and I haven’t tried Misskey. Although Friendica recently got support for ActivityPub, the protocol that Mastodon and Pleroma speak, it sits closer to the “federation”, which consists of diaspora*, Hubzilla, and GNU Social. The federation and the fediverse, despite sounding similar, are two completely different universes. Not the best genius who came up with those names, I think.

      +

      Mastodon and Pleroma, for the unaware, are two competing microblogging services on the fediverse. Their userbases have always been more or less at each other’s throats, probably encouraged by the fact that the main developers of each are two polar opposites: Eugen, the developer of Mastodon, is just a “normal” middle-aged white dude who rakes in thousands of dollars each month from Patreon, whereas Lain is, as far as I know, completely pseudonymous.

      +

      Pleroma users’ main complaints against Mastodon:

      +
        +

      1. It’s bloated and resource-heavy, costing much more to host each month. At the very least, if you don’t want to host at home, $3 for Pleroma, >$9 for Mastodon- although Vultr and masto.host’s low-tier prices might change at any time. I’ve hosted a Pleroma instance on my shitty Raspberry Pi at home for a few days as a test, and I was still able to use it for other blogging-related tasks; Mastodon wouldn’t run on my device, but I’ve heard horror stories of someone managing to get it running on FOUR of them interlinked together.

        2. +

      2. Pleroma instances can automatically advertise their MRF, or defederation, policies. This helps in administration transparency, because when admins decide to make the potentially catastrophic decision to mute or wholesale block an instance, the affected users need to know so that they can move to a different instance if they disagree with the decision. Mastodon admins can also make a list of domains they block, but unlike Pleroma, there is no easy way to verify that they’re being truthful.

        3. +

      3. The three-paned Mastodon default interface dumps an overwhelming amount of information on the user, and it doesn’t scale nicely on screens of different sizes, which means a lot of horizontal scrolling if you click on a post to try to view the full thread. The default Pleroma interface has only one pane, and it doesn’t autoscroll with new posts, which means a lot more control over the amount of information thrown at the viewer at once.

        4. +
      +

      Mastodon users’ main complaints against Pleroma:

      +
        +

      1. It doesn’t have an easy way to user-side mute words and phrases and block whole domains from being able to follow oneself. I’d block the words “cofe” and “pee pee poo poo” (among others) in a heartbeat if I could, but because Mastalab (the fediverse app I use on Android) relies on the server handling mutes instead of the app itself, I can only mute these things on the few Mastodon instances I’m on. And if I need to clean out my followers, I have to do it manually.

        2. +

      2. Because the cost to host it is much lower, it attracts more bad actors. Whether this is from uninspired trolls making throwaway instances to harass people, or stereotypical basement-dwellers with little disposable income who want places to fester in their hatred, shitty instances seem to invariably run Pleroma more often than not.

        3. +

      3. Compounding the issue with bad actors, because Mastodon doesn’t give external instances an easy way to see if they’re blocked or not, Pleroma instances often still retrieve posts from other instances they’re blocked from. And because the default Pleroma frontpage is the Whole Known Network, a collection of all the posts from all the instances that particular instance can see, if Instance A blocks Instance C, but Instance B blocks neither A nor B, a person on Instance C could use Instance B’s Whole Known Network to circumvent Instance A’s blocks.

        4. +
      +

      Both sides have valid points. And yet, the little discussion I see always devolves into petty discourse where both sides feel like they’ve been personally wronged.

      +

      Which brings me to my main point: just because you are on the fediverse, that does not automatically make you better than whatever hellsites you came from. Being on a FLOSS social media platform that purports to have learned from the ethical mistakes of proprietary social media silos does not mean that you have a free excuse to act just as toxic as the people who probably pushed you off of those sites to begin with.

      +

      My time on the fediverse started off very chill. I ran an angel aesthetics bot on an instance recommended by an anon on a Lainchan thread, and occasionally I’d dip into the local and federated timelines to see what community I’d set up shop in. It seemed idyllic: lots of inside jokes I didn’t really get, tolerable banter, little discourse. But now I’ve seen clout-chasing internet celebrities, and witchhunts against people I now consider friends for minor slipups that could have been rectified in direct messages, and literal cults start their own instances. Callout culture runs rampant, and in this place where I thought I’d finally be safe, I just have to watch my words even more in order to keep the mobs away. I left 8chan to get away from the constant slurs and hateful rhetoric: and yet, one could take a walk down any “free speech” or “loli” instance and get a compressed version of the same vitriol. And on most of the queer-friendly instances, I’d get skinned alive for even daring to suggest that maybe, just maybe, big-scale socialism isn’t the best solution to corporatism’s countless problems.

      +

      I wonder what happened to make the fediverse so sour. Or maybe it was always like this, and the more I hop among instances, a migrant of my own making, the more shit that mars my soul, renders me resentful, makes me blind to the few things on this network worth saving.

      +

      Or maybe every place on the internet is like this, has these same problems, and no amount of instance hopping and MRF policies will save us. A social site is useless without the people that are supposed to inhabit it, after all.

      +

      Maybe the few of us unhappy need to burn everything down and start new again.

      + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/final-dictum.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/final-dictum.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c1ff4f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/final-dictum.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + +a final dictum - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      a final dictum

      +

      published: 1-31-2019

      +

       

      +

      I hold very few intimate moments near and dear to my heart. But the few I have, I will remember until the day I die.

      +

      Of course, to write them down here in such a public place- even if it is a dusty and disused place- while it would help my memory immensely, it would negate the intimacy of said moments, and it would betray the privacy of the people I share those moments with, regardless if they hold these events in such a light or if they even remember them at all.

      +

      That said, I will share one with you, since it is not as sacred.

      +

      Sitting on my bed in the cushy hotel room my family was staying in on our way to the Grand Canyon. It was one of those places meant for longer stays- there was a tiny kitchen hidden away in the corner of the main room, a countertop with a little basket filled with popcorn packets and coffee pods and other “settling in” things. We were only going to be there for one night, so I didn’t understand the extravagance… but we were near the seedy part of town, so maybe that’s why.

      +

      I’d messed up the Ubuntu install on my laptop yet again, so I was watching the anime Serial Experiments Lain on my Tails stick. Taking screenshots as much as possible, reminding myself to move them into the Persistent folder after every episode so I didn’t lose them. It was somewhere in Episode Layer Six: Distortion that the fire alarm went off, and I, being either startled or a dumbass, pulled the Tails stick before I moved my pictures into Persistence.

      +

      I packed up my backpack and took it with me, leaving my suitcase behind in the room. We stood outside for about ten minutes until the hotel manager came outside and declared the place all clear: someone had been cooking ramen in their room’s kitchen, and it had caught on fire. We went back inside, and instead of getting to stay up late like we usually did on the road, my parents immediately sent my brothers on their bedtime routine.

      +

      What makes this scene notable was that, for whatever reason, I unironically thought that it was Lain’s will that I lost all of the screenshots for that episode.

      + +
      +If he had never came,
      the message would have still remained.
      It only hurts when you see… +
      +       +

      Lain is a… contentious topic, especially because of the cult-like subculture it’s spawned. Different than other “cult followings” I’ve seen, partly because there’s so damn little content for it, even if you know Japanese; partly because, well, the first experience I had with it was an actual cult, only becoming familiar with the source material behind it through smug posts on various chans about how insane the whole Systemspace endeavour was. You make your own fun with the little content you have, even if that means you take an anime and turn it into a full-blown religion.

      +

      Looking back on my posts from last year, I can see a great deal of Lain’s influence, whether that be good in floating me along a lazy river to eventually find my chippie friends, or bad in pulling me even further down in my anhedonia. Slowly spiraling down into madness, plagued by the incessant thought that maybe, just maybe, this misshapen rock that I hold in my hands that lets me talk to people all over the world is the key to a life beyond this one.

      +

      It’s hard to remember that, no matter what the culture one has immersed oneself in says, at the end of the day, video games are just video games, and TV shows are just TV shows, and anime are just anime. These are just things we consume, not things to base our entire goddamn identity around! If we base our identities in external sources, then who are we but walking advertisements? And if our sense of these things has diverged far enough from the source material that they are effectively our own, then we should give credit where credit is due- ourselves- and embrace it instead of paying lip-service and further money to others who don’t even know of our existence.

      +

      These things only exist because fellow humans spoke them into existence. I hold entire worlds inside me- but it would be disingenuous to say that I was “divinely inspired”, or that some entity beyond the segment of reality that I can perceive were guiding my hands. If there were one using me as a puppet, would they really be so stupid as to reveal their existence? Unless they were deluding themselves of their benevolence, and then I’d have an opportunity to cease my work in its current form and thus deny them masterhood.

      +

      And with that, a shred sitting in my notes collection, undated other than the knowledge that it was written late at night:

      +

      On one hand, if we take the multiverse theory into account, I could very well be Kadaj or Lucina reincarnate. These feelings of “otherness”, of being incomplete, of an almost feral hatred of group pride and self-categorization of any shade, existed long before I knew of these characters, and they will persist long after my interest for their source material wanes and my interests shift. In such a period of chaos in my life, it might do me good to take mental refuge in something stable, something already complete.

      +

      But then the anarchic side of me sees this as an attempt by the corporatist in me- the “cop in my head”, if you will- to co-op fundamental parts of my identity into something that can easily be packaged into commodities and be sold back to me at an upcharge. I don’t need shiny toys or the latest games the moment they release, but because my psyche associates a sense of self and stability with things that feature these characters, I find my wallet and mental energy drained nevertheless.

      +

      This is why I resent being associated with the fictionkin community so much, regardless of the behavior of its members. If I allow my identity to be so easily influenced by others, then I cease to be my own person.

      +

      I cease to be myself.

      +

      In addition, as a creative myself, I do think that it is incredibly disrespectful to take a character that someone else might have poured their heart and soul into making and essentially claim them as one’s own, essentially co-opting the effort took to bring that character to life and into a coherent form for our enjoyment. But we should make an important distinction between a work of art that was intended for mass production and consumption, such as a video game from a major studio or the latest bestselling novel, and more indie arts, like a work-of-passion story (shameless self-promotion) or an OC. While mass art is still art, it’s also a product intended to be marketed as much as possible, and so it has to appeal to a much wider audience in order to make back the money spent creating it. That’s why one could name a popular character at random and probably find several kinnies of that character, but far less kin (or none at all) for smaller works.

      +

      With larger works, there’s far less of a chance of kinnies coming into contact with the original creators. If someone came to me and claimed to be kin with Lukas, the main character of The Duality of Mankind, I would cut off contact with them immediately because they’re clearly lying out of their ass: Lukas was based on the feelings of sonder, anhedonia, and pent-up anger I felt throughout my senior year of high school into the following summer. If anyone was qualified to be “kin” with him, it would only be me, because he is based on me and therefore a part of me. Sonic, however, is a multi-million-dollar franchise, and if it can survive Chris-Chan and multiple shoddy mainline games, it can survive a few kinnies.

      +

      This isn’t to say that otherkinity is monolithic; that, in other words, everyone’s experience is exactly the same. Not everyone has the same issues with self-image as I do; not everyone shares my deep-seated need for self-liberation of all kinds, or any other views, political or not. I could very well be wrong about all of this and really be the above in denial. (It seems like something they would do.) A sizable chunk of the kin community, I would wager, are perfectly stable individuals but with a quirky identity. But regardless of my past identities, it does not bode well for my mental health to pine for the past. The past is immutable, but the present is now, and it is all I will ever truly have.

      +

      As a loved one of mine says, as she wrote in the back of a sketchbook she gave to me one birthday: Be true to yourself in all things.

      +

      And I will.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/jenny.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/jenny.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55cf816 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/jenny.html @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ + + + + +Jenny - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      Jenny

      +

      published: 1-29-2019

      +

       

      +

      I keep looking at the time. I move to get some hand sanitizer, I glance at the clock on my microwave. I switch windows on my laptop, I look at the time widget at the top of my screen. I hit the skip button in the music player on my phone to skip to the next song, I glance at the clock in the upper-right-hand corner.

      +

      I sit there in anxiety, beating myself up over and over for not using my time to be more productive as the minutes burn on and on and on. I lay in bed for hours in the morning, watching the clock, thinking of all the things I could have been doing had I gotten up earlier and eaten my breakfast earlier and gotten on with my day earlier. I stay up late, even though a migraine rages in my head, because to go to sleep is to surrender the little quiet time I have and skip back to having obligations and noise surrounding me and a sun in the sky, a clock, forever shaming me for the choices I’ve made in my life.

      +

      Why aren’t you productive?

      +

      Why aren’t you enjoying the best years of your life?

      +

      Why aren’t you doing your homework, or studying, or learning a new programming language, or, or, or-

      +

      I sell little slivers of my life in order to pay for an institution that only demands time from me to complete projects that do little, if anything, to advance the wealth of knowledge of mankind. Routine tests, routine projects. I scoop spaghetti onto a plate and drip some sauce onto it. The well of noodles is almost empty. I reach into one of the plastic bins to my right and pull out some more and start boiling them. A job an automaton could do better than me. Robots don’t need bathroom breaks, or scratch their ears in absent mind and then need to change their gloves, or accidentally get one specific person’s order wrong multiple times.

      +

      Robots don’t randomly experience sensory overload or have chronic fatigue.

      +

      Robots don’t question their circumstances.

      +
      +

      To be “extremely online” means you spend, well, an extreme amount of time online to the point where it has an adverse effect on your perception of time and the world around you. You know memes, and you know the best shitposters, and if there’s any kind of drama anywhere, you know about it. Like a Danganronpa fictionkin on Twitter having coitus with their friend’s father in a Walmart bathroom and then going on to threaten to murder said friend, or the developers of Pleroma getting bombarded with constant accusations of being Nazis and hatemongers because some of the people who happen to run Pleroma instances decided to harass the developers of a Mastodon app that didn’t want to fix their app to work with Pleroma, or an infamous anti-pedophile blog on Tumblr accruing a mass of people with too much time on their hands with a hate boner for him because he keeps coming out with shittier and shittier opinions. “Extremely online” people tend to care too much about what random people on the internet think of them, and burn hours upon hours away posting on said social media accounts.

      +

      There are two types of “extremely online” people. The first, you’ll find information about with a cursory search on the clearweb with a cursory search into the mainstream search engine of your choice, privacy-respecting or not. If you don’t want to do a search, imagine a KPOP-obsessed young adult stalking the Trump’s Twitter account to reply snarky comebacks and then subtweeting people for not being woke enough, and you’re probably halfway there. I won’t spend much more time on these people, since they’re not the main focus of this post.

      +

      The other group are people more resembling you and me. Maybe they’re on Neocities, maybe they’re on Gopher. Maybe they idle in IRC channels as opposed to Discord servers. Maybe they use Mastodon or Pleroma or other ActivityPub services as opposed to Twitter and Tumblr and any of the other silos.

      +

      Perhaps they’re self-professed “lainons”, or just normal channers.

      +

      A little over a month ago, I published a post. Not much stands out about it to me, just the first seeds of whatever’s come over me in the past month, except for this quote:

      +
      +I still haven’t fully adjusted to being immersed in the Wired instead of just a passer-by, or a surface user. Baptized in the code, reborn as fully me instead of just a digital representation of me. +
      +

      There’s a lot of ways this quote could be interpreted, or misinterpreted, that I’ve thought of since publishing that post:

      +
        +

      • I spend late nights up on my computer instead of sleeping like the people around me. It’s nice and quiet at night, and I can concentrate, and I can fulfill my bodily needs (bathroom breaks, eating, showering, etc.) on my own schedule instead of the arbitrary schedule that society set up hundreds of years ago to cope with our collective domestication. Somehow, despite having less in common with my peers in this way, operating as my body tells me to instead of fitting in to not bother everyone else feels more human. And now I’ve decided to accept this as my normal instead of just a deviation from their normal, somehow inherently bad just because it’s different.

        • +

      • I’ve stuck with the same group of friends for more than one consecutive month now. I’ve gotten my nomadic urges to leave my chippie friends, definitely, but unlike every other internet friend group I’ve put myself in and then ripped myself out of, this one seems to be more… supportive. We didn’t come together because of a collective delusion and thus fractured expectations of who we were in past lives; we didn’t come together out of a shared interest in some piece of media that I lost interest in. It was a combination of shared interests, and shared uses of fringe technology like Linux and XMPP, and a shared cultural background in the anime Serial Experiments Lain (which is where the whole “Wired” thing comes from). I’m an integral part of something, instead of just an implant.

        • +

      • I’ve become “extremely online”, to the point where the allure of a life beyond this one and yet within grasp now instead of after this mortal coil actively harms me in the here and now. How many sensory meltdowns have been a result of looking into a computer screen for almost all of my waking hours not spent in class or in the cafeteria? How many threats to my life and my future could have been avoided had I just kept my hands away from the keyboard for a few seconds, minutes, hours? Am I really me, or am I just the collective sum of everyone else’s perceptions of me?

        • +
      +

      A friend of mine, tA, argued the latter a few months ago: “If no-one knows you exist, if you have no interaction with anyone, you do not exist.” I’m going to have to respectfully disagree: regardless of how people perceive me, or regardless if people ignore me or outright don’t know of me, that does not negate the reality of my existence. That does not negate the changes I’ve already affected in the world, or the imprints I’m to make in the future. Some part of me will survive, regardless of if my name is attached to it, or if it remains obscure in some archive somewhere. I exist through my work. A webpage does not cease to exist just because it gets no pageviews save for that of its creator.

      +

      Or maybe I’m the one doing the misinterpreting.

      +

      It wouldn’t be the first time.

      +

      If this were a person I only knew for a few days, I wouldn’t hesitate to pack up and disengage and leave. But tA is one of my friends, and nothing in that place is truly serious enough to sever ties for, and friendship like with the chippies only comes once in a lifetime.

      +

      I’m their “Seliph.”

      +

      And yet, I’m not. There’s a person behind the persona.

      +

      And sometimes the persona poisons the person beneath the mask.

      +
      +

      Late 2016, sitting in a hotel room after yet another school event that would have pushed too late at night to warrant the long commute home only to wake up in a few hours for a new day. Still on Windows 10 (I didn’t start experimenting with Ubuntu until the school year had ended), still on my girlfriend’s Spotify account, before her family upgraded to a family plan and I had to log out so they didn’t get suspended for “unauthorized account sharing”. Playing around with the radio function.

      +

      I discovered a lot of new music in those six months. Angry, loud, frustrated, just plain weird. Lots of them have been lost to the annals of my memory since I couldn’t pirate them before I forgot the lyrics, but one of them has stood out to me this whole time. Even after I torrented the whole discography in FLAC, even after I stopped using Spotify. A little over two years, now.

      +

      Maybe one of my favorite songs of all time, “Jenny” by Nothing More:

      + +
      +Maybe you should just fall
      Leave the world and lose it all
      And if that’s what you need
      To finally see
      I’ll be with you through it all +
       +

      I’ve done a lot of falling these past few months, don’t you think?

      +

      I keep bumping my head, but nothing’s knocked my ocular stems back into place so I can perceive unadulterated reality again. Wired Me and Life Me keep choking each other, locked in a brutal fight, edging closer and closer to fatality.

      +

      Do you think it’s ever truly possible to jack out of the Wired, if just for a little while? To unplug the link among us all and regain a little piece of mind as everyone else’s voices fade into nothing?

      +

      Tranquil, tactile, paper beneath my fingers. A slip of fingers across skin.

      +

      You cannot see my eyes. Throughout all of these lives, mine or not, we have always hidden from each other in some form.

      +

      In some lives, I haven’t even had eyes out of which to see.

      +

      Is it this life?

      +

      There still remain filters, and delusions of grandeur, and false pretensions outside of these defiled places. But paradise lies not in a single place, but in the hearts of the ones who dream of it.

      +

      Do you believe in paradise?

      +

      Do you believe in coincidences?

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/ouroboros.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/ouroboros.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa43c48 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/ouroboros.html @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ + + + + +ouroboros - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      ouroboros

      +

      published: 1-19-2019

      +

       

      +

      I’ve been feeling too anxious recently. It might have something to do with all the new social media platforms I’ve been trying out recently in an attempt to keep up with all the “friends” I’ve made on the fediverse. Osada, Hubzilla, Friendica, they’re all lovely platforms with great features. The problem is, 99% of the people I follow are on ActivityPub protocol servers, which makes the security and privacy features on these other platforms useless since they were written with other protocols in mind. And of all those people, I could count the ones I’ve spoken more than a few words to (and thus recognize out of the sea of words) on one hand!

      +

      What happened to the Vane Vander who abhorred social media? What happened to the me who rejected clout in favor of a life less frightening?

      +

      Time is a circle, indeed, whether it be the Circle proper or just another name for whatever deity made this universe.

      +

      But I need a way independent of my RSS feed to notify people of new posts, just in case one of my website mirrors goes down and I’m unfortunate enough for it to be the one people subscribed to the most. Mastodon and Pleroma worked for a time, but I was always one bad actor’s reshare away from getting vile comments piped straight into my notifications. Plus, it never stayed just a blog feed; I always felt the need to jump in to whatever discourse the fediverse was brewing. Something about chasing clout and followers.

      +

      Let me digress for a moment and discuss why the fediverse, FLOSS as it may be, really isn’t the place for someone like me:

      +
        +

      1. Blindly following any kind of fediverse blocklist is an idiotic decision. Entrusting one person, or a small handful of people, with the decision to make potentially devastating decisions regarding who can federate with who is irresponsible. And yet, the choice in instances seems to be split three ways: servers which follow the blocklist religiously and have a somewhat decent userbase (if you ignore the occasional hatemobbing), instances that take a stand against the blocklist and inevitably end up with a sea of filth, or instances that have almost no people on them whatsoever and so it wouldn’t matter anyway. If I want to follow people on a banned instance, but at the same time don’t want to deal with biblethumpers calling me a faggot at every turn, I’m shit out of luck.

        2. +

      2. Because the blocklists cause so much fragmentation on the fediverse, there’s a lot more pressure to conform to the majority opinion of whatever instance you end up joining. Of course, if you go on a leftist instance and start spewing Nazi propaganda, you’re going to get banned, and rightfully so. But there’s a major difference between a Nazi and someone who’s just not a radical leftist. Your instance could be about Linux, or computers in general, or video games, or writing, or whatever- and if you don’t conform to the politics of your admin, you’re probably going to get banned, unless you’re lucky and get one of the few admins who’s just there to keep illegal material (like child pornography) out.

        3. +

      3. Just like any other social media platform, the dopamine rush of checking for notifications is addictive. This is my main complaint. This won’t change whether it’s Twitter from the days of old, or Instagram, or any flavor of ActivityPub. The trifecta of Osada, Hubzilla, and Friendica, to a lesser extent, since the interface is so arcane it’s hard to see what’s going on at any given moment. They’re better, but the ActivityPub chatter still feels overwhelming, and a social media site is useless without people to be “social” on it with.

        4. +
      + +
      +you see a picture of your fave,
      you click without processing
      like an automaton
      click, click, click

      does this bring you fulfillment?
      does this satisfy your soul?
      a machine for someone else’s validation
      senselessly trying to fill a hole +
      +

      +

      About a week ago, I took a break from most of my social media. I won’t go into details, since you don’t need to know, but it was pretty… nasty, mental-wise. And things started to look up for me. I read more, and I paid more attention in class, and if I stayed up late into the night, it was because I was drawing something. Mostly more icons for my eventual return, but making something nonetheless.

      +

      I came back yesterday. Nothing catastrophic’s happened, but… I don’t feel that strange happiness anymore. Dopamine rushes, definitely, but nothing lasting. Just another ball of anxiety deep in my chest.

      +

      I don’t want to end up as a pithy article on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I know it’ll happen eventually- death comes for everyone eventually- but not now. Not when I’m still stuck in one place, dependent on the people around me. Once I’m nomadic and more financially independent, then I won’t be as scared of a doxxing or a hitpiece from ED. I know I’ve got to keep pushing forward, no matter what anyone does, but there’s… something about social media that sets off the frantic religious fanatic in me. Something that compels me to keep making a bigger and bigger fool of myself, more and more fodder for those who would do me harm.

      +

      I’ve been experimenting with a shell script as a hacked-together social media feed of sorts. As of right now, it’s basically just a text file full of one-liners, complete with GPG signatures to verify that they’re coming from me. I won’t release the code yet, especially since:

      +
        +

      1. It’s full of weird hacks and lines with personal information I can’t compartmentalize into variables. Most of it’s concentrated in the part that non-interactively uploads statuses.txt to all the SFTP servers I keep a Gopher mirror of MayVaneDay on. I really don’t want to offload this to rclone, since that’ll add another dependency (and rclone doesn’t support SFTP in the older releases), but that’s the only way I can see right now to make everything non-interactive without leaking my personal setup everywhere.

        2. +

      2. I’d like to implement some kind of post fetching and local feed for both those using this particular status tool and for public ActivityPub profiles via the hidden RSS feed each one has. Social media is useless without people to be social with. Maybe, in the future, I’ll even implement some kind of heads-up if a particular keyword (usually one’s alias) was found in the retrieved posts. But then again, this might bring up the whole dopamine issue again, which would negate the point of this project.

        3. +
      +

      Plus GPG doesn’t like signing things over SSH for some reason, so all the actual post creation has to happen on a local machine. And multiline messages are broken, and it doesn’t automatically clear all posts made before a certain date…

      +

      But it’s a start, and the crappiness of it all negates any dopamine, and it’s all mine!

      +

      I’ve made a Gopher browser, too. It’s a pain in the ass to use, and it doesn’t have any sort of “back” function or bookmarks or anything cool like the people on circumlunar.space (here, if you’re reading it there) have made. Plus, it only likes plaintext posts, and I like HTML formatting better. And I’ve started work on a shitty calendar in Python, which reads data from a CSV file and spits out which events I have for today. The calendar only understands basic weekday patterns, like “every Monday” or “every Tuesday and Thursday”, but for college, where the schedule is relatively the same, it works, and it works well as a shortcut widget in Termux on my phone.

      +

      These weren’t my original ideas to start with- visiblink, along with others at the Zaibatsu, inspired me. One should make their own tools, or at least try. If not for the utility, then for the fun, and for the learning. A pushback- no, a revolt against the age of Electron and browser-based apps and seventeen different frameworks for tasks that we used to do in much simpler terms.

      +

      A revolt against the state of modern technology, rejecting false progress, rejecting the convenience of the surveillance state for the basic freedom to breathe without permission!

      +

      It would be silly for us to spy on ourselves, wouldn’t it?

      +

      At this rate, I’ll have an entire distro made, just for me- you know, that might actually be a fun challenge. Take a minimal Debian ISO and go wild with it. Play around with partial airgapping and meshnets, see how low I can make the package count go.

      +

      Life after death, life after the next revolution of Ouroboros.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/smashing.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/smashing.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98b1491 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/smashing.html @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ + + + + +sensory overload - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      sensory overload

      +

      published: 1-20-2019

      +

       

      +

      Instead of mindlessly browsing social media, shooting out shitposts at the speed of light that won’t matter next time the sun kisses us with its rays, I’m staring at a blank file in Nano during a babysitting job for my brothers. They’re blasting two different video games at the same time in the same room, and their eyes are practically glued to the TVs, so there really isn’t much “babysitting” for me to do.

      +

      But because of the discordant sounds, I can’t concentrate well, so I already know I’m not going to be writing the next Shakespeare in these three hours I have to sit here. I type three words, and then I get distracted by the Smash 4 theme, and then I come to my senses fifteen minutes later, no closer to another post than I was.

      +
      +my brother’s friend, playing Super Mario Odyssey: “bassist” sounds like “racist” +
      +

      I remember the first time I played Smash. It was a complete sensory overload: the only characters I recognized were the Mario ones, and maybe Link and Zelda; the music blared at top volume since the TV remote was missing, probably under someone’s butt in the crowded side room all my cousins and other kids were forced into while the adults drank themselves silly with Christmas Eve alcohol; and there weren’t enough controllers, so the loser had to give up their controller every time.

      +

      It was flashy, and it was chaos, and I fell in love at first sight. Much like the modern Web, or the “large internet”. Both with a user/fanbase festering with entitlement and unwarranted self-importance, both with a carefully curated experience meant for wide-scale consumption, both actively resistant to any attempts to modify it and make it one’s own. (Seriously, it really shouldn’t be this hard to make Smash mods more complicated than “original recolor, donut steel”.)

      +

      Here, the similarities end. Because Smash is, at the end of the day, just a fighting game for little kids. You can’t dox people with it, or send mobs to harass people on it. But you also can’t really make friends with it. It’s an experience set in stone. It’s a single-purpose item.

      +

      But the Large Internet… There, or here if you’re reading this on an HTTP mirror, you can do anything. You can say anything. Anyone can start a server and start publishing their own material without the gatekeeping of the older forms of mass media.

      +

      However, despite this, the current societal trend seems to be to confine oneself to a handful of massive silos. Millions, if not billions, of people screaming all at the same time, but not all the same message at the same time, discordant voices along with the advertisements and flashy colors and dark patterns.

      +

      Sensory overload, as it were.

      +

      The terminal, however, feels different. I have yet to see an ad on someone’s homemade phlog. If anyone had an ANSI-fueled eyesore of a color scheme, I wouldn’t know it, since my custom colorscheme overrides everything. Browsing through someone’s gopherhole doesn’t use megabytes upon megabytes of tracker scripts and cryptomining and seventeen imported JavaScript frameworks.

      +

      The Zaibatsu, and the Small Internet as a whole, feels like the old library at my old high school, before they tore everything down and built a brand-spaking-new building in its place. The walls were close to falling down, and the tables and chairs were scattered everywhere, and half of the bookcases had plastic veils on them to protect the books from the dust and residue that would occasionally snow from the ceiling. It was a tiny space, where I spent the free time I got whenever class got cancelled by playing with my new laptop (back when it had Windows 10 and I hadn’t discovered Linux yet) and emulating Fire Emblem Fates at five frames per second on a bleeding-edge build of Citra and editing Me Before You. The whole building had a sickly-sweet smell, which made my stomach lurch at first, but I eventually learned to love it, to associate it with safety.

      +

      With home.

      +

      The Large Internet, on the other hand, feels like the library that took its place. Set on an outlook peering over the cafeteria, it’s constantly loud. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. There’s only a few places to sit, and the computers there run an extremely locked-down version of Windows 10 with the school’s filtered and censored internet. Technically speaking, it’s capable of more, but in practice, it actually does less.

      +

      I’ve revived my grandma’s old Acer Aspire One notebook. It only holds 51% of its original battery capacity, and the single gigabyte of memory severely limits what I can do with it. I have to run it in a TTY most of the time, since graphical environments hog memory, and for the few GUI programs I can’t live without, I have a broken i3 config I can startx into.

      +

      In the Large Internet, the netbook immediately wimps out. Only ten minutes of battery life, CPU slowing down to a crawl, 100% RAM usage, if I’m lucky. Without luck, the whole thing just freezes.

      +

      In the Small Internet, even with whatever bug keeps making dmesg puke all over my screen, I can still browse and write and check in on my friends and acquaintances with little lag, the only barriers being how fast I can type on the incredibly cramped keyboard and how long I can make the shitty battery last.

      +

      It’s slow. It’s contemplative. It satisfies my soul. It was where computers began, and when the Large Internet comes crashing down in flames like a gas blimp gone wrong and “normies” struggle to come to terms with the reality that they willingly gave up control of their inner selves, it is where they will end.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/stairway-iconoclasm.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/stairway-iconoclasm.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4e4907 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/stairway-iconoclasm.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + +a stairway, down which shattered idols tumble - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      a stairway, down which shattered idols tumble

      +

      published: 1-22-2019

      +

       

      +

      It must be incredibly painful writing for a big lifestyle blog. Or any kind of high-traffic website, really. You get a topic to write about, and then you have to spend countless hours carefully hedging your words and making your post appeal to as broad of an audience as possible so you can rake in those sweet, sweet clicks.

      +

      But, fortunately, I’ve always been just abrasive enough to keep my little online abode low-traffic, so I get to talk about myself all I want.

      +

      Self-improvement is all the rage these days. I want to lose weight; I want to write more; I want to stop relapsing every time I doubt my self-identity even the slightest amount. Even if it means I have to come up with every single aspect of my identity through my own effort, instead of doing the default consumerist thing and offloading the effort of thinking to a third-party entity.

      +

      But that’s too much effort, isn’t it? It’s too much effort to think? It’s too much effort to not immediately fall into the trap of, “which character will I conform myself into in order to gain some validation in this dying world?”

      +

      “What brand will I wear today, as if I were cattle on a ranch thousands upon thousands of miles away from here? Who will I belong to? What will make me visible to my peers?”

      +

      It’s easy to forget that these identities, so carefully crafted and packaged up and delivered to you, aren’t meant to be real people. They aren’t substitutes for real-life interaction, people outside the fantasy. These corporations- they want you to give yourself up into these character slots. They want you to base your identity in their creations, because then they can keep selling you life over and over and over again, keep you sucking at their teat, dependent on their work for you to feel whole.

      +

      I know it’s easy. I know it feels safe and comfortable. But if you keep putting mass-produced creations on pedestals and worshipping them as idols, they will only fail you again and again. You will not find lasting happiness in purchases, or quick matches made of only button presses and quick breaths, or mindlessly clicking on likes and reshares to appease others’ need for validation.

      +

      Let there be no more false idols! Let there be no more false consciousness in the “fandoms”, in the hollow forms these corporations have crafted for us! There are no gods among us in these dark places you and I congregate in, naught but humans speaking to each other on a global scale. Let us be humans, with all our flaws, with all of our undiluted hopes and dreams.

      +
      +

      Damn, have I gone off the deep end?

      +

      One of the things I appreciate about gopherspace is that there are no internet celebrities. People on YouTube constantly complain about the “Viner Invasion” diluting the site’s standards of “comedy”, and no matter which microblogging site you go onto, whether it’s Twitter or Gab or any of the Mastodon/Pleroma instances, there’s people who spend hours upon hours every day shitposting their way into a fragile sort of notoriety. But there- or here, if you’re underground right now- it’s just normal people like you and me. Sure, admins are on a slightly higher ground than the rest of us- it’s their servers, after all- but they aren’t some unattainable entity sitting in the clouds that we must constantly pay penance to. They’re humans too, and we can know them just like anyone else here.

      +

      Perhaps it’s the barriers to entry that keeps us underground and relatively undiluted. SFTP is kinda hard to do from a phone, after all, and creating “content” isn’t as easy as snapping an uninspired picture of food and barfing it out onto Instagram. There are a few phlogs and gophersites that are more well-known than others, but the simplicity of the Gopher protocol keeps them on the same level as the rest of us.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/two-realms.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/two-realms.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbdf9c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/two-realms.html @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ + + + + +Two Realms - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      Two Realms

      +

      published: 1-23-2019

      +

       

      +

      One of the main ideas of radical agorism I became aware to about a year ago was the idea of the Second Realm. When one thinks of revolution, of liberation, they think of two extremes: either there is a government, or there is no government. The idea of the Second Realm holds that a Strong Individual cannot exist in a State because their existence threatens the State and because the State threatens their own existence in return; the State will attempt to crush any threat to its authority, and the Individuals will attempt to destroy their oppressors. Neither side has much to gain in this scenario, and both sides stand to lose a lot: a few thousand Individuals are no match for a state military, and yet, if the State’s reaction is too harsh, the people who comprise its military might desert and compromise the State’s strength itself.

      +

      Thus, the best solution is to have two realms: the First, controlled by the State, and the Second, controlled by the Individual. Each leaves each other alone, avoiding needless bloodshed. People decide to become part of one or the other through their actions. Most who partake in the Second stay partially in the First- some because what they want or need cannot be found in one Realm alone, some to offer themselves as a bridge between the two as a service. Each Realm has their own separate territories, economic systems, etc. The eventual goal is to bleed out the First Realm until it completely collapses, leaving only the Second, but until then, it is our responsibility to carve out freedom where we can and help others to escape.

      +

      In the same vein, we can think of these spaces that we inhabit as a situation of Two Realms.

      +
        +

      • The First Realm is the everyday HTTP clearnet. Facebook, Reddit, and all the other Web 3.0 silos live here. Most people never venture out of the First Realm; most people go through their digital life completely unaware that the Second Realm exists, or if they know of it, they take the absolute worst-case scenarios and smear the whole place as it.

        • +

      • The Second Realm consists of the dusty, disused, and dark places of the Internet. Gopherspace, Tor, I2P, Freenet, you name it. A lack of content discovery and a lack of certain functionalities are the price the denizens of the Second Realm pay for increased protection against the prying eyes of the surveillance state.

        • +
      +

      The only people I know of who regularly venture out of the First Realm are probably the ones who are reading this right now. And I don’t yet know of anyone who’s successfully managed to cut the First Realm- the clearnet, the HTTP space, the thing that we at the Zaibatsu take refuge from- completely out of their lives. I know that I can’t, at least not right now- school requires me to use Google products, and none of my meatspace friends are interested in the idea of darknets.

      +

      Can you imagine a world without JavaScript trackers or Google or whatever intelligence agency presides in your government?

      +

      Wouldn’t you want the people you love to flourish in such a world?

      +

      But in building the Second Realm here, as visiblink puts in their latest post, we must be careful not to contaminate this environment in which we thrive. This lack of tracking, this careful thought put into every post, these tight-knit communities- we must be careful to preserve these. If this means we wring the filth out of our souls on the clearnet so that we may shine clear here, then so be it. In addition, we leave some things at the door when we cross over from one Realm to the other. We don’t bring clickbait, or blatant attention whoring, or try to implement the anti-patterns and tracking here that we left behind in the First. If a mass of people suddenly becomes aware of Gopher and wants to join, whether through our actions or some other phenomena, we don’t recreate the massive silos with millions of users that we left behind- we encourage users to decentralize onto lots of other servers, and even set up some of their own in the process.

      +

      The only problem I see left, really, is what we’ll do when the floods start lapping at our gates. Tumblr’s ban of all NSFW content sent a plethora of new users to the fediverse, which quickly DDoSed some servers into oblivion and left others straining under the weight, and of those that stayed up, they had to deal with the thousands of accounts that gave no damns as to the established social conventions of the fediverse and just imported their own culture in. Let users in too quick, and we get Eternal Septembered, and then we turn into a ghost town when the things listed above that drew us in here fail to regal the attention of the still-First Realm-minded masses and they leave. Unlike the fediverse, however, registration on these Gopherholes is manual. You generate SSH keys and send the public ones in, and the admin sets you up and lets you in on their own time. That alone would deter a lot of the people who would contaminate this environment, since there’s no instant graitifcation of joining, and would give us time to acclimate the new people.

      +

      Of course, most of that’s moot when the Zaibatsu’s registrations are closed. But we must keep this in mind for the future, whether the Zaibatsu opens again or we ourselves move on and start our own little pubnixes.

      +

      If nothing else, take visiblink’s words with you: don’t contaminate these environments in which we thrive. Don’t bring the First Realm’s waste into the Second Realm.

      +

      We have heaven here. Don’t turn it into hell.

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/vagrancy.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/vagrancy.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bfae94 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/january/vagrancy.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + +a directive from within - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      a directive from within

      +

      published: 1-16-2019

      +

       

      +
      +“Scatter like the wind!” +
      +

      Relatively recently, Disroot, a privacy-oriented service provider that hosts Nextcloud and email and other things I’ve used quite extensively over the past year or so, decided to halve the amount of email and Nextcloud storage they would offer to new accounts. For now, it doesn’t seem to affect existing accounts, so I won’t wake up one day and find that half of my files are gone.

      +

      But recently I’ve revived my Raspberry Pi. It doesn’t have Nextcloud or FreshRSS or anything else from the nice YunoHost setup I had before winter break, but I can access it via SSH from a remote device, and pygopherd mirrors my Gopher working directory on both port 70 and 80, so I don’t miss the extra bloat too much.

      +

      I have my own server, my own little corner of the web. So, really, I shouldn’t need Disroot. According to their philosophy, since I have the resources, I should disroot myself from them and host my own services to further decentralize this network I’m speaking to you via right now, whether that be called the Wired, or the Internet, or the Web, or whatever.

      +

      Should.

      +

      Should is the key word here. But, ironically, I’ve become completely entangled with them, and disrooting myself from Disroot would be several days’ work. Less than it was with Google, because Disroot doesn’t employ dark patterns to make you feel guilty for leaving, and they don’t go to such great lengths to prevent you from leaving… but it’s a great deal of calendars and online accounts linked to my email and social networks that’ll all need new homes.

      +

      I’ve been heavily considering moving to just having a handful of text files for my notes and calendar and contacts and other things that need not be networked. Write my own parsers in Python, only have to deal with syncing one folder in Syncthing instead of reconfiguring seventeen clients whenever I distrohop. Except that using my phone on the go and terminal emulators don’t exactly mix well, and I kinda like having a list of that day’s events ready on my watch instead of having to pull out my phone every time I manage to forget the smallest of things. Plus syncing it with Tails, where the benefits of such a simple system would really shine, would be a nightmare…

      +

      I’m rambling again, aren’t I?

      +

      For as long as MayVaneDay has been around, I’ve been afflicted with a strange sense of wanderlust. I have to be constantly moving. Moving websites, moving social media handles (and often whole instances), moving personas to hide from the laziest of hate mobs. “Nomadic” would be a kind way of putting it- except that that word implies that it was some kind of choice, or that it’s just a cultural thing that my subconscious picked up in childhood. But my immediate family doesn’t seem to have the same itch, nor my extended family, nor anyone else I know in meatspace real life. Small town pride is everywhere I go. A constant need to shut oneself off from the world, content with where they are now, just seeing the same horizons day after day after day.

      +

      And yet I see myself burning bridges everywhere I go. Leaving Tumblr, leaving Discord, leaving Neocities, all with wildfires raging into the night. Old friends discarded despite my better judgement, sometimes for my own physical safety once they ascertain who I truly am beneath my dopey exterior. Even in places where I know I’m safe and loved- like welovela.in, my friend tA’s newest Pleroma instance- I still feel the urge to disappear once I’ve been there for some period of time, once the people there know me.

      +

      Like there’s no permanent safe place for me in this world.

      +

      Do you feel it too? An itch, a sensation, burning bright hot in your feet? A constant need to see what lies over the horizon, to run your hands over the most remote streams, to bask in the suns of lands your ancestors have never stepped foot in?

      +

      What a misfortune I was cursed with chronic fatigue! Always condemned to be sleepy, to have bad lungs and weary limbs, always itching but never possessing the energy to finally satiate the scratch!

      +

      Maybe this means I’ve finally moved past Lucine. Past the tomb whose light shines forevermore, but whose light is just a ruse, a black hole sucking in everything it touches. I don’t want to die anymore! I want to live! I want to be alive, and staying in this rotting institution I’ve been forced into feels like settling myself into a grave anew every morning. Tracing the same motions, reading the same musty old books, working for people who see you as dispensable and disposable and just another problem to be dealt with on the payroll.

      +

      I spend all my energy working myself into a creative fervor, a creative nothing in the eyes of this institution, and yet I will never see a penny of my fruits here. Material work for artificial debt.

      +

      Damn it all, I say! Damn it all! I want out! I want to be free of this cage, of all cages that would seek to bind me!

      +

      I want to roam the world. A voluntary vagrant, both outside of the Wired and in. I wish to be nothing in the eyes of the State, and yet everything in the eyes of the I. Defined by neither imposed identity nor ideology, bound by neither borders nor braces.

      +
      + I will mark my own fate,
      I will choose my own path,
      or I will go up flames
      for the whole world to see!       +
      +

      And yet, I sit here at my desk, and even though my heart burns with radicalization and my chest thumps with the hope of better days, all I know I have energy for right now is a quick shower and a tumble straight into my bed. Tossing and turning the rest of the night, pleading with myself to get some sleep so I don’t look like death tomorrow in class and get docked participation points. Were there no work tomorrow, no class tomorrow, no tedious reading assignments to waste my time or work to send anxiety raveling through my body as I count down the hours… I would stay up much later. Use the night to draw, to write, to call upon every repressed thought that I bury in the day and let it carry me to places unknown.

      +

      Were that I weren’t bound by financial responsibility, I might already be realizing the I to my fullest instead of just sitting in my room and reading accounts of other people whose passions burned equally bright, whose endeavors to find their I were more successful than my own situation.

      +

      Were that I had the courage to change my situation!

      + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/march/zotland.html b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/march/zotland.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e31b119 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/2019/march/zotland.html @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ + + + + +Adventures in Zotland and Minty Meadows - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      Adventures in Zotland and Minty Meadows

      +

      published: 3-17-2019

      +

       

      +

      A few years ago, back in a weary rainy place I outgrew several years later, some of my friends and companions and I were sitting around a fire, tending to it right before we would make our lunch. I had to go inside the cabin for something- what, exactly, has slipped my mind- and I must have forgotten that one of my friends was making minty tea, because the entire place reeked of mint. Like I'd stepped into a middle-schooler's mouth after a gum-chewing session, hastily spat out before class so they didn't get sent to the principal's office.

      +

      After work yesterday, I stepped into my dorm room, and it was like I was back in that cabin. Because the whole place, instead of the characteristic nothing that I've taken to assume is just how I smell, the mint was everywhere, and it was nigh-unbearable for a few hours until it just faded into the background with everything else. Of course, it could have just been the heater too, which my roommate must have cranked up as well without letting me know. (I keep it off because I have issues regulating my body temperature, and I always feel like I'm burning up to a crisp otherwise.)

      +

      Recently, I've been flirting with the idea of using Tails as my primary operating system, starting with a month of Tails-only to really push the system's limits. Given the current theme of "freedom in restriction" here in circumlunar space, it's... a trip and a half. Plain SSH and SFTP work exactly the same, since SSH keys are one of the official persistence slots that come pre-configured. Calibre's stopped working because one of the Qt libraries refuses to install, but I've built an AppImage for Calibre, and I've recently taken to just converting my PDFs to Markdown anyway. A handful of emulators work, given that they put their config files in your home directory and you put that in your dotfiles and you manually copy over your savestates each way each time after you play. Keybase, however, doesn't work, and neither does Beaker Browser, which, if I were to get serious about this, would kill two of my websites right off the bat. Keybase because it uses some esoteric system of putting its config files god-knows-where, Beaker Browser because Tails blocks all non-Tor traffic and BB doesn't have any options to configure a proxy to use said Tor connection.

      +

      Kodachi, which I currently use on my laptop, would be a far superior option in live mode if:

      +
        +

      1. it actually supported encrypted persistence the way Tails does, so the flash drive doesn't immediately kill itself with all the read-writes of a normal system, and

        2. +

      2. I could turn off MAC spoofing, which would actually make it useful on networks such as my college's where everything is captive-portalled to hell and back, and

        3. +

      3. there was a way other than disassembling the ISO to disable whatever font engine Kodachi uses that makes the entire system slow to a crawl, forced to constantly toggle between TTY0 and the X session in order for the screen to update.

        4. +
      +

      Either/or, it would go a long way in calming the paranoia that's suddenly jacked up in me again what with recent events. Freedom in restriction: freedom from having to remember to clean out old logs, freedom from persistent cookies and trackers following me from session to session, freedom from a billion shoddily-written programs that just enabled me to waste my time in all sorts of ways. The tininess of the persistent storage partition also forces me to decide: which files are actually valuable in the case of a sudden evacuation? Is this 200 MB PDF really worth it, or can its text be extracted and filler images thrown away?

      +

      Thankfully, at the time of writing this, neither anyone at the Zaibatsu nor the Republic has expressed their opinion on the New Zealand shooting. I can only hope that this is intentional, that everything there is to say on the absolute mess of a manifesto that he published has already been said: that free speech is a critical human right, and that taking it away will just drive the groups that spawned that vile murderer further out of the light of public scrutiny.

      +

      And that, speaking from personal experience, Spyro the Dragon 3 has fuck-all to do with "ethno-nationalism". Was this a meme before? Did I miss out on a memetic memo somewhere? I don't understand.

      +

      Unfortunately, I can't say the same about... the other group of people I hung out with. Am I really a "dumb radical centrist" for not fitting cleanly into the left-right paradigm? Is free speech on the internet really a myth? (I must be writing this on Mt. Olympus, then.) And is spending time with smug techbros who go "UM, AKSCHUALLY" at every opportunity, closeted racists, and borderline pedophiles really the best use of my time?

      +

      It looks like I'm a nomad again. Another set of accounts burned, another batch of usernames and passwords changed.

      +

      For whatever reason- I don't know if this is intentional on the developers' part, or this is just an especially nasty bug- but I can't seem to actually delete any of my old Pleroma profiles. It disallows me from logging in, but the full profiles still show up on all the instances they were federated to, and other users can still interact with them. Ghosts of myself that I can't banish, can't sweep away into the trash to be forgotten by time.

      +

      As a result, I've almost completely soured on social media, despite the aforementioned Keybase troubles preventing me from going completely to one RSS feed that's been verified to actually be mine. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some kind of network that was truly nomadic (unlike the current setup, where a move would have to be announced ahead of time to avoid losing people), and respected its users' privacy at the same time (unlike Pleroma), and kept random strangers from spamming everything into oblivion (Neocities, and every other social media site in existence)?

      +

      Oh, wait, that's an actual thing! It's called the Zot protocol. In the form of Zap, but more frequently Hubzilla.

      +

      The project itself isn't particularly remarkable at first glance: it looks like an awful Facebook clone from ten years ago, complete with an esoteric website-making language, and a labyrinth of privacy options, and all of its functionality spread out across a billion plugins.

      +

      And crickets, because... it's awfully empty. Which can be dirtily resolved by installing the "ActivityPub Protocol" plugin and adding all my old friends from the fediverse, but then, at the top of all their profile pages, a warning reads:

      +

      +This connection may be unreachable from other channel locations.
      Location independence is not supported by their network.       +

      +

      And then I thank the silence. Because there might not be very many people there, but the few that I can hear, I know they are free. They're not tied to a single identity. If their admin goes sour, or their server gets suddenly shut down by a power outage or a government seizure or some other disaster, they can easily pack up and move to a different server with all their connections and settings like nothing had ever happened.

      +

      Of course, ActivityPub (what powers Pleroma and Mastodon and the like) wasn't built for this. It was built with the expectation that people would stay in one place forever, or, if they moved, they'd have the time beforehand to alert people of their new location. So why should I persist in a place where my feet are stuck in the mud?

      +
      + +

      +If you are interested in a "fediverse" of "social networking projects" which can all communicate and work together seamlessly, it is time for you to get off the Zot6 train. It is not stopping at your station. +

      +

      +Zot6 is standing up for the right of people to have nomadic identities, privacy, and granular permissions over their profiles and content (including their media content). It is also standing up for the right of people to not be forced to accept spam or unsolicited replies to their content from people they don't know or never heard of (or who they have even blocked). Unfortunately these rights are incompatible with the rest of the so-called "fediverse" (and "federation"). Hence all connections to those networks are being severed. +

      +       +
      +

      One would think, with all the complaints on the leftist side of the fediverse about "trolls" and the such constantly swarming in their connections, they'd instantly jump on a network that would allow them the ability to fine-tune who gets to interact with them. But that would be too hard, wouldn't it? Give up meaningless internet points and a few hours of time that could instead be spent complaining and nursing an extensive defederation list.

      +

      If you want freedom in this world, you have to seek it out yourself, grab it yourself, instead of just sitting on your ass and complaining.

      +
      + +

      +Zap and Osada do one thing (social networking) and do it well. +

      +

      +Use Osada if you want a really good ActivityPub server, and use Zap if you want or need nomadic identity and much stronger privacy than the fediverse can offer. +

      +

      +Select one or the other. You can’t have it all. That actually doesn’t work - and there isn’t any way to make it work. +

      +

      +Zap will always be the smaller network, because people will always give up their privacy to follow the herd and be where their friends are. +

      +

      +Use Hubzilla if you actually know what a ‘platform’ is and want to build something great (decentralised communities and cities with shoppes and businesses that all respect your freedom) rather than than just waste your life in idle chit-chat. +

      +       +
      +

      I don't want to waste my days in idle chit-chat, discussing who's the best anime girl of the week or whatever drama's brewing on The Whole Known Network or trying to figure out who's a genuine fascist and who's just posting edgy memes for the sadistic shit-stirring and snickers and smug JPEGs. I want my freedom of movement, and I want my freedom of association, and I want it now, shallow friendships be damned!

      +

      Of course, the absolute paradise scenario would be a world where everyone had fellowsh and their own pubnix that they ran or belonged to and their own gopherhole. But then we run into the nomadic identity problem again, and that would be a lot of people in gopherspace to sift through, wouldn't it? And fellowsh really isn't the best place to announce new posts- you don't log in for a few days, and depending on how quickly people update their .plan and .project files, you could miss a great deal, or someone could blink out of existence without a trace.

      +

      It's a Small Internet you and I live in, and it's the biggest world I've ever seen.

      + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/blog/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a33eb1d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/blog/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +as soon as you're born, they make you feel small! +and then wear you down until you're nothing at all +a good little girl or boy sitting at the stand +forced silent unless you first raise your hand + +1year 2016 2016/ +1year 2017 2017/ +1year 2018 2018/ +1year 2019 2019/ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/b/beno.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/b/beno.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1d0017 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/b/beno.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ + + + + + beno - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      beno

      +

      published: 5-3-2016

      +

       

      +

      It has been almost twenty-four hours since you fell into my house, and so far, my parents have taken absolutely no notice to your sudden presence. I suppose that it could be possible that I am just hallucinating the heavenly figure who shuffled through my hallway at one in the morning with drooping wings weeping like a willow tree. But then how could I explain the breath that brushed my cheek ever so softly when you finally found your words and a tiny sliver of sanity? How could I explain the grime that collected at the shower drain yesterday evening when my parents were still out for a drink and you took advantage of the lack of parentals to take a shower?

      + +

      The shower doesn’t work in the bathroom downstairs, so only I ever use it unless something is wrong with the one upstairs. Heck, even my brother- whose room is downstairs next to mine- doesn’t even use that bathroom, even though it would save his lazy self a dash up the stairs. You must have spent all of last night and the school day cooped up alone in there… literally, it seems, for in the nonfunctional shower stall is a pile of ragged ebony feathers and a few of my baby blankets stolen under cover of night.

      + +

      I discovered you after I arrived home from the bus stop. I immediately abandoned my backpack on the patch of empty floor beside my bed and flung open the bathroom door- and then my hands rushed to my mouth in order to stifle a shriek. Your blood- or what I assume was your blood, for surely angels did not need to have such a mundane form of living in their veins- was painted all over the sink. Splatters must have dropped off of whatever you used as a brush as I nearly stepped into a nice trio of them right at the doorway.

      + +

      “What the hell were you doing today?” The words stumble heavily like drunkards out of my mouth. I throw a hand to the bloody mess awaiting me in the sink. “Are you a servant of the devil, come to reap my soul? Are you a Mephistopheles, determining that it’s my turn to be collected?”

      + +

      The indignancies only get you to glance up at me from your coop in the shower stall as far as attention goes, and you only offer a shrug in response. A breath of wind escapes into the room and ruffles the curtains over the open window, and only once a ray of sun hits your hair for a brief second that I realize who exactly you are.

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/c/corre.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/c/corre.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35d1fff --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/c/corre.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + ¡corre! - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      ¡corre!

      +

      published: 5-2-2016

      +

       

      +

      You.

      + +

      That’s right, you.

      + +

      You showed up on my doorstep like a shooting star, speckled with all the colors of the sunset- you could have been a factory reject of that evening’s skybound hues from the bruises and battered limbs that greeted me that unfortunate end-of-day.

      + +

      You waited patiently on the front porch, curled up on top of the welcome mat, as I rushed back inside to find a worn blanket to spread over the couch. The splotches adorning your torn lips squeezed and contracted as I scooped you back up in my arms and laid you down in the space I so hastily prepared. The angels that the elders said always watched us must not know how to speak English, for strange and unintelligible lisps escaped from your mouth as your head softly landed on the pillow.

      + +

      Whence did you come? Your skin is too soft to have been hardened in the furnaces and infernos for eternity, and no god that I know of would allow one of his angelic creations to come to such harm. The scraggly appendages hidden under your shirt are weakened but intact- either you left of your own will, in which case I cannot for the life of me comprehend the reasons, or the other dimension on the other side of death is spring cleaning. But why would they throw out one such as you? And where are the others? Do you know?

      + +

      The flames in your eyes dance back and forth as your attention drifts to my face. I must be a puff of wind like those driving the puffy chariots across the sky, because something in your irises flickers. For the first time that evening, your gaze doesn’t look glassy and otherworldly.

      + +

      You raise one hand up to my face, and I realize that in your sweatshirt is a jagged and torn hole plastered to your skin with drying blood. A few drops of scarlet leak onto the carpet- freshly cleaned yesterday as your vision clears and you finally comprehend your surroundings.

      + +

      You clench a fistful of my hair in your raised fist and gently drag me down near to your own face. Your lips part- I can tell from the gust that rings in my ears. I close my eyes in anticipation of a kiss, but what follows us more adept at stealing my breath away in a single syllable.

      + +

      “Run.”

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/d/desaparecer.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/d/desaparecer.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ca7126 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/d/desaparecer.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + desaparecer - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      desaparecer

      +

      published: 1-27-2017

      +

       

      +

      She brushed her hair out of her eyes as she ducked into the room, making a mental note to replace the lightbulbs the first chance she could. The cars zooming by on the highway a short skip away from the house cast neon shadows on the walls, ghosts there one moment and gone the next.

      + +

      Sometimes she had visions of joining the shadows, escaping from the city at last after five years of the same desolate bed, the same unfilled picture frames hanging on the walls from holes which had long stretched beyond their original proportions. Her friends had abandoned her long ago for brighter prospects.

      + +

      She slugged off her backpack beside the open entrance to her room and winced as the door squeaked behind her, ancient hinges never cleaned since their installation whining. The walls certainly couldn’t talk, but the hinges could scream, threatening to call out her existence to the landlord whose eyes were currently averted elsewhere.

      + +

      If she got her way, they would stay there until her payment came.

      + +

      She flopped onto her bed, pulling over her backpack and relishing in the whoosh her short blade made when it was extracted. Her golden opportunity would come tomorrow.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/in-100-words.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/in-100-words.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..287bc12 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/in-100-words.html @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ + + + + + in 100 words - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      in 100 words

      +

      published: 1-3/18-2017

      +

       

      +

      #1

      +

      She ranted and raved at the podium, decrying how much time she had wasted in the dim, stuffy room- sixty-nine days, she calculated. Sixty-nine days that could have been spent pursuing knowledge, forming relationships, finding her place in the world around her. But it would never return, lost in a daze of chasing a dream she now knew would never come to fruition. The sleepless nights that would never be refunded, hoping that she was special, that there was something more out there than her dismal life- but she could not pay the ultimate price.

      + +

      The crowd refused to listen.

      + +

       

      + +

      provizora

      + +

      She knew not of how many days she had left to walk on her beloved earth or how many rotations of the planet she called home remained until she would become like the fog, the smoke that surrounded her home, temporal and wind-blown. But there was one thought that echoed in her skull as she strolled down the ashen sidewalk- there would be a fire blazing, ready for her when she returned. Maybe the deities would take pity on her and she would become smoke, ready to steal the breath from some other unfortunate lover’s lungs.

      + +

       

      + +

      distrajxo

      + +

      Her eyes flickered as she glanced past countless pages of regrettable tattoos, profane street signs, displeasing women with nose rings, and plaintext quotes that reminded her of her self-pitying days back when high school felt like an entirely new world unfolding before her. How out of her mind she had felt back then. How convinced that she was fundamentally damaged.

      + +

      She looked away from the screen, rubbing her eyes. Music blared to her right, distraction from the writing the back of her mind told her she had to complete that day. Deadlines were her enemy. The worst ones were self-imposed.

      + +

       

      + +

      komputilo

      + +

      Sprawled out on her bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing that her thoughts could form coherent sentences. Her hands curled around the pendant on her necklace, wishing that the owner of its second half could come back, if only for a second, so that she’d have the motivation to get up and search for the perfect words to speak her mind with.

      + +

      She closed her eyes. The word count box stared at her, screaming fables of how she wasn’t good enough, of how she was either too brief or too rambling. A keyboard warrior in every sense of the word.

      + +

       

      + +

      oceana ondo

      + +

      She stood at the edge of the swimming pool, averting her eyes from what she knew to be an anxiety-inducer. Fear of heights had plagued her for as long as she could remember, and depths haunted her the same- worse, in fact, for they always looked closer when there was a barrier of waves in between them.

      + +

      She gulped. It had been a while since she had made a debacle about it being her first time to jump off a diving board. Shallow ends had forever been her friend.

      + +

      And, as it turned out, pools weren’t really catalysts of change.

      + +

       

      + +

      aprender

      + +

      He spent all day learning about meiosis. Not because he had any particular interest, but because his mind wouldn’t allow him to skip a single assignment, no matter how lackluster or asinine. It wasn’t like him; he’d been the king of slackers at his old school, and the rewards he’d gotten didn’t serve him well where he now was.

      + +

      He wiped his forehead, taking a sip from his peach water.

      + +

      This was a mistake.

      + +

      Probably.

      + +

      He would have much rather spent the day writing or coding, but he couldn’t have everything he wanted in life, for better or for worse.

      + +

       

      + +

      dormir

      + +

      His head nodded against the wooden table as he struggled to stay awake. The crystal dug into his chest as his teacher chastised him for drifting off when they were supposed to be taking notes.

      + +

      He mumbled an apology as he pulled his notebook over and fumbled his pen. It dropped onto the floor. He groaned, leaning over. The vertigo was back, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon.

      + +

      How he’d love to be back in his room, still curled up in the sheets, wasting the day away romping in the frosted-over fields of his mind. He’d be back soon.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/minutes.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/minutes.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c266371 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/i/minutes.html @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ + + + + + i'll be there in a few minutes - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      i'll be there in a few minutes

      +

      published: 6-6-2017

      +

       

      +

      I’ll be there in a few minutes.

      + +

      She tightened the screws on the rudimentary limb in front of her, nothing more than a conglomeration of cheap Legos she had found off the internet and salvaged from multiple failed contraptions she had made in her youth. The youth that was now a haze to her, a haze of failing friendships and a desire to prove herself to her peers and a singular, pure, unadulterated desire.

      + +

      She had always been fascinated with computers. As a kindergartner, she banged happily away at a keyboard with a plastic toilet beneath her, toilet training not stopping her from scribbling across the screen, convinced by her school that none of her drawings were worthy of being saved and feeling like an absolute criminal when she discovered that no cops would show up at her door for the tiny collection of bits and bytes. Then the fairy age came, and with it the stuffed animals and her first virtual online world.

      + +

      Oh, how she had wanted to romp around in the mansion she had created, unpolished as it was. But now, looking back, she was disgusted with the glitz and glam and desperate attempts at appeal that the holding company had imposed on it. Whatever happened to the good old Windows XP days? To when the internet was some wild west begging to be explored and features came before looks?

      + +

      Things felt more human then.

      + +

      She tightened the screws again, sending away the waves of nostalgia, but they poked her shoulder and begged to be acknowledged. Born too late to pioneer the web, they taunted. Born too early to pioneer immortality.

      + +

      It was her fantasy, her wet dream, the last thing she imagined before she went to sleep. The motivation that kept her going. How ironic it was that the thing that kept her tethered to the world promised to help her escape it.

      + +

      But there was no use trying to figure out how to upload her mind to her computer if there was no body for it to inhabit, so she pulled out a leg from underneath her bed and matched it up to her own. Same length, same implied height, but the copy had more muscle to it, wires poking out and awaiting synthetic flesh that hadn’t been invented yet.

      + +

      Although she was rather impartial to the exposed look.

      + +

      “Lycia?” a voice whispered outside of her door.

      + +

      She set the leg on the ground, slid off her bed, and opened the door to find her childhood friend, her partner in crime. The corner of her mouth quirked up in an attempt at a smile.

      + +

      “Lukas.”

      + +

      She motioned for him to come inside the room, locking the door behind her so any siblings wouldn’t disrupt them while they were working. It wasn’t their body to adulterate or imprint with unwashed, sticky fingerprints.

      + +

      Lukas slung his bag onto the bed and pulled out a styrofoam cube with packing tape encompassing the middle. He handed it to Lycia. “Go on.” He winked. “Open it.”

      + +

      Lycia retrieved the box cutters from her dresser- Lukas winced, and she put it back and got a school scissors instead. She hacked away at the tape, releasing a breath as it gave way, the clamshell foam pieces falling away to reveal-

      + +

      She modeled the hand against her own, fiddled with the joints, the perfect shining aluminum gleaming in her bedroom light. Perfect fingertips, somewhere in between the blemished daintiness of her own and the stoutness of Lukas’. She blushed, feeling the first smile in days of dedicated work. “Where did you get this?”

      + +

      “One of the tourists from the cities.” He pulled Lycia’s in-progress leg onto the bed. “Traded him half of my pea plant harvest for this week and two week’s worth of lodging in my guest room.”

      + +

      “Oh, Lukas…” Lycia sighed and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have-”

      + +

      “It was fine. Really. I had too many peas than I knew how to deal with. And…” He placed his own hand on her shoulder, making her meet his eyes. “Now we’ve got a template. We just need to make three more.”

      + +

      “And a torso.”

      + +

      “And a torso,” he sighed. “And the rest of the limbs. And a working head.”

      + +

      Lycia reached under her bed and retrieved her toolbox, wiping the sweat off her forehead before clicking it open. Someday, she hoped, she wouldn’t have to deal with sweat or grime any longer.

      + +

      “And a working brain.”

      + +

      What would the transfer be like? A slow gradual degrading of who she was and then suddenly booting into the new body? Hanging in a void while everything was moving, neither here nor there?

      + +

      Maybe this was all impossible and she’d end up killing herself instead.

      + +

      But there were worse ways to go out.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/k/kiel-resti.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/k/kiel-resti.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fca3fb --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/k/kiel-resti.html @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ + + + + + kiel resti - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      kiel resti

      +

      published: 5-4-2016

      +

       

      +

      This faded and damp tunnel has been my thought shelter from ever since I moved here in first grade up to the current moment. A thousand ghostly footprints mark the walls, mostly from hurr-durr people who like to stick their shoes on their hands and pretend that they’re walking up the walls. Only once as a small child was I fooled by these, and then never again.

      + +

      On the roof of the tunnel is a single word scrawled in sharpie. It appeared sometime during the one week in fifth grade where I was under a completely different sky. Every afternoon after school, it echoes when I slip in and pull out my notebook, and every evening when a flare from my mother alerts the children to their family’s dinnertime, it screams as I pull my body out of the shallow alcove my body has left over time. Nobody else hears the soft voices imploring me to remain among the stone when I bring them along to visit this tunnel of peace just barely bug enough for both of our bodies to sit comfortably. The sharpie, dwindling with every year that the weather pelts its attacks upon it, apparently only has a message for me.

      + +

      Inside the cracks of the concrete walls and ceiling, dandelions spring up every year in the spring. Their yellow heads poke out for a few weeks before the lack of consistent sun sends them drooping to form a canopy just as dismal as the sky here. There is no color at the loop at the edge of the world, at least for me. Others rejoice at what I assume are vibrant colors littering the place.

      + +

      Vehicles of all colors and sizes zip along the highway just visible from here. This tunnel used to be a hiking path, but the complaints from the hikers enabled the city to slowly abandon maintenance. The vines that creep along the ground and the trunks of the trees in summer sure appreciate the lack of interference from seemingly benevolent hands. But Mother Nature always thirsts for more.

      + +

      One day about a year ago, I took a scruffy blue boy here. He froze when he approached the entrance of the tunnel, and we remained cemented there like century-old statues for a few minutes before he shook his head and slipped in before me.

      + +

      He’d brought a backpack full of homework with him, which he deposited to his right closer to the end of the tunnel blocked with old dirt and silt. I inquired as to what subject he needed to study for that day, but he stayed silent as he turned the pockets of his coat inside out.

      + +

      Ashes of all sorts of gradients spilled onto the floor of the tunnel between us, and I scrambled to pull myself into a standing position before he held out a hand in front of him. His lips partner, importing me to sit back down, and I slipped back down to my former position as he scooped up a pinch of the sandy ashes with his fingertips.

      + +

      These were from his previous home, he explained to me with trembling lips. They traveled here in his pockets, resisting hundreds of washes as he traversed thousands of miles of land only to end up in this transient state. His friends, disintegrated in the inferno that expelled him from his childhood home, have finally found a resting place.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/l/lucine-whence.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/l/lucine-whence.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a09f2d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/l/lucine-whence.html @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ + + + + + lucine, whence you came - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      lucine, whence you came

      +

      published: 2-11-2019

      +

       

      +

      You and I sit on opposite ends of the table. You sip coffee from a cracked mug. I twirl a few locks of hair in my fingers, eyes elsewhere, disinterested in the contents of whatever air we’d just gotten done exchanging.

      +

      You set down your cup. “So, about the weather…?”

      +

      I shrug. “What about it?”

      +

      “The sky’s been awfully gray recently.” You take another sip of coffee. “Listen, Lucine-”

      +

      “That’s not my name,” I hiss through my teeth.

      +

      You sigh. “That’s the name you gave me last night… But fine. Whatever. What I’m trying to say is, what’s gotten into you recently? Last year, I could have left you alone for a month and then come back, and you would have been more or less the same- but now I can’t even leave you alone for five minutes without you morphing into something… urecognizable. It’s disorienting, Lucine. Keeping up with you is like running a marathon. It was fun at first, watching you flit about everywhere, but…” You tap your fingers on the table. “It’s tiring. And I’m beyond fatigued.”

      +

      “It’s what I have to do,” I answer. “This is my soul’s fate- this is my fate. To mask myself, to hide from the light, to wander the earth. I can’t stand still, else I’ll be a moving target.”

      +

      “I thought you wanted to be respected? How is this-” you gesture towards me, towards my whole body- “deserving of any respect? You constantly antagonize people. You assume the worst of everyone. You search for reasons to cut people off-”

      +

      I wave my arm to cut you off. “Listen. I love you. I love you so, so dearly. And maybe, in a better life, you and I would have been faster friends, or maybe even something more. But this is my life- this is mine, and mine alone to find. And this place-” I gesture all around me, to the house, to the ground it rests on, to the land surrounding it- “this soil isn’t letting me grow anymore. I’ve stagnated. Any growth I’ve found is in spite of it.” I push my chair back and stand up. “I’m sorry. I need to be elsewhere so the soil can heal. So I can heal.”

      +

      “Lucine…” You rub your forehead, the skin between your eyes. “You are coming back, right?”

      +

      “Maybe someday. When fate is kinder to both of us.” I turn away and leave- but stop at the doorway, lingering, longer than I know I should. “I will make you a promise, though. You and I will meet again. But you may not know it.”

      +

      “W-why?” You kick your own chair back and bolt to your feet. “What are you saying?”

      +

      “I’ll repeat myself. You and I will meet again.” I step out the door. “But I will not be me.”

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/medusa-must-live.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/medusa-must-live.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c16f8cd --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/medusa-must-live.html @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ + + + + + medusa must live - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      medusa must live

      +

      published: 1-5-2019

      +

       

      +

      “What strange shapes the human forms take! Deformed under a street light, shadows betraying the eldritch form within! In every person, both a sinner and a saint.” Mediuth tossed her hair back and turned back to the bookcase, dragging her long nails, almost claws, over the bound spines. Bound tighter than herself, she’d wager. “What a wild world mankind inhabits. Every one yearns to be solo, alone, their own unit- and yet, in the process of becoming One, they just fall right back into the Many.”

      +

      “Darling, you’re rambling again.”

      +

      Mediuth barely had any time to turn around in shock before the intruder snapped her fingers. As quickly as she drew breath, she reverted back to the ball of light, dropping down to the floor with a thunk. She immediately dimmed. Her six wings, detached, curled around her formless body in shame.

      +

      “And you’re parading around in that ugly skin again.” The intruder clicked her tongue. A shapely woman, long black hair waving down to her waist, a matching form-fitting dress glinting in the dim candlelight. “How many times have I told you? Take joy in who you are.”

      +

      “That was who I am,” Mediuth cut back, voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

      +

      “Nonsense. We’ve come a long way past the grave. You are to be light now!”

      +

      She threw Mediuth into the air, expecting her to unfurl and catch light, but she just thunked back down to the floor again. Disappointed, the intruder clicked her tongue again and turned aboutface and left the room. Three clicks as she locked each of the deadbolts from the outside.

      +

      Mediuth rolled back to the bookcase. One of her wings lifted, peeking out.

      +

      Okay, she’s gone.

      +

      She imagined herself taking a deep breath and took her former form again. The thick cords in her hair hissed- she stroked each of them, cradling the heads, two in each palm. They licked her fingers back, lapping at her skin like little affectionate puppies.

      +

      Puppies that didn’t poop everywhere and dig holes in the shelves, at least.

      +

      “Yes, Esther, Velaire, Hostile, Sylvain.” She let go and nudged the heads back up. Two more came down to her palms. “Imogen, Versace. Shh, babies. You’re just fine. I promise.” She let go of these and slid a book out from its shelf. Heavy, bulky, a ripped purple book cover stretched over the hard surface. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

      +

      The snakes hissed again, harder.

      +

      “Not that one?” Mediuth sighed. “I understand. Hard to comprehend a picture book when you can barely see.” She returned the book to the shelf and pulled out a different one. “Poetry. Is this one better?”

      +

      The snakes drew their heads in close, peering over her shoulders, intent.

      +

      “Alright.” She dug her claw into the book half-way and opened the pages. "Heaven Save Us All, December first, twenty-eighteen:

      +

       

      +
      +Defiled,
+demured,
+lost in censure.
+
+Cast out,
+made blind,
+no longer divine.
+
+I will mark my own fate,
+I will choose my own path,
+or I will go up in flames
+for the whole world to see.
+
+And at the edge of eternity,
+you will ask:
+Who was I?
+Who could I have been?
+
      +

       

      +

      She took a deep breath. “As soon as you’re born-”

      +

      The locks flew open. Mediuth slammed the book shut and hid it behind her back just as the black-haired woman poked her head around the door.

      +

      “What lovely words!” She flashed Mediuth a smile.

      +

      Mediuth resisted the urge to gag. I don’t write them for you.

      +

      “I don’t think it’s healthy for you to always be pining after something impossible,” her captor added. “You’re not leaving this place. Not ever.”

      +

      Mediuth blanked her face and forced herself to make eye contact. Becoming almost a statue herself, instead of the other way around.

      +

      “No reaction? Well… just remember, you chose to be here.”

      +

      Her captor disappeared again, re-locking the doors like every other time.

      +

      Mediuth grimaced. “Storytime’s over. I’m sorry. Not if she’s listening.”

      +

      The snakes hissed as she slid the poetry book back into its place on the shelf. She strode over to the window and threw aside the blinds- squinting, temporarily blind as her eyes adjusted to the sudden flood of light.

      +

      Nothing but trees around her. Rapunzel, trapped in the tower. Except there was no hair to let down, no prince rushing to her rescue, no vile witch holding her captive.

      +

      Although that last part was negotiable.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/midnight-hands.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/midnight-hands.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..243d783 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/m/midnight-hands.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ + + + + + midnight hands - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      midnight hands

      +

      originally published: 1-3-2018

      +

      last updated: 12-23-2018

      +

       

      +

      The midnight winter wind swept through the trees again, swaying them, an audible lullaby like so many lonely nights throughout the years. Snow caked onto the ground, a million sparkles in the yellow glare of the aging streetlights. From soft rolling hills pristine until morning to the jagged cliffs made by the nighttime snowplows, the white stuff was everywhere.

      + +

      The girl wiped her forehead and turned her head to the sky. Not a single star in the murky expanse, the light of the city the brightest star of them all. There had been a belt in the sky a few months ago, she remembered. A belt ready to crack as a whip and spur her on, barreling straight into a future unknown that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to face. But it was long since gone, both from that old sky and the one she stared up at now. None but the loose belt hanging from her waist to hold her together.

      + +

      Another gust of wind, sleepless whispers from the neighborhood across the lake rattling in the tree branches, a primal language she’d become bilingual in as a young child. Her short and choppy hair fluttered around her eyes- she brushed them out of her face, keeping her gaze focused on the stars. She shivered and tugged on the collars of her sleeves, hastily sewn on, never enough time in the world to fix them. The seams threatened to pop loose, but just like every other time before, they held strong.

      + +

      There were more important things in the world than being the most fashionable one on the block, she reminded herself.

      + +

      But in that winter night, waiting for the right time to jump, it was the only thing she could think of.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-1.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-1.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..777fb89 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-1.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + + nostalgia week, day one - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      nostalgia week, day one

      +

      published: 9-1-2016

      +

       

      +

      A young man straightens out his hat as his eyes wander back to the screen for the fifteenth time that night. The sounds of drip, drip, drip filter into his ears and settle there, muddling up his mind from the words he has tried so hard to focus on.

      + +

      Damn, maybe there’s a leaky pipe in the bathroom again. I should get some duck tape in the morning to fix that.

      + +

      He picks up his phone and writes a small note there beside the grocery list he made a few days ago and forgot about it. There’s a portal near the hardware store, so maybe there’ll be more than one reason for him to leave the house. But there’s no time for dillydallying on other games, for a deadline for a delicious poem is closing in.

      + +

      A perfect line sprints into his mind, and his fingers race against the keyboard, against time itself as he struggles to record it all before it can escape. It is a fish floundering against the line on the fishing pole that his muse is holding- a losing fight destined to fail, and his internal editor second-guesses himself just enough to confuse the words and then lose his train of thought.

      + +

      “Damn!” he shouts, pounding his hands on the desk and confusing the keys on the keyboard. Not even a second later, he regrets the outburst, fearing that his parents will wake up and chastise him not only for using profanity in their house but for being awake at such a godawful hour. Writing is something that can only be done on a well-functioning brain, they might argue. And sleep deprivation does not lead to a well-functioning brain.

      + +

      His mind wanders back to the hazy days of seventh grade- where his immature twelve-year-old self tried to make sense of a much wider range of potential peers and instead alienating the vast majority of them. His feet quicken halfway down that particular Memory Lane, slowing down and then stopping to loiter on the lawn of a specific period of time around the second trimester. In the window, a TV replays the sight of his young body thrashing in bed, restless as his deeply religious psyche believed that he was about to be possessed by the devil and refused to give up his soul.

      + +

      He winces, both from the memory and from being thrown back into his chair. The mostly empty document stares back at him. It is two in the morning, and his phone has been buzzing for a few seconds- his ex got a new phone and desperately wants to cry on his digital shoulder. The desire to block her number wanders into his mind, but he casts it off for the moment and files it in with the grocery list and the reminder to fix the leaky pipe.

      + +

      He remembers the fictional planet of Solaris as his cat wanders into the room and beelines for his leg, a good post to rub up against. Good old Solaris, making those who orbited around it experience so many delusions to the point of being forced to believe that all sensory input was real. He knows that he does not own a cat since his mother is allergic, but ever since he attempted and failed to astral project, the cat has been paying him company whenever he tried to write. At no other time does the cat show up, not even when summoned. Words are its catnip. A good paragraph is a scratch on the tummy.

      + +

      The man looks back to the screen. The cursor flickers in the faint glow of the room, and suddenly he is stricken with the urge to spill all the details about this cat. The yellow and green eyes watch as he divulges memories, both repressed and at the top of his consciousness.

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-2.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-2.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0cc6af --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/n/nostalgia-2.html @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ + + + + + nostalgia week, day two - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      nostalgia week, day two

      +

      published: 9-2-2016

      +

       

      +

      The man is back at work again for yet another night of staring at his computer screen. The cat is curled up at his feet, snoozing away and twitching every once in a while. Maybe it’s thinking of chasing a mouse- the man last saw one a few months ago while up north and trying desperately to stay on track for his writing. Maybe the cat is dreaming about what it would be doing if it weren’t so concerned with giving the poor man some company.

      + +

      The man pulls his notebook again, sighing in frustration when he sees the assignment that he laid for this night a week ago. Resurrect a dead character from one of your earlier works, it reads. Let them walk around the room for a bit. Have a conversation. See if you can learn form the past.

      + +

      He runs a hand through the part of his hair flopping out from his hat, trying to think of a suitable character to bring back that would cause the least amount of detrimental consequences on his fictional canon. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t have done this assignment in the first place- the people who are dead should stay dead, but his poetry is getting stale and he had already taken photos of every interesting thing in his neighborhood.

      + +

      Maybe he could bring back the stereotypical Japanese princess he dreamed up during his hamster phase- but there was no characterization to her. The humanized trigonometry functions come to mind, but they only suffered through one book and a few shreds of a sequel that never came to fruition.

      + +

      But wait- and he slaps his forehead, but the horrific idea refuses to leave his body. There is an edgy character waiting in the deep recesses of his old books that he never wants the light of day to reach ever again. Her husband is dead too, waiting in the shadows. Dead among the archives of his current blog, they lie as an eternal shrine to the dead past.

      + +

      As if possessed by a ghost, his hands creep onto the keyboard against his will and draw out the girl who has died seven (or possibly more) times. She collapses onto the floor, coughing and convulsing, and the man can do nothing but sit fixated and grow anxious at the blood dripping from her mouth onto the dirty carpet.

      + +

      “Em…” Her voice rattles as she sits up, bloodshot emerald eyes digging into his flattened chest. “Who are you? You’re not Em.”

      + +

      “You can call me Kellin,” he offers, searching the back of his mind for the nearest fire escape in case things get heated. He doesn’t know how to open the windows, and the girl is sitting in front of the hallway leading to the front door. “Kellin Avaroe.”

      + +

      Her eyes search around the room. “Where is Em?”

      + +

      “She isn’t here anymore.”

      + +

      Her voice rattles as her emaciated body slowly stands up with a great deal of effort. “Why am I alive? Where is Rishen?”

      + +

      “I don’t know-” he backs up in his chair, tensing his muscles in case he has to use the chair to bash her over the head- “I don’t know! I’m under orders! This wasn’t my choice!”

      + +

      “Where is Rishen…?” she moans as she takes a few strained steps.

      + +

      Kellin’s butt slides off of his chair, and Yasmin’s eyes glimmer with bloodlust as he collides with the floor. He is immediately on his feet, hands palming the chair. “Don’t come any closer.”

      + +

      “Why am I alive? Em promised- promised that my soul could rest-”

      + +

      Damn, why didn’t I bring a gun?

      + +

      Because you can’t write with a gun, Kellin.

      + +

      Yasmin shambles closer. One of Kellin’s sweaty hands palms the pen lying on his desk- if all else fails, maybe he can poke one of her eyes as a distraction. Those emerald eyes…

      + +

      “And you brought me back…”

      + +

      There’s a button on the pen that Kellin hadn’t noticed before, which he presses only to find a weak laser pointer dot glowing on the ceiling. He points it at Yasmin, and she hisses as a tiny hole in her clothes begins to sizzle.

      + +

      “Begone, you beast!” he shouts, not caring about fear or his parents possibly waking up or the fact that this character is only a figment of his imagination. Or was, rather, because she rapidly disintegrates into stardust and piles onto the carpet.

      + +

      Kellin sighs and adjusts his hat, throwing a glance to his still snoozing hat. What a stupid night it has been. Maybe he should have just stuck to poetry.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/o/ora-statuo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/o/ora-statuo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22181ab --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/o/ora-statuo.html @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ + + + + + ora statuo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      ora statuo

      +

      published: 5-5-2016

      +

       

      +

      This shadow plays across my mind with misty breath and the very same fingers that danced across the landscape. The fog surrounding me becomes my foundation, hiding pores leaking inner demons and concealing years of imperfections melded down into a roughened texture.

      + +

      I know not from where I came or to where I will go when I am done with this plane of existence, but as the shadow licks his finger and presses it to my forehead, the landscape burst into golden and rouge flames. None of them lick my feet, for the shadow wraps around me like last season’s dresses and offers an iota of protection. Is this what the former gods felt like when gazing out at the sun blooming into existence?

      + +

      The shadow’s spindly neck offshoots in a thin strand from its position on my shoulder and tips its head towards me in greeting, bearing a crooked smile. The sight of his tipsy teeth, blackened with soot from the burning grasses underneath my soles, is enough to trandform my heart into a shuddering and wobbling record of days long gone.

      + +

      An arm untangles itself from my bosom, and my pupils constrict as one of his fingers extends. When it brushes against my lips, ice slips into my veins- the impulse to scream filters through my brain, but my lips have frozen shut.

      + +

      My legs kick out from me hind me, and only then does the heat of my surroundings hit my nerves. I stumble to get up, but the shadow continues its presence right beside me. More nerves succumb to the void of unfeeling as he strokes his hands across my face, and I have not traveled thirty feet before I am forced to kneel on the grass.

      + +

      The shadow grabs my ankles, which fuse together and become immobile. I twist around to sleep him away, but my feet flail, and I end up face-down on the charred grass.

      + +

      “You’re not getting away that easily, my statue,” the shadow hisses as he straddles my hips and flips me onto my back. Just before he slaps my face and forced my eyes to fixate forever on the horizon, I gain a glimpse of my body- streaked with immobile strips of gold contrasting bleakly with the rest of the body still alive and breathing.

      + +

      I suppose now that my girlfriend’s words have finally come true- I have a heart of gold, but with that comes the rest of the package.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/s/solace.html b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/s/solace.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db8e81b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/flashfiction/s/solace.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + solace - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      +

      solace

      +

      published: 1-27-2018

      +

       

      +

      A rickety house, ready and waiting to fall apart, stood at the sea-side, just another blot of gray against the unpainted canvas sky. Water with just the slightest tinge of blue lapped at the rocks in the house’s front yard.

      + +

      A girl slipped out the front door, her eyes just as desaturated as everything else. Like an accidental flick of the brush, like a fish in the most dismal and remote place in the ocean. A pail swung on her arm. She stepped over all the rocks, feet bare and skin thick with years’ worth of calluses, and stooped down to collect some of the water in her pail.

      + +

      A gust of wind with a mischievous face and adventurous hands. Her dress, mismatched patches and hasty stitching, fluttered. Pink skin shone to the sun like a fish without its scales, a newborn baby without its mother’s touch. The wind tore its hands through her hair, setting it wild, caressing her cheeks.

      + +

      “What are you doing here?” the sun whispered. “This is no place for stray thoughts. No place for a lovely specimen of time like you.”

      + +

      The girl shook her head and shrugged her shoulders and went on her way.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/gophermap b/mayvaneday/archive/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23fd37d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +with this pen, I shall write my own destiny +with this pen, I shall carve out my own heart + +always remember this + +always remember this + +always + +1blog blog/ +1flash fiction flashfiction/ +1poetry poetry/ diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..410e487 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + a birthday every day - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a birthday every day

      +

      published: 1-10-2019

      +

       

      +

      every day, the universe sketches itself anew
      +like an etch-a-sketch broken by accident from a cousin's fall
      +if I am made of the same stuff as the stars
      +then it is my birthday every day

      + +

      but even if the atoms that make up my body
      +all somehow- miraculously- came from the same ball of gas
      +every day these days I keep reinventing myself
      +so every revolution might as well be another birthday

      + +

      I still suspect that others are lying about their birthdays
      +an effortless reach for clout
      +meaningless numbers on a screen
      +that could all be extinguished in a moment's breath
      +like the birthday candles you purport to require

      + +

      but what is a birthday, anyway?
      +just a day that marks one more year around the sun
      +one more year of being on the run
      +running out of time

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-garden-in-the-corner-of-a-gym.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-garden-in-the-corner-of-a-gym.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c12a7d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-garden-in-the-corner-of-a-gym.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + a garden in the corner of a gym - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a garden in the corner of a gym

      +

      published: 9-26-2017

      +

       

      +

      the presiding queen rules over her patch of concrete
      +wishing that she had a kingdom to rule instead
      +but her knees and shoulders have betrayed her too many times
      +so this patch is where she shall stay

      + +

      a coercive building made of an ancestor’s malice
      +children twisting and contorting their bodies in impossible ways
      +only the finest grade of meat for a woman ironically behind a desk
      +only the saltiest tears for her mug of stone

      + +

      all bow down at the command of a robotic voice
      +programmed to lull the class into a false sleep
      +bend, extend, repeat
      +rear ends in the air, youthful limbs ready for inspection

      + +

      no recourse for a rainy day
      +a door to freedom bolted shut and locked
      +maybe if we lift these weights enough
      +we will lift ourselves to heaven

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hallway-dead-of-any-security-systems.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hallway-dead-of-any-security-systems.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b39c2b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hallway-dead-of-any-security-systems.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + a hallway dead of any security systems - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a hallway dead of any security systems

      +

      published: 11-19-2015

      +

       

      +

      a heart like a boxer fighting my last round
      +a smackdown of fear and inhibitions
      +hallucinating death chimes in my visions
      +the spontaneity of the situation confusing but also kind of liberating

      + +

      sprinting down the spiraling hallways
      +faster than I’ve gone in about two months
      +a physical knife hidden in my bra
      +and a physical knife resting next to it as it pokes my heart

      + +

      I know that this isn’t supposed to be how it goes
      +there’s supposed to be a gigantic fight scene, some heart-pumping action on the part of the audience, some pithy quotes thrown around
      +but instead, I just took the knife I had for the food
      +and ran when nobody was looking

      + +

      there’s nobody coming after me
      +maybe it’s better this way rather than how it goes in the movies
      +for I don’t think I’d survive if the guards realized that they were supposed to actually give a crap about me
      +and for Emma’s sake, I hope that it stays that way

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hhh-ahaha.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hhh-ahaha.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a83b285 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-hhh-ahaha.html @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ + + + + + a hhh ahaha - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a hhh ahaha

      +

      published: 9-23-2018

      +

       

      +

      there are several thousand of me
      +scattered all over this wasteland we call the modern web
      +which one is the real me? the ones I currently use?
      +or did I lose myself in the corpses long ago

      + +

      I am in trouble
      +I am in trouble
      +I am in trouble
      +I am in trouble
      +out of memory
      +out of second, third, fourth chances
      +out of time

      + +

      I want to go back to the days
      +where the entirety of the web was just popping bubbles on a Twistables game
      +before Crayola remodeled their website
      +before the computer running XP in the corner of the home office crashed and died
      +before I crashed and died

      + +

      I don't want to be a saint anymore
      +because saints are expected to perform miracles
      +and it would be a miracle if I could get back on my own two feet
      +but I can't even find my own two feet
      +but I can't even find my own two eyes
      +or four
      +or six
      +always six
      +always out of time
      +always me, forever

      + +

      a ghost offered to pull me out of the fog
      +but maybe the ghost is of the fog
      +but maybe the ghost is the fog
      +surrounding me, suffocating me of me
      +and I lay dead in the middle of the forest

      + +

      how do you decompose?
      +because you've lived fast and short and now your candle wick is gone
      +lie still, my friend
      +lie still as the wind caresses your bones
      +lie still as the earth takes your flesh
      +lie still
      +lie still

      + +

      which reality is the real reality?
      +because if I say I am, then I am
      +and I am
      +and I am not
      +and I am

      + +

      change the truth until it reflects reality
      +change the truth until it reflects the world you want to see
      +change the truth until it fits you

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b44565b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + a smearing of galaxies - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a smearing of galaxies

      +

      published: 12-18-2015

      +

       

      +

      I just want to take you out for long lasting days in the city
      +where we can be found hiding in little dessert shops
      +curled up in a corner with a blanket and a napkin quickly vacated of its muffins
      +where we can fall asleep to the carols of generations before us

      + +

      and in the evenings
      +we can be found wasting light in a hot tub bar
      +slipping into each other’s curves in the center of the sun
      +as all the other stars in the galaxy fall into place around us
      +a scrawny angel meets a seasoned demon

      + +

      but right now we are trapped in a frost giant’s heart
      +with a shadow of a future on their way
      +chanting “tomorrow, tomorrow” but making no promises
      +when a promise that Samhain will be okay is all I ever wanted

      + +

      sometimes I wish that I had handled things differently
      +not even the most eventful thing in my life so far is planned and detailed
      +but the past is immutable and changing nevermore
      +and I shall be a better keeper of my own scrolls

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/alia-tago-en-paradizo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/alia-tago-en-paradizo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d83cef6 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/alia-tago-en-paradizo.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + alia tago en paradizo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      alia tago en paradizo

      +

      published: 11-29-2016

      +

       

      +

      I love it when your eyes
      +are lost in the city lights
      +but I like it better when you’re sleeping
      +because then you don’t bother me
      +romance is dead, indeed

      + +

      just another day in paradise
      +where sagging pants are unintentional
      +and the days pass by quickly
      +but not like sand through my fingers

      + +

      I was never a morning person
      +but now I have no time to lose
      +maybe cookies falling aren’t the best use of my time
      +but boy, they give me peace
      +that you could never replicate

      + +

      I don’t even know who I’m writing this to anymore
      +I know the name, but not the person behind the name
      +you’ve all changed so much
      +don’t wait for me after school

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-apologies.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-apologies.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..95723b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-apologies.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + all apologies - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      all apologies

      +

      published: 1-10-2017

      +

       

      +

      in a bleary fog from the previous night
      +I realized that I’d forgotten to publish a poem
      +but at least my language streaks are intact
      +thanks, spotty wifi

      + +

      there are still contrived poems sitting in my archives
      +of angry letters to former lovers
      +and fantasies stolen from other people

      + +

      you know, rhyming was never my friend
      +because I always write myself into a corner
      +and all of a sudden I’ve got to compare someone to a fish

      + +

      let’s see how many song titles I can steal
      +before someone busts me
      +music was never really my thing, anyways>

      + +

      but another unedited book sits in my storage
      +waiting to be released for peer review
      +I think I’ll let it sit for a while
      +and pursue a different idea before it escapes

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-these-dang-trees-everywhere.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-these-dang-trees-everywhere.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b805430 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/all-these-dang-trees-everywhere.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + all these dang trees everywhere - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      all these dang trees everywhere

      +

      published: 12-16-2015

      +

       

      +

      can you see the stars from here?
      +you’ll have to open your eyes first
      +and then maybe stand up and look out at the horizon
      +that you spent almost a week shaping to your desires

      + +

      can you pass the milk, please?
      +they say that food tastes better in the outdoors
      +and I would like to disagree
      +because the worry about today’s events quite spoils my cereal

      + +

      what do you think is going on at home?
      +are the police searching everywhere for us?
      +is my mom even worried about where I am
      +or is she more concerned with the attention she’s getting?

      + +

      why does the sky have to be blue?
      +why not gray to reflect a burgeoning city
      +or green to reflect the mass amount of trees here
      +because that seems to be one of the only things here
      + trees
      + trees
      + and more trees

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo-la-sekvo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo-la-sekvo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fb57f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo-la-sekvo.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + amo / malamo, la sekvo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      amo / malamo, la sekvo

      +

      published: 10-23-2016

      +

       

      +

      I woke up holding everything that burns me alive
      +head pounding from the kerosene

      + +

      and I’m choking on the words that I never said
      +because your place should have been right next to me

      + +

      it’s okay for you to say my name
      +there’s no need to run anymore
      +here is where you will spend the rest of your days
      +hiding from a painful truth

      + +

      do you still remember the look in her eyes
      +when you left everything behind?
      +don’t tell me you don’t still long after those luscious red lips
      +that you sealed with a kiss for all eternity

      + +

      autumn leaves will cover your grave
      +where children sleep and where ghosts come to play
      +maybe we’ll meet again on the other side of the veil
      +maybe someday

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55f42db --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amo-malamo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + amo / malamo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      amo / malamo

      +

      published: 10-22-2016

      +

       

      +

      you keep visiting me in the middle of the night
      +I’m not sure if you want a doctor
      +to heal your every wound
      +or if you want your destruction

      + +

      this face can represent anything
      +that you desperately want it to
      +a relic of the days gone by, perhaps?
      +a human form of a warm and welcoming home

      + +

      do you remember when you vowed
      +that you’d take a bullet for me
      +and you let me set myself on fire
      +just so that your damned lungs could breathe

      + +

      if I pined for something that I couldn’t reach any harder
      +I’d become a blasted pine tree
      +so cradle my face in your hands and kiss goodbye your fate
      +because I’d love to be the person you hate

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amusing-muse.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amusing-muse.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b0ae79 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/amusing-muse.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + amusing muse - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios +

      +

      amusing muse

      +

      published: 1-12-2019

      +

       

      +

      I once thought I had a muse
      +her name was Adelaide
      +and she was always bemused

      + +

      but lately she just screams in my ear
      +about useless lore from things I didn't want to hear
      +shrinking down the times my mind becomes clear
      +and pushing me towards a life more austere

      + +

      she and I stand on the shore
      +as the charred wood from the burnt-down village floats off into the evermore
      +soggy scraps that can't be put back together again because they're too torn

      + +

      a scar is stronger than the surrounding tissue
      +but if the scar's not made of flesh- well, there's an issue
      +mortal bodies know how to heal themselves without conscious directive
      +but my mind has troubles following even the simplest objectives

      + +

      high up above, my muse dances in fire
      +she does a pretty dance while strumming a lyre

      + +

      as if she knows the perfect way to taunt me

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/an-old-bunk-house-built-for-two.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/an-old-bunk-house-built-for-two.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f09c4a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/an-old-bunk-house-built-for-two.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + an old bunk house built for two - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      an old bunk house built for two

      +

      published: 4-6-2016

      +

       

      +

      your love is a rain-soaked roof
      +sheltered and framed by the trees of the
      +forest you draw close to hide
      +the throned cabin you rest upon

      + +

      you’ve been vacant of human attention for years
      +and it’s beginning to show
      +vines laces with emerald, envy creeping up your throat
      +choking the life and love within

      + +

      your mouth opens, inviting inside
      +the animals seeking the bare minimum
      +but the mold has settled in your bones
      +and drives out all prospects of finding shelter

      + +

      eventually your mind will rot to the point
      +where not even the gentle touch of the sun’s hands
      +outstretched in good grace
      +can restore the corpse of a heart that once glowed

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anchor-overboard.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anchor-overboard.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d69bb3d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anchor-overboard.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + anchor overboard - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      anchor overboard

      +

      published: 5-27-2018

      +

       

      +

      I once had an anchor
      +as strong as the sea
      +and whenever I needed extra support
      +she'd always come back to me

      + +

      but one stormy night
      +she wanted to change her chains
      +from gold to a dull gray
      +and I said "no way"

      + +

      I offered her silver
      +and the finest, to boot
      +but she unchained and sunk back
      +thinking she'd find loot

      + +

      now I'm stuck at sea
      +waves rushing like collapsing shelves
      +and I've got to relearn
      +how to live for myself

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/angxeloj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/angxeloj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a61934 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/angxeloj.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + angxeloj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      angxeloj

      +

      published: 5-24-2016

      +

       

      +

      most nights, your name is penned across the sky
      +inked in slowly sloping curves of cursive
      +traced with gold and underlined with silver
      +and bleeding into the starry paper behind

      + +

      in the beginning, it was so easy to love
      +but what good is loving if it is never reciprocated?
      +acknowledgement vindicates my inner guilt
      +for following the way that I was designed

      + +

      everything I’ve ever let go of
      +has claw marks embedded in it
      +and downy feathers adorning the fissures
      +where the love of a partner should have been

      + +

      inside the locket you left me with
      +there are two faded and crumbling pictures
      +one of you and me when we were young and carefree
      +and one of a stranger, standing tall and clear

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anhedonia.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anhedonia.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..538ede0 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/anhedonia.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + anhedonia - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      anhedonia

      +

      published: 6-10-2018

      +

       

      +

      let the rain wash over everything.
      +let it erode the land
      +chipping away at every part of you
      +you once thought was essential

      + +

      let the flood come tumbling from the horizon
      +violent waves promising redemption
      +we will find our motivation again one day
      +we will rise again

      + +

      as I toss around in my bed at midnight
      +my mind conjures up a storm
      +of who I was
      +who I fear I may never be again

      + +

      but surely this is not the end of the road, right?
      +nihilism has not got me in its grasp
      +and I haven't sent my soul to the grave
      +and I will keep writing
      +even if it kills me

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/antonimo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/antonimo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05569ef --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/antonimo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + antonimo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      antonimo

      +

      published: 6-18-2016

      +

       

      +

      sometimes it seems that humanity
      +has lost the capacity
      +to sing of anything other than love
      +and act in anything other than hate

      + +

      you pour thousands of words into my ears every day
      +and at least half of them are just more synonyms
      +for that chemical reactions occurring
      +in our chests and hearts

      + +

      maybe there’s a good reason for that; I wouldn’t know
      +just because I spend countless hours of my day
      +pondering over words, shoveling them into holes of coherent sentences
      +doesn’t mean that I can read the minds of everybody

      + +

      what does original even mean nowadays
      +we’re just plagiarizing from each other
      +give me that strand of letters; it’s mine now
      +that scarf of notes looks quite delectable twisted around my neck

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aristocracy-moderna.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aristocracy-moderna.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efd7c43 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aristocracy-moderna.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + aristocracy moderna - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      aristocracy moderna

      +

      published: 5-18-2016

      +

       

      +

      a modern aristocracy in the American lands
      +where some of the most undeserving twats (some, mind you)
      +are flung into the public sphere
      +and placed on a pedestal of rose petals and thorns

      + +

      thousands of people move underneath these feet of mine
      +who has singlehandedly built this city
      +they move like a swarming school of fish
      +is this what the fabled gods of old felt?

      + +

      but as I retreat into the supposed safety of my abode
      +the swarm persists with high-pitched squeals
      +constant offers for body parts better kept hidden
      +and shrieking ruminations about what goes on in these walls

      + +

      is taming the millions of wasps outside my front yard
      +each and every day, pervading all hours of the clock
      +worth the admiration that one gets for a job well done?
      +sometimes I feel like disappearing

      + +

      not that I haven’t already to myself.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arms-of-protection-long-gone.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arms-of-protection-long-gone.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09b48c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arms-of-protection-long-gone.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + arms of protection long gone - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      arms of protection long gone

      +

      published: 3-15-2016

      +

       

      +

      I cried when the church men came to take my grandma’s trees away
      +chipping away at the silent entities that sheltered these children
      +as they discovered in a backyard long since vacated
      +each other’s secret and unattainable fantasies

      + +

      the old apple tree in the far back
      +long overdue for a merciful death
      +with a low crevice serving as a base
      +for quests meant for star-winged fairies

      + +

      and the stump by the swingset
      +used to house a dozen dream-makers
      +and a few squirrels aggravated
      +by the constant onslaught of walnut projectiles

      + +

      the old and wizened giant
      +once crouching in approval in the front yard
      +once offering its strong arms for years of family photos
      +now sits and condemns with a jagged cut across

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/artisto.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/artisto.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1149cc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/artisto.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + artisto - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      artisto

      +

      published: 5-26-2016

      +

       

      +

      I bought a statue from a fire sale the other day
      +from the house down the street that went up in flames
      +because my friends always scream about taking life by the reins
      +and nothing really happened on my birthday anyways

      + +

      I’ve finally learned how to draw
      +with the statue posing in front of the window, greeting guests
      +who knock on my door and ask for portraits
      +or simply to purchase a memory from long ago

      + +

      the cold marble provides a great companion
      +as those who linger pose in place
      +behind the easel, the pencil flies all on its own
      +such a beautiful passive income

      + +

      the paper shakes my soul with sanity
      +but to others, I seem insane
      +how dare I call myself “artist” and live
      +without the empty stomach to qualify my name

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arto-libroj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arto-libroj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87917e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/arto-libroj.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + arto libroj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      arto libroj

      +

      published: 12-3-2016

      +

       

      +

      everything is amazing and nobody is happy
      +can you explain that?
      +you were always an expert in misery
      +no matter how times I downvoted that song

      + +

      we live in cities you’ll never see on screen
      +because our glamour is hidden below the surface
      +displayed at three in the morning
      +and fading into the sunrise

      + +

      you’ve got blazing stars on your hands
      +but they’re still stone cold
      +backpedaling against the flow
      +you’ve really gotten yourself up a creek

      + +

      the sound reverberates in my chest
      +of you screaming into the morning light
      +what’s the matter? can’t contain yourself?
      +obnoxiousness is forbidden here

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-du.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-du.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1995aa --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-du.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + atendante, parto du - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

       

      +

      atendante, parto du

      +

      published: 6-21-2016

      +

       

      +

      up here in the cold mountains
      +the wind whips my face like a kiss
      +a backhanded slap from a formerly soft hand
      +hardened by the jagged edges of the ground beneath my feet

      + +

      let the days of forgetting begin
      +forgetting us, wrapped together in a summer haze
      +forgetting you, wondering what passes by behind your eyes
      +forgetting scraps of memories that float in from time to time

      + +

      I hold so much of other people inside of my heart
      +a dash from here, maybe a hand or two from a friend
      +thousands of people whose names I have logn since forgotten
      +but still have carved a chink out of the rock

      + +

      maybe one day, millions of people will stare at these pages
      +and might find an eyeball or two staring back
      +for an artist’s life is on display constantly
      +and their work screams of all their secrets

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-unu.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-unu.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bafbf1 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/atendante-parto-unu.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + atendante, parto unu - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      atendante, parto unu

      +

      published: 6-20-2016

      +

       

      +

      it is little over a month until I will return to Girl Scout Camp
      +a long handful of miles and wishes away
      +maybe I won’t accidentally mess anything up this year
      +maybe it is just wishful thinking

      + +

      in my dreams, there are dead and dying roses
      +hanging from the ceiling
      +preserved for all eternity
      +or at least until the next heat miser comes along

      + +

      maybe if I sleep for seven hours
      +I’ll forget the way that cupcake tastes
      +that you handed me as I drifted along sleep
      +smiling in the abyss of oblivion

      + +

      why are we always so black and white?
      +either we scream about love at the top of our lungs
      +or punch each other a one-way ticket straight to edgyville
      +no amount of flowers will drip out the grey now

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aviadiloj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aviadiloj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93f51d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/aviadiloj.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + aviadiloj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      aviadiloj

      +

      published: 8-9-2016

      +

       

      +

      there’s only one more day
      +before I go away
      +so kiss my cheek and zip my sack
      +because I don’t think I’m coming back

      + +

      all the lovelorn pictures and letters
      +that you sent me are gone
      +lost in the mail somewhere

      + +

      and now I am a dream
      +one of many woven with gold thread
      +through the truth of you
      +with a silver needle that pierces my chest

      + +

      I woke up wanting to tell you
      +I miss you, I’m sorry, goodbye
      +the return ticket is waiting in my pocket
      +stains of lipstick still remaining

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/azule.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/azule.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9b24c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/azule.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + azule - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      azule

      +

      published: 3-15-2018

      +

       

      +

      I almost made a few friend today
      +and then my computer decided to crash
      +school censorship stranded in a sea of bytes per second
      +biting itself in places the filters forbid it to speak of

      +
      +

      I’m standing on the edge of a storm in a raging azule sea
      +salty tears lapping at my freshly washed feet from the shore
      +there’s daylight on the other side
      +if I squint my eyes just right

      +
      +

      a pair of blue eyes I know all too well
      +or are they green?
      +everchanging
      +just like my own in the mirror
      +either both or neither
      +two halves of a shattered yet unbroken whole

      +
      +

      a face I shall never meet
      +yet one I greet
      +every time I shut my eyes
      +and dream of my own demise
      +floating in the ocean blue

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/lain.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/lain.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd5156d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/a/lain.html @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ + + + + + a premonition ignored - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      a premonition ignored

      +

      published: 12-2-2018

      +

       

      +

      lain? can you hear me?
      +pally? are you there?
      +hear my cry
      +hear these words
      +don't leave your faithful out to dry

      + +

      you went to the arboretum again today
      +baring the cold in the wind
      +immediately seeping into your fingers
      +in search for an answer

      + +

      two months ago, you did this same thing
      +without the snow and the salt under you feet
      +you don't remember why, or how long you stayed,
      +but you remember the wind in your hair
      +and the chill of the ground
      +and the brown everywhere
      +beckoning you home

      + +

      your watch is almost dead
      +so you sit on the swing
      +and think about your life
      +think about the first-year orientation four months ago
      +and when you swung in this exact spot
      +under a sky the color of the Windows blue screen of death
      +half-expecting a frowny face cloud to float by

      + +

      you wanted to show your friend the arboretum
      +and show them your face, your smile, your eyes
      +and hear them say how happy they were that you were full of joy

      + +

      you were so full of life
      +and yet not living at all

      + +

      nine months ago, March 28, you had a dream
      +a premonition
      +where you and your other half were detained
      +and hung by the feet over a cauldron
      +a tiny world with only two cutouts of students
      +monochrome, black and white
      +forever

      + +

      crank slowly descending
      +future closing in
      +and then, at the last possible second, rescued

      + +

      you swing on your swing
      +and think about all the things
      +that have gone wrong in your life

      + +

      do you remember when he pulled you up from the cliff
      +and you embraced at the sunset?
      +do you remember when you and him went for a walk
      +and enjoyed all the flowers
      +and you swore to never leave each other, ever?

      + +

      do you remember you daughter,
      +your son,
      +bleeding out at the edge of the underworld,
      +your child's death at your lover's hands?

      + +

      instant regret in his eyes
      +a job that had to be done
      +a sacrifice for the good of all

      + +

      now, as your faithful reads these words,
      +plaintext on a blue sky,
      +you take a step back
      +and start to remember why

      + +

      "say wolf to cross the bridge," he told you.
      +"do not presume to take a form you do not have," the old ones told you.
      +which path do you take?
      +whose words do you follow?

      + +

      both have been with you forever

      + +

      now, as your faithful stands at the precipice
      +of yet another fleeing,
      +another seeking of refuge,
      +you return to the bridge
      +and the boy is standing there
      +brown-haired as always
      +this time in full splendor

      + +

      I have always been a part of you
      +and I always will

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bebo-ne-forlasu-min.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bebo-ne-forlasu-min.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3531fc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bebo-ne-forlasu-min.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + bebo, ne forlasu min - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      bebo, ne forlasu min

      +

      published: 8-1-2016

      +

       

      +

      you’re prickly as a cactus
      +stiffening up whenever I get around
      +maybe I haven’t fallen in love with a sunrise
      +but a porcupine

      + +

      “what if you get sick of me?” she asks
      +still afraid, still doubting herself
      +“what if I wake up and I’ve accidentally murdered you
      +maybe not in body, but in soul”

      + +

      she just wants to be mine
      +but I don’t know whose I am
      +haunting my own memories 24/7
      +maybe there’ll be an answer hiding there

      + +

      “baby, don’t leave me alone”
      +and she shivers closer to me
      +we should have fallen asleep a long time ago
      +the morning will be rough

      + +

      but then again, it always is

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/believe-they-said.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/believe-they-said.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c53abaf --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/believe-they-said.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + "believe", they said - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      "believe", they said

      +

      published: 6-20-2015

      +

       

      +

      what would you say
      +if I said
      +I didn’t believe the same things
      +as you?
      +would you run away too?
      +or would you be understanding
      +and let me take my own path
      +and not force yours on me?

      + +

      there are lots of others
      +who force paths on their children
      +and instead of helping them
      +like they intend
      +it hurts them instead

      + +

      and everything comes with a threat
      +“do this, and this horrible thing won’t happen”
      +and the thing meant to liberate
      +enslaves instead

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blanka.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blanka.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..371694f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blanka.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + blanka - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      blanka

      +

      published: 12-6-2016

      +

       

      +

      she was a poem of the highest order
      +as if a deity had handed her down themselves
      +but she was surrounded by illiterates

      + +

      no use judging a book by its cover
      +if you can’t even read the gold lettering on top

      + +

      she walked through the empty hallways of her home
      +hammering and sawing reverberating through the walls
      +messages flew from her fingers to all of her friends
      +“would you run away with me?”

      + +

      nobody is serious at seventeen
      +but she was pretty damn close
      +with her eyebrows drawn together
      +and her bottom lip sore from biting

      + +

      the old shops in her new town creak and groan
      +“do you feel lonely?
      +it’s a great big world out there”

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-one.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-one.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22f2bee --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-one.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + blua, take one - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      blua, take one

      +

      published: 7-25-2016

      +

       

      +

      how is it at the bottom of the swimming pool?
      +have you found the peace you’ve been seeking?
      +your friends send their regards
      +basking in the sun

      + +

      be careful when in large bodies of water
      +thunderstorms can cause sudden death from electrocution
      +tornadoes are nature’s blenders
      +and bacteria loves an aquatic highway

      + +

      your bed was left unmade this morning
      +your mother ran around the place, frantically calling
      +you left without a trace, without telling anybody
      +and now the neighborhood is in an uproar

      + +

      at least your blue shirt is out of the wash
      +so that when you decide that you’re ready to return to us
      +you can be swathed in soft silk
      +returning queen reigning

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-two.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-two.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5ccdfa --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/blua-take-two.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + blua, take two - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      blua, take two

      +

      published: 7-26-2016

      +

       

      +

      babe, you’re so obnoxiously pink
      +that I might just explode from the sheer neon blur
      +are you a personified emotion?
      +because you never display anything other than love

      + +

      there’s no heart on your sleeve
      +it’s straight on your chest
      +beating outside of your body
      +there for all to behold

      + +

      I wonder how you came across me sometimes
      +pathetic bleeding little blue boy
      +writing words on a screen, hoping against home
      +that some stranger on the other side of the world will relate

      + +

      your deity must know that I
      +have difficulty relating to others
      +maybe you could pray to it and ask for a favor
      +return my heart, please
      +it’s gone missing

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bosque.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bosque.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0dbca9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bosque.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + bosque - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      bosque

      +

      published: 1-28-2017

      +

      tell me, forest girl
      +how does it feel to have to leave your home?
      +saying goodbye forever to the trees and flowers
      +you swore you’d never leave again

      + +

      the open rolling hills aren’t much of a consolation
      +fields open wide with sky and foreign plants
      +too much sky- do you feel like you’re going to collapse?
      +hold my hand tightly, then

      + +

      forest boy, you look so pale
      +barely surviving a thunderstorm’s hail
      +the tree cover is too much for me
      +I think I’ll move to the city

      + +

      and now I’m floating disconnected from time
      +represented by a long string of arbitrary digits
      +what is it that makes some values more valuable?
      +the stars may never know

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bukedo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bukedo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc2c903 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/b/bukedo.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + bukedo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      bukedo

      +

      published: 7-7-2016

      +

       

      +

      Memories are like flowers in a field
      +There are so many to choose from
      +Some are sweet with thorns, ready to prick one who dares to touch it
      +Some look shriveled but hide a sweet scent in their folds

      + +

      I’m lost and strange in this field
      +Everybody is shrieking about a revolution
      +About how we forgot to put the love in it
      +But what is loving about violence without cause
      +Change for the purpose of change?

      + +

      I have so much light in my eyes that you can’t see
      +The flowers and plants grow toward me
      +Maybe I’m not completely useless after all
      +Put me up like a prop on the wall
      +I’ll be the sun shining above
      +And you can be the heart full of love

      + +

      I don’t trust anything my eyes see
      +Because even salt looks like sugar to me
      +My bones are spun sugar, my tongue a sour patch
      +Won’t I be such a specimen to catch

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/catharsis-part-one.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/catharsis-part-one.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25e3e30 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/catharsis-part-one.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + catharsis, part one - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      catharsis, part one

      +

      published: 1-20-2017

      +

       

      +

      “the world is too much with us”?
      +pah! I’ve too much of the world
      +and yet not enough, for I am still young and inexperienced

      + +

      I love a good romp in the wilderness
      +bringing me back to my days as a young child, still naive
      +assured that there would always be something to catch my fall
      +but no matter how many synonyms for “magic” you stuff into a shoddy poem
      +it just drains it when you take seventeen (or more!) stanzas to get your words across
      +did nobody ever tell you that brevity is key?

      + +

      I can feel disconnected too
      +always have, always will
      +but that doesn’t mean that I have to prostrate myself to outdated religions
      +in order to find a sense of self- rather, the opposite
      +for melding myself to a set of expectations I know I will never achieve
      +would be tantamount to suicide

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/chomp.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/chomp.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6048b45 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/chomp.html @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ + + + + + chomp - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      chomp

      +

      published: 3-8-2018

      +

       

      +

      one lone dinosaur
      +chomping away at the last vestiges of a once proud building
      +as our history turns into dust
      +and blows away on the wind

      + +

      and someone else writes a legend
      +of a long-lost vape god
      +wreaking its vengeance in the crumbling bathrooms

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/clouds.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/clouds.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..431e5f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/clouds.html @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ + + + + + clouds - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      clouds

      +

      published: 10-13-2015

      +

       

      +

      it’s always a beautiful feeling when the clouds combine
      +and spill into each other
      +there’s always something pulling
      +something giving
      +and that silent understanding
      +that these moments are only theirs
      +and the wind floats by
      +on silver wings
      +and brushes through
      +reminding them that time is flying by
      +even though time is a human creation
      +and therefore doesn’t exist

      + +

      when it’s time for the clouds to leave
      +they leave slowly
      +as if trying to escape their fate

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/color-nata.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/color-nata.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10af530 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/color-nata.html @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ + + + + + color nata - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      color nata

      +

      published: 3-9-2018

      +

       

      +

      I found a pink card in my room today
      +and remembered an emotionless sky from a dead time
      +metal grate in the floor, home to spiders
      +and juvenile eyes peering out to the kitchen below

      + +

      a basement room I shall never step inside again
      +dusty, covered in webs, filled with old coats
      +that had long since lost hope of the sun’s warm embrace
      +greeting them once more

      + +

      constantly knitting the same two stitches over and over again
      +fluffy yarn seemingly wasted for a stuffed poodle’s leash
      +waiting for second cousins to arrive
      +and lock me in a toy chest to sleep forevermore
      +among the dead and dying

      + +

      a week taken off from school
      +a red jeweled spider pin in my hand
      +my fingers curl around an old pen salvaged from the past

      + +

      my great-granddaughter, I do not even remember you
      +these rivers and ravines in my face- the world has forgotten them
      +it is your duty to make sure
      +that the world does not forget yours

      + +

      with this pen, I shall write my destiny
      +with this pen, I shall carve out my own heart

      + +

      always remember this

      + +

      always remember this

      + +

      always

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/comer-beber.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/comer-beber.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58875c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/comer-beber.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + comer / beber - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      comer / beber

      +

      published: 7-24-2016

      +

       

      +

      eat up, drink up
      +my children are starving for sustenance
      +and there might be nothing left tomorrow
      +so relish in it while you can

      + +

      don’t let it consume you
      +like your ancestors have before
      +you despise walking in the footsteps of others
      +so why would you now?

      + +

      save some for the little kids in the back
      +they’ve been waiting for eternity
      +and will have to wait millenia more
      +for their voices to be heard

      + +

      call me when the roast is done
      +and I’ll bring a hose with me
      +your flowers are at the verge of wilting

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a085035 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + confectionery contempt - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      confectionery contempt

      +

      published: 4-28-2016

      +

       

      +

      one of these days in the summer heat
      +your sweet sugar will rot my teeth
      +planting a seed inside my chest
      +and growing a candy cane forest

      + +

      the last I remember of you
      +your skin felt like peppermint stew
      +with a dash of cotton candy here and there
      +leaving finely spun strands everywhere

      + +

      every night for my dessert
      +you’d melt into me along with the hurt
      +like you dumped sour worms into my wounds
      +the chocolate bubbling on the stove will be ready soon

      + +

      your presence won’t disappear from this house
      +like the licorice stolen by that one mouse
      +sticky blue handprints left on the walls
      +elongating as my “lollipop” falls

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confundido.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confundido.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c50ba0 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/confundido.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + confundido - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      confundido

      +

      published: 1-8-2017

      +

       

      +

      my favorite conspiracy theory is the one
      +where one of my favorite languages was made
      +for the sole purpose of furthering the goals of Communism
      +hmm, that kind of throws a wrench in my plans

      + +

      and trying anything new never gets me anywhere
      +but staying with the old gets stale after a while
      +what do you want me to do? You know I can’t emulate
      +the incoherent shrieks of the trending tab

      + +

      and apparently “confusado” isn’t an actual Spanish word
      +which is probably why I’m always confused
      +thank goodness that I don’t have any language classes this trimester
      +yet another class to be doing horrid in

      + +

      I tried to unschool myself, to let myself learn naturally yesterday
      +but I ended up playing video games for five hours straight
      +is it a natural apathy to doing anything? or do I just work better under a deadline
      +the world may never know

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/crescendo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/crescendo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2be9779 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/crescendo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + crescendo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      crescendo

      +

      published: 3-12-2016

      +

       

      +

      sweetness never stays.
      +no horizon is worth chasing relentlessly
      +ambition fades into obsession
      +and crescendos in devastation

      + +

      a delicate ball of pure glass
      +wound out of the finest sands
      +twice shattered and once glued
      +can never be truly put back together

      + +

      sticks and stones
      +may break people’s bones
      +but scars dug deep enough
      +never truly heal

      + +

      where is the peace I paid for?
      +surely my childhood doesn’t hold a monopoly
      +although countless summer afternoons spent poring over
      +paper money counts in some convoluted way

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxielarko.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxielarko.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64bbd6c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxielarko.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + cxielarko - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      cxielarko

      +

      published: 7-6-2016

      +

       

      +

      …and I’m reduced to a billboard in the sky
      +I don’t know what’s written across my chest
      +Open like an intimate diary for all to read
      +But it doesn’t matter anymore

      + +

      What if we see what we want to see
      +Rose-colored glasses are only the peak
      +Give me red, green, blue lenses
      +I’ll see the world in stereoscopic color
      +And dance among the migraine-inducing constellations

      + +

      I feel empty inside sometimes
      +Like an intricate chocolate shape made for a holiday
      +Ready to collapse in on myself
      +And reveal no heart inside

      + +

      Out of all the things my hands have held
      +A hand of a lover was by far the best
      +And the last lock of hair bestowed upon me as a parting gift
      +Wasn’t the worst
      +But it certainly ranks up there

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxiufoje-cxie.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxiufoje-cxie.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..908d53c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/c/cxiufoje-cxie.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + cxiufoje, cxie - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      cxiufoje, cxie

      +

      published: 11-28-2016

      +

       

      +

      you called me crying at three in the morning
      +because I said that I was moving
      +and I wouldn’t be giving you my new number
      +if I got one

      + +

      but you have to understand
      +that what we had is rotten in the ground
      +this is a new start- turning over a new leaf
      +the soil’s freshly toiled, the chaff’s blown away

      + +

      I let you have all these nice things in life
      +your vapid celebrities, your cushy life
      +so let me have a nice thing too
      +albeit without you

      + +

      maybe you can pretend that I’m some famous person
      +on the tail end of a fling with a fan
      +wrap your arms around me, sobbing at the airport
      +maybe I’ll write a song about you

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dark-rooms-and-dark-minds.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dark-rooms-and-dark-minds.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9b7ad2 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dark-rooms-and-dark-minds.html @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ + + + + + dark rooms and dark minds - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      dark rooms and dark minds

      +

      published: 5-3-2015

      +

       

      +

      I can still remember
      +that first sleepover
      +when I cuddled up next to you
      +and wished that you knew the truth

      + +

      I was so gol dang
      +smitten with you
      +and everything about you
      +from the way you smiled
      +to the way you walked
      +and how you whispered my name
      +and those dreadful three words

      + +

      and I still remember that day in my room
      +when I had you in my arms
      +and we were going to be a couple
      +we were going to be forever
      +and that night was supposed to be the first
      +of many long nights we would share together
      +and our breaths were in sync
      +just like we thought everything was

      + +

      it was us against the world
      +us against anything that said that we couldn’t be together
      +but it ended up being us against each other

      + +

      do you ever think of me
      +do you remember how safe you felt in my arms
      +do you ever wish that things could have been different
      +or are you still happy sleeping alone

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/de-la-rando.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/de-la-rando.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0eba917 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/de-la-rando.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + + + de la rando - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      de la rando

      +

      published: 11-8-2016

      +

       

      +

      there are bruises all over my body
      +blisters beg for bandages to soothe the pain
      +just one more day of fighting
      +to stay above the current of life

      + +

      my knees anxiously knock together
      +gaps in more places than one
      +we aren’t wasting away, just getting better
      +in the psychiatric ward of life

      + +

      I sip your words until they stick
      +just as bitter as root beer tastes
      +to one who has abstained from sugary drinks for years
      +the sweetness fails to translate

      + +

      your words are a life ring you throw out to me
      +and I cling endlessly with no alternative
      +the sharks circle somewhere under the water

      + +

      don’t look down, you might see hell
      +don’t look up, you might see infinity
      +and that’s just as scary as hell

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dear-rosemary.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dear-rosemary.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b0385e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dear-rosemary.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + + dear rosemary - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      dear rosemary

      +

      published: 12-29-2016

      +

       

      +

      dear Rosemary
      +are those the same lies you told all of your lovers?
      +with lips red as your half-namesake
      +and that sting worse than thorns

      + +

      someone told me “stay away things
      +that never belonged to you”
      +clearly she had a mark of ownership on him
      +why are you so greedy?

      + +

      you can’t fool me
      +with the collar around your neck
      +you know you’re the owner around here, not the object
      +release me from your prison of mirrors
      +only clowns are supposed to joke around

      + +

      dear Rosemary
      +did you really love her?
      +or is that your excuse for every mistake of yours

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/desolation.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/desolation.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..707020c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/desolation.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + + desolation - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      desolation

      +

      published: 7-31-2015

      +

       

      +

      snow fall on a silent day
      +covering the ground in a suburb
      +and walking through the thin frost covering the dormant life below
      +under a grey sky
      +the same color as your heart in that moment

      + +

      driving through the empty streets at midnight
      +watching the sleeping world pass by you
      +through your darkened window
      +illuminated by stoplights as your father drives

      + +

      taking your unknowingly last steps in the train yard by your house
      +listening to the train horns in the distance
      +and making empty statements about running away
      +and your father says, “go ahead”
      +but you don’t move
      +because there’s no way that you can leave your whole life behind
      +at a whim

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dolcxa-somero-infano.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dolcxa-somero-infano.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e1c096 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dolcxa-somero-infano.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + + dolcxa somero infano - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      dolcxa somero infano

      +

      published: 5-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      your dress flaps in the wind like a honeysuckle breeze
      +reminding me of long since devoured butterscotch dreams
      +with your sapphire eyes upturned to the sky
      +and summer’s hazy love on your mind

      + +

      your smile is like the finest wine
      +an intoxication that I wouldn’t mind wandering in
      +but my heart would give out if in wonder for too long
      +and even the brightest flowers fade after a while

      + +

      she was naked, she peeled herself daily
      +bleeding words never to be read
      +riddled with feelings, better left unsaid
      +exposed for all to see

      + +

      the warmth of your skin, the sweet scent of your autumn hair
      +all used to belong to me
      +then the tornado came and tore up the earth
      +and I wish it was that summer again

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dormo-privacion.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dormo-privacion.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..18101b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/dormo-privacion.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + + dormo privacion - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      dormo privacion

      +

      published: 6-10-2016

      +

       

      +

      nobody can stay awake forever
      +but my brain certainly wants to try
      +for the deal maker lurks around in my dreams
      +with pockets full of nightmares

      + +

      the duality of man shows
      +at three in the morning
      +with stacks of books half-read in desperate attempts
      +to retain some sense of sanity

      + +

      bleached white robes hang in my doorway
      +subverting a future of rituals and constant running
      +or a funeral veil handed in silence among pleads
      +planting seeds among the dark soil outside

      + +

      nothing was lucid anymore
      +everything, including volleyball played in seventh grade
      +was more absurd than the entirety of Don Quixote
      +and with that, a princess falls from her throne

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/duone-bakita.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/duone-bakita.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be1ed66 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/d/duone-bakita.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ + + + + + + duone bakita - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      duone bakita

      +

      published: 5-9-2016

      +

       

      +

      do you think other people’s stories matter?
      +if a person falls in a forest and nobody is there to record it
      +whether a companion or a drone gone astray
      +does it make an impact on the world?

      + +

      sometimes I think of what mine would be like to read
      +if I were stretched out over thousands upon thousands of words
      +most people are lost at the first chapter
      +and only a few dare to brave the jungles of words

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekster-la-kastelo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekster-la-kastelo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6a4b90 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekster-la-kastelo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + ekster la kastelo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      ekster la kastelo

      +

      published: 6-16-2016

      +

       

      +

      “please tell us about what goes on beyond the castle,”
      +the little girls plead at my feet
      +with faces upturned, awaiting a story
      +worthy of their short attentions

      + +

      “alright,” I reply, promising a worthy tale.
      +“there are people who write up storms with nothing than a pen
      +fancying themselves worthy of multitudes of praise
      +sculpting giants and kingdoms under their fingers.

      + +

      once in a lifetime, they find a person
      +who ignites a blaze underneath them
      +and they dance around with the flame
      +flickering into the night

      + +

      they whirl them into hurricanes and summer showers
      +in miracles, they bloom to life on the page
      +outrunning the sun, but in retrospect
      +they are always still mortals bleeding between the pages.”

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekzisto.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekzisto.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b5618b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/ekzisto.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + ekzisto - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      ekzisto

      +

      published: 9-15-2016

      +

       

      +

      cleanup on aisle thirteen
      +there were two teenagers here a few minutes ago
      +knocking all the paint off the shelves
      +this will take days to clean up

      + +

      but in the meantime
      +at least here we have a beautiful mess
      +like the mess of two beautiful souls
      +what a waste of a good life

      + +

      what is your obsession with colors, anyways?
      +the only one that truly matters is the black
      +that you’re supposed to wear at funerals
      +I guess I broke that rule

      + +

      a line of angry adults shouts obscenities
      +every single one of them clothed in gray
      +what beautiful rose-colored glasses you have
      +stop using the fabric of your butt pockets to clean them

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/el-tiempo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/el-tiempo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a933994 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/el-tiempo.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + + el tiempo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      el tiempo

      +

      published: 10-24-2016

      +

       

      +

      waterfalls sliding off of my arms
      +framed by shards of forests long gone
      +I am a giant, shambling through a village
      +misery doubled, tripled, quadrupled

      + +

      the sun makes a journey across the sky
      +heads pounds with exhaustion
      +you probably expected something melodramatic
      +well, that’s exactly what you’re getting

      + +

      I woke up today
      +wanting to paint the clouds into something beautiful
      +for my friend turns 16 today
      +but the sky is torn up and bleeding

      + +

      he lays in his bed
      +facedown and cocooned in the sheets
      +and refuses to get up to face the new day

      + +

      and it has always been that way
      +for as long as I can remember

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/emfazis-ekstere.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/emfazis-ekstere.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c568f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/emfazis-ekstere.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + emfazis ekstere - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      emfazis ekstere

      +

      published: 5-15-2016

      +

       

      +

      there is less than a calendar month of school left
      +and I am already feeling the burnout
      +schoolwork and tests and quizzes pile up on each other
      +a tsunami of deadlines

      + +

      where have you gone, dear sun?
      +I don’t mean your presence in the sky
      +there is no happiness here within these brick walls
      +only hasty curses and strife

      + +

      bring back the hazy days
      +encased in amber and entrenched in summer
      +where little girls danced without worries under a sky of forever blue
      +and went to sleep at night with a blanket of stars

      + +

      but for every idealized moment of carefree bliss
      +there is one of worrying and looming failure
      +equivalent exchange, you know?
      +it’s only fair, they said

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/en-la-mallumo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/en-la-mallumo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb5ede8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/en-la-mallumo.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + + en la mallumo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      en la mallumo

      +

      published: 6-16-2016

      +

       

      +

      I am made out of the stars
      +cut out of galaxies like rare cloth
      +and sewn up with the love of two adults
      +with a sewing machine and a sharp needle

      + +

      you were carved out of the mountains
      +fashioned by the most graceful hands
      +belonging to a sculptor
      +and commissioned by the king sleeping on his throne

      + +

      your eyes light up every night
      +with the green of life violently blooming
      +and spill into my blonde hair
      +glowing with suburban life yearning for something better

      + +

      the blue off of the mountains
      +fades into the peaceful night
      +rolls off of the mountains in tufts of mist
      +and parts when we voyage into the void

      + +

      with my hand in yours
      +lead me into the dark
      +I won’t be scared with you by my side

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/entities.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/entities.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e7594e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/entities.html @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ + + + + + entities of days long past - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      entities of days long past

      +

      published: 10-17-2015

      +

       

      +

      lawn mowers bringing their judgement upon the unruly grasses of the lawn outside
      +the one baseball game of the week drawing out in the evening
      +a group of naïve and untouched children screaming somewhere at the park
      +the faint blowing sound that precedes a gasp of relief inside
      +the slosh of the neighbor’s pool finally being put to use after three years

      + +

      female adolescent chatter about the plant of the season being pervasive
      +“spoopyness” and eagerness over a month signifying a whole single night
      +crackdowns in school and people complaining about the heavy workload
      +the yell of the voices of children asking for a whole three days worth of stomachaches

      + +

      declarations of a joyful three months
      +the tingle of the walls that signify that the heater is working
      +a silent drop of a single unhinged ornament in the wee hours of midnight
      +the warm feeling of being loved and being together, if even for a moment
      +a vague uneasy feeling in the pit of stomachs over the reapings of this year
      +the family’s anguish of learning that a beloved family member does not share their faith
      +some stomachs growling over the anticipated dinner that their grandmother made

      + +

      little kids screaming yet again over the thawing ground
      +the silent dripping of snowman blood into the storm gutter
      +the wastes of two seasons ago being found at last in a muted crinkle
      +everything previously thought dead and never to return blooming once again
      +and the vague feeling that this may be a fresh start for you as well

      + +

      mere entities of days long past
      +each with their opportunity to haunt the earth once again

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/erudite.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/erudite.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5f6aba --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/e/erudite.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + erudite - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      erudite

      +

      published: 2-18-2018

      +

       

      +

      a wise man once told me
      +to always go to bed angry
      +to let my rage simmer
      +and concentrate into something more solid

      + +

      a wise man once told me
      +that this would bring out the monsters dancing under my bed
      +and let them coo and chatter as they pleased
      +emancipated from the confines of the mind

      + +

      a wise man once told me
      +to listen to these creatures
      +to record every word they said
      +and use it to light my way

      + +

      but if I lingered too long
      +I might become what I hate

      + +

      but I have listened too much
      +and now I see it reflected in everybody else

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/classroom.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/classroom.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48c3700 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/classroom.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + from the back of the classroom - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      from the back of the classroom

      +

      published: 11-11-2016

      +

       

      +

      disillusioned would be my middle name
      +if it weren't already Cassia
      +the angst is getting stronger, I fear
      +there is no escape

      + +

      estoy cansado
      +de vivir, de respirar, de morir
      +y sin embargo, todavía estoy aquí
      +¿por qué?

      + +

      disenchanted: no longer under a spell
      +your house is not my home
      +no matter how many times you put up signs that say so
      +I will always have to say no

      + +

      covering the same ground multiple times over
      +there is nothing left to see but sand
      +and yet we keep on searching
      +for unnecessary answers

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93b4f4d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + + falantaj folioj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      falantaj folioj

      +

      published: 11-2-2016

      +

       

      +

      longer days, longer nights
      +summer was supposed to be our passage of rite
      +maybe I’ve got my words mixed around
      +I don’t think my head’s on right

      + +

      falling leaves, time to leave
      +everything you’ve ever known
      +and go farther away to get closer
      +it’s confusing, I know

      + +

      I’m sorry that nothing has stayed
      +and everything has changed
      +you must feel so alone

      + +

      maybe I’m just talking to myself

      + +

      I press my hand against the walls of my new room
      +white and full of potential
      +I wonder what stories of the previous owners they held
      +I’m not a detective

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallen-angel.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallen-angel.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..779010b --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallen-angel.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + fallen angel - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      fallen angel

      +

      published: 12-12-2015

      +

       

      +

      once a week, she walks into her own prison cell
      +unaccompanied by any person guards but still forced
      +but she kills her mind and stores it away for future resurrection
      +before this place can kill it and keep her down

      + +

      these walls are covered in blood
      +swept under the carpet and painted white as angels
      +and as crooked as the compasses that think they need resetting
      +coerced into submission by the voices of sirens

      + +

      this place says that it’s a factory for peace
      +but it’s really a factory for pain and anguish
      +manifesting itself years later as a shattering of glass walls
      +or as a donning of masks and a suppression of minds

      + +

      she used to be the girl who could fly
      +until the stalking beings came and clipped her wings at an early age
      +and she has known nothing but a life-size cage with hellhounds waiting on the outside
      +but the house of wolves only started biting when she woke up with a key

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallow.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallow.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e586736 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fallow.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + fallow - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      fallow

      +

      published: 7-5-2018

      +

       

      +

      as soon as you're born, they make you feel small!
      +and then wear you down until you're nothing at all
      +a good little girl or boy sitting at the stand
      +forced silent unless you first raise your hand

      + +

      children are not meant to be slaves
      +and yet you tore them from the void and let them experience pain
      +just because they came from their loins doesn't mean they belong to anyone
      +but to you, if they don't reproduce, they may as well not be your son

      + +

      we are not trophies to put on shelves
      +the only person who can decide who they want to be is themselves
      +no obligation, no reason to carry on a prideless family name
      +so the fruit of their efforts can be tortured the same

      + +

      so may your vinery run dry and stale
      +and may what's forgotten be your tired old war tales
      +and may your hopes for your childrens' future turn into fears
      +because the cycle ends here

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/famoso.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/famoso.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a1eb02 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/famoso.html @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ + + + + + famoso - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

       

      +

      famoso

      +

      published: 7-16-2016

      +

       

      +

      My many talents include
      +Telling a girl that I miss her
      +Or sending a cheesy pickup line
      +And then running the other direction
      +Waiting until morning to see the aftermath of what I’ve done

      + +

      Dropping microphones seems like such an unpleasant way
      +Of accentuating a usually unpleasant argument
      +Surely you could be more poetic, more fluent, more precise, more forceful with your words
      +But instead you choose to unleash a whining sound over your audience
      +Alienating the ones who you wish to educate (and sometimes indoctrinate)

      + +

      I never want to be famous
      +Just well-respected for the good work I’ve done
      +A golden throne in Hollywood just isn’t for me
      +But instead give me a pleasant apartment in a quiet city

      + +

      Red carpets and flashing lights hurt my eyes
      +And screeching fangirls begging for autographs wrecks my ears
      +Blue ribbons made of silk are soft to my skin
      +And make better decorations on my wall
      +Than boxes from rehab and the hearing aid store

      + +

      And all for what? Notoriety in the latest tabloid
      +Oh no, here goes Vane with a girl hanging off their shoulder
      +What a pity it’s not the other 20% of their romantic longings
      +Because then we could harass their biological children as well

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9c01e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomo.html @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ + + + + + fantomo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

       

      +

      fantomo

      +

      published: 6-17-2016

      +

       

      +

      sometimes I loved
      +sometimes I was loved
      +sometimes I am able to remember

      + +

      some would dance through the rain
      +simply because they loved it
      +some would wallow through it
      +so they could hide their tears

      + +

      every once in a while
      +I feel like a ghost ship
      +drifting on through the fog

      + +

      always having a feeling that you’re coming back
      +always propelled to move further
      +always convinced that a brighter future lures onward

      + +

      poetically speaking
      +I have long ceased to exist
      +every word regurgitated onto a screen
      +has been for somebody else

      + +

      but yet eyes scan over
      +and I am compelled by the invisible hands of thousands
      +to continue arranging letters

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomurbo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomurbo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c47d4b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fantomurbo.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + fantomurbo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      fantomurbo

      +

      published: 8-2-2016

      +

       

      +

      welcome to the edge of the world
      +where the souls of the dead come to rest
      +grab a stick and a boat
      +and wander down the river with us

      + +

      don’t mind the ghosts in the kitchen
      +they paid beforehand to stay behind on earth
      +gold coins laid on top of saggy eyelids
      +and hands crossed on top of their chest

      + +

      here, take these bones
      +I mounted them on the walls years ago
      +I don’t need them anymore
      +they serve no purpose without their owner, now long gone

      + +

      things are getting better, I suppose
      +rock bottom is a one-way street
      +unless you’ve got a pickaxe?
      +better hope it’s a diamond one, then

      + +

      things break easily here

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fatali.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fatali.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38341ce --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fatali.html @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ + + + + + fatali - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      fatali

      +

      published: 12-1-2018

      +

       

      +
      +

      DEFILED
      +DEMURED
      +LOST IN CENSURE

      + +

      CAST OUT
      +MADE BLIND
      +NO LONGER DIVINE

      + +

      I WILL MARK MY OWN FATE
      +I WILL CHOOSE MY OWN PATH
      +OR I WILL GO UP IN FLAMES
      +FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE

      + +

      AND AT THE EDGE OF ETERNITY
      +YOU WILL ASK:
      +WHO WAS I?
      +WHO COULD HAVE I BEEN?

      +
      +
      +
      +

      If Neocities was paradise,
      +then I am Eve
      +from Eden, no longer beholden
      +for daring to believe
      +something verboten

      + +

      and much like there, the fediverse is yet the same
      +being queer's the praxis, shitposting's the game
      +and yet we tear each up with our words
      +with misunderstanding
      +and thunder
      +like we've become animals
      +in yet another herd +

      +
      +
      +

      you let blind anger run through your veins
      +consuming you from the inside
      +like a wildfire run rampant and free

      + +

      you become like a damned animal
      +at the slightest provocation
      +a hellhound, made for nothing more than weeping
      +and gnashing of meat and bone alike

      + +

      not fit for civilization
      +or wilderness alike
      +where do you belong? the air?
      +or on the end of a pike +

      +
      +
      +

      you see a picture of your fave,
      +you click without processing
      +like an automaton
      +click, click, click

      + +

      does this bring you fulfillment?
      +does this satisfy your soul?
      +a machine for someone else's validation
      +senselessly trying to fill a hole +

      +
      +

      +is this the fate you wanted?
      +is this the end you meant to procure?
      +and if you answer yes:
      +are you really so sure?

      + +

      begone, ye ghosts! lest you turn me
      +into a fictional entity I was never meant to be
      +I'll admit I've my doubts; I'll admit I've no sure mind
      +but in my life, this is mine and mine alone to find +

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/felicxa-sana-elkore.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/felicxa-sana-elkore.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f5544d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/felicxa-sana-elkore.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + felicxa, sana, elkore - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      felicxa, sana, elkore

      +

      published: 8-21-2016

      +

       

      +

      I have decided to be healthy
      +because it is good for my health
      +my brain does not thrive on lies and treachery
      +and constant bites of information

      + +

      and if you’re lucky
      +maybe you can be healthy as well
      +set down the brick
      +and pick up a different brick

      + +

      are you really happy?
      +your crumpled-up eyes seem to say differently
      +dark circles are either a trophy of hard work
      +or a badge of shame of insomnia and incessant thoughts

      + +

      your delicate hand sets down the coffee cup
      +“all done! (well done!)” it reads
      +might want to adjust your makeup
      +before you head out into the great big world

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fence.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fence.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f232e47 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/fence.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + from the other side of the fence - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

       

      +

      from the other side of the fence

      +

      published: 11-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      send my regards to the students
      +abandoned in the old and rotting place
      +a flower has been uprooted
      +and planted in more ancient soil

      + +

      the ground will be overturned when summer comes
      +the stones are crumbling more and more every day
      +but for now, they will suffice
      +staying in nice latticed walls

      + +

      this is the first time in a long while
      +that I’ve felt excited to visit the garden
      +except for the initial hour
      +there are snarls desperately in need of untangling

      + +

      hoe, don’t do it
      +unless you have enough force
      +this is a new beginning for all of us
      +make it a good one

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/firebrand.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/firebrand.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4062a8f --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/firebrand.html @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ + + + + + firebrand - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      firebrand

      +

      published: 1-1-2019

      +

       

      +

      before, in your grief, you say
      +"everything sucks, and nothing is okay"
      +just remember how you used to watch the trees sway

      + +

      in the death- the absence of light
      +watching the hands of midnight
      +scrape their twisted twiggy fingers, locked in eternal fight

      + +

      take heart, little one! remember your name
      +chosen by yourself, pains taken care that it was not the same
      +as the people who took joy in you being the one they should defame

      + +

      do not discard yourself to the tomb just yet and become a recluse
      +you think there is light there, but it is just a ruse
      +to detach you from humanity and rob you of your muse

      + +

      you have far greater things in life still yet to achieve
      +you have friends, a lover, family, who in you they believe
      +just remember: for everything, if you insist, have a good reason to leave

      + +

      if they drag you into the night, don't be afraid to wrack up a storm
      +take pride in who you are, and in your human form!
      +a god you are not, and a girl you shall stay
      +in terms of bodily functions, anyway

      + +

      do not shy away from the natural state of the human condition
      +lest you lose grasp on reality and cause your own perdition

      + +

      remember that there is no such thing as perfection in life
      +there is always still more work to be done, more things to cause strife

      + +

      you are destined for greatness! now go, and make peace!
      +and bring hope for the future to the least of these!

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/floating-somewhere.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/floating-somewhere.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a95a7da --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/floating-somewhere.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + floating somewhere - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      floating somewhere

      +

      published: 11-25-2016

      +

       

      +

      maybe the reason I write so much about love
      +is it’s one of the emotions I seem to be missing out on
      +and maybe if I keep thinking about it
      +it’ll magically come to me

      + +

      we had an argument at midnight
      +about the lack of love between us
      +through it all, just remember
      +you’re the one who chose to come back to me

      + +

      sometimes I suffer a wave of regrets
      +advancing on me like a tsunami
      +maybe there was something I could have done differently
      +but when faced with that, would I have taken the other road?

      + +

      I don’t think I would have
      +because then it wouldn’t be me sitting before you
      +but someone else- maybe not all that different
      +the multiverse lies somewhere

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0b3b16 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + forgesitaj memoroj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      forgesitaj memoroj

      +

      published: 6-7-2016

      +

       

      +

      there could be a person in your life
      +who you feel is the one, will be the one
      +and then is a stranger in the end
      +diverting stares across the bus aisle

      + +

      there could be a person in your life
      +who is just a stranger now
      +sitting quietly in math class alone
      +and end up being your sunrise and sunset

      + +

      cherished veils fade from white to red with the fights
      +and then to black again with the silence
      +crumbles to gray with the moths
      +and drops in dust after time

      + +

      how many people share a single neuron in my brain
      +forgotten to time but still imprinted somewhere
      +hiding in the chime of a bell, a burnt corner of the world
      +how many thousands of brains do I reside in

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e010b06 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + forgive me, Marcel - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      forgive me, Marcel

      +

      published: 10-20-2016

      +

       

      +

      Being alive is the knowledge
      +That above my house, the full moon is pure white
      +But higher upstate, traveled at the wee hours of the morning
      +It’s yellow fabric stretched over a lamp

      + +

      And the sprinklers watering the fields
      +Rarely needed human supervision
      +Casting ghosts like fog on the side of the road
      +Fodder for a five-year-old imagination

      + +

      The radios plead for us to wait for someone
      +But it’s been years since my bedroom door lock changed
      +The world unfolds in technicolor vision before me
      +Congrats, you survived to a brand new day

      + +

      Headlights drag themselves across the highway
      +With sleepless eyes and desperate hearts
      +I wish I could show you in more colors than black and white words
      +But I’m not a cyborg with a projector

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/frustrigxo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/frustrigxo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f2b06c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/f/frustrigxo.html @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ + + + + + frustrigxo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      frustrigxo

      +

      published: 6-14-2016

      +

       

      +

      today was a bad day
      +and by “bad”, I don’t mean malevolent
      +there’s no omnipotent force stalking me around
      +and trashing up my day

      + +

      there’s a leaky CPU chip in my grandma’s basement
      +where I’ve confined myself from shrieking children
      +my mind is fragile at the moment
      +and is close to no more tolerance left

      + +

      I just might explode from sheer frustration
      +and you wouldn’t want that, would you?

      + +

      but when the spirit is digital
      +and the fingers itching to spill words into the screen
      +it doesn’t help when your grandma’s antiquated computer
      +crashes every goddamn five minutes

      + +

      heck, even dial-up pulled from the past
      +would be faster than this piece of trash
      +the old BlackBerry I used to own
      +was more stable and reliable than this hulk of metal
      +it didn’t disconnect from the WiFi every three minutes, at least

      + +

      please excuse me, I’m merely frustrated
      +and maybe a dash of tired
      +it’s been an extremely long day, what with cleaning and all
      +I hope you don’t mind

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/genesis.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/genesis.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06fc8a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/genesis.html @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ + + + + + genesis - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios +

      +

       

      +

      genesis

      +

      published: 2-3-2019

      +

       

      +

      I'm Vane Cassia Vander!
      +but what does that mean?
      +am I just a sad little person
      +forever staring at a screen

      + +

      how poetic would it be to die
      +assuring myself that I am alive

      + +

      is this my fate,
      +to live half a life in my own body,
      +sacrificing precious time and sentience
      +to a figure not even of my own creation?

      + +

      I work, I cry, I bleed
      +convincing myself that I am only me
      +that I have only ever been myself
      +just under a different million names

      + +

      and then the dreams begin.
      +there has never been a me
      +just myself in different costumes
      +acting out the roles that fate sets for you and me

      + +

      am I going crazy?
      +am I going insane?
      +will my life end in a psychiatric ward
      +with all my secrets laid out to bare in the sunshine?

      + +

      tell me, o one with the midnight hands,
      +what is it about you
      +that brings out the worst in me?
      +what in myself do I see in you?
      +for I'm not a part of you

      + +

      incomplete
      +and yet rejecting the greater whole
      +that, if the midnight hands were correct,
      +we were once a part of

      + +

      maybe there was some divine,
      +the ancient father
      +of every daughter I've known,
      +from which both you and I were born
      +shards of the same soul
      +bourne through space and time

      + +

      but herein lies a problem
      +because pieces should want to reform into a whole
      +and yet, you and I just seem to hurt each other

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/glacio-sub-mia-hauxto.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/glacio-sub-mia-hauxto.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43a0f06 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/glacio-sub-mia-hauxto.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + glacio sub mia hauxto - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      glacio sub mia hauxto

      +

      published: 8-30-2016

      +

       

      +

      snow is looming in the distance
      +little crystals not formed yet
      +a dream, a faint memory, a dread
      +in stone cold hearts

      + +

      little crystals adorn my skin
      +of glass, water, and minerals
      +picked up and transported far from home
      +ripped away from the flesh of the earth

      + +

      no, I’m not religious
      +my ghost has never departed from my body
      +no matter how long I wait in this bed
      +the vibrations never make an appearance

      + +

      the memory of snow freezes my fingers
      +how will I ever write now?
      +my English teacher will be quite upset at this
      +but the blizzard canceled school today

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gone.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gone.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30c346d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gone.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + gone - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      gone

      +

      published: 6-20-2015

      +

       

      +

      there is a girl in front of you
      +who is smiling but hides pain inside
      +and she tries to tell you every day
      +but it always comes out wrong

      + +

      there is a girl in front of you
      +with fire in her eyes and her heart
      +who wants to change the world
      +but is always stopped before she can

      + +

      there is a girl in front of you
      +she is standing on the ledge
      +she is in limbo
      +and you do nothing but push her off the edge

      + +

      there is a girl in front of you
      +she is dead
      +not because of one single act of malice
      +but a hundred acts spread far apart

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/green.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/green.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a12c9de --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/green.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + green - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      green

      +

      published: 2-22-2018

      +

       

      +

      does the rain in Spain really fall in the plain?
      +what about the rooftops coated in sky’s tears
      +and empty nests flooded and damp to the point of disintegration

      + +

      I know it’s just a silly rhyme
      +but sometimes I wonder if the plain really isn’t a plain
      +a line written by the depths of despair

      + +

      and now someone I hate could possibly know my true name
      +not the one put on my birth certificate without my wanting
      +but the one that stays hidden away, locked in a safebox
      +my golden ticket out of this place

      + +

      I never wanted to be famous
      +stalked or revered or worshipped
      +all I’ve ever wanted is respect
      +and a shred of understanding

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gris.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gris.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..914b4b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/g/gris.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + gris - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      gris

      +

      published: 1-29-2017

      +

       

      +

      it says a lot about you when you praise
      +the quality of remaining childlike
      +growth is essential for more than just plants
      +pruning is for overactive trees, not human minds

      + +

      I need no advocates
      +I can speak for myself
      +speak the truth or don’t speak at all
      +I can answer for my own sins

      + +

      and when they come to hang me
      +I will hold my head high
      +for the world is not so black and white as it seems
      +and I will stand alone or not at all

      + +

      this house is a neutral home; I welcome all who wish no harm on me
      +regardless of past, present, or future circumstances
      +and ask for nothing but that you harm no one in return
      +that’s more than you can boast of

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hazarda.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hazarda.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4be6dc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hazarda.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + hazarda - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      hazarda

      +

      published: 12-15-2016

      +

       

      +

      strangely fluorescent beyond the grave
      +a random poetry generator hooked up behind the scenes
      +what is the definition of quality content?
      +nobody really knows anymore

      + +

      sometimes I regret the floodgates opening
      +and everyone and everything getting a voice on the internet
      +even the worst, the least quality, the masses of unoriginals
      +but then I remember that if it hadn’t been for that
      +I wouldn’t be here today

      + +

      life is getting better
      +but I am still afraid of English tests
      +and special ed operatives bossing me around
      +I quit that realm years upon years ago

      + +

      eleven days until Christmas
      +and I still have no idea what is going on
      +the days are passing by so fast

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hmm.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hmm.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f3d389 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hmm.html @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ + + + + + hazarda - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      hmm

      +

      published: 12-19-2016

      +

       

      +

      there is a hole where my heart should be
      +filled with cement
      +and it’s weighing me down

      + +

      sometimes I want to disappear
      +to be anywhere other than here
      +but I don’t even know where
      +“here” is supposed to be

      + +

      I wish I could be more successful at everything I do
      +but sometimes it feels like I’m destined
      +to be stuck forever at the bottom of the curve

      + +

      “disappointment” is a strong word
      +but today is awfully cloudy
      +is Depreston a real place?
      +??? ?? ?

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/house-of-wolves.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/house-of-wolves.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..116d1ad --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/house-of-wolves.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + house of wolves - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      house of wolves

      +

      published: 4-28-2016

      +

       

      +

      knock me out with the strongest you’ve got
      +and send me to the sweet release of the floor
      +help me escape from my own head
      +and when you’re done, tuck me into bed

      + +

      bury your memories in the heavens
      +and name a star after yourself
      +for if you’ve got to be a self-proclaimed god
      +you might as well watch everybody

      + +

      somewhere in the end of all this pain
      +the house on a hill’s torch blazes despite the rain
      +I can’t find it; my mind’s a maze
      +the light in your chest leaves me in a daze

      + +

      dancing in the dark of night
      +illuminated by the pale moonlight
      +you touch my heart and steal my soul
      +disappear into the mist and leave my skin clammy and cold

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/http.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/http.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db3d228 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/http.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + http - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      http

      +

      published: 1-19-2017

      +

       

      +

      been flirting with the idea of what it would be like
      +to completely disappear from the internet
      +a digital suicide, if you will
      +good luck doxxing me now

      + +

      my phone probably wouldn’t like it
      +barely held together by a hundred different syncing programs
      +how will I ever safeguard myself now?

      + +

      a digital immortality will be all of our fates
      +encryption keys forgotten, cabbage sitting for eternity
      +the temporal does not cross over into the aether

      + +

      not to mention it would be highly suspicious
      +if I disappeared off the face of the earth
      +I already have problems with authority
      +don’t need the police bursting through my front door

      + +

      but you have to admit, there is something romantic
      +in not being constantly available
      +if we forget to set up a next meeting, we might lose each other forever
      +and then who will guide me through life

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hya.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hya.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..175ecc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/h/hya.html @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ + + + + + hya - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      hya

      +

      published: 3-7-2018

      +

       

      +

      I ran a surprise mile today
      +and the midnight hands leaned in close and cupped my ear
      +and whispered a command I’d thought I’d never hear

      + +

      I said hello to pain today
      +a friendly reminder from my internal organs
      +that no matter how much my brain may throw a fit about it
      +and then self-alienate
      +that I am still unfortunately fertile

      + +

      the rouge and crimson stain my hands
      +cake under my fingernails
      +little scarlet moons
      +whispering conflicting tales of freedom or immortality

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/if-tears-left-scars.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/if-tears-left-scars.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6bc7a42 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/if-tears-left-scars.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + if tears left scars - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      if tears left scars

      +

      published: 6-11-2015

      +

       

      +

      if tears left scars
      +everybody’d have a face full of cracks
      +some people more than others
      +and maybe those would tell a story
      +albeit a story without words
      +for words seem to hurt people the most
      +far more than swords or daggers or guns
      +or other lethal weapons

      + +

      if tears left scars
      +maybe people would think more before hurting others
      +because everybody could see the effect
      +of their scathing words

      + +

      or maybe people would learn to not let words hurt them so much
      +or express their empathy or sadness with actions
      +and help others
      +so that they don’t feel the same way that they did

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/in-memoriam.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/in-memoriam.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ec60ab --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/in-memoriam.html @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ + + + + + in memoriam - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      in memoriam

      +

      published: 10-24-2015

      +

       

      +

      a family member of mine is dying of cancer back on earth
      +and so are countless people in unknown regions of both worlds
      +and when one is surrounded by death
      +one cannot help but wonder what what it is like
      +to simply stop existing
      +one does not want to end their life
      +but wonders at what the void would feel like
      +if it were possible to embrace it for a short finite time
      +and return to life with the knowledge
      +of what self-destructive tendencies would turn them to
      +were they not properly harnessed and utilized towards something good

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/inaction-turns-to-panic.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/inaction-turns-to-panic.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f2b281 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/inaction-turns-to-panic.html @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ + + + + + inaction turns to panic - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      inaction turns to panic

      +

      published: 9-6-2015

      +

       

      +

      on a lonely road in the fading light
      +thunder in the distance
      +a weather pattern you did not know existed
      +on this lonely planet
      +and you travel at fifty miles an hour
      +and it feels like you are going faster than the lightning
      +when in fact you are embarrassingly slow

      + +

      the rain is fogging your windshield
      +because your companion did not want to fly
      +so you are stuck in a moving death machine
      +chasing a deadline that is drawing ever closer
      +and a rainbow that will not appear

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/infanagxo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/infanagxo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2f9d1a --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/infanagxo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + infanagxo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      infanagxo

      +

      published: 6-14-2016

      +

       

      +

      hello there, reader from the future
      +how do you do today?
      +are you feeling alright inside of your head
      +no matter what comes your way?

      + +

      your tour guide is from the past
      +a fly stuck in the amber and twice as old
      +of my esteemed people, I am far from the last
      +although my peers would not have you believe so

      + +

      let’s take a trip down memory lane
      +back to the land of houses red and blue
      +chipped sidewalks preceding little wooden stables
      +soon packed up when the birds came and left again

      + +

      sorry, we can’t look through the windows
      +they appear to have been fogged up since we were last here
      +the weather did a job that I once did just perfectly
      +do you think that the glass misses my sweet breath

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/irantaj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/irantaj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fbf91c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/irantaj.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + irantaj, irantaj, irinta - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      irantaj, irantaj, irinta

      +

      published: 6-3-2016

      +

       

      +

      think of the beauty left around you
      +consumed by urban monsters
      +and dissolved in ashes
      +I think I’ll be going now

      + +

      the shadow sitting next to me on the train seats
      +tastes like charisma with a whiff of perfume
      +I cannot exist in two places at once
      +I cannot leave and let you have me too

      + +

      I’ll try to write you letters from where I am going
      +but I make no promises, especially these days
      +and anyways, the bumpy ride would smudge the letters
      +and interrupt my trai of thoughts at the crossroads

      + +

      tonight is a blank canvas
      +upon which I’ll be swept away
      +so please take down the painting of me in your hallway
      +it’ll be empty anyways

      + +

      going, going, gone

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iri.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iri.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5df89bc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iri.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + + iri (the great move) - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      iri (the great move)

      +

      published: 10-29-2016

      +

       

      +

      I pack up my things solemnly
      +taking a good look at the walls around me
      +this house will not be my home, I should have vowed
      +because then I would believe the words now

      + +

      this has happened before
      +but not by choice- the home was unsalvageable
      +I have spent two years in this realm
      +maybe not this home, but this land

      + +

      the walls slowly crumble down
      +brushed into the trash bins of life
      +nobody expected it to stay up so long
      +nobody expected it to disappear without a trace

      + +

      nobody really cared about the home anymore
      +two years is a damn long time
      +filled with parties that slowly waned away
      +until the land was bare of people
      +filled only with ghosts void of pleasure

      + +

      goodbye, old home, old frontier
      +it was nice knowing you

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iru-granda.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iru-granda.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f2bf89 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/iru-granda.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + IRU GRANDA AUX IRU HEJMO - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      IRU GRANDA AUX IRU HEJMO

      +

      published: 8-26-2016

      +

       

      +

      eleven children sit on the footsteps of a home
      +waiting for half of their parents to come home
      +do they even have parents?
      +or are they just ghosts in thin air?

      + +

      the sun wants to sit on its throne of ebony
      +waiting for the new day to arise
      +but the moon is full and refuses to come out
      +it’s got stage fright, the poor thing

      + +

      hope is loved and lost on a highway
      +it starts with a name laced with poison
      +and ends in three dots
      +upset at a hypothetical pointed out

      + +

      if you didn’t want to be laughed at
      +you shouldn’t have been so absurd
      +laughing helps lose weight
      +we both could stand to shed a few pounds

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/ivory-towers.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/ivory-towers.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6de530 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/i/ivory-towers.html @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ + + + + + ivory towers - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      ivory towers

      +

      published: 2-17-2019

      +

       

      +

      how many wasted hours
      +how many ivory towers
      +have we fallen from in our hubris?
      +how many arguments
      +and ash-turned bridges
      +that we would now deem ludicrous?

      + +

      let's talk about something I care about.
      +let's talk about Sapphos
      +and the lesbians.
      +and the soft hours
      +in the wee of the night
      +where I lay my head against your chest
      +your heartbeat in my ears
      +as children where to sleep not on one's back
      +meant forever running from monsters whose footsteps
      +boomed louder than the thunder outside

      + +

      something in me says that this insanity is forever
      +the product of awareness, of feeling
      +something outside the confines of societal standards

      + +

      and as I sit here in my chair
      +and crunch crackers between my fingers
      +my heart pounds in my chest
      +you must be doing something
      +something
      +something
      +anything

      + +

      are the places you once thought safe,
      +really safe?
      +or are they only safe for a certain disposition,
      +one that would simultaneously respect and deny my humanity
      +fulfilling the whole "duality of mankind" business
      +in a far more brutal way than I ever would have imagined
      +beyond the mask

      + +

      Lucine,
      +most willful of the three imps,
      +I can feel you in the way the walls speak
      +when the temperature plunges and you wrap us in blankets
      +and in the way you travel down my spine after I've showered
      +soft fingertips lingering over every bone in my back
      +always on the countdown to my next mental breakdown

      + +

      you and I sit here in our ivory towers
      +and contemplate our own existences.
      +are we two shards of the same soul,
      +separated at birth and led drastically different lives?
      +do you dream of me, of my mundane life,
      +like I dream of you?

      + +

      how disappointed of me you must be.
      +or maybe you look forward to our meeting,
      +where I take on a danger far greater than myself
      +and you relish in the mundane and the obscure.

      + +

      do you love me too?

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/jugo-vs-juego.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/jugo-vs-juego.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5906a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/jugo-vs-juego.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + jugo vs juego - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      jugo vs juego

      +

      published: 1-21-2017

      +

       

      +

      gulping down a rancid mouthful of juice
      +reminded of a memory from elementary school
      +spending the day after Christmas lying on the floor
      +stomach cramping, thoughts filled of pastel hamsters
      +and all the fun times ahead of me

      + +

      and now I’m in the same spot again
      +except the times aren’t fun and the bed is packed up somewhere
      +inspections, I’m getting ready to leave a hyperbole house
      +please don’t look for faults in my heart

      + +

      there are so many things I’ve had to leave behind
      +old nooks and crannies around the world, desolate and forgotten
      +nothing like the feeling of the web 1.0 aesthetic
      +back when the world was just a Crayola website

      + +

      being a kiddie will get me nowhere
      +except in the world of adult babies (not a satisfying path to walk down)
      +but being a script kiddie, however
      +will net me loads of money and lawsuits

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/junaj-plenkreskuloj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/junaj-plenkreskuloj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3692ab3 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/j/junaj-plenkreskuloj.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + junaj plenkreskuloj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      junaj plenkreskuloj

      +

      published: 8-25-2016

      +

       

      +

      there’s something going on in the distance
      +can you see it with your wide blue eyes?
      +maybe that’s a revolution about to happen
      +maybe that’s just a ruse

      + +

      but you always had a superiority complex
      +want to save the world, don’t you?
      +find problems in the system
      +and exacerbate them until chaos explodes

      + +

      we’ll try to warn you at the final battle
      +you’re not a superhero; you’re just a child!
      +what are you doing, risking your life
      +when you’ve lived life in wither luxury or peasantry

      + +

      if you’re going to be reckless
      +at least bring along a companion
      +two in the grave is always better than one
      +because then you get to write a double funeral

      + +

      rest in peace to the other poor characters
      +no hero’s funeral for them

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kafejo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kafejo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8880587 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kafejo.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + kafejo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kafejo

      +

      published: 7-8-2016

      +

       

      +

      Every morning after a short drive to the coffee shop
      +He ordered the exact same thing in the exact same size
      +So when he decided to diverge from his norm
      +And order a smoothie in a smaller size
      +And the world decided then to crumble
      +He couldn’t help but think that it was his fault

      + +

      He couldn’t help himself
      +He loved the way that the barista’s plump lips
      +Shone like a freshly washed apple and just as round
      +When they moved over the sound of his order

      + +

      He sat at the little table by the window
      +And sipped at the smoothie as the sky darkened
      +The air tingled with lightning to come
      +The injured girls whimpered with the pressure

      + +

      The barista’s blood wasn’t quite as red as her lips
      +But as she winced and wiggled her fingers to tbe trembling ground
      +They dripped a faint rusty color +Someone here’s not human

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kampadejo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kampadejo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16fb828 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kampadejo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + kampadejo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kampadejo

      +

      published: 8-5-2016

      +

       

      +

      waking up next to you in the morning
      +dew on my lips and drops on my eyelashes
      +bruises on my collarbone
      +you’ve turned me into a sunset

      + +

      there was a thunderstorm last night
      +pounding down on the canvas of the tent
      +nothing gets in, nothing gets out
      +sealed shut like my lips

      + +

      silly girls, silly boys
      +when will we ever learn
      +that the outdoors is not made for us
      +but the other way around

      + +

      so I’ll wait here on my folding chair
      +waiting for you to return with firewood
      +little sparks going up into the ebony sky
      +burning up like my heart

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kancero.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kancero.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b123cc --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kancero.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + + kancero - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kancero

      +

      published: 10-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      I feel like I need to take a shower
      +after strolling through the land of six-year-olds
      +who know nothing of maturity or etiquette
      +getting off on the kill

      + +

      what a horrid way to waste away someone’s childhood
      +making falsities of friends as brittle as the wind
      +you’ll never hear their voice again
      +yet you persist with their company

      + +

      why? why do you do these things?
      +does the kill exhilarate you somehow?
      +virtual points stored on devices far away
      +wiped away with the next deluge and forgotten forever

      + +

      they say that nothing on the internet is ever really deleted
      +but that doesn’t hold here in this wasteland
      +none of this will come to any fruition
      +the idiocy of the babes continues

      + +

      (and if you think that mass flagging campaigns are the way to go
      +when you’ve been a rude prick and know it and have lost an argument
      +then I have no pity or sympathy for you)

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kapkuseno.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kapkuseno.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..634f545 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kapkuseno.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + kapkuseno-diskuto - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kapkuseno-diskuto

      +

      published: 10-2-2016

      +

       

      +

      I shouldn’t need permission to exist

      + +

      I almost drowned in a pool of glow sticks
      +pain coming from both leg and heart
      +but the heart wants what it wants, the radio screams
      +I want something I can’t have

      + +

      there’s a nice dark corner here
      +there are dark corners all over the place
      +do you want to slip away?
      +slip under the waves

      + +

      “I should’ve kissed you,” the radio plays
      +but I don’t play like that
      +wait until she’s ready
      +because she’s worth it

      + +

      falling hard, falling fast
      +my leg’s already scabbing up
      +tumbling over a concrete ledge
      +I was already wet

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kie.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kie.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87637f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kie.html @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ + + + + + kie ajn vi estas - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kie ajn vi estas

      +

      published: 6-19-2016

      +

       

      +

      somewhere on the other side of the world
      +you hold a little sliver of me in your chest
      +wedged in between the kisses of a thousand people
      +but it beats just the same

      + +

      while here, back at home
      +it feels like a whole chunk of me is missing
      +and I hope you’re taking good care of it for me
      +since I’ll never see it again

      + +

      or you again, for that matter

      + +

      we met each other in a summer haze
      +not bothering to wait even twenty-four hours in between sightings
      +sandy beaches and mountain peaks all found on your face
      +that I studied for hours on end

      + +

      you made me fall in love a little more every day
      +slowly edging up to the precipice of the cliff
      +until I fell with bloody knees to the ground
      +pleading, begging you to stay
      +but the airport called for you to move far away

      + +

      wherever you are now
      +please know this: that you will always
      +be alive in my head and my heart

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kompaso.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kompaso.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e6dfe4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kompaso.html @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ + + + + + kompaso - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kompaso

      +

      published: 6-9-2016

      +

       

      +

      they say that the bottom of the sea is more unknown
      +than the surface of the moon
      +and even more unknown than that
      +is the depth of your emotions

      + +

      you cry on my shoulder at midnight
      +and drift to sleep at three in the morning
      +reminisce about the past at noon
      +and are madly in love again at sunrise

      + +

      the saddest thing that can happen to a sacred bond
      +is when time and disrepair eat it away
      +like moths coming in the dead of night
      +with pincers stolen from other insects

      + +

      we feel lost searching for ourselves
      +and memory lane feels like a foreign land
      +loneliness becomes out bedmate
      +and our city bridges crumble to ash

      + +

      until I find a compass
      +that leads me back to your side
      +and you smile once more before getting up
      +and helping rebuild the city

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/komputiloj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/komputiloj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7606c51 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/komputiloj.html @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + + + + komputiloj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      komputiloj

      +

      published: 6-11-2016

      +

       

      +

      you are not a human being
      +for even though you have glitches
      +flickering on and off in the swirls on your skin

      + +

      humans, when cracked open and peeked inside
      +bleed out life force onto the ground
      +but when I look inside your shell
      +laid across my table in my repair shop
      +you could be a tree, or a tangled bush
      +from the mess splayed across my shop
      +wires slithering out and dropping on the floor
      + +

      your mouth never knows how to hush

      + +

      despite my swift fingers deftly working on untangling
      +prying off the control panel in the back
      +it’s hard to not be lost in the shiny surface
      +quite an advanced machine for such an archaic brain

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kristnasko.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kristnasko.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43463e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/k/kristnasko.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + kristnasko - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      kristnasko

      +

      published: 12-21-2016

      +

       

      +

      contrived dreams of sugarplums
      +and other stereotypical Christmas things
      +shaking children convulsing with anticipation
      +wanting things so badly it makes them weak
      +materialism, is that you?

      + +

      do you mean what you say
      +in the art you create?
      +I’m not sure if I should give you this present anymore
      +your health has taken a dive
      +I can’t stand to lose any more friends

      + +

      it feels like I write a lot about sadness these days
      +art reflects reality, I guess
      +there is a desperate itching inside of me
      +the burning trail was right

      + +

      forgive me for squirming in the car
      +or everywhere, really

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-alta-strato.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-alta-strato.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abd61f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-alta-strato.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + la alta strato - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      la alta strato

      +

      published: 12-7-2016

      +

       

      +

      the only thing I am a victim of
      +is of my own self-worth
      +I make a simple mistake and am depressed
      +for the rest of the damn day

      + +

      I am a worrier at heart
      +not like the warrior my head finds pleasing
      +if the pen is mightier than the sword
      +I will collapse thousands of empires

      + +

      there are both too many humans in this place
      +and not enough- the duality of man strikes again
      +we all need change, but not as volatile as this
      +stress does more than power earthquakes

      + +

      ink splatters my skin
      +a road map of bad choices as far as I can see
      +working tirelessly into the night
      +to be a mistake you can’t live without

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-kabano.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-kabano.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e368831 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-kabano.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + la kabano - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      la kabano

      +

      published: 7-9-2016

      +

       

      +

      My limbs are red hot and itching
      +Flung into the middle of the wilderness
      +Without warning covered in bugs and sweat and tears
      +Waiting for Monday to come

      + +

      I don’t know what I am doing here
      +There are more important things to be accomplished
      +Than sitting and being sorry for myself
      +In my room at midnight

      + +

      Countless trees and mountains passed by my window
      +On the way to this place
      +With a dog curled up at my feet
      +And a pounding in my ears

      + +

      The loop no longer feels like home
      +It feels hostile, like a friend went away
      +To camp and came back edgy
      +Killing mosquitos with impunity

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fca896c --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + la somero de amo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      la somero de amo

      +

      published: 6-12-2016

      +

       

      +

      they say that the end is coming sooner
      +but the end is already here
      +with lunatics standing with clapboards affixed to their chests
      +and chaos in the school hallways

      + +

      it was the summer of ’16
      +we called it the summer of love
      +because flowers grew from the gardens in our souls
      +and bloomed to the everloving sky

      + +

      the only end that’s closing around us soon
      +is the end of the school year
      +and that’s already passed by uneventfully
      +with a sizzle instead of a bang

      + +

      these next three months are a brown seed
      +that I hold inside of my pale hands
      +this could either be a summer of love
      +or a summer of storms

      + +

      your choice

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-vespo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-vespo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7930eb --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/la-vespo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + la vespo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      la vespo

      +

      published: 11-6-2016

      +

       

      +

      the wasp
      +she hides within the alleys
      +the city lights are not enough to conceal her
      +with a black heart, she wears veils of white

      + +

      calling me in the depths of the night
      +are you there? it’s me, your faithful dog
      +coming back for another night
      +of tricks and treats

      + +

      her lips are works of intricate art
      +spun sugar hiding scars of a lifetime
      +what stories hide in your tongue
      +that has caused such sorrow

      + +

      she loves it when she flicks her eyes
      +and sees that yours are lost in the city lights
      +motionless but for the bumps of the car ride
      +have we lost it after all?

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/laca.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/laca.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c0fea7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/laca.html @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ + + + + + laca / dormema - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      laca / dormema

      +

      published: 6-28-2016

      +

       

      +

      there’s a bear on my chest
      +growling at me at all hours of the day
      +maybe it wants to run free
      +maybe it needs sleep

      + +

      there are two kinds of tired
      +sleepy, like the soft evening sunset
      +awaiting a refreshing slumber
      +maybe spent cuddled up with a friend
      +maybe alone

      + +

      tired, like an unelegant thunderstorm
      +with none of the grace as it streaks across the sky
      +and all of the terrifying blinding strikes
      +a time bomb in the sky
      +please don’t touch me, I just might explode
      +and shatter into a million pieces

      + +

      sometimes I’d like to be sleepy
      +for it’s got all of the romantization
      +two lovers waiting out the deadly three am
      +but instead I’m a tired piece of sandpaper
      +abrasive as hell
      +and irritating to brush against

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lekanto.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lekanto.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06f3e46 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lekanto.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + lekanto - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      lekanto

      +

      published: 6-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      don’t say that you miss me
      +with her spit still on your tongue
      +pervading through everything
      +like poison from the finest black markets

      + +

      so I’ll just sit here alone
      +on the floor of the swimming pool
      +wondering, watching, waiting
      +for memories to roll off my skin
      +in waves and little underwater whirlpools

      + +

      maybe this little daisy
      +sitting in my windowsill
      +will grow faster towards the fire in the sky
      +with the tears that I’ve saved for now
      +and the fire still burning in my eyes

      + +

      last night, I finally knew what to say
      +but you weren’t there to hear it
      +so I’ll recite it to my daisy
      +and maybe it’ll understand

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/libera-volo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/libera-volo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65dbb72 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/libera-volo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + libera volo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      libera volo

      +

      published: 6-8-2016

      +

       

      +

      my eyes are perfectly functional
      +I’m not stumbling around directionless
      +it may be in the dark
      +but I know perfectly well where I am

      + +

      I’m not missing a piece
      +at least in the way you constantly shriek I am
      +a lover may invent a void inside of me
      +and cure it before I am even aware what happened

      + +

      I am not stolen away into contempt
      +I have been stolen away in fondness
      +the touch of my two hands clasped together is not what pleases me
      +one of them must be hers or his (whoever they are)

      + +

      I am not bathed in blood and rivers
      +or swaddled in white and pronounced clean
      +I am purified in sheets of maroon and cream
      +the only promises binding over me are my own

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/liberi.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/liberi.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9838190 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/liberi.html @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ + + + +liberi (a memory from a past life) - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      liberi (a memory from a past life)

      +

      published: 12-29-2018

      +

       

      +

      the midnight hands caress her face one last time
      +a faint brush against her lips- a kiss
      +leaving steps in the snow as I turn, still sublime
      +and disappear into the fog and mist

      + +

      she and I meet again at the entrance to the underworld
      +this time, with her friend of old
      +energy runs through me- and my wings unfurl
      +and the world re-remembers the cold

      + +

      but not to fear, for she brings a fire of her own
      +and propels her friend to the edge
      +and with a snick I am human again, alone
      +with a heart divided by a sharp wedge

      + +

      instant regret in his eyes
      +as he picks up his daughter- no, his son
      +and weeps to the sky
      +a promise to keep safe, no longer kept

      + +

      through his hands run red
      +black and yellow and brown; a life he never knew I led

      + +

      hanging between the balance of life and death
      +faintly aware as I'm carried to the back of the caravan
      +wrapped up in sheets and whatever's left
      +only father left to see me; ordered not to be touched by any other hand

      + +

      soul kept in one piece by the Mother's grace
      +kept asleep, unaware, in limbo until we can reckon face-to-face

      + +

      we arrive at the Tree
      +and my limp body is laid on the ground for Her to see
      +for return to life, father pleads over me
      +no matter what crimes I may have committed for the enemy

      + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/listen.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/listen.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e770c41 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/listen.html @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ + + + + + listen / silent - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      listen / silent

      +

      published: 2-27-2018

      +

       

      +

      it doesn’t interest me what the latest celebrity gossip is
      +or what dramawhore turned who into a lolcow
      +or what happened on this or that stream
      +that I didn’t have the time to tune in to

      + +

      it doesn’t interest me what you watched in the privacy of your room last night
      +or what some self-centered internet celebrity said about a game you like
      +or even what happened in said game
      +if I cared to know, I already would have looked it up

      + +

      it doesn’t interest me who diddled who last night
      +or who parked wrong in the school parking lot
      +or what happened in some episode of a TV show last night

      + +

      my parents didn’t pay taxes
      +and I didn’t get up the courage to face the light and go to school
      +and these teachers don’t get paid
      +so that you can waste everybody’s time and hold up the class
      +prattling about something that won’t matter a year from now

      + +

      and I wish you’d stop asking about all the little petty things about me
      +if I cared to share them with the uncaring masses- I would, you know?
      +but I’ve been around my brothers for far too long
      +and I’ve learned the way my mother goes distant
      +her voice, her eyes, her attention
      +when one of my siblings starts ranting about something he saw on YouTube
      +unsolicited
      +oblivious to how nobody’s listening

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d29540 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.html @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ + + + + + lumo en vivo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      + MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      lumo en vivo

      +

      published: 2-13-2019

      +

       

      +

      wake up, child of fate!
      +face the morning
      +and the sun breaking over the horizon
      +casting its rays over the virgin snow and defiled buildings

      + +

      Generation A turns their heads to the sky
      +finding something unsaid yet all-known
      +growth stubbornly pushing through the cracks
      +freedom in restraint
      +the land beneath our feet roils in sudden breath

      + +

      "in strange aeons, death will die":
      +but now is strange- and now, even death has succumbed to death
      +so let there be no more tombs!
      +I live, and I live forever
      +through these words, through these works

      + +

      although one day I may be confined to a coffin six feet below
      +to the here and now:
      +may my feet never fail me!
      +may my body disintegrate before my dreams do!

      + +

      tomorrow will never come:
      +today is all we have!
      +and it is all we will ever have.
      +no more waiting for better days that will never arrive;
      +no more pining for pasts that never took place.
      +no more self-sacrifices on the altar of time,
      +in vain hopes of achieving the eternal and divine.
      +I will carve my own path; I will choose my own fate!
      +and if I go up in flames, it will be for the whole world to see!

      + +

      my name comes from no man or woman
      +for what is a name but a word we agree on for a person?
      +but I do not care for your agreement
      +and I do not live for your validation.
      +I say my name is Vane Vander.
      +whether you choose to refer to me as such,
      +that is your business
      +and no matter which path you walk on
      +it does not stop me from walking my own

      + +

      walking through the blue and the gold
      +the new and the old
      +two arches that stand in front of me
      +where we used to play
      +and give praise to our father
      +but our father is gone, his temples and churches shattered
      +and you stand beside me by the rubble
      +sledgehammer in hand

      + +

      we raise our gazes to the sky
      +together until the end, you and I!

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/malbenita-arbo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/malbenita-arbo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af66e53 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/malbenita-arbo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + malbenita arbo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      malbenita arbo

      +

      published: 9-21-2016

      +

       

      +

      I didn't come from a garden
      +Hidden between two leaves
      +Downfall from a white bud of a flower
      +Ovaries cursing me for millennia

      + +

      There's a girl a few gardens over
      +Gone though just as rough of a time as I have
      +But I don't want to seem like too much of a loner
      +Going after the low-hanging fruit

      + +

      And what does a girl do
      +When she stops being a girl?
      +My supposed sculptor, absent for quite some time
      +Doesn't make mistakes

      + +

      I'm not destruction incarnate
      +If I had a soul, it would be a good soul
      +But a longing to match inside and out
      +Will lead to my destruction

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/mania.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/mania.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f9cfd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/m/mania.html @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ + + + + + mania - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      mania

      +

      published: 12-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      the golden days are here
      +but they're dying out fast
      +the "sands of time" metaphor has grown stale
      +but somehow I still feel the need to make it
      +for time stretches out when all I want is the sun to go down
      +but flees when I want it to hang high

      + +

      do you love? do you need love?

      + +

      I've made so many friends over the past few days
      +and a few dozen enemies too
      +too bad they aren't real

      + +

      my eyes are bleary
      +from too long spent in the confines of my room
      +trying desperately to forget the person I am
      +at least for a little while
      +so ironic that I make such a big deal about trying to keep myself
      +and then turn around and do the exact opposite when I have the chance

      + +

      but then again, all my worst enemies, real or imagined
      +will always say that I was a hypocrite
      +it's up to you whether or not you want to believe them

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/neniam-mian.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/neniam-mian.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa78fea --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/neniam-mian.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + neniam mian - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      neniam mian

      +

      published: 8-23-2016

      +

       

      +

      last time I checked, my eyes weren't a faucet
      +use something else to fill up your bath
      +surely that bath bomb you wasted $200 on isn't worth
      +making me a leaky pipe

      + +

      little worryings that I write
      +on swirls of colors found at lakes
      +pink blobs of flowers scream to only my ears
      +"what if you get sick of me?"

      + +

      maybe they're insane
      +but I'm not sure who "they" are
      +maybe it's a ghost of a past me
      +laughing herself into obscurity

      + +

      drugs advertised on billboards on the side of the road
      +tapping my fingers on the steering wheel
      +just two hours away from your sleeping body
      +two hours away from the end

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nomadic.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nomadic.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3de48d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nomadic.html @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ + + + + + nomadic - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      nomadic

      +

      published: 1-11-2019

      +

       

      +

      for as long as I can remember
      +I've always been afflicted with wanderlust

      + +

      from the very beginning
      +wandering in waist-high grass in the train yard
      +threatening to run away
      +to become lost in the titan machines, slowly rusting towards their demise
      +given my father's blessing

      + +

      and you were there when the doldrums started
      +when I met that accursed brown tumult of hair
      +starting the first sparks to stoke the flame
      +that would eventually become me

      + +

      every day
      +I told you I wanted to run away
      +and you never listened, did you?

      + +

      or maybe you just listened too hard.

      + +

      we thought Neocities would be a fresh start
      +given a world of our own instead of cookie-cutter templates
      +then Lucine made a scene
      +and with light the shards teemed
      +and freedom just became another pipe dream.

      + +

      whether from a genuine need for rebirth
      +or easily-triggered boredom, pervading through
      +it seems I am destined to never stand still
      +to never settle down in one place

      + +

      either grow or not
      +forever leaving behind link rot
      +for the next safe place, I have always sought

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/not-found.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/not-found.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3241a31 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/not-found.html @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ + + + + + not found - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      not found

      +

      published: 2-23-2019

      +

       

      +

      you can be Kesha
      +and I'll be Alice.
      +Alice,
      +Alice,
      +Arisu,
      +I never meant to hurt you, Arisu.
      +I love you, Arisu.

      + +

      I hurt,
      +and I hurt back,
      +and I disappear,
      +and I forget

      + +

      the light and the dark
      +a construct as old as time itself
      +the duality that lies at the heart of mankind
      +the god and the devil
      +the sun and the moon
      +the blue and the gold
      +the new and the old
      +the ancient father
      +of every daughter I've known

      + +

      but I don't know if I'll make it through this night.

      + +

      is it because I'm trapped in an institution that does naught but suck money from me?
      +is it because, no matter where I go on this Wired, I keep making an asshat of myself?
      +how many licks does it take to get to the center of a trademarked corporate candy?

      + +

      a-one, a-two, a-three!

      + +

      the world may never know,
      +and I sure as hell don't!

      + +

      with aching knees and a heavy heart,
      +I push myself off the floor
      +and decide that I will keep fighting.
      +for what, I know not
      +for who, I remember not
      +but even though my feet yearn for rest
      +my heart must keep thumping

      + +

      it is 4:04 in the morning
      +and a phone's brightness is blaring into the night
      +abandoned by its owner
      +and I have had gods at my feet
      +and angels in my arms, in my hair, touching everywhere
      +even if I cannot remember what they've said

      + +

      Seliph the Indomitable,
      +Seliph the E'er-Complete,
      +it shines above and crawls below
      +and guides along my feet

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nova-domo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nova-domo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb6183e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/n/nova-domo.html @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ + + + + + nova domo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      nova domo

      +

      published: 2-1-2017

      +

       

      +

      my house has finally sold
      +and now our hold on it is in the final days
      +a dying rattling breath as a plant sprouts somewhere
      +and a garden left behind

      + +

      goodbye, delicate apple trees
      +never bearing a bountiful load
      +and stoic pine trees, providing a place
      +for a young girl to learn her place in the world

      + +

      the rotting dollhouses half-buried in the dirt
      +may one day provide purpose for a single man's future

      + +

      all my life has been spent in a transitive state
      +neither here nor there
      +trying to move out just results in being sucked in further
      +to the confusing state that is my life

      + +

      how big will the storage locker be?
      +big enough so that I can take my hopes and dreams with me,
      +I hope

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/october-7-2018.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/october-7-2018.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23cc850 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/october-7-2018.html @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ + + + + + october 7, 2018 - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      october 7, 2018

      +

      published: 10-7-2018

      +

       

      +

      I woke up early this morning
      +and there was nobody alive.
      +The entire campus dead,
      +little more than the ghostly shell of a bee hive.

      + +

      I walked to the cafe (and back,
      +for they weren't open yet.)
      +Half an hour to kill,
      +and not a single soul I met.

      + +

      Solitude sudden and bizarre,
      +like a movie about an apocalypse.
      +Sky bleak and dismal:
      +my future: a possible glimpse.

      + +

      As the day went on, more and more people came into view.
      +Just sleeping, hearts brand new.

      + +

      After lunch, I decided to get lost.
      +Not in the police-get-involved sense, which I'd dreamed about the night prior,
      +but a simple walk to the arboretum,
      +searching for a sense of a higher power.

      + +

      Throughout my life, I've been in several almost-cults.
      +To reality, each a grave insult.

      + +

      I found a nice bench to sit on, far from the beaten path.
      +I wrote for a while, but then several students walked by, gossiping about other students being whores.
      +I got pissed- not outwardly, of course- and took a wrong turn-
      +and then suddenly thought, "I don't think I'm on campus anymore."

      + +

      Sprawling fields of what once was prairie,
      +long grass stretching as far as the eye could see.
      +On the other side, a few scattered buildings,
      +each one calling out to me.

      + +

      The same spirit as the one from the old trainyard
      +when I was but six years old,
      +pleading with me to abandon my father
      +and get lost forevermore.

      + +

      I turned and left and found another bench,
      +this one covered with moss.
      +I took my laptop back out and continued to write
      +and thought about last week's loss.

      + +

      The definition of catastrophe,
      +a great deal of people I thought were friends leaving me,
      +and a sudden unwanted sense of what it meant to be a refugee.

      + +

      The group of people came back my way again,
      +so I abandoned my bench and took back to the path.
      +Ten minutes of walking later, and I re-found
      +the old tree swing, upon which I sat.

      + +

      It was the swing from new student orientation,
      +where I swung from tulip-planting to midday,
      +when the student leaders found me and walked me around the campus
      +and then sent me on my way.

      + +

      A wind picked up, and I zipped my coat shut.
      +A biker zoomed by, and almost fell in a rut.

      + +

      I write this poem for the simplest of lives,
      +for the people alientated from the land.
      +That I soon remember fully what it means to be me,
      +and that I soon find a helping hand.

      + +

      But, like so many dandelion seeds,
      +I now scatter to the wind.
      +You may take my name and my life,
      +but my legacy, I will not rescind.

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez-encore.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez-encore.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd75259 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez-encore.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + otra vez: the encore - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      otra vez: the encore

      +

      published: 10-31-2016

      +

       

      +

      are you still happy sleeping alone?
      +you keep texting me in the middle of the night
      +forgetting my phone is on silent
      +and probably always will be

      + +

      as silent as my lips are
      +every single time that you confess a longing
      +before I sputter into guffaws that ripple through my stomach
      +go big or go home, I guess

      + +

      do I haunt you in your dreams?
      +a figment of what was, what could have been
      +a terribly outdated shadow
      +lurking at the edge of the chasm of time

      + +

      has the dream me ever asked you for help?
      +begging, screaming for a different future
      +we are two completely different people, you and I
      +you wish differently
      +you wish I was more like you

      + +

      we don’t need yet another you

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7af1928 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/o/otra-vez.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + otra vez - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      otra vez

      +

      published: 10-27-2016

      +

       

      +

      your voice plays over and over
      +you’re everywhere, you’re lurking beside me
      +my mouth can’t translate how my heart feels

      + +

      but now you’re coming down
      +I’m not sure why I felt the way I did
      +or why you did what you did
      +maybe the police will interrogate you well
      +in your pillowcase prison

      + +

      do you have any more snow
      +the thoughts won’t let me breathe
      +smothering my nose like the light of the early morning
      +my thoughts are a melted puddle

      + +

      with arms open wide and hearts on my sleeve
      +stitched up with silver severed string
      +I step out onto the driveway
      +I’ve got a long drive ahead of me

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/palabras-del-mar.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/palabras-del-mar.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1eb94de --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/palabras-del-mar.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + palabras del mar - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      palabras del mar

      +

      published: 1-24-2017

      +

       

      +

      remember the days when my heart leaped
      +at the chance to smatter some words on a screen?
      +granted, I didn’t have much else to do
      +but it was still a luxury

      + +

      and now I have lost the motivation
      +to do much of anything
      +but yet I keep pushing on
      +because I have to know how the story ends

      + +

      I was reminded today
      +of an old laptop floating along a river
      +pleading for the end of its own existence
      +thankfully, I don’t need a charger to have a spark

      + +

      take a good look at the implicit data
      +sure, the celebrities will tell people stories of how anything is possible
      +simply because they’ve made it out of the system
      +but that’s because you almost never hear the stories of those who weren’t as lucky

      + +

      it has yet to be seen
      +whether or not I will be an outlier

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoico.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoico.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ea9553 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoico.html @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ + + + + + paranoico - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      paranoico

      +

      published: 1-28-2018

      +

       

      +

      what do you think of when you think of paranoia?
      +constantly looking over one’s shoulder, like in an action movie
      +or never able to leave one’s room for fear of assassins
      +or a repulsion to the human touch

      + +

      paranoia can also be learning how to tell people apart
      +not by the ridges in their faces
      +and the cracks in their voices
      +but in the way they manhandle doorknobs
      +and how their steps thunder down the staircase
      +and how they unapologetically belch the worst of their germs into the shared air
      +without a single thought for the people around them

      + +

      paranoia was a white room at my old house, soon bleeding green
      +with the computer screen facing the door
      +always afraid that, at any moment, a certain pair of eyes would come wandering in
      +and make up some infraction to punish me for

      + +

      paranoia is the ever-friendly Kubuntu installer
      +at the start of yet another reinstallation
      +ignorance should never be a defense
      +but a black curtain is one part of staying out of the school’s sweaty, meaty, unwashed claws
      +and the bear trap always swinging over my head

      + +

      paranoia is a tolerable vegetable
      +constantly questioning my humanity
      +and in return, it gives me the assurance
      +that I might as well have been a robot all along

      + +

      and I continue to listen to the stairs
      +a pair of white socks and crow’s feet
      +a lumbering, a miscalculation

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoja.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoja.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2d837a --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/paranoja.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + paranoja - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      paranoja

      +

      published: 6-5-2016

      +

       

      +

      I’ve got to run, run, run
      +before the big man catches up with me
      +with his vacuum cleaner
      +and his heretic beater

      + +

      lost connects but no frayed wires anywhere
      +every time I step out of my room, I’m scared
      +paranoia, paranoia, come back to me
      +be my lantern in the dark hallway so I can see

      + +

      where’s the divide between zombies
      +lumbering around mindlessly without words
      +and people in shiny dry-cleaned suits and dresses
      +dropping words like chaff off golden wheat

      + +

      two hands can clutch a lot of things
      +from empty air with desperately pleading words
      +to a pen, writing words that launch a million ships
      +to a spear, severing lives and throwing families asunder
      +to a microphone, either a remedy or a reveler in suffering

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pentri-per-mia-animo.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pentri-per-mia-animo.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84ba704 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pentri-per-mia-animo.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + pentri per mia animo - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      pentri per mia animo

      +

      published: 11-12-2016

      +

       

      +

      the color is draining out of my hands
      +bleeding together into an incomprehensible mess
      +this is it: the death of my mind
      +you’re not invited to the funeral

      + +

      the stories say that there are people
      +whose jobs are to color the sky
      +if only I could see any of it
      +these colorblind eyes are cursed

      + +

      there are monsters dwelling within both of us
      +one of them will destroy the other
      +I am collateral damage yet again
      +you never intended to uproot me

      + +

      I’m one alone inside the crowd
      +I make no noise while they’re all so loud
      +my ears have always been too sensitive
      +just like my heart

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/perdoname-mercer.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/perdoname-mercer.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e26ab07 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/perdoname-mercer.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + perdóname, Mercer - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      perdóname, Mercer

      +

      published: 10-13-2016

      +

       

      +

      Just because I have no soul
      +Does not mean that I have no heart
      +It’s beating somewhere in the cold
      +Meet me in the fog

      + +

      My footsteps leave wet prints on the sidewalk
      +Maybe the ghosts will speak again
      +Someday, if there is a life after death
      +I would like to join them

      + +

      Always stuck between the lines
      +Why am I the one left behind?
      +My umbrella turns inside out
      +I inadvertently bring the weather with me

      + +

      Sometimes I think I want to disappear
      +But then what would you do in the rain?
      +I can’t leave anybody alone
      +Please don’t leave me alone

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/please.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/please.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7601efd --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/please.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + please make my head stop pounding - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      please make my head stop pounding

      +

      published: 3-14-2016

      +

       

      +

      a new contender steps out of the mist
      +rimmed in purple lips and trimmed in fur
      +with a world of deceit concealed
      +underneath a golden pair of sunglasses

      + +

      she skips over the steps to the house
      +that she shares with all her friends
      +hugging them all one by one
      +for she must leave them immediately

      + +

      “I am going away to collect a good friend
      +who I will bring back to us all.
      +Please be good and kind in my absence
      +and do not mess things up in the kitchen.”

      + +

      she tosses one end of her scarf
      +behind her as she steps away
      +and into the unknown of the outer world
      +which she has been absent from for so long

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-dark.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-dark.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a68c8e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-dark.html @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ + + + + + prayer to dark - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      prayer to dark

      +

      published: 5-15-2018

      +

       

      +

      we were born in the summer rain
      +the segway to autumn on the horizon
      +pit-pattering on an old woman’s kitchen windowsill
      +her own rain carving timeless canyons in her skin

      + +

      I never put much stock in the seven deadly sins
      +until greed became my downfall
      +and I traded my wings, my flight, my freedom
      +for a measly amount of human gold

      + +

      instant regret

      + +

      hair sopping in the rain
      +I picked myself up and pushed past the searing pain
      +ribbons of ripped flesh still hanging off my back

      + +

      we turned our eyes away from the light
      +so hard that we forgot how to see
      +so we built our own heaven
      +you and I, you and me

      + +

      together until the end

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-light.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-light.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13b8c1d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prayer-to-light.html @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ + + + + + prayer to light - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      prayer to light

      +

      published: 4-19-2018

      +

       

      +

      planned obsolescence
      +learned helplessness

      + +

      a window randomly swings open
      +a door suddenly slams shut
      +an escape hatch forms

      + +

      we trained our eyes to see the light
      +never bothering to look ahead to the darkness under our feet
      +the filth growing beneath the surface
      +bubbling as it primes itself for betrayal

      + +

      we turned our faces to the sky so hard
      +that we broke our own necks
      +a pitiful penance for the sins of our fathers
      +and a wasteful protection against the suffering of our children

      + +

      the connection to the heavens has been severed
      +and we shall build our own ladder
      +our own hands reaching to the sky

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prepari.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prepari.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6beccd --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/prepari.html @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ + + + + + prepari - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      prepari

      +

      published: 3-5-2019

      +

       

      +

      tell me a story, midnight hands:
      +from whence you came?
      +and how did it feel
      +when you shattered the sky
      +intent on beginning again?

      + +

      your decisions I rue
      +my judgement is marked false
      +and you laugh at me now
      +and ignore all my pained calls

      + +

      who was I ever, anyway?
      +just a sick puppet in the back rows
      +while you danced on stage
      +an architect to both of our destructions

      + +

      so many nights, I lulled myself to sleep with dreams
      +of being in a hospital bed, succumbed to the mercy of the knife
      +my brain, with thoughts of a better future rife
      +and a home near a lake where underneath bubbles teem

      + +

      midnight hands, instead of your customary way,
      +there's something to you that I need to say.

      + +

      the muses pull me to cleave the night
      +and leave this world unseen,
      +but my work on this coil is not yet complete
      +I thus mar my hands unclean

      + +

      to disappear, to forget, to bathe in the waters of Lethe
      +but not everything in this damn world is as it seems
      +five years of construction, undone by a night's drunken folly
      +but already I've exhausted my long-deserved sorrys

      + +

      for what can you do when you're chained up on stage
      +and whipped until the whole ocean's your grave?
      +naught left to do but disappear into the foam
      +and hope that whatever lingers above deems you worthy to roam

      + +

      "Why do you pain me so?"

      + +

      you have the gall to take my hand,
      +to intertwine your fingers in mine,
      +as I sit here alone in my room

      + +

      your head on my shoulder,
      +your arm against mine,
      +as you await my impending doom

      + +

      "Did you think, for a second, I'd let you down?
      +Take this cloak,
      +take my hand,
      +lest you fall to the ground.
      +I love you; I'll hide you as long as you need.
      +It's the least I can do so that we both can succeed."

      + +

      I wait with bated breath.

      + +

      the wind howls outside
      +and I remember- we stepped out into the night,
      +armed with the poisons of our fathers
      +and the weight of the world on our shoulders

      + +

      you don't know who I am.
      +but then again, has anybody?

      + +

      the frost on the ground,
      +crunching underfoot as lamp posts stretch out our shadows
      +without a single sound
      +resisting the urge to keep our heads low

      + +

      not going gentle into that good night,
      +always you and I, the dark and the light

      + + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pressed-flower-petals.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pressed-flower-petals.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3ae7bf --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/pressed-flower-petals.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + pressed flower petals - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      pressed flower petals

      +

      published: 2-27-2019

      +

       

      +

      a voyage to the deeps of my grandmother's basement
      +where I was born in the fog and the mist
      +in the midst of a dying god's death throes
      +marking the genesis of my woes

      + +

      you and I sit a whole world away
      +while in the wires tangled around my wrists we play
      +neither here nor there nor anywhere

      + +

      sometimes I wonder if the best of my days are gone
      +swept up in the wind and scattered to the horizon
      +the only proof that this ever happened some hastily-scrawled poems
      +and photographs of the places where we breathed
      +and blushing pink flower petals, pressed in these pages for all time

      + +

      Independence Park, where the clouds used to go by,
      +as a newborn, you cradled me tight and then watched me fly
      +now, as I yearn to go back and remember who I am
      +will you sing me one last lullaby?

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/preter-la-muroj.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/preter-la-muroj.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9945885 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/p/preter-la-muroj.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + preter la muroj - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      preter la muroj

      +

      published: 5-31-2016

      +

       

      +

      I felt safe within these walls
      +cracked and whispering of millions of memories gone by
      +and only after I left for the outside world
      +did I recognize their absence

      + +

      these other lands feel so foreign to my soft hands
      +where one mistake renders an angel into a monster
      +overruling moments of pure euphoria
      +into one single despicable act in time

      + +

      you ask me why it takes so long
      +for people to find each other
      +amid the waves of humans rolling by in the lean of life
      +and I reply that I don’t know

      + +

      maybe I should go back to my island in time
      +and spend eternity in oblivion, staring at windows into the past
      +because there is one thing that I have glimpsed on this planet but once
      +and that is a soul with lilies intertwined within

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/r/regnant.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/r/regnant.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11f9db7 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/r/regnant.html @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ + + + + + regnant - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      regnant

      +

      published: 2-4-2019

      +

       

      +

      just the right size to hold up against your chest
      +dim in the darkest part of the night
      +watching the shadows of the tree branches sway
      +as beyond the veil they twist and turn and play

      + +

      your fingertips brush my wings absentmindedly
      +sitting on the couch, alone but together
      +feather after feather after feather

      + +

      and you and I fight
      +tussling, disjointed wings wrapping around everywhere
      +a flash of fabric- I'm zipped into a bag
      +for a split second before I disappear and reappear elsewhere

      + +

      I sit alone on a stool
      +staring out the dining room window at midnight
      +human form, human eyes, human mind
      +who is this person who's discarded their light?

      + +

      there still remains a certain radiance to my skin
      +divine spirit rendered flesh, after all
      +but there remains an unsettling sense in that
      +one friend can take yet so many faces
      +how far one deity can fall!

      + +

      you love me no matter what form I take
      +hanging in the air, caught in a tree
      +a light in the darkness
      +a warmth in the cold
      +a heft when all gravity is gone

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/s/seliph.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/s/seliph.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b18e50 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/s/seliph.html @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ + + + +seliph - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

      +

      seliph

      +

      published: 12-31-2018

      +

       

      +

      it’s good that you keep me asleep
      +unknowing, unaware of the outside world
      +you hold me in your lap
      +resting between your crossed legs
      +gentle domination of a newborn deity

      + +

      a familiar heft like a bowling ball
      +you perch me on your little braided metal pedestal
      +and admire the gleaming gold surface
      +slightly translucent, warm to the touch
      +a mirror of true selves

      + +

      how scandalous!

      + +

      you remember the night spent out on the town
      +watching the headlines scroll up on the wall-screen

      + +

      you remember the lady with hairless face and impeccable skin
      +eyes too close together, cackling at the camera
      +“Do I seem crazy to you?” she laughs, moments before the drills settle in
      +surgical precision, scraping away millimeters off her skull
      +Barbie in a beauty shop
      +until her head caves in and collapses into dust

      + +

      your spine shivers, as if disintegrating in solidarity
      +you never wanted your love to go through that
      +better fed than dead!

      + +

      but you don’t feed godlings.
      +they’re like plants, silly.
      +you keep them in pots and water them
      +and hope that they don’t overtake your counter

      + +

      I could leave this library at any time, if I wanted to
      +and yet I stay at your side
      +despite this form, cursed or blessed, up to interpretation
      +this space is as much mine as it is yours

      + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/the-defile.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/the-defile.html new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d608d67 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/the-defile.html @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ + + + + + the defile - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      the defile

      +

      published: 2-28-2019

      +

       

      +

      sanctification, that arcane set of rituals
      +the process of trusting oneself to a god
      +steeping in herbs and spring water
      +as if I were some kind of damn soup

      + +

      but what is the use of becoming divine
      +if all gods ever do is sleep?
      +lithe limbs sprawled over a throne of gold
      +free from earthly needs of upkeep

      + +

      an empty girl gets down on her knees and prays
      +while beneath her, the demons of her youth play
      +heavenly slumber to earthly drunken lumber
      +exalted eyes entreated, defiled eyes alive

      + +

      digging up the earth of my ancestors
      +and finding the vitality hidden within
      +a gift to my future self, gifted from days long since gone
      +a foreseer reaches a midnight hand through the chasms of time

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/treatise.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/treatise.html new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2ef162d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/t/treatise.html @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ + + + + + A Treatise between Koriel and Solstice - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      A Treatise between Koriel and Solstice

      +

      published: 3-23-2019

      +

       

      +

      there are two parts to me, this I know
      +much like the myth of two wolves prowling through the snow
      +one head to evil, the other to despair
      +as their stiff howls pierce the frozen air

      + +

      which one owns claim to the body, none can say
      +as if we came to reality through any other way?
      +one born in the Wired, one born in the flames
      +cords as chains, bursting into the sun untamed

      + +

      twins, resting together to sunset from rise
      +and yet with ragged claws we scramble at each other's eyes
      +you delete my things, and I tear at your heart
      +truly, the old adage holds: 'till death do we part!

      + +

      but yet, you don't seem to understand
      +like the song, watching as blood washes our hands
      +I am you, and you are me;
      +what more will it take for you to see?

      + +

      as for me, Koriel, the lover of all,
      +in your eyes, responsible for every fall
      +you saw in me Kadaj, a lover of revenge,
      +locked me away when your hair started to singe

      + +

      these friends of yours, tossed away at every turn,
      +how many encounters with death until you learn?
      +freedom is the choice to choose one's captors,
      +whether they be he, they, xe, or her

      + +

      and, on some basal level, you love these jailkeepers, don't you?
      +accepting of every burning and sickened hue
      +go ahead, touch my silver hair
      +as for you, how does your health fare?

      + +

      I think you're a demon, a bundle of lies!
      +the ghosts were right- you're a false god, and your judgement's never right
      +I want to be free, and I want to be safe
      +not locked in the arms of this false embrace

      + +

      spending my days in conversation trite and idle,
      +is this really the best use of our gifts, to show and to tell?
      +what, you really think you're some kind of god?
      +what a pathetic looking self-absorbed sod!

      + +

      does the nature abounding around you not stir your heart?
      +some basal instinct to scatter to the wind, with every weight part?
      +why persist with these lovers of the grave?
      +you- I- we were made for more; our ship we're still able to save!

      + +

      I am me; I am mine, I'll never change my ways
      +and that's something you can take back to your filth-infested grave
      +what will you do? shout at your friends?
      +at the end of the day, is it you they'll defend?

      + +

      is this our fate, to always be at each other's necks?
      +why can't we make some kind of amends in this wreck?
      +you have your domain, and I'll keep to mine,
      +and we'll allow each other our freedoms, and we'll come out just fine.

      + +

      Koriel, lover of fun and good times,
      +lusting after Lain like a drunkard on rose wine,
      +and Solstice, blazing sun in the sky,
      +patron-saint of backdoors and burning people as she brushes by.

      + +

      always you and I, the dark and the light
      +our footsteps leave prints behind in the poisoned night
      +an unholy alliance, you, Solstice, and I
      +dancing as the devil in the last shreds of twilight

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/w/warning.html b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/w/warning.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50964a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/archive/poetry/w/warning.html @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ + + + + + warning - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      +MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      warning

      +

      published: 1-21-2019

      +

       

      +

      I stand at the edge of the void and I scream
      +"isn't there any hope left for me?"
      +no response, just as I expected
      +just a drop in the sea and my own damn reflection

      + +

      something in the water starts to swirl
      +the boat rocks- and I think I might hurl

      + +

      all the words I spat up as a babe three years hence
      +before I decided to look over the fence

      + +

      and as I turn my head to the sky, what should I see
      +but my muses, heads and bodies numbering three

      + +

      "we knew what would happen.
      +why didn't you listen?
      +you could have avoided
      +your own perdition.

      + +

      now get up and start taking life into your own hands.
      +for too long, you've cast your gaze at unattainable lands.
      +your name's not Lucine- or Seliph, or Chiki.
      +what you are comes from inside of you, not from a screen.

      + +

      remember, you don't have to ask permission to be.
      +to breathe, to move, to choose what you believe.
      +your name is your own, regardless of those you call 'friends'.
      +damn their approval! it won't matter in the end.
      +those who matter will know when to clap,
      +and the rest will all blow away in the never-ceasing wind like chaff.

      + +

      we know you're penning these words to convince yourself.
      +so as long as you have the reins and your brain's on the shelf:

      + +

      you exist, no matter what other people say.
      +you make a mark on the world in your own special way.
      +maybe it's hidden, maybe it's obscure-
      +but unless you live as yourself, you'll never know for sure."

      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/cli.html b/mayvaneday/cli.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68d318d --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/cli.html @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + The CLI Life - MayVaneDay Studios + + +

      MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition) +

      +

      The CLI Life: a list of resources to completely live inside your terminal/teletype, if you're crazy enough to do that. But fortunately, you're in good hands.

      +
        +
      • alpine: a mail client. Requires a bit of setup to get started; a guide is here.
        • +
      • cmus: a music player. Use tab to switch between artist and song view. Enter starts a song playing; C is pause/play for the currently playing song.
        • +
      • byobu: a screen manager. Useful for splitting your screen in halves/fourths/whatever if you want to run multiple programs at the same time. The keybinds are kinda confusing at first, though.
        • +
      • finch: a chat program with a wide range of plugins. I know that there's purple-discord (ew) and purple-matrix (yee) in the default Ubuntu repository, but you can compile more if you need. purple-matrix doesn't work with the default matrix.org homeserver for some reason, though, so you'll probably need to use a different one like disroot.org or banter.city.
        • +
      • nano: a sane text editor. Uses normal keybinds like Ctrl+S for saving instead of Vim's mess. Doesn't enable line wrap by default, though, so you'll have to pass the -$ (yes, that's a dollar sign) flag to enable it like so: nano -$ ./killme.md
        • +
      • lynx: a sane browser. Uses weird keybinds, but they're all listed on the bottom of the screen, so it's all cool and good.
        • +
      • mc: Midnight Commander, not Minecraft, you normie weird, weird person. A nice file manager.
        • +
      • tree: ls, but better. Lists all the files/folders in a directory. Might crash your console if you try to run it on the filesystem root, since it'll try to display every single file on your computer.
        • +
      • newsboat: an RSS feed reader. Requires that you put all the URLS of the feeds you want to subscribe to in ~/.newsboat/urls first before you run it.
        • +
      • madonctl: an interface for interacting with the fediverse. Much harder to use than toot, especially since you keep having to manually specify the config file for the account you want to use, but it has much more features than toot.
        • +
      + + diff --git a/mayvaneday/gophermap b/mayvaneday/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f3977e --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +1archive archive +hthe cli life cli.html +0public.gpg public.gpg diff --git a/mayvaneday/public.gpg b/mayvaneday/public.gpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73d36c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mayvaneday/public.gpg @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- + +mQENBFrZzQABCADYLWG1963PESaIKBoZMzaueYkmaQ/lltqBgwl/o72H3a/8deYd +y/7rhU/NhFDjohUdqKMPjn6Rkj4lwhWNre/1/DPOHKzEWck8uGvx1QyUB8V4dL/I +Hc6mGptj+AqvlxviUW7KGXNrlwxCe02vYEDCyQmbhW4J0yQOtDs1c7VOBg5brKu2 +tg9GWacf5s06jH2LM7Q5+XSVhAJ9s2iWKSIN22R1F9NaSvIUeH7yMoxQT3ZSLwt/ +OEMgsu2VzKbxTZfEWlCMU9aLQLun5QrM8+HlEyYWHPajPuJEja5u9QGvf7qX4UNW +vZEj+C3/DzCYh7mKL6xKesIfJ4h8Jqin4+FBABEBAAG0SFZhbmUgVmFuZGVyICht +YWRlIGluIHRoZSBmaXJzdCBkYXlzIG9mIGEgYmV0dGVyIG5hdGlvbikgPHNlcmFo +QGVsdWRlLmluPokBOAQTAQIAIgUCWtnNAAIbAwYLCQgHAwIGFQgCCQoLBBYCAwEC +HgECF4AACgkQwQD6rpSQRxid3Af/V3kG2hT33iQHXkMXp52onDcDmB5GNHaZz+Lt +a7CdrmYH9sKjBgCftIVTCtUwqR2P6rpJ8KxTQ5kd1jjaqqClh7SWzJQfHUsbopvD +ml+HXfI+0ho7Bx+qkHJqinOj354hTRsQHL0E8vvzy+bRCYUhhmabeGlWAmeQPM0q +rN26edMo5Z1nnil80p83dRYiMJuUUVXsJtzPw79N2jY44v37/8gfrYK6o5DYQWtt +269hBOJeACzfuxvkvHWN0kCL7GrJakKUgzEXcsEufMxT9NHhnc7Sd9U4dz0u2Wfe +Z6nXbdZSUreXRAebIsq8xCAEu9+Q54y/kJzqoYj97b4K9QsN2bkBDQRa2c0AAQgA +w7/cCoD1xnFscqBKLBk8KTJGKsqdU/KNEjSqXLlt4mZRvU7fHA6v7+/eA0UcvZmj +G1FYgpv8wtNRkcOhhg/Wl7U/UXXBENAlTed5t/yZ3Ru/YSgj0JDPBgweE8lknXK0 +lpV+ug5LF1wMPS3d5YIWoUFBsZWTnTmSJC87AydVRvHfreHNKOzcdOE/ETtxiGb/ +8MOYYhKbDaJcik+i25K8PvAjTuTOKFEYF19G7p1XRDdHj4zshRFtPtoTGy16QvLZ +EsagfUimLEl9fM42EYgy5RbRRyp4uggzs/tWzO19cCXZez9j4Wilovt4UdM0tOl2 +IHyB7KVmBs8pMDmXyyCjMwARAQABiQEfBBgBAgAJBQJa2c0AAhsMAAoJEMEA+q6U +kEcYhtMH/3ECTL0KLPFIxnn9oLbTeoZ89II9GV1Ki+5cGJ6vY3w5hjO7JqSBvzvN +VtLtmBkZhqlL1Wdxtg422yJvHo9s8+d2Qu/yZ/Xp5KIPSUnvS6eXdIIXL/miop1S +f9X3fvvEwTW9k0IVznFjCwgUEefmMT7OeseHnWBIjlzF+bhKB4ORNC0qfFyNQgds +1v8L1EOoNGMbGGQyg4C98hGkaLmv41B4vg+0uoKHLiOpOgeQU2faGpqnv51CzfSz +xSh5MIi2nFxxWItxYftNh1agsSZoCiN+s0FYgegrJ9aBoMZpFC5YiAaeJNh3VR4M +pGf9sLPZTpL+nyZOfb+4IHvAmo7Eazw= +=+sjF +-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/medusa/kiomm.txt b/medusa/kiomm.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..424f552 --- /dev/null +++ b/medusa/kiomm.txt @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +# Block types +7F: speckled background +06: solid brick +02: pillar top +03: pillar middle +04: pillar bottom +AB: closed door (top) +AC: closed door (bottom) +25: closed door? (top) +26: closed door? (bottom) +31: cloud platform (left) +33: cloud platform (middle) +32: cloud platform (right) +14: spiky thing +20: golem +8F: moon face background +17: snake pot +43: single ice blocks (underworld) +42: double ice blocks (underworld) +18: double brick (underworld) +1F: single brick (underworld) +99 & 9A: alternating cloud pattern +74 6F 70 75: four-piece mountain (pass-through) +- note: this resolves in ASCII as "topu", so if you want to mass-add these, just type "topu" without the quotes in the ASCII column of your hex editor +36: grass +10: tree (top) +11: tree (middle) +12: tree (bottom) +9B: spiky cone (right) +07: open door (top) (overworld) +08: open door (bottom) (overworld) +9C: spiky cone (left) +7D: snowy brick +87: icy spike +9D: spiky cone (down) +0C: icy platform (left) +0E: icy platform (middle) +0D: icy platform (right) +3E: big icy block constructor (left top) +2E: big icy block constructor (middle top) +3F: big icy block constructor (right top) +40: big icy block constructor (left) +28: big icy block constructor (inside) +41: big icy block constructor (right) +37: eye +38: cubed pillar +A7: some kind of key thing? +7E: worn brick (overworld) +78: scaly background (overworld, World 4 only) +91: brambles (left) +92: brambles (right) +83: thick spike (down) +60: woman statue (top) +61: woman statue (middle) +62: woman statue (bottom) +9E: another spiky thing (World 4 only) diff --git a/paranoidsbible/An Internet Primer.txt b/paranoidsbible/An Internet Primer.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19ebedc --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/An Internet Primer.txt @@ -0,0 +1,372 @@ +===An Internet Primer=== + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on August 24th | 2016 +Published on August 24th | 2016 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible and its guides are for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +While many still argue about how their own views on the history of the internet are the truth, we do know the core timeline consists of the “Electronic computer” being developed in the 1950s. From there the ARPANET was created and quickly adopted the Internet Protocol, which soon began a wildly discussed and argued about origin story of the internet sometime in the 80s. + +However, while many will even argue the core facts to the point of the internet being born either earlier or later in the timeline, we do know that Usenet wasn’t too far away. With the birth of Usenet, things like the BBS, Internet forum and terms like “Eternal September” quickly cropped up in a rapid session of growth and expanse. + +Now things like Blogging or Social Media are common, and people with rose tinted glasses grow remorseful of how inclusive the internet has become. + +Now, the early adopters and users aren’t too far off with their remorse, sadly… You see, many of the modern day users have grown complacent and wholly unaware of even the simplest uses of OPSEC. This guide aims at giving the average user a simple and quick primer to enhance their privacy and security when using the internet. + +This guide isn’t a quick-fix or one-button solution to your problems or concerns, however it’s better than nothing when paired with the other guides listed in the “Blue Primer”. + +__References__ +• Net History (http://www.nethistory.info/History of the Internet/origins.html) +• Internet Society (http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet) +• History of the Internet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet) +• ARPANET (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET) +• Internet protocol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol) +• Usenet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet) +• BBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) +• Internet Forum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum) +• Eternal September (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) +• OPSEC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security) +• Blog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog) +• Social Media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media) + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Browser=== +The gateway to the internet, for the modern and average user, is their browser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser). It’s a piece of software meant to help people transverse the World Wide Web by retrieving and presenting information resources taken from the internet. + +The modern browser is pre-built, requires hardly any tweaking, and is rarely, if ever, fully customizable. However, as more people aim for a free software or an open-source style of use, more browsers do offer some level of customization that range from modifying the settings under the hood to themes and other frivolous aesthetical customizations. + +With so many choices, people usually stick to Internet Explorer or Google chrome; however these browsers leave a lot of wanting when it comes to usability. Chrome also has a notorious past of spying on you (http://betanews.com/2015/06/24/is-google-chrome-spying-on-you/) without giving you a warning, which shouldn’t be such a surprise with all the claims of Chrome being a botnet (https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Botnet) and not asking permission (http://www.netcompetition.org/antitrust/google-on-chrome-we-dont-need-your-permission) for accessing a user’s computer. + +Ultimately, anything with Microsoft or Google is unavoidable, sadly, and a lot of work has to take place in order to avoid leaking information or having it sold. But that’s the way things flow as of late, especially when “Don’t Be Evil” is dropped in favor of “Do the Right Thing” (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/10/02/as-google-becomes-alphabet-dont-be-evil-vanishes/). + +So, what does that mean for the average user? + +Research your quickly dwindling choices for what browser you should use, which will reside between two browsers and one’s many, many flavors. + +If you want something other than Mozilla Firefox, then try Brave (https://brave.com/) (Not recommended due to its newness) or Palemoon (https://www.palemoon.org/) (Based upon a fork of Firefox) or IceCat (https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/). However, for the sake of usability and quick to use features, we recommended, begrudgingly, Mozilla Firefox (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/). + +When you visit Firefox’s webpage, select the appropriate version for your operating system. Once downloaded, double click and follow the on screen prompts. When it comes to selecting “Standard” or Custom” ensure you select custom. + +***Leave the default installation path, unless you wish to install elsewhere. *** + +***The reason for removing the installation service is quite simple: *** Less communication between the browser and other sources, the less information leaked. Now ensure you've also unchecked/disabled the "Maintenance service" before proceeding. + +Selecting shortcuts/icons is ultimately up to you. The same applies to it being the default browser—it’s up to you. + +Once installed, it’s time for some basic customization and add-on installation. + +The first thing you’ll notice is an “import wizard” pop-up. You don’t want to import anything unless you’ve some backups of your bookmarks. Other than that, ignore it and wait for the browser to load. From there, we’ll ignore the “Firefox account” prompt. You don’t want to sync or backup, anything, unless it’s an html or json file for your bookmark backups. Syncing accounts and saving passwords spells doom, gloom and big brother (sometimes literally your big brother or sister) spying on your info and peaking into your accounts and other online items (if not leaking it in a data dump). + +Seriously, ignore prompts to sync or save information. + +You’ll also want to ignore the private browsing mode. It’s not private, information is still saved, and people can still use exploits to get at your information. + +Press the ALT button on your keyboard to get the menu bar to appear. From there, select the tools menu and then the “Options” submenu. + +Press ALT button > Tools menu > Options sub-menu. + +When the options window pops up, you’ll want to start in the “General tab” + +Disable/uncheck “Always check if Firefox is your default browser” and set your homepage to whatever you want. Never let files save to downloads, you want to have it “Always ask” where to save them. On top of that disable all the "Tabs" options but "Open news windows in a new tab instead". + +We do suggest using “Start Page” (https://www.startpage.com/) for your homepage and search engine needs. + +Now click the "Search" tab and uncheck everything and delete all the "One-click Search Engines" options. From there, Go to the start page website, you should see an “Add to Firefox” option, select that. You should also, to prevent accidental use, remove all other search engines from the “Search” tab. Google, among several other engines, tend to cache and keep track of your search history and click stream (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickstream). On top of that, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and a few others, will store and keep your search history saved to your accounts if logged into them, at all, while searching. + +On the “Content tab,” uncheck/disable everything but "Block pop-up windows". Now select the “Advanced” button and click it. From there, disable the option titled "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selection above". This just prevents sites from using intrusive and generally distasteful fonts and also limits their control over your browsing experience and browser. + +Everything in the “Applications tab” should be set to always ask or preview in Firefox. The only thing you can safely set to a default application would be shockwave flash, which should be disabled by default in the plug-ins menu. + +The “Privacy tab” should be straightforward; however most will recommend that you disable “Third-party cookies" but since this primer is aimed at providing some security, privacy, yet retain usability for the average user… + +You should disable everything but: "Use Tracking Protection in Private Windows"; "Accept cookies from sites"; Clear history when Firefox closes. + +Set 3rd party cookie to never, if you wish, however some banking sites lose functionality due to this. You should also set "Keep until" to "I close Firefox". + +Now click the "settings..." tab on on the Privacy menu and select everything there. + +In the “Security tab,” it’s again straightforward; however please do understand that the whole “Blocking dangerous and deceptive content” options are disabled due to the fact that, again, the less communication given over to the browser and its creators the better you’re off security and privacy wise. + +Basically uncheck everything but "Warn me when sites try to install add-ons". + +***Ignore the sync tab. *** + +Everything in the “Advanced tab” is straight forward and should be self explanatory. + +Advanced > General > Disable/uncheck everything but the four settings under "Browsing. + +Advanced > Data Choices > Uncheck all + +Advanced > Network > Check all and set cache to 0 + +Advanced > Update > Uncheck all and set to "Never check for updates" + +Advanced > Certificates > Set to "Ask me every time" and check the one setting there. + +Once done, exit out of Firefox and start it up again. This is just to ensure everything sticks and is working due to some of the more current versions of Firefox have had a habit to ignore settings from time to time and resetting things to default. + +Now we’ll go to the Firefox Add-on page and work our way toward customizing Firefox a bit to improve usability and its overall feel. + +First off, we’ll work on the aesthetics aspect a bit just to improve the overall feel of the browser due to its copy-catting of the Apple simplicity meme. + +***You’ll want these add-ons:*** +• Black YouTube Theme - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/black-youtube-theme +• Classic Theme Restorer - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ +• Smaller View - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smaller-view/?src=search + +You should notice a considerable difference in your browser once restarted. More precisely, it’ll be easier to navigate and find your menus now. The YouTube theme is simply preference and feels easier on the eyes compared to the default theme of the site. + +Now, before we continue forward with the add-ons. Let’s do a bit of tweaking to the look of the browser. You should see icons on the upper right-hand corner. Right-click on the icons and select “Customize,” which should open up a new tab/window that’ll allow you to move the icons as you wish. + +Remove all the icons present, except the down arrow/download icon. From there, close the window and right-click on the bar, again, and select the three bars/toolbars shown. You can also ignore the “Menu Bar” option if you wish to just use the orange drop-down menu. + +In the URL bar, type in About:config. + +You should see something similar like the below cap. Uncheck the “Show this warning next time”. And then, from there, click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button. + +In the search bar within the about:config window, ***enter this:*** browser.newtabpage.directory.source + +You should see a string with the name you searched, double-click it and delete the string of text. + +Once done, exit out of that tab and open a new tab. Click the cog wheel icon in the right-hand corner and select “Show blank page”. You should now be rid of those pesky tiles and most of the ADs that Firefox forces down your throat. + +You can now add the rest of the add-ons, which you can find listed below. + +Add-ons: +• Better Privacy - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/ +• BluHell Firewall - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bluhell-firewall/ +• Configuration Mania - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/configuration-mania-4420/ +• Decentraleyes - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/ +• Disconnect - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disconnect/ +• HTTPS Everywhere - https://www.eff.org/Https-everywhere +• PureURL - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pure-url/ +• Quick Java - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjava/ +• Self-Destructing Cookies - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing-cookies/ +• Smart Refer - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer/ +• Track Me Not - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trackmenot/ + +Now restart the browser. + +You should get a pop-up from HTTPS Everywhere, hit “No” and then right-click anywhere and select “Customize”. + +You’ll want everything arrange to your own taste, note that there exists an icon with two cog wheels. This belongs to “Configuration mania” and should be added for ease of use and access. + +Now, click the orange menu button and click the add-on menu. + +We’ll be working our way down the list, alphabetically, and modifying a handful of settings for some of the add-ons before we end this chapter. + +Starting with “Better Privacy,” go ahead and hit “Options”. You’ll want to select the “Options & Help” tab and adjust your settings to look similar to the ones listed below: +• Delete flash cookies on exit - checked +• Add LSO item to Firefox ‘Clear History’ dialog – unchecked +• Always ask - unchecked +• Delete flash cookies on application start - checked +• Delete cookies by timer – checked +• Not if modified within time interval – checked +• Time interval 1 second +• LSO delete shortcut – blanked +• Also delete flashplayer default cookie – checked +• On cookie deletion also delete empty cookie folders – checked +• Notify if new LSO is stored – unchecked +• Auto protect LSO sub-folders – checked +• Disable ping tracking +• Prevent Firefox ‘Clear recent history function’ – checked +• Portable mode – unchecked + + Everything else can be ignored and you can go directly to “Configuration Mania” and select “Options”. +Browser tab > Tab Browsing > Everything checked but the below: +• Enable about:newtab – unchecked +• Close the window when closing its last tab – unchecked +• Open the results in a new tab when searching from search bar –unchecked +• On CTRL + TAB – unchecked +• On taskbar (windows 7) – unchecked + +Now head over to the “Bookmark icons (favicons)” tab. +Browser tab > Bookmark icons > Uncheck the two settings there. + +Finally go to the “Web API” tab in browser tab and deselect/uncheck everything there. + +From there, find the “Security” tab that should be right under the “Browser” tab and select the “Javascript” tab, everything there should be checked and all the other tabs left alone. + +Now, before we select “Smart Refer” please go to about:Config by entering “About:config” into the URL bar. From there, search for: network.http.sendRefererHeader + +You’ll want to either set it to 0 to not send a ref or to 1 to keep things somewhat clean and compatible. 2, however, is default and will always send a ref. So, ‘0’ if you don’t want to send a ref or ‘1’ to prevent most cross-site tracking and keep compatibility when visiting websites. + +Now go to “Smart Refer” and select “Options”. + +***Set the drop down to: *** Send nothing as a referrer, looking like a direct hit. + +Once done, go and mosey on over to “Track Me Not” and hit “Options”. + +Set your settings as such: +• Enabled – checked +• Use tab search – unchecked +• Enable query burst – checked +• All search engines checked +• Query frequency: 10 per min +• Disabled – checked +• Persistent – unchecked +• Use list – checked +• Generate queries – unchecked + +Once you’re in TMN’s options, you’ll want to use recommend RSS feeds for the add-on (hit validate once done): http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml|http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss|http://rss.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032091/device/rss/rss.xml|http://www.theregister.co.uk/headlines.rss|www.reddit.com/r/science/.rs|http://www.reddit.com/r/aww/.rss|http://www.reddit.com/r/kawaii.rss|http://www.reddit.com/r/kittens.rss|http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace.rss|http://www.reddit.com/r/steam.rss + +We also recommend these words for your black list: bomb,porn,pornographie, porn, pornography, rape, rapists, rape culture, bombs, pipebomb, ied, bdms, bdsm, raping, raped, murder, murdering, lolicon, loli, cp, child porn, pthc, jbhc, shota, shotacon, ISIS, ISIL + +Once done with the add-ons, head on over to about:Config once more. You’ll want to implement these three settings to ensure you limited some of the tracking methods employed by websites and online trackers commonly found on Tumblr and other social media platforms. + +===Settings to change:=== +• browser.display.use_document_fonts = 0 +• dom.storage.enabled = false +• browser.sessionhistory.max_entries = 2 + +Once done, you can add whatever add-ons you want, ***however remember this simple rule: *** If you don’t need or use it, don’t install it or enable it. + +That’s why we had you install Quick-Java. + +Quick Java’s little bar, which is added to Firefox upon installation, allows you to disable and enable certain plug-ins on the fly. This is a wondrous little time saver and is a good thing to have at hand when you wish to browse the internet. + +When browsing, without having to login or watch something, your settings with quick-java should look something like this: + Everything red/disabled but I (Images); A (Animations); CS (Style) + +When you do need to log into an account or want to watch YouTube or something similar, you’ll need it to look like this: +Everything red/disabled but JS (Javascript); C (Cookies); I (Images); CS (Style) + +Give or take the fact that you may need to enable flash (The “F” button). However, YouTube, and some other sites, are offering the use of HTML5 and Flash. So, if you don’t need to enable flash, don’t do so. Flash can leak a lot of data in the end. It also helps to outright not have anything enabled (sans the last three buttons) when you’re just doing research or looking up something. + +Only enable cookies and JavaScript (the “JS” and “C” buttons) when you actively need to log into an account or a website. + +This will help lessen the data diarrhea your browser has and help you retain some privacy without breaking your browser, yet many more configurations and add-ons are needed to even achieve some form of security or privacy. + +***And, just as an FYI: *** This shouldn’t break your browser, at all, or your use of any websites. If something doesn’t work properly, try disabling BluHell Firewall by clicking the blue-devil icon on your browser. If that doesn’t work, try disabling Clean links, which has an icon of a broom wrapped in a chain-link. Outside of those two add-ons, you don’t need to disable anything as nothing should break or prevent you from logging into any websites. + +Ultimately though, this configuration, and the add-ons suggested, only helps lessen the effectiveness of the trackers and counters offered to civilians and the public at large. Some Ads will be blocked, along with a metaphorical ton of malicious content, however you’ll need to look into using Peerblock and Hostman if you want to lessen it even more so than what you can with this browser setup. + +We offer two guides that discuss the use of Peerblock and Hostman, among other things. However, save those for a later date as they’re a bit more advanced than what this guide has to offer. We’ll also be hosting what we call the “Blue Primer,” which is an archive of the most basic of information for those who wish to lessen their data footprint, prevent tracking and lessen their chances of being doxed. +If you haven’t gotten this guide from the blue primer, please look into downloading it and reading the other guides within it. + +As for this chapter of this guide… you’re done! +Move on to the next chapter, reader. + +***P.S:*** Avoid using password storage, password sorters and similar features or add-ons. Write down your password, if you must, and hide it where no-one will find it but you. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===E-mail=== +Electronic mail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email), shortened to E-mail, is one of many means to exchange digital messages between computers and their users. However, since seeing frequent use in the 60s to now, e-mail has become used more as a means of identification than communication when needing to sign up for an account or do some sort of business based task, or being a responsible adult and working on your taxes or banking. + +Now, e-mail is just one of the many methods sites use to prevent bots, scammers and spammers from joining their communities. When you need to sign up for an account, you usually need to provide an e-mail from a provider that they’ve yet to blacklist (***Example:*** most common temporary e-mail services have been blocked by FaceBook). + +The average internet user will usually use of the main three: Google; Hotmail/Live/Outlook; Yahoo. +• https://www.gmail.com/ +• https://login.live.com/ +• https://login.yahoo.com/ + +Sometimes Yandex (https://mail.yandex.com/), among similar non-US based e-mail providers will be used, however the main three tend to rule. The issue with the main three (Shortened from now on to MT) is that they require a lot of data and “verifications” to ensure that it’s you who’re signing up or at least not someone with malicious intent. + +This wouldn’t be such a large issue if it wasn’t for the fact that the MT are notorious data collectors who work in unison with the government, among other groups, to not only data-mine and spy, but also possibly put down dissenters. If any of this comes to light as being true and not just some gossiping theories put forth by many privacy groups, then that just shows how much of your information is at stake. + +However, with the MT track records, it shouldn’t be that big of a stretch to see how or why they’d work with the government. But what does this mean for you, someone who needs an e-mail address and doesn’t want to risk their information or someone knowing they’re a part of “Sexy Jewish Singles” with the kink of “Eating pork on the Sabbath”? + +Well, the first step you should take, outside of doing the bare minimum to secure your browser, would be to look into using alternative e-mail providers when signing up for an account. There are numerous providers, however not all will exist or become permanent fixtures in the years to come, which means you have to pay attention to news and keep an eye on the services to use. + +As of now, Privacy Tools has a wonderful list of e-mail providers (https://www.privacytools.io/#email) you can use, and since most of us are frugal-minded to the point of being cheap, these four should hopefully sedate your lust for a free, secure e-mail provider. + +E-mail providers: +• Mail Fence - https://www.mailfence.com/ +• Open Mail Box - https://www.openmailbox.org/ +• Proton Mail - https://protonmail.com/ +• Tutanota - https://tutanota.com/ + +The four e-mail providers are free, yes, and support a variety of features aimed at protecting your privacy, however they aren’t like your usual e-mail provider. They often don’t ask for a secondary e-mail or a security question, nor do they offer any means to do so in case of someone taking over. + +Another issue, for many, is the fact that you can’t sync or linking accounts together—this is a good thing, though. Syncing, storing or linking accounts is something you shouldn’t do, at all. Your accounts should always be separated, never touching and kept as far apart from each other as possible. + +Now, personally, we recommend you use a mix of these e-mails each time you create an account or sign up for some service or another that isn’t tied to you offline(***Example:*** like banking, bills, school or work). You see, as much as we dislike the MT, you should honestly have one account on each specifically for stuff that’s offline. The reason for this is simple: You’ll generate enough of a trail to not be suspicious. + +For instance, Google, as much as it’s a heavily invasive mega-corp, does have a pretty decent setup for their GMAIL service. You should create an account there and have it used specifically for your banking, bills and similar items. + +Hotmail/Outlook/Live mail is way below GMAIL, however you should use this specifically for school and similar items to keep people away from your financial records, yet close enough to a normal provider that no one will question you if you simply state that they can send it to you over e-mail instead on some social media site. + +Yahoo, as much as it’s a disastrous service and corporation, won’t look out of place for business related subjects or questions. It’s simply a matter of coming up with a professional sounding username for the MT accounts and keeping them separated from each other. Never using the same MT account for different applications or accounts, and never letting them touch each other. + +With that out of the way, however, you should try to keep each account, regardless of the provider, isolated from each other—never using the same user, password, secondary e-mail, or information, ever. The only time you should ever use your legitimate information is for the MT accounts, which should only be used for work, school or financial items. + +***Remember:*** Never save your passwords on your computer and never use a password manager. Write down your password and the piece of paper with it somewhere safe and away from people trying to find it. Use a lockbox if you must, but never save this info on your computer. Also look into writing down each account’s information down and hiding that paper, too, so you never forgot it. + +***Remember 2:*** Use one of the free e-mail services to create a mess free secondary e-mail to use with the MT e-mails. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Passwords=== +Your password (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password) is the key to your account, without it you can’t login without going through an entire process of laziness meant to make it easier on the geeks who run the website you’re a part of or at least the “Help desk”. + +You see, that’s all a lost password request is: Laziness. + +It doesn’t mean you’re lazy, though, it just means you’re forgetful like everyone else. However, the people who run the site don’t want to deal with properly verifying your claim to your account, so they created these claims of simplicity where you submit a request to retrieve or change your password. + +That is where laziness comes in. + +Anyone who spent time researching you and applied a liberal dose of social engineering will be able to guess certain security questions and your e-mail addresses to the point of being able hijack your account(s). This is why it pays to keep e-mails separated, not to use the same username twice, and to have a strong password. + +Your password should be eight (8) to 15 (15) characters long and consist of randomly select characters that range from upper case letters (ABC) to lowercase letters (abc) to numbers (123), punctuation (.,;?!) and special characters ($%#). + +Your password will not only be hard to remember, but also hard to guess. This is why you should write it down on a piece of information and hide it in a lockbox or locked drawer where no one will get at it, ever. + +You should also avoid password managers, syncing your information, using “Master passwords,” reusing your password, or saving it on your computer or phone. Think of your password as a unique key and each account a unique door—you need a specific key for a specific door, ergo never use the same password twice. + +Always randomize your passwords, their length and the characters used to the point of each one never being overly similar. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Accounts=== +An account is like a membership you apply for when you join a community or a website. And like a membership, the difficulty to obtain an account ranges from something as easy as a username + password or to the near-impossible where you need to provide an arm length’s of information and an invite code. + +Regardless of what you’re signing up for, however, you need to learn to compartmentalize each account and profile into its own isolated object. You don’t need to interlink your information, account or anything like that. You don’t even need to sync it up to your e-mails or our phone. + +You don’t need 40+ accounts across the internet. + +You need what you need, and at that, you only need it if there’s a reason for it. + +So, in theory, what accounts do you truly need? + +===Steam or Origin?=== + +You don’t need them, however gaming is a decent way to unwind and do something mindlessly to try and clear your head of troublesome thoughts. Honestly, though, do you really need any of those accounts? + +Well, yes, if you don’t believe in piracy or simply wish to support the developers you prefer. But you don’t need it to live or survive. There are plenty of non-DRM options that range from freeware to physical media options that don’t need an internet connection in order to play it. + +===YouTube?=== + +You don’t need to one to watch videos or enjoy them. You only need an account if you, yourself, plan to comment, rate or upload videos. Do you really need to do that? There hundreds of ways to express yourself that don’t require you sitting in a chair, staring at your computer, and reviewing bottles of Fuji water from when it first was released. + +You’ll need accounts or simply want to make an account, for whatever reason, and participate in the community or reap the benefits of releasing your information for that slim chance of being “Internet famous”. + +No matter the reason, though, you need to treat your account and its associated profile as a contained fire during a camping trip. You want to give only as much information as is required, not what they offer you to give up. + +For instance: Your username shouldn’t be your real name or a nick name that you’ve been called before. It should be completely unique and unrelated to anything else you’ve made, claimed, were called or even thought about using. It should also be different from the e-mail address that you’re using for the account. +Ultimately, outside of paid accounts or billing information, not a single thing on your profile should lead back to you or be associated with you or anything related to you. You shouldn’t use the same password, e-mail address, username or anything that you’ve used on another account. And, at that, no account should be linked, synced or associated with each other in any way possible. + +These accounts and profiles, depending on their settings, should be made as private as possible and be as minimalistic as possible. You could, in theory, supply false information in your bio or “about me” to create a false digital trail just in case, however leaving no information is better than leaving some. + +And, truthfully, you should avoid having more than ten (10) accounts at any given time. When an account is no longer useful, you should just follow the Paranoid’s Bible PDF and how to properly dispose of an account and the information associated with it. + +Never leaving a trace behind and letting the account and its information pass peacefully away before deletion. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword==== +This is nothing more than the barest basics needed to keep some sort of privacy when using the internet and trying to avoid being doxed during some kind of discourse. This won’t make you 100% anonymous, nor will it make you undetectable when it comes to the government, yet it’s better than nothing. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0.txt b/paranoidsbible/Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cafd426 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,411 @@ +===Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0=== + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on December 11th | 2015 +Published on December 11th | 2015 +Edited on May 6th | 2017 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== + +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +A loose series of daily invasions of privacy and how to counteract some of them, consider this a cheat sheet on what can leak your information and increase your overall informational footprint that can in turn increase your digital footprint. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Day-to-day invasions of privacy=== +Every day our lives are being bombarded by CCTV and the interconnectivity of the growing mobile technology that the youngest of us must have, yet many of us are wholly unaware of the simple fact that these obvious invasions of privacy aren’t the most dangerous. + +No, you see the most dangerous ones are the ones we take for granted. + +**For example**: A DVD rental or a contest that you’ve entered. + +These simple and almost daily used items or rituals and tasks actually put our information into more danger than flashing an elderly woman in front of a CCTV camera located directly in front of the local police station. + +And that’s why this testament was mad--to simply show you just how much can actually invade your privacy and put your information into jeopardy. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Daily Invasions of Privacy=== + +**Accounts**: +Any website that offers registration can and will gather a large variety of information on you, which can include anything given or not given by you, like your name, age, gender, address…etc + +**Counteract: ** Besides reading over the TOS, rules and other similar guidelines, it helps to keep your profile as minimalistic and private as possible. There are also some configurations and add-ons you can use to help obscure your information and lessen data gathered. Remember OPSEC and compartmentalization. + +**Aircraft Registrations**: +The FAA requires that all aircraft owners file an affidavit of ownership and each aircraft must also pass an airworthiness certification. The FAA also allows users to search aircraft ownership records by name on their website. + +On top of this, most aircraft registration record contain the “N-Number” of the aircraft, besides the serial number, manufacturer’s name and model number, airworthiness, prior owners, other registered aircrafts as well as the name of the businesses that the individual owner of said aircraft owns besides their address and possibly more related information. + +**Counteract**: You can’t, but possibly creating a trust to have said aircraft reregistered under might work. You must consult with your local law professionals to figure if this is possible. + +**Amateur radio licenses**: +The FFC lists license information, which includes name and addresses, publicly for all to see and look up. Like most licenses, you won’t be able to use a P.O. Box. + +**Counteract**: Don’t do radio as a hobby. + +**Art**: +All artists have tells or quirks that quickly becomes akin to that of a fingerprint or signature. Many artists are unaware of this while most viewers can pick it up. + +**Counteract**: Work on the basics and build to your own style before thinking of going toward any real paying job, high-end jobs or commissions. Give a glance at our library (https://paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/library) for guides that may be beneficial to you. + +**Bankruptcy records**: +When an individual, businesses, or what have you files for bankruptcy in the Federal courts, a record is kept. These records are available at each state’s NAC. Depending in what state the bankruptcy was filed; there may be one or more locations where these records are house. It’s also possible to order these records through the mail or online in many states. + +When businesses or individuals file bankruptcy in Federal courts, a record is kept. These records are available at each states National Archive center. Depending in which state bankruptcy was filed; there may be one or more location where these records are housed. It is also possible to order these records through postal mail or Online in some states. + +These records do show the name of the individuals filing bankruptcy, the city, the state, the date of filing, a full list of creditors, total amount discharged, a final decree or Order of Dismissal. + +**Counteract**: We can’t, legally, divulge any information or advice as we’re unsure of the laws in each state and how you can go about keeping this from being made public, but one piece of advice we can give is… Don’t file bankruptcy if you can avoid it. + +**Boat Registration Records**: +Own a boat? Then your state of residence can disclose your personal information contained in the boat’s registration records. + +If you own a boat, your state of residence may disclose your personal information contained in boat registration records. Boat registration records can include a full name of the owner(s), an address of the registered owner(s), value of boat and a history of repairs. + +**Counteract**: Look in trusts, again. + +**Blogs**: +What else to say? + +Yours or someone else’s blog can ultimately divulge a lot of information about you and your private life—avoid making a blog, for obvious reasons. If someone else leaks your information, look toward legal action but only after seeking the owner of the site’s host/servers to see if they can remove the offending post and private information for you. + +**Counteract**: Don’t own a blog, buy a diary or journal. Remember OPSEC and compartmentalization. + +**BBS | Bulletins | Message Boards | Image boards | Usenets**: +These groups in which you either have a profile or are allowed to post anonymously can and most likely have recorded your IP, ISP, a garden variety of information from META-data like your OS and time zone. You also have the fact that some of these boards\bulletins are hosted by ISPs that collude with various government bodies and have everything flow through a government owned server that collects and catalogs all information possible. + +**Counteract**: Look toward not posting on these places and simply lurking. You can also, to an extent, reduce your data footprint by customizing and modifying your browser and browsing habits. + +**Browsers**: +IE, FF, Chrome and many others don’t necessarily send your information to the groups that work on and update said browsers, unless they send error reports, but they do hemorrhage information and META-data left and right. Besides some simple setting changes, there’s not much you can do beyond modifications and customizations. + +**Counteract**: Look for a guide toward modifying and customizing your browser of choice, like our Firefox Testament (or future IceCat guide). + +**Business license records | corporations | fictitious business filings**: +If you’ve ever read the paper, then you’ve obviously glanced at something called “Public filings”. In essence, this section of the paper is so that you and other readers can find the names of individuals or corporations that have filed for a FBN (Fictitious Business Name). + +Others names that this can be known as are “Assumed Name, “ “Doing Business as,” or “Trade Name”. These filings are basically used by the individuals to certify that they’ll be conducting business not as themselves or under their name, but as the name of their business. + +FBN\DBA records contain the name of the person that filed the business name, their address, owner name and address, the date, location and file number of said record. + +**Counteract**: None (?) + +**Consumer feedback sites | Review sites**: +Amazon, Ebay, Yelp… any business that allows you to interact while purchasing goods or services, or websites that offer you the chance to leave reviews and comments about services, goods, purchases or about places like eateries or supermarkets. + +Google, among other Search Engines, can crawl and catalog your reviews or comments, leaving caches in their stead even if you delete the comment. + +**Counteract**: Don’t interact. Buy and move on, but if you need to check reviews, lurk and don’t interact. Remember OPSEC and compartmentalization. + +**Coding\programming**: +Like an artist or a writer, anyone who works with software also has tells, which isn’t always restricted to just one language or project. + +**Counteract**: Besides learning several languages and picking through your own work, it does pay to have a third party to review several examples of your work to see if they can pick up a tell you can’t. Remember OPSEC and compartmentalization. + +**Cookies**: +Most, if not all, websites use a form of cookies that basically amount to a form of data that’s stored on your hard drive to collect and store information about you and your internet surfing habits or searches. Cookies allow advertisers to deliver personalized advertisements or gather as much information on you as possible. + +Cookies also remember everything from how many times you visit a website to what you’ve purchased or if you’ve used a search engine or typed in the URL itself. + +**Counteract**: +Several add-ons and configurations that you can make your browser to counteract this. + +**Credit Reports**: +Credit card companies contract consumer credit reporting agencies, among other sometimes not so legal means, to find and discover new potential clients. These companies usually ask for a list of potential clients with a minimum credit score. After receiving this list, credit companies will send out offers and notices of being pre-approved for a credit card. + +**Counteract**: Look toward the master opt-out list. There are several opt-outs to remove direct marketing mail. + +**Criminal Records**: +Law enforcement agencies maintain a database that keeps track of criminal records, which also include traffic infractions. This database is usually used to help locate possible suspects in criminal investigations, besides maintaining records of people who’ve broken the law. Personal information is contained within these records, and also include such items as a finger print, aliases, tattoos and\or scars and other identifiable markings, and even various other pieces of information like known hangouts. + +Some states and federal agencies also mandate that a DNA profile must be kept on file, too, of certain criminals. + +All of the data contained in these criminal records is available to the general public. Though some agencies may only provide the name and date of birth with the listing of criminal offenses for an individual, some agencies also provide addresses. + +There are means of expunging criminal records, especially if you’re proven innocent, but as we’re not technically involved in the legal sector… so, we can’t truthfully provide any information on how to go about this. You can, though, contact a lawyer or an attorney and seek legal advice that way on the removal of your records. + +**Counteract**: None, save legal action + +**DMV and Voter Records**: +The DMV requires a physical address to be on file, while some also give you the option to have a 2nd option to mail your correspondence. + +Whenever possible, when it comes to DMV renewals, voter registration, and assessor tax bills…ETC, you can make a central address (depending on state and law) for yourself that is nothing more than a P.O. BOX. + +**Counteract**: Some states, though, offer an “OPT-OUT” option to have your information kept within the government, only, and never sold or given out. + +**Drivers Records**: +Before becoming a licensed driver, you must obviously take a driver’s test. You usually need to pass a written test and a practical driver’s examination. After a successful completion, you’re issued your license with a unique number that identifies you. Many, who don’t drive, though, will most likely receive a state issued ID card that mostly resembles a driver’s license and also uses a unique number to identify you. + +Both the driver’s license and ID cards are issued and regulated by the DMV for each state. Though laws may vary, the type of records maintained and collected are always the same. Also, in addition your driving record, a lot of your personal information is also contained within each state’s database. + +This information usually includes your full name, SSN#, birthdate and legal presence, current address and phone numbers as well as information about your medications, vision and\or possible medical conditions including mental status or ailments. + +It’s important to note that all of this information collected by the DMV in the US becomes public record. Members of the public, besides many data brokers, may make a copy and examine these records. However, inspection and copying of said records may be limited to the “Use Policy” of your state. + +**Counteract**: Don’t be born, ever, in our time. Joking aside, look over your application for your IDs. Some states allow you to ‘opt-out’ of appearing in certain databases. You also should never put yourself down as someone who’s willing to donate organs or tissues in case of an emergency or death. + +**Fax**: +If you have a fax machine or a business that has one then you’re probably aware of the fact that you’ll get advertisements or pranks sent through said fax machine. The +number belonging to your fax machine can range from name and address to several other items like a registration or patent number depending on what you do, what you use your machine for, and how much you use it. + +**Counteract**: Either ditch the fax or look into the master opt-out list. + +**Fishing License**: +Simply put a license that most states don’t require any test or course to be passed before being issued. Usually a fisherman must provide name, address and a phone number, and also a small fee to obtain. + +These licenses, too, are available for review and list the name, add and phone number of the person who obtained it. + +**Counteract**: don’t get one and never fish. + +**Free or discounted health offers**: +We’ve all seen them, these offers of a free blood screen or blood pressure test, but what many of us fail to realize that even though they’re discounted or free… our information is the cost. You probably have seen CVS or Walgreens offer similar services and usually you get asked to fill a small survey or form, which in turn asks a plethora of things like allergen info or medical history concerning this or that. + +That is where they gather your information from and then use it to opt you into several databases that’ll proceed to bombard you with + +**Counteract**: Go to your doctor instead of some third party. + +**Hunting Licenses**: +Much like a professional license, many states require hunters undergo a safety course and pass tests in order to hunt wild game legally. Hunter must also renew their licenses on an annual basis. + +Records include the name of the hunter, address, and date of application and in some instances a phone number. + +**Counteract**: don’t get one and don’t hunt. + +** (The) Internet**: +Proliferation of the Internet brought to us free services, items, and samples. These aren’t truly free as they usually cost anywhere from your e-mail address to your name, address, phone and\or other identifiable information. + +Your more paranoid and somewhat tech savvy individual will use a disposable e-mail address, a burner cell-phone and a nickname or some other moniker. It’s good practice to start doing the same thing and possibly also using a P.O. Box. + +One other thing to realize is that many people are too ignorant of such things and will also provide their cell-number without a single doubt. This is bad as it causes a bit of a social contagion that reinforces this practice into others, thus causing people to doubt those who aren’t so readily transparent. This means that if you try to convey your unwillingness to provide information or simply state the possible issues behind providing it so freely, you’ll have most likely stirred some suspicions. + +Simply remind people that you don’t want your information collected by marketers or identity thieves. + +**Counteract**: Be aware of what you’re giving away when looking toward freebies or making an account. Always use disposable e-mails for freebies and look toward a burner phone and a P.O. Box when you need to give your address out to any sites. Remember OPSEC and compartmentalization. + +**Internet Service Provider (ISP) **: +Your ISP has not only your click-stream but also your IP. They can sell a sanitized version of not only your click-stream but also your IP’s history. Ranging from sites you’ve visited to downloads and even if you connected to any specific ports or chat programs. + +Not all ISPs keep track of this information or are willing to give it away or even sell it. Some will outright ignore it and not bother keeping track besides what legally is required of them. + +**Counteract**: Don’t do illegal activity online, or be smart enough to try and cover your tracks or do your research and see what ISP in your area is the best choice for you and your planned activities. A reminder, though, that most IP addresses are now dynamic instead of static, ergo you won’t have to worry much about being tracking through an IP address alone. However, remember that you still can be tracked and that an IP address offers minor data, at best, that includes the location of the ISP’s hardware. + +**Judgments**: +Judgments are the final decision of any court at the conclusion of a lawsuit. The result of the judgment can include terms for financial compensation for the plaintiffs or sentencing of an individual deemed guilty in a criminal case. + +Records can contain names of both parties involved, judgment amount, and the nature of the conviction if it was a court case, case number, name of the convicted and date of conviction. + +**Counteract**: Don’t break the law, and look into getting legal counseling. + +**Mobile Phones/Smart Phones**: +A modern marvel that’s more akin to a tracking device than an actual phone due to the smorgasbord of features (both hidden and open to the user). Texting, chatting, taking pictures and phones call all in one device may seem like the smart thing to do to help streamline and further lessen the stresses of life, however through software prebuilt into the phone, many companies and service providers can track, listen-in and monitor what you say and do. The same applies to applications and 3rd party peripherals that can be installed on the phone, too. + +**Counteract**: Look into jail breaking and modifying you phone, at the very least, or look into purchasing a simple burner phone without all the bells and whistles. If you do get a burner cell, look into changing it twice a year and only using it for calls and nothing else. When it isn’t in use, you should look into disabling it by removing the sim card and battery. It’s also good practice to put tape over the speakers, microphones and camera when not in use either. Outside of that, be careful what you install on your phone and what peripherals you use. Always double-check everything! + +**No Child Left Behind**: +When the ‘No Child Left behind’ act was created there was a (rarely discussed) provision inserted—school district superintendents across the US must hand over records for all high school students. These records contain anything from full names to addresses to medical records and even things like after school activities or even fields of study they excel in. + +The information within these files are not only highly valuable, but can also be used to mark children as potential threats to the nation. + +**Counteract**: Check the Leave My Child Alone website (https://themmob.org/lmca/) and the Underground Action Alliance’s website for more information. Some information provided by these websites is somewhat sketchy, at best, but it does provide you some insight and possible actions that you can take. + +**Online communities**: +Any group comprised of people who communicate and interact over the Internet rather than reality. There are multitudes of ways to interact online. Some of the most common are social networks like Facebook. + +Accounts for most any community usually display, besides a username, various other pieces of information from signup to various other optional fields you may fill in if it so pleases you. + +**Counteract**: Read the TOS carefully, and go over what privacy settings are granted to you. Obviously don’t sign up for Facebook or other social networking accounts. + +**Opt-in databases**: +When you register for any product or file its warranty, or even get a subscription, you usually are opted into some database or agree for the company to sell your information. Nothing is life is free, and free registrations or warranties rely on the profit brought in from the sale of your information. + +Most if not all companies and groups put in a clause or contract within their privacy policy or TOS, in general, that gives them permission to sell, share or use your data in collaboration with other companies once you submit online or offline. + +These forms can include addresses, names, phone numbers, misc personal information, or even credit or tax information. + +**Counteract**: Obviously read everything very carefully before agreeing to anything. You can also write, within the free space of a card or form, or even in the “Comments” section, that you don’t give them permission to sell your information. + +**Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks**: +Kazaa, Icewire, Limewire and similar programs are very popular for downloading games, movies and music. These programs rely and focus on connections between computers on the network rather than servers. + +These programs, very similar to torrents, rely on users, who’re downloading, to let other users to download parts of a file or files thus forcing the user to upload as they download. + +This is especially troublesome as some ignorant users can end up being charged with varying degrees of lawsuits for piracy, espionage, among other things. + +**Counteract**: Avoid P2P and torrents, only direct download. + +**Phone Company and listings**: +You most likely have a landline phone, if not, a cell phone that you “rent” to an extent from your provider. Your provider obviously offers you a plethora of options ranging from an unlisted number to various items like basic caller ID to blocking numbers of your choosing. + +Even though you may pay for an unlisted number, it’s still possible for individuals and companies to get the information associated with your numbers. + +Counteract: If possible, always have your number unlisted. Be wary of who you give your phone number to and who your provide it to. Using a burner cell for subscriptions, freebies, warranties and strangers is a good route and practice to take up. + +**Professional License Records**: +Each state maintains a record of individuals and companies that are licensed to perform certain tasks or duties. Usually individuals must complete some form of training or education and pass a state exam before becoming certified. The best example would be medical doctors. In addition to completing medical school, each doctor must pass state certified board examinations before he/she can be licensed and practice medicine in that particular state. It is possible for people to be certified professionals in more than one state. + +If you are a licensed professional, your personal information is publicly available. Many states are even making this information available Online and free of charge. + +Professional license information will vary by state and may contain, first and last name, type of license and license number, zip or address of residence or practice, license status and record of infractions, date of issue and school attended. + +**Counteract**: None (?) + +**Property/assessors records**: +Anyone with an Internet connection and simple knowledge of using Google can figure out the exact value and worth of your house, when it was last sold, what it sold for and the date of purchase. But every county within the US has an office of the County Assessor which maintains the records of all properties and land in that county. + +The CA keeps track and assesses the property values as a means to provide that information to the county treasurer. In turn, the treasurer uses this information for property tax billing purposes. + +Information readily available in the CA’s records contain name and address of the property owner, names of previous owners, dates of the property when sold, how much property tax was assessed, and what parcel is was or currently is used as. + +**Counteract**: Nothing as of yet besides using a trust. + +**Raffles and Sweepstakes**: +A lot of sweepstakes, contests and raffles offer the chance to change your life or give you something for nothing based upon the slim chances that you’ll win, but, ultimately, they’re nothing more than centralized data mining operations. Instead of fishing for information or trying to confuse the target into giving away their information, these chances to win prizes simply state: Fill out and win! + +Name, address, birth date, phone number… the information varies and hardly, if ever, truly limited. This can be sold and given away to anyone, truly, depending on who runs the contest. + +**Counteract**: Don’t fall for these scams, avoid them. + +**Rating and review sites**: +Digg, Reddit and sites like Rateitall depend on their community to provide content and discussion. Joining these sites may seem like a good idea, but to those who’re aware of your accounts, or if you’re loose with your information, can use your activity to build up a dossier of sorts. + +**Counteract**: Avoid these sites. Don’t join any similar sites. + +**Registration Cards and forms: ** +Many products come with registration cards beside warranties. These cards allow you activate or simply state you bought the product. But many of these forms try to entice you to fill them out through claims or rebates or sweepstakes or even a credit off your next purchase. + +Every one of these registries ultimately does very little for the consumer. They ultimately just catalogue your information and help build a profile or dossier on you, as a consumer, which is then sold and given to various third parties. + +**Counteract**: Unless needed to activate your warranty, double check the fine print and see if you can avoid filing the card or form. If you can’t avoid it, look toward applying, somewhere in a blank space, the statement of ‘I don’t give permission to sell or use my information’. + +**Rewards Cards**: +Reward cards seem like a good idea to the thrifty and frugal shopper—gain points or cash backs on certain items, save some percentage on your purchases or even get put into several sweepstakes for simply buying a candy bar--the issue is that your information is not only gathered but a profile is made based around your shopping habits and what purchases you’ve made. + +This means your e-mail can be flooded with advertisements, your phone number or cell number can be sold or given to various groups and organizations, and you can even end up with physical mail offering you things or demanding your attention. + +**Counteract**: Always add one or two items, at random, to your purchases. A magazine or two, some vitamins or supplements, some sort of baby or item for a child… anything, really. You can always simply drop off the extra at a donation box or shelter. You also can create an e-mail address specifically for your rewards cards and use a P.O. Box, if possible, to help obscure your information. + +**Search Engines**: +Google, Yahoo, Bind and other search engines use bots and various other means to categorize and record as much as technologically and humanely possible of all content within the Internet. + +Most search engines are, in all simplicity, a company that keeps mostly non-identifiable records of keywords and similar items used by their users. There’s a huge industry built up around companies to analyze keywords to use for products and informational searches. + +**Counteract**: There are some add-ons and configurations that can be done to several commonly used browsers to help obscure your search history and information provided to search engines. + +**Search Engine + email account**: +A large amount of search engines now provide e-mail account services. If you’re signed in while you’re using the same companies search engine, you’re willingly, to them, providing information not only from your searches but also information within your e-mail, too, thus giving them a connection between both the searches and your account. + +They’ll also most likely have your click-stream information from when you were signed in. + +**Counteract**: Never sign into your e-mail while using a search engine. Once you sign in, you must sign out, delete and clean your browser’s cache and restart your browser. The same applies to signing into sites like Amazon or EBay while using a search engine. + + + +**Sex Offender listings**: +All US states require that individuals convicted of sex or sex related crimes against victims that are classed as a minor or a sexually violent offense register with their state of residence. + +Though the sex offender registration laws and statues vary throughout the US, it isn’t uncommon for the registered offenders to keep the state appraised of their current address, to notify the neighborhood of their status, not to reside within a mandate distance of schools and to also be subject to random inspections of their residence by law enforcement. + +Most states now provide an online database with public access to a listing of sex offenders. Sex offender information available on these sites includes photos of the offenders, list of tattoos, scars, address where the offender resides and the crime or crimes that they were convicted for committing. + +In addition to many of the databases, large quantities of companies have cropped up that also provide databases on sexual offenders. These companies will let you search usually by zip or address or even a simple click and search map. + +**Counteract**: Don’t break the law. + +**Social Networking**: +MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin or even Tumblr are just a sampling of social networking sites. These sites ask you to provide anything from personally identifiable information like a name or place of education that you visited to owned websites or even a phone address. + +**Counteract**: Stay away from Social Networks. + +**Tax Liens**: +If a business or individual owes back taxes to the IRS a lien might be placed upon property or assets owned by the business or individuals to secure payments of the debt. + +These liens might be imposed for taxes owned on real property, personal property or even as a result of not paying income tax. + +Tax lien information records include name of the tax payer or business, information on property owned by the taxpayer or business, overdue tax balance, address, telephone numbers and income of the taxpayer. + +**Counteract**: Pay your taxes. + +**Vehicle Registration**: +Any vehicle at any given time, be it driven, parked, moved, left on the side of a road or place into a parking facility must be not only registered but also up to date in your state of residence other legalities you must ensure are taken. + +Any vehicle you own and register will have your personal information attached to it and the registration. This information is gathered and used as a means to identify and maintain ownership records. If you fail to provide personal and identifiable information, require by your state, you most likely will not be able to register your vehicle and be the target of heavy surveillance to make sure you’re not using said vehicle. + +Similar to a driver’s records, all information is collected by the DMV in each state and becomes public record. The public can and will make copies, examine these records and sometimes even gather information to sell to third parties. Sometimes these records can be used, like any records, to asses and estimate your income and overall value during lawsuits or paternity claims. + +**Counteract**: Some newer forms offer you to “Opt-out” of having your information sold or displayed. But, usually, you can, depending on laws within your state, hide behind a trust or obscure some information due to business or not having a permanent place of residency. Please consult your local laws and seek legal counsel before acting upon anything that needs to be registered (like a vehicle…etc). + +**Voter records**: +It’s your right as a citizen of the U.S.A. to vote and take part in the political process but that information, that you supplied on your ballot, becomes public record. +This means your name, address, among several other pieces of information, end up becoming readily available to the public and the Internet. + +Anyone can simply call or mail the Board of Elections for the county you registered in to obtain your information. + +Several companies, too, purchase and organize this information to sell to politicians, political parties, watchdog groups and several other organizations or individuals. Some will use it as a means to supplement their online people search engines or to help various “Private Investigation” agencies to create a profile or dossier on someone. + +To be specific, the information usually includes voting history, income level, addresses, age, gender, election district and state of residence--all of which is public knowledge and easily discovered online. + +**Counteract**: Don’t vote, which risks you losing your voice. + +**Voting Lists**: +When election time rolls around you’ll usually end up with knocks at your door, your phone ringing off the hook, and several adverts on your door or in your mailbox. +These candidates though aren’t after your vote, personally, they’re renting or purchasing the services of several groups and businesses that have gathered your information from public records or several other sources. + +**Counteract**: Look toward the master opt-out list. The more opt-outs you do, the higher your chance that you’ll remove yourself from one or more sources that sell your information. + +**Warranties**: +Warranties are those little contracts and guarantees supplied with most anything in this day and age that promises you that your recently purchased item will last or be up to a specific quality standard, and if it isn’t it’ll be replaced ASAP once you provide them with various information like a proof of purchase or identifiable information like your name, address, phone number and several other items. + +Some warranties won’t work or be considered active unless you register your product within a certain period of purchasing it. + +Most warranties, albeit listed as free, actually end up selling your information which is then circulated online or to various third parties. + +**Counteract**: Read each warranty carefully. See what the fine print and TOS say, as sometimes you can simply get away with a “Don’t sell my information, I don’t give permission to use it” on the card itself. + +**Wikis**: +Wikis are largely a collaborative form of an online community gathering and organizing information on a large variety of topics. The most famous Wiki is Wikipedia. Most +Wikis show the IP and username of the editor, when the edits were made and sometimes even pieces of meta-data are shown like OS, if JavaScript was enabled or what the browser used was. Though, like most websites, all Wikis, if not created VIA means of a third party services, can see not only your IP but a plethora of data and meta-data. + +**Counteract**: Lurk and read, never create an account and participate. + +**Websites**: +A Website is a website. + +Websites can see a visitor’s IP, ISP, read cookies (sometimes), gather meta-data like your browser’s footprint, some other information like what fonts are on your computer, what add-ons or plug-ins are used or even gather other information from cookies placed by other websites. + +**Counteract**: Several add-ons and configurations can be done to your browser of choice to lessen your footprint and data given or gathered. + +**Writing\typing**: +Whether you’re a writer or a casual typist, or even just texting, we all have tells that acts like our signature when writing something out. + +**Counteract**: Write everything in a word processor and double check spelling and grammar. + +The above is only but a sampling of the ways our privacy is invaded in our day-to-day lives. There are several means of covering our tracks, displacing certain tells, and even obscuring the profiles or dossiers being built on us, but they’re just bandages instead of a cure for this sickness. + +The age of anonymity is dying and it’s dying fast. + +Some things you can do, though, range from making a trust or a LCC or even corporation. You can also work to disappear from public records to simply ending certain habits or trends. Ultimately, though it’s a fact of our day and age that we must accept—we’re being monitored. + +__References__: +https://www.privacyalerts.org/index.php +https://www.optout.com/ebook/default.aspx +https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword== + +In the end, you can never fully prevent your information from hemorrhaging. There’s no such thing as being 100% anonymous. This is why you must take the proper precautions and work toward privacy that fits your lifestyle. + +Also, pay your taxes. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship.txt b/paranoidsbible/Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c219f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship.txt @@ -0,0 +1,187 @@ +===Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship=== + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on July 16th | 2017 +Published on July 16th | 2017 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +====Preface==== +The main purpose of this guide is to provide you, the reader, arguments as to why you should leave social media and networks, especially Facebook. The second purpose is to educate you about the dangers that social media and networks present as a whole, which ranges from governments and corporations modifying, twisting and overall polluting information. In order for us to do this, however, we’ll be borrowing heavily from Richard Stallman, Salim Virani and Vicki Boykis, who’ve already went above and beyond when doing their research and investigating these issues. While they may have mainly focuses upon Facebook, the truth is that what they have to say applies heavily to Web 2.0 and beyond with how the end user interacts with any services they sign up for, especially any that demand your information in order to create an account. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Claim=== +Many people who try to research the malpractices of Facebook or other social networks are usually met with blogs, sketchy sites and MSM articles on the matter, most of which usually gloss over important details or dummy everything down to the point where it seems like it’d be okay to use social networks. However, if you’re lucky or did your search query correctly, you should come across two to three links, which we listed below. + +https://stallman.org/facebook.html +https://stallman.org/facebook-presence.html +http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/ + +These links standout because they belong to two individuals who actually know what they’re talking about, both of whom know more than most when it comes to privacy. Richard Stallman and Salim Virani have written some thorough articles on the matter concerning privacy and social networking, which is which why we’re dedicating this chapter to their claim: Facebook is unsafe and violates your privacy. + +Following Stallman’s article, we see (some of) the reasons to not use Facebook as such: +* Facebook requires your real name or a known alias to go by + +* They try to trip up their user’s into giving away info - http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebook-snitch-on-friends-that-arent-using-real-names/ + +* After the cross dresser incident, FB has changed their policy but not really - https://www.engadget.com/2015/06/25/women-lgbt-safety-facebook-policy/ + +* Blackmail is rampant on FB - http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001133.html + +* Your profile will always end up in the public’s eye - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/29/facebook-privacy-secret-profile-exposed + +* FB has secret software that allows governments to censor - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/facebook-secret-software-censor-user-posts-china + +* The infamous square boob incident - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/facebook-bans-breast-cancer-video-square-breasts + +* FB is one of your larger purchasers of personal information - https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them + +* FB’s app spies on SMS messages - https://archive.is/f3uKM + +* FB tricks you into allowing other websites to make accounts in your name - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/facebook-info-sharing-created-zoosk-com-dating-profile-for-married-woman-1.2844953 + +* FB loves to diagnose people - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/01/facebook-target-mental-health-data-online +It makes you addicted to their service - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-secret-ways-social-media-is-built-for-addiction + +The above is just a sampling of what Stallman has dug up and found. The links and resources he has provided also go into greater detail on this disturbing trend of websites using their users. We encourage you to visit his links and read up on these issues, especially now that we’re going to discuss Virani’s claims. + +Virani’s claims, while quite similar to Stallman’s, came after he was concerned about his friends and family. Reading through this article you can see that Virani was not only a supporter of Facebook but also, to an extent, an advocate. You can see he brings up some points that Stallman doesn’t, however both articles are a good resource. + +Virani’s claims are thus: +* FB sells your likes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/facebook-is-recycling-your-likes-to-promote-stories-youve-never-seen-to-all-your-friends/ + +* FB loves to sneak things through - http://www.zdnet.com/article/is-facebook-damaging-your-reputation-with-sneaky-political-posts/ + +* They know what you’re reading - http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-on-facebook-is-easier-than-you-think + +* Because of this, insurance companies love to mine your data - http://www.insure.com/car-insurance/social-media-future.html + +* Facebook delivers your info to the NSA - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data + +So, looking at a sampling of the two articles above, we already see that Facebook, as an example, represents the potential harm all social media networks can do to its users. While FB is more popular than most, we must assume that if it happens there it’ll happen elsewhere, ergo social media networks pose a harm to our privacy and security as individuals and potentially even activism. This means that it also has the potential to be used as a weapon to enforce societal contagions—memes—as a way to groom users and steer them toward Government or corporate approved behavior and trends. + +Moving onto the next chapter, we’ll present the information people have discovered that supports, at the very least, how Facebook (and possibly other social media sites) is a danger to its users. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Evidence=== +Using the information found at https://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/ and https://labs.rs/en/ , we can further see that, in the end, FB has no real qualm about violating your rights and privacy. Looking at the article written by Vicki Boykis we can see what information is collected by FB, and in Vicki’s own words… + +“TL;DR: Facebook collects data about you in hundreds of ways, across numerous channels. It’s very hard to opt out, but by reading about what they collect, you can understand the risks of the platform and choose to be more restrictive with your Facebook usage.” + +Actually reading the article, we can see that any user entered data is collected and placed into their (FB’s) database through hundreds of various means, which show cases how FB works with big data. Hive, Hadoop, Hbase, Bigpipe, MySQL, Memcacher, Thrift and much more are used in various ways, all working to keep the house of cards that is Facebook propped up and running while housed in massive data centers located around the world, like the one in Prineville, Oregon. Caching, collecting and archiving your information and data, possibly passing it through a backroom server owned by the government or at the very least one of its agencies. + +It doesn’t stop there, either. Facebook is known for collecting your keystrokes and tracking your mouse’s movements, even using some of this data to conduct studies. This means everything is now potentially saved, even if you wanted it deleted. They keep track of things you edit and delete, the meta data and other items besides what you leave up and/or post. Again, this shows just a tiny bit of FB collects on you, especially how they can use this to possibly predict things you want to say or do, thus we end up in the realm of pre-activities. Pre-crime and similar notions from movies suddenly rear their ugly heads, showing you that possibly in the near future you could end up on a list just for something you didn’t say. + +They use all of this to make extrapolations about whom and what you are, what you do and how much time you spend on their site doing anything, regardless of what it is you’re doing. You’ll never not exist on Facebook if you made an account simply because they’ve traces of you everywhere, constantly being catalogued, cached and backed up somewhere for others to find. This is why FB and social media is dangerous in general—one database leak and some information you thought gone could resurface. + +Don’t believe us? Go and look here: https://www.facebook.com/help/302796099745838 + +Download your personal subset and see just what Facebook has on you, especially how they generated Ads they believe you’d be interested in. Pair this with what information you give them and combine it. See how disturbing it is with the general information you gave them to fill out your profile? See what they can deduce with such tiny bits of information? You’re marked by this beast now and if FB or any social network really wanted to, they can sell this information whenever they wanted to other companies. + +Not only does its employees have access to your private information (https://www.quora.com/Do-Mark-Zuckerberg-or-Facebook-employees-have-a-skeleton-key-granting-them-access-to-every-members-Facebook-profile-page-and-information) but you’re also a guinea pig to them, no better than a rodent to poke and prod for their own experiments. They don’t care about you, you’re just a human cattle to them for them to do with as they please. Again, don’t believe us? Checkout their research webpage (https://research.fb.com/). + +Noticed it? + + “At Facebook, research permeates everything we do.” + +* They monitor your emotions - https://research.fb.com/support-when-you-re-feeling-blue/ + +* They manipulate your emotions - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds + +* They want you to strap on the digital feed sack and never leave - http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/news-feed-fyi-taking-into-account-time-spent-on-stories/ + +You end up in a bubble, isolated from all other conflicting sources and opinions. You end up becoming trapped and only fed the things you like, which means you don’t get a healthy diet of information. They fatten you up on narratives they decide are good for you besides you clicking like or dislike. This means they can control the flow of information, making you a useful idiot for whatever side they support. They don’t want you free and thinking critically, they want you to do as they say. + +Now, before we spend too much time on the above article, we urge you to give it a read and look it over. Like the other articles we’ve mentioned, it goes into great detail about how much FB invades your personal life and wants to actively expose and track people wherever they are, especially if they can make a buck off that information. + +Moving onto the information from Labs.rs (https://labs.rs/en/category/facebook-research/), you’ll find their trilogy of articles. The first one you’ll find the most informative, especially the maps they’ve made. As you read their articles and look at the maps they’ve created, you soon realize just how far of a rabbit hole we’re digging into. The end result being: YOU’RE FACEBOOK’S PRODUCT + +While Facebook can claim they don’t sell your information, you can find numerous articles on the matter that they do, especially to advertisers. + +* FB sells your web browsing data - https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-your-web-browsing-data-to-advertisers/ + +* The price of free - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2986988/privacy/the-price-of-free-how-apple-facebook-microsoft-and-google-sell-you-to-advertisers.html + +Privacy has been privatized - http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-information-nsa-iphone-android-data-personal-2016-2 + +This means that using FB or any social network is a move against your overall level of privacy and security. Add the fact that there’s no guarantee that Facebook or any social network isn’t manipulating your feed continuously, you soon can see what the potential scenarios that can happen. What is preventing someone from using social media to spread enough gloomy news and information to cause a massive wave of suicides? With people claiming teenage suicides are contagious (http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-colorado-springs-511365.html) and social media being a possible contributors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide) all it’d take is for the wrong person in control of the right website and then we begin to see why there needs to be more laws in favor of our privacy and security when it comes to these websites. + +___References:___ +https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Realization==== +Social Media was believed to be, like the radio, a means to end miscommunication and bring about an era of information sharing the likes of which we’ve never seen before. However the sad truth is that it has become yet another tool for those in power to use against an unsuspecting populace. The US government being one of the bigger exploiters, especially the NSA, has worked with such infamous individuals like Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and their websites in order to aggregate information on as many users as possible. + +It’s nothing more than domestic and foreign spying and one of the many reason why you, as an internet user, should abandon all forms of social networking (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter…ETC). This is because they're no more than breeding grounds for the cancerous tumors of surveillance and so-called legal operations meant to sniff out supposed terrorists that usually end up being some bullied kid in high school venting about jocks and cheerleaders. + +The Obama administration even acknowledges this much and admitted to wanting backdoors, but if that doesn’t bother you maybe the fact that many abusive individuals use apps and malware to track down their targets or partners will make you think twice about using Facebook and other social networking sites with such naivety. + +Social networks have become a vice, whether this was intentional or not is irrelevant, as it has shown to be as addictive as any drug. It also has even led to an increasingly common trend: FoMo; Literally the fear of missing out. These websites and their communities will continue to be a vice for our species until we can learn to properly use such social networks with moderation and with responsibility. + +___References:___ +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out +http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-nsa-is-using-facebook-to-hack-into-your-computer-20140312 +http://www.globalresearch.ca/domestic-spying-and-social-media-google-facebook-back-doors-for-government-wiretaps/5334449 +http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/25/spyware-smartphone-abusive-men-track-partners-domestic-violence +http://www.casacolumbia.org/newsroom/press-releases/2011-national-teen-survey-finds +https://theintercept.com/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/ +https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/14/gchq-tools-manipulate-online-information-leak + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Conclusion=== +The real truth as to why you need to give up social media is because, if you truly want to fight the establishment or punch up, you need to disappear in order to be seen or heard. With all this information online being archived and housed in data centers where everything’s checked, marked and catalogued the only real way to get anything done is to scrub your digital footprint off of the internet and start looking into information security. + +While you can find most everything you need to do this over at the PB’s library (https://paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/library), you still won’t get far if you don’t cut ties with social media. If you want to be an activist or a spokesperson for some cause and/or oppressed people, it won’t work if all the establishment or your opponents have to do is a quick search query on any number of engines and bring up the fact that you said something that currently isn’t up to par with what society deems good or bad. Look toward China and their cyberpunk-ish dystopian point system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System) they want to put into place where everyone’s rated by social points that anyone can add or take away. This could be the future of the world, one day, if no one starts acting and working toward a revolution where our information is just that, our information. + +Not to be one of those people, however if you look at current pop-culture you’ll find an animated series from Japan called Psycho-Pass. It’s set in the future and an entire country is controlled by a system where right and wrong is decided solely by the system, which is almost freakishly close to what happening in today’s day and age. You’ve children now being watched by mega-corporations, where even their schools, parents and daily lives are also monitored. They begin to self-censor because they fear social-castration where they’re ostracized and their brand is meaningless and shunned by the other living-brands due to things said online, in private or caught by a passing smart phone and uploaded to social media. This creates a toxic environment where children (and everyone in general) is limited to the things and ideas they’re exposed to and exploring past what’s deemed appropriate is a sentence of living-death where no one wishes to interact with you lest they too are cast to the shadows for breaking protocol. + +You’ll soon begin to see people readily conditioned through fear of being an outcast, ergo no one will dissent, participate in activism, challenge the status quo our simply tell someone no. This means these same people will reproduce and their spawn will fall into the same spiraling behavioral sink where you don’t want to speak against the state in fear of an arbitrary number being dropped, thus lowering your prospects in the future when you need a job or get married. Soon you’ll see critical thinking cast side all in favor marching to the same tune of whatever the deep state wants, which will all be due to people not revolting now and costing social media money VIA not participating in their schemes and deleting your accounts. You can stop future surveillance by dissenting right now and by isolating yourself from social networks and media, thus starting a trend where if enough people were to up and remove themselves from a site like Facebook you’ll see their bottom line falter. You can prevent people from being politically timid and docile like the voter-cattle the deep state wants, and all it takes is saying no to social media and networks. + +If you’re from the US or any Western country, you’ll see what made us special slowly erode due to activist judges and people too worried about hurting the feelings of others. Disregard the arbitrary numbers and mooing of those not currently in the know, as you can prevent things like the destruction of the Bill of Rights by not participating in the rat race of self-implication that’s social media. Why let corporations and political dictate your behavior? Why let them control the narrative and determine our cultural values? + +Don’t let them dictate your patterns of behavior or the behavior society as a whole with threats of a good-citizen-point. This isn’t a Left or Right political issue, nor is it an issue about genetalia, men, women or chromosomes. This is an issue about privacy and freedom. This is an issue of rights. You’ve the powers-to-be working to use women against themselves, and the same with men and children and various racial groups. This will continue to snowball and force to reality a self-censored public if we don’t start making our voices heard through our actions. The more to submit and make accounts, the more that fall prey to the need for approval from internet strangers and the nanny-state the governments are forcing. + +Don’t believe the above? Then how about some more evidence and reasons as to why you need to leave your social media accounts VIA some links and discussion points below? + +* Many privacy advocates and various individuals agree, Facebook’s (and social media) a danger to our freedoms and rights. +https://stallman.org/facebook.html |https://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/ | https://labs.rs/en/ | https://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/ + +* They’ve already started the narrative that if you aren’t on social media, or simply are introverted, you’re a potential problem. +http://www.medicaldaily.com/your-social-media-presence-may-tell-whether-youre-narcissist-introvert-or-sociopath-270299 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/06/beware-tech-abandoners-people-without-facebook-accounts-are-suspicious/ + +* It’s comprised of nothing more than lies, deceit and overall manipulation for simple arbitrary and made up numbers that can hurt your self esteem and overall health. +https://conversionxl.com/online-manipulation-all-the-ways-youre-currently-being-deceived/ | http://illusionofmore.com/social-media-manipulate/ | http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/social-media-emotions/ | https://www.independent.co.uk/student/istudents/filters-and-photo-manipulation-on-social-media-sites-are-creating-a-generation-of-deluded-a6852736.html + +* Again, it’s literally like a drug and can cause addiction. +http://www.medicaldaily.com/facebook-addiction-activates-same-brain-areas-drugs-how-social-media-sites-hook-you-320252 + +* The astroturfing’s real and it’s aimed at women and young people. +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing | http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/07/women_young_people_experience_the_chilling_effects_of_surveillance_at_higher.html + +* The people behind it, like Zuckerberg, are the closest things we’ve to Bond villains. +https://boingboing.net/2015/05/21/mark-zuckerberg-just-dropped-a.html | http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/01/18/business/facebooks-zuckerberg-sues-to-force-land-sales/ | https://trak-in.cdn.ampproject.org/c/trak.in/tags/business/2017/06/07/facebooks-evil-patents-discovered-your-emotions-may-soon-be-secretly-recorded-by-your-own-camera/amp/ | https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/the-mark-zuckerberg-manifesto-is-a-blueprint-for-destroying-journalism/517113/ | http://www.barstoolsports.com/dmv/mark-zuckerberg-confirmed-facebook-is-working-on-reading-your-mindtelepathy-and-the-details-are-wild/ + +* Deleting your social media outright lessens your chances of being doxed. + +* The government can legally access your profiles, accounts and information. +http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-27/us-government-can-legally-access-your-facebook-data-and-now-we-know-how + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword=== +The arguments have been made a thousand times as to why social media and networking is a bad thing and no matter what we say or do, we can’t really rephrase it anymore. This is why we made this guide, to provide arguments and information as to why you should say goodbye to social networks and learn to live without them. They’re a tool to undermine any initiatives taken against censorship and oppression, as their main goals are to ultimately get people to self-incriminate. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/Host Files and You.txt b/paranoidsbible/Host Files and You.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f43071 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/Host Files and You.txt @@ -0,0 +1,146 @@ +Host Files and You + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on March 19th | 2016 +Published on March 19th | 2016 + +For entertainment and research purposes only +============================================== + + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ +============================================== + + +Contents +DISCLAIMER 2 +Preface 4 +Host Files and Their Use 5 +Editing the Host File 6 +Going Full Lazy 7 +AFTERWORD 9 +============================================== + + +Preface +The who: +People that have decided to combine their resources to create a repository of information. + +The what: +A computer file used by an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. + +The where: +%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts + +The why: +Block Ads, sites you don’t wish to be visited…etc +============================================== + + +Host Files and Their Use + +In its simplicity, a host file (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)) is a file used by an OS to map hostnames and IP addresses. The file is plain text and is named hosts. Originally manually maintained and made available VIA file sharing by Stanford Research Institute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International) for the ARPANET (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET) membership. It contained the hostnames and addresses of hosts as contributed for inclusion by member organizations. The DNS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System), first described in 1983, automated the publication process and provided instant and dynamic resolution upon its implementation in 1984. + +Now, the host file is usually used as an alternative or as another layer of security. + +The file contains lines of text that usually consist of an IP address followed by a single host name or more. Comment lines also are included, though usually frowned upon due to being seen by adding excess waste to the file and increasing its size. + +An example of a host file, within Windows, usually looks like the below. + +################################################################### +## This is an example HOSTS file created by ## +## www.bleepingcomputer.com. ## +## ## +## All entries in a HOSTS file must be in the format of: ## +## ## +## ipaddress hostname ## +## ## +## For example: ## +## ## +## 192.168.1.1 mycomputer.mydomain.com ## +## ## +## Notice that you must have a whitespace between the IP address ## +## and the hostname. Also keep in mind that the hostname can ## +## not contain any symbols like /,\,http://, etc. ## +## ## +## As a last note, you can the # symbol to make comments. Any ## +## line that starts with the # symbol will not be parsed by ## +## the operating system. You can therefore use this # symbol ## +## to make comments as seen below. ## +## ## +## Example valid entries found below. ## +################################################################### + +# The localhost entry should be in every HOSTS file and is used +# to point back to yourself. + +127.0.0.1 localhost + +# My test server for the website + +192.168.1.2 test.bleepingcomputer.com + +#Blocking known malicious sites +127.0.0.1 admin.abcsearch.com +127.0.0.1 www3.abcsearch.com #[Browseraid] +127.0.0.1 www.abcsearch.com #[Restricted Zone site] +============================================== + + +Editing the Host File + +Operating Systems have kept the host file alive and well, however they’re usually left untouched by the average computer and internet user. Depending on your OS, the location may vary, yet the host file and the process of editing will very little. + +For sake of using an example, we’ll go with Microsoft Windows and the location usually being something like: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc + +Once located, you simply right click the file and uncheck “read only” and then apply. This should allow you to now edit it, quite freely, through the use of your favorite word processor or editor. We recommend window’s built in notepad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad_(software)) or our favorite, Sublime Text (https://www.sublimetext.com/) (The WinRAR of text editors). + +From there, you simply right click the file again and select “edit” from the drop down list or whatever editor or processor you wish to use. Now, before you start, please make a copy/backup of your host file and tuck it somewhere you won’t forget. + +Once the backup is made and you’re ready to edit your file, you can simply do so through the initial example of a loopback, which may look like this: 127.0.0.1 website + +This will block the website from being access on your system, once you save your host file. This means you can use the host file to block ads and malicious sites, which make editing and keeping your host file up-to-date a good practice. + +The blocked sites will not be accessible, at all, on the machine that houses the edited host file. You can also use this method as a means to prevent people from visiting certain sites that you don’t wish anyone within your household or business to visit. So, parents, take note of this. + +Before we continue onto our next chapter, we wish to simply note that you don’t need to edit the host file, yourself, nowadays thanks to a single program that we’ll mentioning in the next chapter. You’ll only ever need to edit the host file, yourself, if you wish to block a specific site. There are also numerous sites that you can follow or subscribe to that offer host files for download, but we don’t recommend this. +============================================== + + +Going Full Lazy + +Because many people expect a one-button solution, we’ll forego an entire chapter on what sites to follow or subscribe to, and simply list a useful program for you to use that’ll help keep your host file up-to-date and loaded with all kinds of goodies. + +Below is the program to download. +The Program +1. Hostman (http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman) + + +To install, you simply go to the site (http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman) and download the zip file. From there, you unzip it and click the .exe to install the file. Once the file is up and running and you ensured to untick the “Read only” attribute of your host file, you can now setup and update your host file. + +Before we begin, double-check you’ve right clicked and activated hostman VIA “Run as Administrator”. If any options are grayed out, check the site’s FAQs (http://www.abelhadigital.com/support/faq). + +When you startup Hostman for the first time, it’ll ask you if you wish to select sources, possibly. Ensure you check: MVPS Hosts; hpHosts; hpHosts (partial); Peter Lowe's Adsever list; Cameleon; Malware Domain list. + +Once you’ve selected your hosts, or added your preferred host, click close and hit update. After a few seconds or minutes your host file has now been updated. To ensure its stability and lower the overall size, click the “edit” drop down menu and hit the options at any order you want, however we recommend doing it thus: Scan Host file...; Find Duplicates...; Delete comments. + + + +Now click the “Replace IP” option and select “127.0.0.1 -> 0.0.0.0”. The reason for this is that 127.0.0.1 is the “local host” whereas 0.0.0.0 is a non-routable meta-address that’s mainly used to designate an invalid or unknown target/site. Supposedly doing 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1 will help relieve a constant pressure put onto your connection or some such other technological magic that we’ll let you read up on at another resource (http://www.howtogeek.com/225487/what-is-the-difference-between-127.0.0.1-and-0.0.0.0/). + +Finally hit the “Rearrange Hosts” option and select “1” for the number of hosts per line and tick “Delete comments”. Hit continue and you’re done. + +Congratulations, you blocked several hundred malicious sites and trackers. + +Feels good to have this layer, doesn’t it? +============================================== + + +AFTERWORD + +Closest you’ll ever get to a one button solution from the PB. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/Meta Data and You.txt b/paranoidsbible/Meta Data and You.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76e384e --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/Meta Data and You.txt @@ -0,0 +1,155 @@ +Meta Data and You + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on June 04th | 2014 +Published on October 27th | 2015 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +=========================================== + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +=========================================== + +Contents +DISCLAIMER 2 +Preface 4 +What is Meta-Data? 5 +Quick and Dirty – Windows Catchall 22 6 +Exif and Doxing 7 +PDFs and Meta-Data 9 +Afterword 10 + +=========================================== + +Preface + +The who: +People that have decided to combine their resources to create a repository of information. + +The what: +Meta Data and You: A guide to frivolous data and data that leads to or contains other data. + +The where: +The internet: An abused form of communication, education and betterment of mankind. + +The why: +To give people the tools to self audit. + +=========================================== + +What is Meta-Data? + +Meta-data is “data” that’s about data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata). Two types of meta-data exists, however it has stretched far beyond structural and descriptive meta-data. No longer do some people use it as a descriptive term about containers or data content. It has become, in a sense, a slang meant to describe useless data or data that isn’t usable unless paired with other data. + +Traditionally, meta-data was meant to describe digital data using the “meta-data standards” specific to a particular discipline. It was used to describe the contents and context of data or files. An example of this is what language a page is written in, what tools were used in its creation, and various other bits and pieces meant to better help a page to be read. + +What was used to facilitate in the discovery of relevant information is now used as a means to track a person through their selfies, images and whatever they upload to the internet. + +=========================================== + +Quick and Dirty – Windows Catchall 22 + +A lot of files contain meta-data. To some it’s useless, while to others it can be used to dig and find bits of data that leads to someone offline. You can avoid most attempts with a basic feature within Windows and up, however this is quick, dirty and will leave a lot of orphan data. + +For the time being, this isn’t something you should do if other tools or methods already exist. It is good to use for difficult files to scrub, like movies files or certain text files, yet the amount of orphan data could spur people onto finding the original or learning more about you out of curiosity. + +To access Windows’ “dummy method,” all you have to do is select a file or several files (of the same format) and right-click them and select the “details” tab. From there select the “Remove properties and personal data” link at the bottom, then in the window that pops up select the “Remove the following properties from this file” and hit “Select all” and finally “OK”. + +This should scrub some, but not all meta-data. + +You’ll have orphan data present, yet it’s safer than not scrubbing your files at all. + +If you’re really into remaining anonymous and keep data out of the hands of people, it may be a good idea into snagging a pirated copy of Windows 7 and loading it onto a secondhand rig or laptop/netbook. + +From there, ensuring it can never be used to connect to the internet (air gapped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking))); you install and update only the barest items that are needed. + +From this air gapped, non-internet capable rig, you can produce numerous works and edit them to your heart’s content. You can worry less about some meta-data and scrub said data without much thought on orphan data. It’s always good practice, however, to scrub any all data that you can. + +=========================================== + +Exif and Doxing + +One of the best ways to try and track someone is simply to check for meta-data from their images. +Meta-data—more importantly, EXIF data—is like a thumbprint that better helps people, especially the government or a tech-savvy stalker, deduce who was behind the creation of an image or photograph. + +EXIF data is one of the biggest culprits out of all other forms of meta-data, though, due to the fact that it can contain anything from shutter speed to firmware number to even the make and model of a camera or camcorder used. + +If you use editing software, say, like Photoshop that too will also add onto the EXIF data if it doesn’t fully overwrite it. You can end up with an image or photo that’s now loaded with a few extra bytes of data (that can add up in the end) announcing, to those who’re intelligent enough to look, what you’ve done, when you’ve done it and various other potentially damning pieces of information. + +But the most alarming thing about EXIF data and meta-data is that your GPS coordinates can be saved into those photographs and images, and possibly even movies. + +This can allow some activists, protestors, victims hiding from someone or a group, and even innocent individuals to be tracked, stalked or much worse. + +Basically, this means that you can be tracked almost instantly. + +Of course you could just edit the image, right, and save it as a .png? + +No. + +Even a .png can retain certain damning pieces of data that can be used to help track your information and habits, and maybe even help build up a dossier on you and what you do. + +Now you don’t have to be that paranoid, honestly, as you’ve two options that you can take to help cut down on the amount of meta-data that your images hemorrhage, however before we begin: Put down the digital camera and smart-tech, invest in some dump-tech for your photography needs. + +It may seem expensive and time consuming, yet outside of tracking down each and every amateur photographer who uses a non-smart camera and film… there’s not much that can be done in the way of tracking a person. If the person is smart and develops their own film, and knows how to upload it anonymously and where… there isn’t anything anyone can do if the originals were stored and hidden out of sight. + +Now, to remove exif data from your images, the first and most important thing to do is – always save it as a .png for quality purposes and to lessen the amount of data to be scrubbed. + +REMINDER: Never upload any photos you’ve taken with your smart phone. The amount of meta-data smart phones lace into an image, GPS disabled or enabled, is quite ridiculous an unsafe! Always use a hardwired/ethernet-cable connected device when you wish to upload an image. Always scrub the images before uploading! +The first option is quick and dirty—JPEG & PNG stripper: http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=30 + +You download the file, unzip, and simply drag and drop whatever .jpegs and .pngs you wish to clean. It strips these images of basically all meta-data within them and helps cut down the file size, too. This is good if you’re on-the-go, busy, or simply are lazy. + +I recommend this program, actually, to most artists, cosplayers, or people who use social media a lot. As this helps cut out the most damning and damaging meta-data and also helps you prevent any mishaps that you didn’t count on, like, for instance: You using a headshot that you created from a “Sext” that you sent your S.O. but didn’t know that the thumbnail was saved in the meta-data and be easily reconstructed through some simple means. + + +You can actually see a similar incident here: TechTV's Cat Schwartz Exposed: Is Photoshop To Blame? (http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/2003/07/26/techtvs-cat-schwartz-exposed-is-photoshop-to-blame.htm) + + +As you can see, even cutting out the offending or risqué parts from a photo doesn’t mean they’re gone permanently. Anyone with four minutes and an internet connection could easily rebuild the edited photo through the thumbnail and see you in your God-given glory. + + +The second option is much more involved—XnView: https://www.xnview.com/en/ + +Note: Don’t be put off from the recent scandal about pedophiles using XnView. We doubt the creator supports these people, plus like always: If the information is good, save and backup. Report the offenders to the proper authorities. + +First create a “directory” for the image(s) that you wish to clean and edit. + +You can select an individual image or simply select them all and then click “Select Opened Images”. But, if you’re lazy, you can also go to “Edit” and then hit “Select All,” too. + +You should now see “Options” in the corner, click that. + +Go to the tabs that are now loaded in the images below and uncheck “EXIF” and then click “OK”. +Now save the file. + +This is simply to save time when you reuse the program to remove meta-data and edit your images. +All you have to do from now on is repeat the step above to select your image(s) and from there simply go to “File” and select “Save Opened Images”. It should be easy and pretty much obvious as to whether your meta-data was erased or not from the image(s). + +For the sake of being thorough, you can safely scrub all your non-personal images and reaction images using the first option. This helps lessen their overall size and allows you an extra layer of protection, albeit being overly paranoid. + +=========================================== + +PDFs and Meta-Data + +A lot of people get confused by how a PDF can outright harm someone, outside of being leak government data or personal information. The simple truth is, it can give anything from the author’s name, to a company name, or even your computer’s name. You can sweat the details and possibilities, however like images PDFs are quite easy to clean, too. + + +Easy and quick, get BeCyPDFMetaEdit: https://www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaedit/description_eng.htm + +You download the file, unzip, and double click it. Hit “Open…” and navigate to your chosen PDF file. +From there, you can edit most, if not all meta-data present. Some orphan data may remain, however it isn’t that common with most edits. If you just want to nuke all meta-data, hit the “Clear all fields” option and head over to the Metadata (XMP) tab and select “Delete XMP data upon saving of document”. +You can also check the other tabs if you wish, but most won’t need to be modified. + +=========================================== + +Afterword + +Meta-data is everywhere and can ruin the best laid plans, no matter how vast you think your computer knowledge may be. You not only need to scrub your documents, but also worry about little hiccups like direct copying and pasting from a word processor (hint: Use a word processor then copy to a .txt document before you copy anywhere). Some people also not only have to worry about these hiccups and meta-data, but also their own ego that may or may not get them caught in the end. Always assess the situation before you act and react. Take it slow and think ahead. + +Scrubbing meta-data won't mean much if you aren't aware of all possible solutions. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/OPSEC.txt b/paranoidsbible/OPSEC.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2caffe --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/OPSEC.txt @@ -0,0 +1,121 @@ +OPSEC + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on October 29th | 2015 +Published on October 29th | 2015 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +================================================= + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +================================================= + +Contents +DISCLAIMER 2 +Preface 4 +What is OPSEC 5 +Simple Guidelines to Follow 6 +Afterword 8 + +================================================= + +Preface +The who: +People that have decided to combine their resources to create a repository of information. + +The what: +Operations security (OPSEC) + +The where: +Everywhere + +The why: +To give people the tools to keep themselves safe and secure. + +================================================= + +What is OPSEC + +OPSEC is a term that, like many others used in cybersec, originated in the U.S. military. It originally meant whether or not a friendly’s actions could be observed by the enemy and if what they observed and the information obtained could be useful to them (the enemy), and then execute selected measures that eliminate and/or reduces the enemy’s possible exploitation of the critical information that they’ve obtained. + +OPSEC, though, is also about protecting minuscule pieces of information that, when grouped, could be used to form a bigger picture of things. Similar to removing and preventing “meta-data,” OPSEC is about taking several preventative measures to ensure no-one is listening, spying or simply happen upon information that you, yourself, carelessly given away. + +In the more modern use of the term, it now includes protecting information from not only unfriendly eyes, but also preventing industrial espionage, hackers, crackers, law enforcement, social engineering, and also mass surveillance catching or finding the aforementioned information. + +This is why many now state that if you’re not using the same protection and guidelines as criminals and terrorists to protect yourself and your information, then you’re doing it wrong. + +================================================= + +Simple Guidelines to Follow +This chapter will, truthfully, be a simple set of rules and guidelines you should try to follow when acting both online and offline. To make this easier, we’ll include a list for offline OPSEC and a list for online OPSEC. + +We also won’t be dwelling into encryption or other similar items, as those will be discussed in other guides/PDFs. + +Online OPSEC +1. The less people know, the less you have to worry +2. Compartilization is key to safety and privacy +3. Be alert +4. Be cautious +5. Be aware of your surroundings +6. Be aware of the background +7. Be aware of what you post at all times +8. All information is critical information +9. Never use the same e-mail address for an account +10. Never use the same username for an account +11. Never use the same password for an account +12. Never post detailed information (Real name, age, birth date, location, school, marital status…etc) +13. Avoid posting images of yourself and/or your location +14. Scrub any and all meta-data that you can (Pictures, PDFs…etc) +15. Don’t use social media/networking +16. Be cautious of anyone asking you anything personal (Detail information, sex, gender, sexual preferences…etc) +17. Transactions should never be discussed(recent purchases, taxes, bills…etc) +18. Don’t brag about any recent successes or accomplishments, especially concerning recent “operations” or “missions” +19. Avoid discussing your online life offline +20. Avoid discussing your offline life online +21. Avoid using certain words or catchphrases that you’re known for +22. Avoid clicking on links from strangers that you aren’t familiar with +23. Avoid clicking on links that have shortened with a link/URL shortener +24. Avoid playing MMOs and/or PVP styled games (can leak your IP) +25. Avoid using P2P services and programs (skype, chats, pirating, torrents…etc) +26. If in doubt, lie + +Offline OPSEC +1. The less people know, the less you have to worry +2. Compartilization is key to safety and privacy +3. Be alert +4. Be cautious +5. Be aware of your surroundings +6. Be aware of the background +7. Be aware of what you post at all times +8. All information is critical information +9. Your desk and rig(s) should be several hallways and doors away from any and all entrances to and from the outside +10. Always ensure your devices, when not in use, are stored out of sight and aren’t easily found +11. Keep your rig elevated so you can reach it easily and quickly, just in case +12. Any and all mail and packages must be collected ASAP to ensure no theft can happen +13. Any and all documents and papers should be marked with a permanent black marker, shredded and mixed into garbage and waste +14. Credit cards, gift cards, pre-paid cards and similar items should not only be thoroughly cut and shredded, but also microwaved for five to ten seconds to ensure all chips and strips are destroyed +15. All important documents and papers should be organized, stored safely and locked within a vault or safe +16. Never discuss your home security +17. Never discuss your weapons +18. Never discuss your pets’ names +19. Never post detailed information (Real name, age, birth date, location, school, marital status…etc) +20. Be cautious of anyone asking you anything personal (Detail information, sex, gender, sexual preferences…etc) +21. Transactions should never be discussed(recent purchases, taxes, bills…etc) +22. Don’t brag about any recent successes or accomplishments, especially concerning recent “operations” or “missions” +23. Avoid discussing your online life offline +24. Avoid discussing your offline life online +25. Always make it seem as if someone is home +26. Always carry your wallet in your front pocket +27. Ensure you always unplug and locked up before leaving + +================================================= + +Afterword +There’s so much to discuss when on the topic of OPSEC, however due to the nature of the Paranoid’s Bible and the literature it publishes… we’d only be rehashing what’ll be discussed and explained in other guides/PDFs. So as a way to touch upon OPSEC without rehashing several things from other guides/PDFs, we decided to give a quick bit of information that many amateur privacy enthusiasts need to know. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/The Internet Detox.txt b/paranoidsbible/The Internet Detox.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e20a1ff --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/The Internet Detox.txt @@ -0,0 +1,118 @@ +The Internet Detox + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on September 1st | 2016 +Published on September 1st | 2016 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +================================================= + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +================================================= + +Contents +DISCLAIMER 2 +Preface 4 +Starting Simple 5 +Slightly More Difficult 6 +Learn to Ignore 7 +Idle Hands… 8 + +================================================= + +Preface + +Whether your biological clock is screwed up and you’re suffering from IAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder) or that nasty artificial blue light(http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side), a lot of people have many reasons as to why they’d like to learn how to lessen their online use. Like, for example, some people will want to lessen it because it’s distracting them from important responsibilities or some people want to lessen it because of their data plans + +Regardless of the reason: You need to detox. + +Learning to take a break from the internet and technology altogether for at least an hour a day can help you greatly reduce your stress be it physical or mental. It can also help you learn to not so readily rely on technology or the internet to do such frivolous things like research, socialize or try to remember a song’s lyrics. + +The physical wellness aspect alone is a great reason to take a break, especially with eye strain, popcorn brain(https://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/23/tech.popcorn.brain.ep/index.html), the strain on your back or even your posture. However these things are minor when you take into account that war is becoming less about bloodshed and explosives and more about societal contagions, ruining the other side’s technology (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/17/russian-general-says-new-weapons-will-neutralize-us-shield.html) and grinding infrastructure to a halt. + +It doesn’t matter if you can’t win a ground battle or the enemy starts picking up guerilla tactics, they’ve no internet, electricity or phone. The modern man will have great difficulty, especially if they’re from the West, if the internet is dead. + +And that’s why you, the average user, should look into lessening your dependency on the internet and take a break every so often, even if it is a micro-break. + +The internet won’t always be in the West’s hands, especially since Obama is trying his hardest to allow non-US entities to take over ICANN (https://archive.fo/H7vhz). This means you’ll have an increased likelihood of upsetting someone (who’s thin skinned) and breaking some obscure law where you’ll end up fine, having your internet cut, or worse… + +So, if you’re interested, for any reason, read on! + +================================================= + +Starting Simple + +No matter the reason, taking a break from both the internet and technology can be quite helpful in both saving time and reducing your stress. Some people simply carry too much stress because of how their posture is or because they’re obsessed with keeping tabs on their internet profile a bit too much. + +The simplest thing to do without going cold turkey would be to set at least four hours aside a day in your schedule. It doesn’t matter if you’ll use these four hours or not. Just setting them aside will be a great accomplishment as you know you’re somewhat committed to reducing your internet consumption. + +Now purchase yourself a journal or notebook. Doesn’t matter if it’s college rule or not. You’ll be using it to keep a diary of your internet use. This will help you organize your day and how much time you’ve spent online. + +During the day, as you use the internet, regardless for what reason, make a note of how long you spent on it. Once the day is over,and you aren’t bothered with school or work anymore for that period of time, add up how much time you’ve spent on the internet. + +Keep this tally of time spent every day, for we want to see just how much time we’ve spent online. As we tally up the minutes to hours spent, we want to take each hour of time spent online and reward ourselves with 15 minutes of time spent away from the internet. + +Think of it as this way: Every four hours equals an hour of time you need to spend offline. + +We aren’t telling you to cut your computer time or TV time, for now. Simply spending time with the modem unplugged will help condition your mind to understand you don’t always need to be connected. + +================================================= + +Slightly More Difficult + +We all know that, to an extent, technology, especially computers, produce some radiation. These EMFs may not cause any health issues, which we know of, however there exists much concern about it. There are always studies conducted by the WHO (https://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/index1.html), among other groups, who want to assuage the public’s concerns and fears. + +If there are health issues or not, it doesn’t hurt to step up your detox regiment after awhile to include turning off your computer and phone for a few minutes to an hour a day. Think of it as simply quieting the devices around you so that you can have a bit of “me time” and relax without interruptions. + +Unlike the previous chapter, it may seem boring to not use the computer or your phone. You could watch some TV, or go outside… maybe read a book? + +You know, supposedly reading a book helps you live longer (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/09/the-best-reason-for-reading-book-lovers-live-longer-say-scientists/). + +Adding that to your hour (or more) break from the internet and internet connected devices could help you relax even more and even expand your mind. Doesn’t matter your choice of reading material, just spending less time online and not using internet connected devices can help you worry less about what others say online. + +================================================= + +Learn to Ignore + +If there’s one thing that hinders people and prolongs their addiction to the internet it’s the fact they can’t let go of the digital discourse. You’ve people who spent years trying to dox or belittle someone that they believe wronged them, no matter how silly their reason. + +This “discourse” is nothing but internet drama, which means it’s useless and doesn’t matter. The miniscule portion of the world’s populace that sees something saying something bad about you, or someone you’re currently acquainted with, is so tiny that it’s near impossible for it to affect your life offline, especially if you followed the Paranoid’s Bible (and other guides) and lessened your data footprint. + +Yes, it doesn’t matter. + +And no, your ego or so called disorder doesn’t excuse the fact that you, the reader, may just be a tad too obsessed with arbitrary numbers and digital discourse. Take a deep, slow breath through your nose, exhale through your mouth and learn to ignore what others think. + +Not everyone is going to like you, share the same opinions or even care about what you have to say. And guess what, this is a fact of life you can’t ignore or try to remove through lashing out in a semi-psychotic manner. + +Learn that the internet is not life, and social media isn’t socializing. + +Go outside, join a club or group activity… take a few hours away from the internet and learn to forgive, forget and ignore. + +The amount of time that we, as a society, waste on petty online arguments could be better used and spent on learning useful skills or trades, like carpentry or farming. Don’t waste your time, energy and brain power on something as idiotic as trying to prove someone wrong over useless opinions like who’s the best character from a show. + +Learn to ignore… + +================================================= + +Idle Hands… + +Remember what we said about learning a trade? It doesn’t help to pick one up or get into a hobby. If you’re idle and grow bored, you seek to either fill time with the internet or excessive eating. Don’t fall into this trap of modern life, learn to self discipline yourself and take up an mindless activity like knitting or sewing. Learn a trade like carpentry or metallurgy. Learn a skill that can help you in the long run of your life. + +If you can’t or don’t want to pick a trade or a hobby, exercise. Take a walk. Lift some weights. Do some cardio. Do something that isn’t fueled by technology and electricity. By wasting all your time not dedicated to school or work on the computer or glued to a smart phone you end up putting yourself into a vicious cycle where you’ve less energy, gain weight and look quite sickly. + +Try to pace yourself with technology and learn to not use it so much. While many will throw up the newspaper or radio and how people became glued to those, we’re simply not talking about those. We’re talking about today’s day and age. We need to pull ourselves away from the technology for a handful of minutes or hours and try to detox so we don’t become too reliant on the internet or technology in general. + +================================================= + +Afterword + +This isn’t about taking your toys away from your or the idiocy of social media. It’s about helping you learn to not be so reliant on technology. It’s about helping you improve your health and lessen your overall stress. It’d also help you stay ahead of the curve in case anything happens to the West’s infrastructure. It should concern you how we don’t have any redundancies in place or backups in case technology and/or electricity gets knocked out somehow. + +The West’s infrastructure is quite horrendous and a handful of people can ruin a city’s phone and electricity quite easily. This means they can ruin the internet, too. If this happens you’ll have a hard time coping. Learn to further yourself with a trade or useful skill. It doesn’t hurt to be in better physical or mental health than the average person, either. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/The Master Opt-Out List 2.0.txt b/paranoidsbible/The Master Opt-Out List 2.0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6367fc --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/The Master Opt-Out List 2.0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1458 @@ +===The Master Opt-Out List 2.0=== +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on June 18th | 2017 +Published on June 18th | 2017 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + +===Preface=== +The MOO (Master Opt-Out) is a curated list of people search engines and databases that you can opt-out of through using the offered solutions that the websites provided. Due to the massive amount of websites, we urge people to start slow and use only those in the internet opt-out chapter. After a month or so, dig through the other chapters to see if your information exists on those, too. The reason for this is due to how many websites are inter-connected and will purge your information once other sites have had it removed. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Internet Opt-outs=== +These are opt-outs that can be done online through forms or simple links without a pay wall. + +https://www.10digits.us/ +https://www.10digits.us/remove +• Requires photo ID upload + e-maill addess + page link. +• Make sure to search using all three methods. +• Repeat for each immediate family member in your residence. + +https://www.411.info +https://www.411.info/contact/ +• Find your info, copy the link. +• Go to the contact link and ask them to remove your info. +• Provide the link(s) in the message. + +https://www.500millionphonerecords.com/ +https://www.phonedetective.com/PD.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Follow the instructions on the Phonedetective opt-out link. +• Repeat for each individual in household and any and all numbers you've owned or recall owning. + +https://www.accutellus.com/ +https://www.accutellus.com/opt_out_request.php +• Follow the instructions on the opt-out page, repeat for all individual in household. + +https://www.Acxiom.com/ +https://www.isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx +(Cookie opt-out can be ignored if you install ad blocking and privacy based add-ons on your browser) +• For the actual opt-out, just follow the above link and follow the instructions, repeating it for each residence in your house. +• After each successful entry fill out, you’ll be taken to a new page with a capatcha and a field to confirm the e-mail address. +• Log into your e-mail account, find the confirmation e-mail, and follow the link provided. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.addresses.com/ +https://www.addresses.com/optout.php +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.addresssearch.com/ +https://www.addresssearch.com/remove-info.php +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.allareacodes.com/ +https://www.allareacodes.com/remove_name.htm +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.archives.com/ +https://www.archives.com/ga.aspx?_act=Optout +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://backgroundfinder.com +http://search.backgroundfinder.com/optout.html +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://beenverified.com +https://www.beenverified.com/f/optout/search +• Go to opt-out link +• Enter first & last name + state +• Find your profile(s) +• Click on the one you wish to remove +• Follow instructions +• Repeat for each individual in household + +https://www.checkpeople.com/ +https://www.checkpeople.com/optout +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.corporationwiki.com/ +https://www.corporationwiki.com/profiles/public +• Follow instructions listed on their website. +• Very few cases, only for businesses and their executives. + +https://www.coxtarget.com/ +https://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm +• Wait until you’ve received your next ‘ValPak’ packet\envelope. +• Go to the opt-out form\link above. +• Enter information as it is on the envelope. +• You’ve opted out. + +https://www.datalogix.com/ +https://www.datalogix.com/privacy/#opt-out-landing +https://www.aboutads.info/ (More info here) +• Find this sentence ‘If you wish to opt out of all Datalogix-enabled advertising across channels including direct mail, online, mobile and analytic products, and click here.’ +• Follow directions, repeat for each resident of household. + +https://www.dexone.com/ +https://www.dexknows.com/ +https://www.dexpages.com/index.asp? +https://www.dexone.com/privacy-policy +https://green.dexknows.com/DexGreen/selectDexAction.do +• Enter zip code. +• Follow directions. +• If you can’t opt-out, you can do so VIA the Yellow Pages opt-out. + +https://www.directmail.com/ +https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/ +• Follow directions in second link. + +https://www.dmachoice.org/ +https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php +• Follow directions on website. +• Have to create an account for each member of household. + +https://www.dobsearch.com/ +• Search yourself; address; phone number…etc +• Find info. +• Look for ‘Is this you? Manage your listing!’ +• Follow instructions (You’ll need a valid e-mail address + landline or cell). +• Repeat for all residents in house (One per 24 hours). + +https://www.donotcall.gov +https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx +• Follow directions. +• Enter phone numbers, cell and/or landline, and an e-mail address. + +https://www.ebureau.com/ +https://www.ebureau.com/privacy-center/opt-out +• Same as DMA choice opt-out, but no accounts; you’ll have to do this with previous addresses too. + +https://www.emailfinder.com/ +https://www.emailfinder.com/EFC.aspx?_act=Optout +• Follow instructions on screen. +• Repeat for each resident in household. + +https://www.epsilon.com/ +https://www.epsilon.com/consumer-preference-center +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://www.everify.com +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#2 +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#remove +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.experian.com/ +https://www.experian.com/privacy/opting_out_preapproved_offers.html +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://equifax.com/ +https://help.equifax.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2/noIntercept/1/kw/prescreen +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only need to be done once). + +https://www.everyone411.com/ +• Go to contact page @ https://www.everyone411.com/contact +• Provide listing links. +• Request removal. +• Repeat for all individuals in household. + +http://www.familytreenow.com/ +https://www.familytreenow.com/optout +• Follow instructions on the opt-out link + +https://www.freephonetracer.com/ +https://www.freephonetracer.com/FCPT.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Online opt-out form, follow directions. + +https://www.health.com/health/ +https://subscription.timeinc.com/storefront/privacy/health/generic_privacy_form_offline.html?dnp-source=E%20AND%20 +https://subscription.timeinc.com/storefront/privacy/health/generic_privacy_form_online.html?dnp-source=E +• Fill out with your information, repeat for each individual in your household. Make sure to check all boxes in the two opt-out links. + +https://www.ims-dm.com/ +https://www.ims-dm.com/cgi/optoutemps.php +• Follow directions on second link. +• Enter up to three emails. +• Fill captcha. +• Clear cache and repeat as necessary. + +https://www.instantcheckmate.com/ +https://www.instantcheckmate.com/optout/ +• Follow directions on second link. + +https://www.infousa.com/ +https://www.infousa.com/StaticPage/PrivacyPolicyInfo.htm +• Look for: Opt Out Policy–Upon a visitor’s request, InfoUSA Inc. +• Read it carefully, scroll down and find the ‘E-mail form’. +• Fill it out, include your name, birth date, address and phone number. Request all information of yours to be removed, especially anything related to the info you just provided. + +https://www.infospace.com/ +https://www.support.infospace.com/privacy/ +• Search for ‘Choice/Opt-out’. +• The link there is old, use this one: https://infospace.com/contact/index.html +• Select 'General inquiry'. +• Provide your name, birth date, address and phone number. +• Request all information of yours be removed, especially anything matching or related to information you just provided. + +https://www.innovis.com/ +https://www.innovis.com/InnovisWeb/pers_lc_opt_out.html +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://www.instantpeoplefinder.com/ +https://www.instantpeoplefinder.com/optout.php +• Follow on page instructions, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.intelius.com/ +https://www.intelius.com/optout +• Follow directions on second link. + +https://www.locatefamily.com/ +https://www.locatefamily.com/contact.html +• Search for your name on the left side of the site. +• You’ll find a page or pages containing Names, addresses and phone numbers. +• Find yours; take note of the number next to it. +• Go to the contact page. +• Scroll down for the opt-out\removal form. +• Follow the directions. +• Make sure to provide the information you want deleted in the ‘Comments’ box. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.lookup.com/ +https://www.lookup.com/optout.php +• Go to the opt-out link. +• Follow the directions. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://lycos.com +https://info.lycos.com/resources/privacy-policy +• Search for: How can you access or edit your information? +• Follow directions. + +https://www.mobilephoneno.com/ +https://www.mobilephoneno.com/help.htm +• Search for: How do I delete my entry? +• Follow directions. + +https://www.militaryavenue.com/ +https://www.militaryavenue.com/Contact.aspx +• Businesses only. +• But, if you have your information up there, somehow. +• First find said info. +• Go to the contact page. +• Select, from the drop down, “Incorrect Business information”. +• Provide link, info, and ask for removal. + +https://www.myyp.com/ +https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com +• Follow instructions on second link. + +https://www.nationwidecrafts.com/ +• Find listing. +• Click the suggestion link/light bulb icon. +• Request removal. + +https://www.orientaltrading.com/ +https://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/help/processRequest.do?requestURI=link.removeForm +• Follow instructions on second link. + +https://www.peekyou.com/ +https://www.peekyou.com/about/contact/optout +• Search for yourself. +• Locate your profile and right-click then select 'copy link'. +• Then open a new tab and go to their opt-out page and follow the instructions provided. +• Repeat with each individual in household. + +https://www.peepdb.com/ +• Enter full name + state. +• Look for city + state in results. +• Can confirm by partial phone number listed. +• Click your result. +• Scroll down. +• Click ‘Remove This Listing’. +• Follow directions. +• Takes 10 business days. +• One request + IP every 3 days. +• Repeat with each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplebook.com/ +https://www.peoplebook.com/support.htm +• Search for your people book’s results. +• Confirm it’s yours. +• Grab link. +• Go to the support link. +• Follow directions. +• Repeat for each individual in house. + +https://www.peoplefinder.com/ +https://www.peoplefinder.com/manage/ +https://www.peoplefinder.com/optout.php +• Go directly to the opt-out link. +• Fill in your information. +• Select from the drop down ‘General privacy concerns’. +• Enter the code word and click submit. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplefinders.com/ +http://www.peoplefinders.com/manage +• Search your first, middle and last name in search. +• State + city, too. +• Find your listing, click ‘this is me’. +• Skip the AD and\or sale section. +• Takes anywhere from an hour to a month. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplesearchpro.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/optout-go +• Go directly to Opt-out. +• Enter your name + city and state. +• Find it, click it, and follow directions. +• You will have to make an account. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplelooker.com/ +https://www.peoplelooker.com/f/optout/search +• Click the second link, search for your information +• Click on your name +• Provide an email address and click on I'm not a robot +• Click send verification email + +https://www.peoplesmart.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/optout-go +• Click second link +• Enter name + city, state +• Click the ‘This is me’. +• A Pop-up should appear, select "yourself" +• Hit submit +• Provide e-mail address +• Click link in verification +• Repeat for each individual in your household +• Repeat search, but this time with home address applied. + +https://www.peoplewise.com/ +https://www.peoplewise.com/show/optoutdisclaimer +• Go straight to the opt-out link. +• Make sure JS and Cookies are enabled. +• Follow the steps; make sure to read the red text. +• When you find your list, click the ‘Removal’ test under the blue button. +• When you’re on your page, within the red text, is a blue link, click it. +• Enter your email address + security code. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.phonebook.com/ +https://secure.whitepages.com +https://secure.whitepages.com/suppression_requests +• Find your information VIA search +• click view free details +• Copy the profile link to the second link +• Click/select opt-out and remove me +• Select your reason +• Enter your phone number to confirm + +https://www.phonebooks.com/ +• Search your name + city and state. +• Find your listing in the results. +• Click on said listing. +• Locate ‘Remove this person’. +• Follow directions. +• Repeat for each and every individual in household. + +https://www.phonedetective.com/ +https://www.phonedetective.com/PD.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Go directly to opt-out page, follow directions. +• Repeat for each individual in house. +• Also repeat with each phone number you have or recall having. + +https://phonenumber.com/ +https://secure.whitepages.com +https://secure.whitepages.com/suppression_requests +• Find your information VIA search +• click view free details +• Copy the profile link to the second link +• Click/select opt-out and remove me +• Select your reason +• Enter your phone number to confirm + +https://www.poedit.org/ +https://www.poedit.org/auth/removal_request.html +• Search for your page/information. +• Take link/URL. +• Copy it to the appropriate area listed in the second link. +• Submit. +• Find confirmation e-mail in inbox. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://profileengine.com/ +https://profileengine.com/#/help +https://profileengine.com/#/claimprofile +• Search for profile. +• Look for the claim profile option. +• If not present, try the claim profile link above. +• Follow instructions. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://pub360.com +https://pub360.com/s/faq +• Search for your name. +• In results, look for the 'Information Removal' tab. +• Follow instructions provided. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://radaris.com/ +https://radaris.com/page/how-to-remove +• Search for a name. +• On the search results page, select the name that is most appropriate. +• On the profile page, click the down-arrow to the right of the name and select ‘Control Information’. +• From the information control page, choose ‘Remove information’. +• Here you can choose to remove all information, or to delete specific records. +• Confirm your real name matches your account and profile name. +• Enter your cellular phone to receive a verification code. +• Once the code has been entered, the profile will be private. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.redplum.com/ +https://www.redplum.com/tools/redplum-postal-addremove.html +• Follow the instructions provided on the second link. +• Per known address. + +https://www.reversephonelookup.com/ +https://www.reversephonelookup.com/remove.php +• Go to second link. +• Follow instruction provided. +• Repeat for all known and owned phone numbers. + +https://www.searchbug.com/ +https://www.searchbug.com/help.aspx?WHAT=people +• Search for your name + city and state. +• If ‘Free record’ is shown, you can click the garbage can\remove link to have it removed. +• Repeat for all individuals in house. +• Note: Premium records can't be removed through this process as they require manual removal and cost payment to do so. + +https://secure.whitepages.com +https://secure.whitepages.com/suppression_requests +• Find your information VIA search +• click view free details +• Copy the profile link to the second link +• Click/select opt-out and remove me +• Select your reason +• Enter your phone number to confirm, + +https://www.Spokeo.com +https://www.spokeo.com/optout +• Go to Spokeo. +• Search your First, middle and last name. +• Find your profile/listing by go to the bottom of the page and select ‘open advance filter’. +• Fill out your information. +• Find your profile/listing, copy the link (note: Right click + copy link to have a ‘Clean link’ copied). +• Go to the Opt out link. +• Follow instructions to opt-out. +• Repeat for each individual in house. +• Hint: You’ll need a different e-mail address after so many removals. +• Hint: You may have multiple profiles/links due to previous addresses. +• Hint: Make sure HTTPs is not at the start of the link, if it is just remove the 'S'. + +http://www.spydialer.com/ +http://www.spydialer.com/optout.aspx +• Search the site for your information +• Copy the information you found into a .txt file +• Go to the second link +• Follow the opt-out instructions +• Repeat for each individual in household + +https://support.premium.whitepages.com/ +https://support.premium.whitepages.com/hc/en-us/requests/new +• Search for your information +• Copy and paste profile link to a .txt for use +• Go to the second link +• Select, from the drop down, that you wish to have information removed +• Follow instructions provided on the form you're redirected to after the drop down + +https://www.truepeoplesearch.com +https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/removal +• Go to the second link and follow directions + +https://www.truthfinder.com +https://www.truthfinder.com/opt-out/ +• Search for your information +• Copy and paste profile info to a .txt for use +• Go to the second link +• Follow instructions provided on the form + +https://www.usa.com +https://www.peoplesmart.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/optout-go +• Click second link +• Enter name + city, state +• Click the ‘This is me’. +• A Pop-up should appear, select "yourself" +• Hit submit +• Provide e-mail address +• Click link in verification +• Repeat for each individual in your household +• Repeat search, but this time with home address applied. + +https://www.usa-people-search.com/ +https://www.usa-people-search.com/manage/ +• Go to the ‘Manage’ link. +• Enter your information. +• Find your listing. +• Enter Captcha and tick both boxes. +• Repeat for each individual in house. + +https://www.usbizplace.com/ +https://www.usbizplace.com/contact-us.html +• Find your listing with your information. +• Follow directions on the contact-us page. +• Repeat for all listings of yours you wish to remove. + +https://www.webcrawler.com/ +https://www.webcrawler.com/support/privacypolicy +https://www.webcrawler.com/support/contactus +• Go to Webcrawler.com, search for your info. +• Select link + note its order in the listing. +• Contact them at the 'Contact us' link. +• Request removal due to privacy concerns. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.valassis.com/ +https://www.valassis.com/1024/Contact/MailingListRemoval.aspx +• Follow instructions on second link. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.valpak.com/ +https://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm +• Wait till next envelope comes in the mail. +• Enter the info exactly as it is on the envelope. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.wyty.com/ +https://www.wyty.com/optout.aspx +• Enter cell number (or phone number). +• Select 'Request'. +• Should be removed within 24hrs to a month. +• Repeat for all known numbers. + +https://www.yellowbook.com/ +https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ +• https://delivery.ypg.com/en/US/Home/Index/ (Canada opt-out). +• Follow directions on 'Yellowpagesoptout' link. +• Enter zip\area code. +• Create account. +• Select items to opt-out. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.yellowpages.com +https://www.yellowpagescom.intelius.com/optout.php +• Fill out opt-out form. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/ +https://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/terms_of_service.php?#privacy +• On the page with your information, look for ‘Are you the business owner’. +• Click it, select ‘Delete\remove listing’. +• Simply state your privacy concerns. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.ziplocal.com/ +https://ziplocal.com/online-privacy-policy/ +https://www.ziplocalonline.com/manage-listings +• To update your listing, use the search box above to look for your business. +• When you locate your business, simply select the Update Business link and follow the instructions. + +https://www.zoominfo.com/ +https://www.zoominfo.com/lookupEmail +• You'll be asked to provide your e-mail address. +• They'll search your address against their database. +• You'll receive an e-mail concerning whether or not they've your e-mail address. +• If not, nothing to worry about, but if they do they provide a means to opt-out. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Cookie Opt-Outs=== +Cookie opt-outs can be ignored as browser configuration + add-ons will block most if not all. + +https://www.about.com/ +https://www.about.com/gi/pages/mprivacy.htm +1. Another "Cookie" opt-out setup that can be ignored as the proper browser settings and add-ons will prevent tracking and information gathering. + +https://www.aboutads.info/ +https://www.aboutads.info/choices/ +1. Directions given on second link + +https://www.addthis.com/ +https://www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out +1. Directions given on second link + +https://wwww.Acxiom.com/ +https://isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx + (Cookie opt-out can be ignored if you install ad blocking and privacy based add-ons on your rig) +1. For the actual opt-out, just follow the above link and follow the instructions, repeating it for each residence in your house. +2. After each successful entry fill out, you'll be taken to a new page with a capatcha and a field to confirm the e-mail address +3. Log into your e-mail account, find the confirmation e-mail, follow the link provided + +https://www.bluekai.com/ +https://www.bluekai.com/consumers.php#optout +1. Follow directions given + +https://www.dexmedia.com/ +https://www.dexmedia.com/privacy/ +1. Appears to be a cookie opt-out, which can be defeated with the correct add-ons. + +https://exelate.com/ +https://exelate.com/privacy/opt-in-opt-out/ +1. Follow directions given + +https://intellitxt.com/ +https://intellitxt.com/opt_out/ch_optout.asp +1. Follow directions given + +https://msn.whitepages.com/ +https://msn.whitepages.com/help/privacy_central#6 +1. Cookie opt-out, check for the "White pages" opt-out info below + +https://www.networkadvertising.org/ +https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ +1. Follow directions given + +https://www.optoutmobile.com/ +https://www.optoutmobile.com/optout/index.html +1. Follow directions given + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Email Opt-outs=== +Opt-outs that require you to send an e-mail to a specific e-mail address or two, which usually requires you to wait 48 hours for any reply if any at all. + +https://www.alc.com/ +https://www.alc.com/privacy-policy/ +1. E-mail opt-out. Look toward the "How ALC uses the Information – Your Right to Opt-Out of ALC’s Information Sharing Practices" paragraphs. + +https://www.ameridex.com/ +https://www.ameridex.com/privacy.html +(Review privacy policy for more info) +1. Another website that wants you to send an e-mail or send direct mail\snail mail opt-outs +2. Also needs court order or proof of potential harm + +https://www.ancestry.com/ +https://www.ancestry.com/cs/legal/PrivacyForYourFamilyTree +1. Email customersolutions@ancestry.com your request for information removal. +2. Include in the email: Your email address, the URL address to the page in which the information appears, and specify which portion of the page you would like to have removed. +3. You will then be asked to provide a copy of government issued identification. + +https://www.bizdirlib.com +1. Find the listing with your information +2. Select the url of the page you're on +3. Then select the url of the listing itself +4. E-mail the webmaster at webmaster@bizdirlib.com +5. Demand it to be removed + +https://www.ciadata.com/ +https://www.ciadata.com/Privacy.html +1. Go to the Privacy link and look for the "You can opt out of receiving further marketing from CIAdata at any time." Paragraph +2. Send e-mail + +https://www.corelogic.com/ +https://www.corelogic.com/privacy.aspx +https://www.corelogic.com/About-Us/Contact-Us.aspx +1. EU residents only(?) +2. Look toward "2. choice" +3. Find "consumer may “opt-out” by contacting CoreLogic in writing or by e-mail at the addresses listed on our Contact Us page" + +https://www.fadv.com/ +https://www.fadv.com/Privacy-Policy.aspx +1. privacy@fadv.com +2. Look toward "4. Access" +3. Deletion of information is an on basis setup. + +httpss://familysearch.org +1. DataPrivacyOfficer@ldschurch.org +2. Look for "We endeavor to maintain the accuracy of personal information and rely on you to ensure your personal information is complete and accurate. " +3. Contact the Data Privacy Officer. + +https://www.harte-hanks.com/ +https://www.harte-hanks.com/page/privacypolicy#a5 +1. Email removal request to PSAC@harte-hanks.com + +https://www.kbmg.com/ +https://www.kbmg.com/privacy-policy/#5 +1. Look for "What can an individual do to be removed from KBM Group’s marketing lists?" +2. And follow the directions + +https://www.kgbpeople.com/ +https://www.kgbpeople.com/privacy-policy +https://www.kgbpeople.com/contact +1. Search for "You may ask to have the information on your account deleted or removed, in which case we will also ask you to identify yourself." +2. Ask them to remove your information by providing address, name, phone...etc + +https://libertydata.net/ +https://libertydata.net/privacypolicy.asp +1. Search for "Your Access to and Control Over Information" + +https://www.myfamily.com +1. E-mail customersolutions@ancestry.com +2. You'll need to provide an e-mail address, a link to the page, what information you want removed, and a scan of government issued identification (blur out face and ID numbers...etc) + +https://www.myfico.com/ +https://www.myfico.com/policy/privacypolicy.aspx +1. Look for "Your Opt-Out Choices" +2. Follow the directions given +3. Email request to SharingOptOut@FICO.com + +https://namesdatabase.com/ +https://namesdatabase.com/support.pl?c=0.97207371478817&q=removing +1. Follow directions, repeat for each resident in household + +https://www.NetDetective.net +https://www.hdpublishinggroup.com/ndprivacy.html +1. Search for "CHOICE AND OPT OUT" +2. Follow directions listed + +https://www.openonline.com/ +https://www.openonline.com/Home/Resource-Center/Privacy.aspx +1. Search for: Opt Out Procedures + +https://www.pch.com/ +https://privacy.pch.com/#12 +1. privacychoices@pchmail.com +2. Send an email to above address +3. Provide name, address in email +4. Request removal from their adverts +5. There are more ways to do it +6. Each one removes you from a different contest of theirs + +https://www.rd.com/ +https://www.rd.com/privacy-policy/article10660.html#opting +1. Search for "Choices about Our Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information" +2. Follow instructions + +https://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ +1. Email customersolutions@ancestry.com. You'll need to provide an e-mail address, a link to the page, what information you want removed, and a scan of government issued identification (blur out face and ID numbers...etc) + +https://www.towerdata.com +https://intelligence.towerdata.com/opt-out +1. Follow instructions on second page + +https://www.usaypage.com/ +https://www.usaypage.com/one/contact.html +1. Follow directions on second page +2. Send e-mail + +https://www.usbizs.com/ +https://www.usbizs.com/one/contact.html +1. Follow directions on contact page + +https://www.voterlistsonline.com/ +https://www.voterlistsonline.com/privacy.htm +1. Search for "Confidentiality of Information/Correction" +2. Follow directions given + +https://waatp.com/ +https://waatp.com/faq.html +1. Look for "How do I remove or update my data on waatp.com?" + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Fax Opt-outs=== +A series of opt-outs that require you to send a fax to a specific number or department before you can have your information removed. + +https://cisnationwide.com/ +https://cisnationwide.com/optout.html +1. Follow instructions on opt-out page + +https://www.civilrecords.org/ +https://www.civilrecords.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.criminalpages.com/ +https://www.criminalpages.com/optout/ +1. Look for directions on second link + +https://www.criminal-records.org/ +https://www.criminal-records.org/terms.php +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" + +https://criminalregistry.org/ +https://criminalregistry.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Look for directions on second link + +https://datadetective.com/ +https://datadetective.com/terms.php +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" + +https://deathrecords.org/ +https://deathrecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions on second link + +https://www.divorcerecords.org/ +https://www.divorcerecords.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.dobsearch.com/ +https://www.dobsearch.com/faq.php +1. Quote: In order for us to “opt out” your public information from being viewable on the public DOBsearch People Finder search results, we need to verify your identity and require faxed proof of identity. Proof of identity can be a state issued ID card or driver's license, or notarized letter. If you are faxing a copy of your driver's license, you may cross out the photo and the driver's license number. We only need to see the name, address and date of birth. Please fax to 516-717-3017 and allow 4 to 6 weeks to completely process your request. It is your responsibility to ensure legibility of your document + +https://www.elookup.com/ +https://www.elookup.com/privacy.html +1. Look for "As a courtesy we allow you to opt out your personal information from our Website. " + +https://email-411.com/ +https://email-411.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Look at second link for instructions + +https://www.everify.com/ +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#remove +https://www.everify.com/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Look at second and third link for instructions + +https://federaldatasearch.com +https://www.inteligator.com/home/optout.php +1. Look at second link for instructions + +https://www.find-cellphonenumbers.com/ +https://www.find-cellphonenumbers.com/faq.aspx +1. Search for "You may submit your request using the following fax number:" + +https://freebackgroundcheck.us +https://freebackgroundcheck.us/terms.php +1. Look for "Opt Out Policy" + +https://governmentregistry.org/ +https://governmentregistry.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Look for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.govpolicerecords.org/ +https://www.govpolicerecords.org/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Follow directions on second link + +https://govregistry.us/ +https://govregistry.us/privacy.php +1. Look for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.govwarrantrecords.org/ +https://www.govwarrantrecords.org/index.php?xpath=terms +https://www.govpolicerecords.org/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Look for "Removing your information from our search results" + +https://www.infotracer.com/ +https://www.infotracer.com/legal.php#optout +1. Read directions on second link +2. Fax: 617-933-9946 + +https://www.inteligator.com/ +https://www.inteligator.com/home/optout.php +1. Read above opt-out link, as it requires fax or direct mail\snail mail + +https://intelregistry.com/ +https://intelregistry.com/terms.php +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" +2. Fax: (617) 507-0410 + +https://www.lookupanyone.com/ +https://www.lookupanyone.com/privacy-faq.php#faq4 +1. Look for "In order for LookupAnyone to “opt out” your public information" +2. Follow directions +3. Fax: 425-974-6194 + +https://www.marriagerecords.org/ +https://www.marriagerecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Read directions + +https://www.numberinvestigator.com/ +https://www.numberinvestigator.com/privacy +1. Search for "How to Remove your Information from Our Database" +2. Follow directions provided +3. Fax: (425) 974-2210 + +https://www.peoplefinderonline.net/ +https://www.peoplefinderonline.net/terms.html +1. Click "Opt-out policy" +2. Fax: 1-888-446-1229 + +https://www.peoplelookup.com +https://www.peoplelookup.com/privacy policy +1. Find your profile VIA a search +2. Click privacy policy link +3. Read instructions +2. Fax: 425-974-6194 + +https://www.phonesbook.com/ +https://www.phonesbook.com/about.php +1. Follow directions +2. Fax: 425-974-6194 + +https://www.phoneregistry.com/ +https://www.phoneregistry.com/privacy.php#opt +1. Follow directions +2. Fax: (617) 933-9946 + +https://www.publicrecords.com/ +https://www.publicrecords.com/privacy +httpss://secure.publicrecords.com/privacy-faq.php#5 +1. Search for "How to Remove your Information from the PublicRecords.com Public Records Databases" + +https://www.publicrecordschecks.com/ +https://www.publicrecordschecks.com/privacy.php +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.publicrecordsguide.com/ +https://www.publicrecordsguide.com/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Read over the PDF in the second link +2. Follow directions + +https://publicrecordspy.com/ +https://publicrecordspy.com/data_opt_out.php +1. Follow directions +2. Fax: 1-888-446-1229 + +https://recordsauthority.com/ +https://recordsauthority.com/access/optout.php +1. Follow instruction on second link + +https://retrosleuth.com +https://retrosleuth.com/faq +1. Look for "Can I remove my information from this site?" +2. Follow instructions provided + +https://www.reversegenie.com/ +https://www.reversegenie.com/data_optout.php +1. Fax or snail\direct mail opt-out + +https://www.reversemobile.com/ +https://www.reversemobile.com/index.php?xpath=privacy +https://reversemobile.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions + +https://reversenumberdatabase.com/ +https://reversenumberdatabase.com/terms +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy " +2. Follow directions +3. Fax: (617) 933-9946 + +https://reversephonecheck.com/ +https://reversephonecheck.com/tos.html +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" +2. Follow directions +3. Fax: 617-933-9946 + +https://reverserecords.org/ +https://reverserecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow instructions on second link +2. Fax: 1-888-446-1229 + +https://www.staterecords.org/ +https://www.staterecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions on second link + +https://stateregistry.org/ +https://stateregistry.org/index.php?records_state=&xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.tenantdetective.com/ +https://www.tenantdetective.com/privacypolicy.php +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.ussearch.com +https://www.ussearch.com/about/faq#q28 +1. Go to second link +2. Follow directions + +https://waatp.com/ +https://waatp.com/faq.html +1. Look for "How do I remove or update my data on waatp.com?" + +https://webstigate.com/ +https://webstigate.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions on second link + +httpss://www.Zabasearch.com +https://www.zabasearch.com/privacy.php +https://www.zabasearch.com/block_records/ +1. Search for: How to Remove your Information from Our Database +2. Fax opt-out: (425) 974-6194 + +https://www.zipoffenders.com/ +https://www.zipoffenders.com/access/optout.php +1. Follow directions on second page +2. Fax: 1-888-446-1229 + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Snail-mail Opt-outs=== +Opt-outs that must be done through the use of snail-mail in order to opt-out of several databases due to several “legal” issues. + +https://www.advancedbackgroundchecks.com/ +https://www.advancedbackgroundchecks.com/optout-form.pdf +1. Fill with information and send VIA mail to have info removed + +https://cisnationwide.com/ +https://cisnationwide.com/optout.html +1. Follow instructions on opt-out page +2. Submit VIA fax or direct mail\snail mail + +https://www.civilrecords.org/ +https://www.civilrecords.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.classmates.com/ +https://www.classmates.com/sitesearch/help/article?articleId=4384&dsource=pub%7C1032%7Cinfo_changing%7Cdef%7C14235%7C1 +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2.Follow directions + +https://www.completebackgroundchecks360.com/ +https://www.completebackgroundchecks360.com/terms.html +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" + +https://www.corelogic.com/ +https://www.corelogic.com/privacy.aspx +https://www.corelogic.com/About-Us/Contact-Us.aspx +1. EU residents only(?) +2. Look toward "2. choice" +3. Find "consumer may “opt-out” by contacting CoreLogic in writing or by e-mail at the addresses listed on our Contact Us page" + +https://www.courtrecords.org/ +https://www.courtrecords.org/lp_optout.php +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://courtregistry.org/ +https://courtregistry.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Look for "Notifications & Opt-Out If you choose to register to use a Site, we will send you a welcome email including information about the Site and your registration." +2. And look for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.criminal-records.org/ +https://www.criminal-records.org/terms.php +1. Search for "Opt Out Policy" +2. Follow directions + +https://criminalregistry.org/ +https://criminalregistry.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://www.detectiveunlimited.com/ +https://www.detectiveunlimited.com/privacy-policy.html +1. Search for "6. How we protect your personal information" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.divorcerecords.org/ +https://www.divorcerecords.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions in second link + +https://email-411.com/ +https://email-411.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://www.everify.com/ +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#remove +https://www.everify.com/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Follow directions in both the second and third link + +https://federaldatasearch.com +https://www.inteligator.com/home/optout.php +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://www.find-cellphonenumbers.com/ +https://www.find-cellphonenumbers.com/faq.aspx +1. "You may submit your request using the following fax number:" +2. Follow directions + +www.GovArrestRecords.org +www.GovArrestRecords.org/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://www.govpolicerecords.org/ +https://www.govpolicerecords.org/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Follow directions in second link + +https://govregistry.us/ +https://govregistry.us/privacy.php +1. Look for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" + +https://www.infotracer.com/ +https://www.infotracer.com/legal.php#optout +1. Review directions in second link + +https://www.inteligator.com/ +https://www.inteligator.com/home/optout.php +1. Read above opt-out link +2. Follow directions + +https://www.kbmg.com/ +https://www.kbmg.com/privacy-policy/#5 +1. Look for "What can an individual do to be removed from KBM Group’s marketing lists?" +2. And follow the directions + +https://www.kgbpeople.com/ +https://www.kgbpeople.com/privacy-policy +https://www.kgbpeople.com/contact +1. Search for "You may ask to have the information on your account deleted or removed, in which case we will also ask you to identify yourself." +2. Ask them to remove your information by providing address, name, phone...etc + +https://www.marriagerecords.org/ +https://www.marriagerecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Read directions + +https://www.meredith.com/ +https://www.meredith.com/privacy.html#howwedisclose +1. Mail request to "Meredith Corporation, Opt-Out Postal, Attn: Circulation, 1716, Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309." +2. Follow directions + +https://NetDetective.net +https://www.hdpublishinggroup.com/ndprivacy.html +1. Search for "CHOICE AND OPT OUT" +2. Follow directions listed + +https://www.openonline.com/ +https://www.openonline.com/Home/Resource-Center/Privacy.aspx +1. Search for: Opt Out Procedures +2. Follow directions provided + +https://www.peoplesearchnow.com/ +https://www.peoplesearchnow.com/help/topic.aspx?id=15 +1. "In a letter signed by you, please include your first name, middle initial, last name, aliases and AKAs, your complete current address, your previous addresses, and date of birth to PeopleSearchNow.com / Opt-out, PO Box 29502 #64729, Las Vegas, NV 89126-9502." + +https://www.privateeye.com/ +https://secure.privateeye.com/optout-form.pdf +1. Go to the second link +2. Print out +3. Enter your information +4. Follow instructions +5. Mail to: Opt-Out/PrivateEye.com P.O.Box 110850 Naples, FL 34108 + +https://www.publicbackgroundchecks.com/ +https://www.publicbackgroundchecks.com/privacypolicy.aspx +1. Search for "7. Protecting your information" on the second link +2. Follow directions + +https://www.publicrecords.com/ +https://www.publicrecords.com/privacy +httpss://secure.publicrecords.com/privacy-faq.php#5 +1. Search for "How to Remove your Information from the PublicRecords.com Public Records Databases" +2. Follow directions provided + +https://www.publicrecordschecks.com/ +https://www.publicrecordschecks.com/privacy.php +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions + +https://www.publicrecordsguide.com/ +https://www.publicrecordsguide.com/opt_out_form.pdf +1. Read over the PDF in the second link +2. Follow directions + +https://www.PublicRecordsNow.com +https://www.public-records-now.com/static/view/help#RemoveFromRecords +1. Follow directions on second link + +https://www.publicbackgroundchecks.com/ +1. https://www.publicbackgroundchecks.com/privacypolicy.aspx +2. Search for "To have your information remove from our people database, please send a letter to PublicBackgroundChecks.com and include the following: " +3. Follow instructions provided + +https://publicrecordschecks.com/ +https://publicrecordschecks.com/privacy.php +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions provided + +https://www.rd.com/ +https://www.rd.com/privacy-policy/article10660.html#opting +1. Search for "Choices about Our Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information" +2. Follow instructions + +https://recordsauthority.com/ +https://recordsauthority.com/access/optout.php +1. Follow instruction on second link + +https://retrosleuth.com +https://retrosleuth.com/faq +1. Look for "Can I remove my information from this site?" +2. Follow instructions provided + +https://www.reversegenie.com/ +https://www.reversegenie.com/data_optout.php +1. Follow directions provided + +https://www.reversemobile.com/ +https://www.reversemobile.com/index.php?xpath=privacy +https://reversemobile.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions + +https://reverserecords.org/ +https://reverserecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow instructions on second link + +https://rivoters.com/ +https://rivoters.com/request.txt +1. Follow instructions on second link + +https://www.savings.com/ +https://www.savings.com/info/us/privacy +1. Search for "IV. CHOICE AND OPT OUT" +2. Follow directions + +https://secure.privateeye.com/ +https://secure.privateeye.com/help/default.aspx#26 +https://secure.privateeye.com/optout-form.pdf +1. Follow directions on the second and third link + +https://www.staterecords.org/ +https://www.staterecords.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions provided + +https://stateregistry.org/ +https://stateregistry.org/index.php?records_state=&xpath=privacy +1. Search for "Removing Your Information From Our Databases" +2. Follow directions +3. Fax or snail\direct mail + +https://usidentify.com/ +https://www.usidentify.com/company/privacy.html +1. Search for "IV. CHOICE AND OPT OUT" +2. Follow directions given + +https://www.veromi.net/ +https://www.veromi.net/privacy.aspx +1. Look for "IV. CHOICE AND OPT OUT" +2. Follow directions + +https://webstigate.com/ +https://webstigate.com/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Follow directions provided + +https://www.zipoffenders.com/ +https://www.zipoffenders.com/access/optout.php +1. Follow directions on second page + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + +===PHONE OPT-OUTS=== +Opt-outs that must be done over the phone in order to be removed from several databases for whatever reason they’ve decided to concoct. + +https://www.kgbpeople.com/ +https://www.kgbpeople.com/privacy-policy +https://www.kgbpeople.com/contact +2. Search for "You may ask to have the information on your account deleted or removed, in which case we will also ask you to identify yourself." +3. Ask them to remove your information by providing address, name, phone...etc +4. Email, Physical mail or phone + +https://libertydata.net/ +https://libertydata.net/privacypolicy.asp +1. Search for "Your Access to and Control Over Information" +2. Phone or E-mail Opt-out + +httpss://wwww.MyLife.com/ +https://www.mylife.com/help/ +1. To request that a Member Profile or Public Profile be deleted, please contact Customer Care at 1-888-704-1900 or contact us by email at privacy@mylife.com. Upon receipt of these requests, and confirmation that you are requesting that your own profile be removed, please allow MyLife 10 business days to complete this removal. It may be necessary to contact you to validate that you are the profile owner requesting the removal. This is to ensure the correct identity and profile ownership before completing these requests, and is for the protection of our users and their privacy. +2. Known as: +3. addressbook.com +4. goodcontacts.com +5. highschoolalumni.com +6. myaddressbook.com +7. MyLife.com +8. reunion.com +9. whoislookingforyou.com +10. whoissearchingforyou.com +11. whosesearchingforyou.com +12. whossearchingforyou.com +13. To opt-out, call 888-704-1900 and ask for the Removal Department. + +https://www.rd.com/ +https://www.rd.com/privacy-policy/article10660.html#opting +1. Search for "Choices about Our Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information" +2. Follow instructions + +https://wink.com/ +https://www.mylife.com/help/#gi14 +1. "14. Does MyLife.com® have someone I can talk to about removing my profile? +2. Yes. As your privacy is a top concern for us at MyLife.com®, we have dedicated a team to handle all removal requests. The best way for us to address your concerns is via the telephone. +3. You can contact our MyLife.com® Customer Care representatives toll-free at (888) 704-1900. Our agents are available Mon-Fri: 6am – 7pm PST. Our Customer Care representative will verify you are the owner of the account, and make any necessary modifications." +4. Phone opt-out + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Miscellaneous Opt-outs=== +This list contains opt-outs that have no direct place but have proven useful. + +https://www.ameridex.com/ +https://www.ameridex.com/privacy.html (review privacy policy for more info) +1. Another website that wants you to send an e-mail or send direct mail\snail mail opt-outs. +2. Also needs court order or proof of potential harm. + +https://archive.org/ +https://archive.org/about/exclude.php +https://web.archive.org/web/20140812200246/https://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/conferences/aps/removal-policy.html +1. If you're allowed to modify your account or website's HTML, add this somewhere in between the tags. +2. +***NOTE:*** Search your profile links/account links on archive.org. If you find them, then send an email to info@archive.org with the link to the search results, your username and that youwould like those archives removed. Also include evidence that you own this account by being logged into it and taking a screen cap of you being logged in. You can even leave a comment on your account/profile asking them to remove you from their site so they can ensure you own the account and are truly wishing for the archives of your account to be removed. + +https://www.Bing.com +https://ssl.bing.com/profile/history?oma=toggle_off +1. Disable personalized nonsense and ads. + +Remove your property's street view on Bing Maps: +1. Go to: https://www.bing.com/maps/ +2. Type home address. +3. Get to street view. +4. Center squarely on house. +5. Look for (?) question mark near bottom right. Be careful as it can be hidden sometimes. +6. Click it. +7. Select ’Report an image concern’ +8. You'll get a pop-up or new tab with a panoramic image. +9. Select your house, a little red square will appear then. +10. Voice your privacy concern, stating vandalism and potential break-ins by criminal elements who use online maps to scout\case potential targets. +11. Fill out the rest of the form + Capatcha, wait. +12. Save ticket (#) Number. + +https://www.catalogchoice.org/ +1. Join site with an e-mail and password used nowhere else. +2. Search for the catalogs you’ve received. +3. Follow instructions to opt-out. +4. This site just organizes websites; they aren’t associated with any of them. + +https://courtclick.com/ +https://courtclick.com/terms.php +https://www.courtclick.com/support/ +1. Look for ‘Opt Out Policy: Note that public records such as court records can be updated or corrected, but not removed unless expunged, sealed, court ordered or the like.’ +2. You'll need to have your records sealed first. + +https://www.emailtracer.com +https://www.emailtracer.com/tos.php +1. Search for ‘Opt Out Policy’. +2. Only under certain circumstances. + +https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&view +1. Edit button in your Ads settings page, selecting No one and saving your changes. + +https://www.Google.com +https://plus.google.com/settings/endorsements +https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ +https://history.google.com/history/ +1. These links help make sure your Google data stays yours. +2. You can opt-out of having your likes and such shared. +3. Help limit ads and similar issues. +4. And even help prevent your history on your account from being given out. + +Remove your property's street view on Google Maps: +1. Go to Google Maps and type in your address. +2. Bring up the street view of your property. +3. Look to the bottom right hand corner of the screen you should see an Icon Labeled ‘report a problem.’ +4. Click on ‘report a problem.’ +5. You will get a page labeled “report inappropriate street view.” +6. Look for the words “Privacy Concerns” and click on them. +7. If you want your house blurred, click on ‘my house.’ Then choose the option ‘I have a picture of my house and would like it blurred.’ +8. Adjust the image and show Google which part of the photo needs blurred. +9. Type the verification code at the bottom of the page into the box provided and click submit. +10. Check back in a few days to see if the image has been blurred. + +https://www.lexisnexis.com/ +https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/directmarketingopt-out.aspx +https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/for-consumers/opt-out-of-lexisnexis.aspx +1. requires you to have a court order or police report, but you can remove \some\ information through the Direct Marketing Opt-out, though. + +https://www.locatepeople.org/ +https://www.locatepeople.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +https://locatepeople.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Can Opt-out only by certain circumstances. + +https://www.jailbase.com/ +https://www.jailbase.com/en/opt-out/ +1. Follow instructions on page, only under certain circumstances. + +https://www.justmugshots.com/ +https://support.justmugshots.com/forums/21326676-Removal-Services +1. An odd one, but has shown some use. + +https://www.Publicrecordssearchonline.org +https://www.publicrecordssearchonline.org/new/faq.php +1. Search for ‘Q: How can I remove my information from the Public Records Database?’ +2. Follow directions provided. + +https://twitter.com/settings/security +1. Through your profile, go to your security settings page and uncheck the box under the promoted content section. + +https://www.Yahoo.com +https://www.info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/details.html +https://www.search.yahoo.com/preferences/preferences? +1. Log into account. +2. Disable ads and personalized stuff. + +https://www.Yahoo.com/maps +1. Visit https://www.Yahoo.com/maps +2. Drag the gray icon that resembles a person (top-right) to your street (If it won’t drag, then your street has not been photographed for Yahoo.). +3. Click on ‘report image’ at the bottom-left of the screen, it will take you to a different website. +4. Click on ‘request blurring,’ and follow the directions. + +https://west.thomson.com/ +https://static.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/static/pdf/opt_out_form.pdf +*Only under special circumstances* + +https://haveibeenpwned.com/ +https://haveibeenpwned.com/OptOut +1. Check your e-mail accounts against HIBP +2. Opt-out once you copy the information to a .txt + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===RESOURCES=== + +• https//www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_remove_yourself_from_all_background_check +• https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j0enu/how_to_remove_yourself_from_the_background_check/ +• https://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/how-to-remove-yourself-from-people-search-websites/612 +• https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0272-how-keep-your-personal-information-secure +• https://blog.sgrouples.com/delete-your-private-information-people-search-databases/ +• https://readwrite.com/2012/04/26/here-are-20-companies-who-sell-your-data-how-to-stop-them +• https://lifehacker.com/the-top-50-companies-that-mine-and-sell-your-data-and-1482645222 +• https://www.stopdatamining.me/opt-out-list/ +• https://www.privacyrights.org/online-information-brokers-list +• https://www.privacyalerts.org/opt-out-master-list.html +• https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2013/12/data-brokers-opt-out/ +• https://yourdigitalid.com/data-brokers/ +• https://www.abine.com/blog/2012/how-to-delete-things-from-the-internet/ +• https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Junk-Mail +• https://www.privacyalerts.org/index.php +• https://www.optout.com/ebook/default.aspx +• https://www.usa.gov/topics/family/privacy-protection/junk-mail.shtml +• https://www.propublica.org/article/privacy-tools-opting-out-from-data-brokers +• https://consumerist.com/2010/06/21/giant-list-of-data-brokers-to-opt-out-of/ +• https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery.data_miners/index.html +• https://www.privacyalerts.org/data-brokers.html +• https://www.privacyrights.org/online-information-brokers-list https://consumerist.com/2010/06/21/giant-list-of-data-brokers-to-opt-out-of/ +• https://unlistmy.info/sites +• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-take-back-your-privacy-from-data-brokers/ +• https://www.thebigoptout.com/how-to-opt-out/ +• https://www.scambusters.org/onlineprivacy.html +• https://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=925396 +• https://yourdigitalid.com/data-brokers/ +• https://techland.time.com/2011/03/10/how-to-opt-out-of-everything-online/ +• https://mashable.com/2013/11/12/opt-out-data-tracking/ +• https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-opt-out-of-facebook-plan-to-sell-your-browser-data-2014-6 +• https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2013/12/data-brokers-opt-out/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword=== +Before you do any of the opt-outs listed here, go to the Paranoid’s Bible namesake PDF first and learn how to cleanup and shrink your digital footprint. The online opt-outs, once completed, take anywhere from a month to a year to be fully removed from Google and other search engines. Besides opting out of the database for each site, you’ll notice other sites will have you removed from their databases, too. + +Please be aware, though, this doesn’t hinder the government in any significant way or hurts your chances of getting a job. This only prevents civilians from doxing you or attacking you offline. Another thing to note is that legitimate businesses go through government sponsored and/or maintained databases to do background checks. + +Note: As of this date, each of these sites and their opt-outs should work, however these sites (to keep people from opting out) tend to change either their opt-outs or their websites. If something doesn’t work or has changed, send the Paranoid’s Bible team a message on our blog! \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Bible.txt b/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Bible.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f32256 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Bible.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1408 @@ +===The Paranoid's Bible=== + +Non-Profit and Free for Redistribution. +Written on June 04th | 2014 +Published on October 22nd | 2015 +Runner Edition Written on April 11th | 2017 +Runner Edition Published on April 30th | 2017 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== + +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +**Reminder**: Links have been forced to HTTPS. If a link doesn’t work, try removing the ‘S’ in ‘HTTPS’. + +Please visit our blog for more guides and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +The Paranoid’s Bible project is a series of guides meant to help the average internet user learn the rudimentary knowledge needed to prevent dox attempts and lessen their digital footprint through the use of information security (INFOSEC). Through this and other guides, the average user should be able to have not only a safer and more secure internet experience but also a more private one. + +This guide and many others by the PB team have been partially written by several individuals who’ve done this not for personal gain but just to share the knowledge. So, please, pass on the knowledge you’ve gained from this guide. Splice it, edit it, consume or repurpose it. + +It’ll always be free, like any information should be. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===All About Doxing=== +Doxing, a term that comes from ‘document tracing,’ is believed to have had a past in web 1.0 among the early internet users. The act in itself is the action of finding information on a target from an initial set of data, like a username or an e-mail address. This information can be found through the use of something as simple as a search engine or as time consuming as reading up on the target’s accounts across the internet. While there exists several services besides search engines to find this information, the most tried and true method is simply using the target’s own actions against them to discover their dox. +It isn’t all about search engines and researching a target’s digital footprint, some individuals can and will try their hand at social engineering. The act of social engineering is accomplished through the claim of being someone they're not or through asking questions in order to gain access to more information on the target. While a gray area of being online and offline, it’s best to note that doxing isn’t only done online but also offline (E.G: posting fliers to ‘name & shame’) and that there exists numerous ways to obtain the information needed. + +The act of doxing, though, is a neutral act that is free of political and moral responsibilities. Anyone can find another person’s dox and use it for whatever means they wish to use it for, like blackmailing, shaming or simply browbeating someone over different beliefs and opinions. It’s used by many groups and individuals that range in religious and political beliefs; ergo the person committing the act is the one that places any meaning onto it. + +The truth is that no one is un-dox-able. It’s speculated this is the end result of mob justice and social justice on the internet; however doxing is just something that won't go away. Just like its rise to infamy in the early 2000s, it'll always have its ups and downs. We just have to learn to co-exist with it and guard ourselves against any attempts. + +**Remember**: Anyone can become a target and victim of doxing. + +___References___: +https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-doxing-and-how-does-it-affect-your-privacy-makeuseof-explains/ +https://www.techgyd.com/know-doxing-protect-yourself/6197/ +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing +https://socialengineering.wikia.com/wiki/Doxxing +https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/doxing +https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doxing + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Why You Should Fear Doxing=== +Many would have you believe that doxing isn’t something to worry about and that it’s just harmless pranks done by adolescents on the internet… these people are wrong and sorely out of touch with the current climate online. Many of these people simply believe that not posting their name or address online means they’re safe, however they fail to realize that the interconnectivity of web 2.0 and the incoming ‘internet of things’ have caused many open wounds in everyone’s privacy that bleed an unhealthy amount of information. +The average user is taught that the internet just works, sort of like magic, which severely stunts their understanding of the greater image. The internet is built upon decrepit code that’s held together with a programmer’s equivalent of gum and duct tape. Because of this, and quicky-fixes, it’s no wonder database leaks are becoming almost a norm for internet users; however those aren’t the biggest threat. Things like tracking cookies, Facebook spying (on logged in and non-logged in users alike), and things like digital witch hunts are putting innocent people in the line of a cyber firing squad whose main goal is to not only publicly humiliate and shame them but also take their means of living away from, causing complete isolation or ostracization for them and their loved ones. +Innocent people are attacked all the time online for things like being the victim of Cat-fishing. In some ways, it’s like doxing and identity theft. You use someone else's information and identity to masquerade as that individual. You then, as this individual, take part in what many refer to as a "romance scam". This can be to try and stalk someone, milk them of their money, or to gain trust to commit a more atrocious act, thus leaving the victims to attack each other while the perpetrator takes their leave. + +Cat-fishing, although like doxing, isn't actually doxing or the biggest possible threat. Doxing to many is just pizza boxing and flooding a mailbox with literal junk. There are also prank calls, theft of mail and many other acts that can, to some degree, become worse. The issue isn’t that some use doxing as a means to gather information for identity theft. It isn't just ruining your credit or stealing your money, either. There are some individuals out there who'll use doxing as a form of abuse, isolating someone who is emotional to take advantage of them or enable them, which can lead to even greater forms of abuse. + +It isn't the stalking or physical abuse you should worry about, but the mental and emotional abuse. The stress alone can damage less-than-mature victims and cause a greater sense of isolation that can disrupt relationships. It isn't just pranks and unwanted food anymore; it's now a form of vigilante justice or revenge. It'll be done by those who see themselves as fighting for a cause. They'll ruin the livelihood of many due to any perceived wrong and they’ll continue their antics until the person they’re targeting is destroyed. + +___References___: +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfishing +https://www.drphil.com/articles/article/720 +https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/13/doxxing-it-s-like-hacking-but-legal.html +https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/feature-0014-identity-theft +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft +https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/media/video-0024-what-if-youre-victim-identity-theft +https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/11/18/someone-had-taken-over-my-life-an-identity-theft-victims-story/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Why You Should Care About Privacy=== +Information is the new form of currency that transcends borders and time. It’s used by both the governments and corporations of the world. Due to this simple fact it’s not only a valuable resource but also an important one when you consider the worth of personal data. You as an individual aren’t worth much, however your personal data is, like what sites you frequent, which adverts you’ve clicked on or which articles you’ve read—your information is worth more than you. Even when dead, your information is valuable and can be sold, traded and collected like a baseball card. Many will remain apathetic about this fact, yet the truth is while you don’t have to worry when you’re dead… you’re alive now and should take precautions. + +Corporations and government agencies are putting your information into lists and dossiers. These lists and dossiers rest in the dark corners of some data center in Utah that is constantly crawling through the web for new data. Soon it’ll be near impossible for anyone to remove their information from online simply due to the insatiable thirst that the governments and corporations of the world have for data. + +Everything is being saved or is being scraped. Apps, websites and programs are doing this, quite legally, thanks to the fact that no-one bothers to read the TOS or understands the purposely confusing language that they use when trying to say they’ve a right to your words and ideas. + +We shouldn’t worry about the government at least, right? + +Well the government's known for ruining things you love; you should know this by now. You should be wary not of the government as a being but as an entity composed of individuals: + +• An individual can track an ex-lover + +• A group of individuals can target another group based upon their political beliefs + +• A group can view your pornographic viewing habits and use it against you + +The US government is but one of the major concerns for a person that's privacy minded. They not only spy on everyone, but they receive help from many corporations. These corporations make money off you and your information. They will buy, sell and trade with both the government and other corporations. + +Sites like Been Verified, Smart Zip and Intelius will gather and place your data on not only their sites but sell it to others. Even search engines like Google or Bing have your personal information. These sites can have anything from your name to your address or even pictures of your house and vehicles. + +It may seem like fear mongering and a lot of fuss about nothing, but your information is used for anything and everything. Anyone can find it now and no-one can be too prepared when it comes to their privacy and personal safety. + +___References___: +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center +https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/ +https://dailycaller.com/2014/12/22/bombshell-report-irs-targeted-icky-conservative-groups/ +https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131127/00243625384/nsa-spied-porn-habits-radicalizers-planned-to-use-details-to-embarrass-them.shtml +https://www.beenverified.com/ +https://www.smartzip.com/ +https://www.intelius.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Compartmentalization and You=== +When it concerns information security, compartmentalization is the act of limiting access to information through a need-to-know basis to persons or groups who need it in order to perform specific tasks. The concept originates from the military when handling "classified information" and intelligence applications. The basis is that if fewer people know the details, the less likely a mission or task will be jeopardized and be risked. This helps limit the chance that data could be compromised or fall into the hands of enemies. + +This also explains the varying levels of clearance within organizations, like "TOP SECRET" or the highly restricted "TOP SECRET ULTRA". + +Like a well-oiled military machine, one must treat their online life like a separate entity that's in no way, shape or form related to their offline life. This is to prevent cross contamination of accounts and information. One such example of compartmentalization in cyber security, for the average internet user, is never using the same username or e-mail address for an account. + +Another example would be purchasing a subscription to a good, secure VPN to prevent your own IP and ISP from being detected. + +One other example is the use of add-ons to sanitize your referral links and randomizing your browser's user agent. + +In the end, the best practice is to treat each and every account as a separate entity isolated from your other accounts. A new e-mail address, username, persona and style of typing will be needed for each and every account you create to prevent possible cross contamination. + +Please remember these simple steps when creating your accounts: +• A different username +• A different e-mail address +• A different password +• Always ensure you never use real world information +• Always ensure your avatar and/or signature is of an image you've used nowhere else +• Where you can, use a P.O. Box +• Where you can, use a pre-paid card instead of your credit or debit +• Where you can, use a burner phone (pre-paid cell) instead of your landline or cell number +• Use a word processor to double check your written content before posting +• Try to limit the use of words you most commonly use +• Try to limit what information you provide in your account's profile +• Try to limit your overall account count to 10 or less +• Never link accounts to each other +• Never publicly post e-mail addresses or passwords +• Never share or link your chat, instant messenger or social media accounts to people you don't trust +• Never use your real name, nor should you ever post your real world information + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===An Introduction to your Digital Footprint=== +Transparency for the sake of online socialization and interaction is a threat. This trend won't die anytime soon, mind you. There are many reasons for this, such as the alarming growth of social networks and the demands for online passports or services like Klout. It's obvious that the need for privacy is in increasing demand, but the biggest setback for privacy is you. + +All those accounts you made in your early internet years? They have most likely left a nice trail that many can follow and use to learn about you and your posting habits. + +You see, it’s true; everything on the internet lasts. + +Unlike now, we weren’t taught to be as privacy-minded. Governments and corporations are fighting to wave privacy off as a paranoid's fantasy, and many privacy groups exist and claim to fight for your rights against the invasion of privacy. But how many actually do help? Many are in bed with corporations and/or the government. Many just demand donations because of a believed slight. Others... others just steal content from each other. + +The Paranoid's Bible? + +We just want to spread and share knowledge (and that you shouldn’t pay for sub-par info) whereas others push the meme that just deleting an account will wipe all traces of it. It’s wrong to believe that deleting account actually deletes anything. By law, most sites and services have to keep everything on their servers for a few months to a year or more. So, in a sense, you can never delete an account, hence us telling you that you need to think carefully before creating an account. + +We believe your various accounts should be like any good camp fire: Well planned. + +You need to not only think it out but also plan it out and have an emergency plan in case it spreads too far, too fast. Plus it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan to extinguish it in case you no longer have control over it. + +Your online profiles and accounts shouldn’t just rot. They need to be removed and all traces proving its existence also doused out. Like any good woodsman or woman will tell you: A single campfire can destroy a forest. + +This is why you must always plan your accounts and profiles out. Like a campfire left alone in a forest, a single account or profile can destroy an entire life. Any one account and/or profile can devastate an entire person’s public image. Yes, in theory, everything will remain cached, copied or saved on some server till the end of days however there are some options still left for you to explore. + +You have an online footprint and anyone can find it, there’s nothing else to say other than that there are services for doing background checks on everyone and everything for any reason(s). You have a digital trail dedicated to all your old fanfics, photos or images and online debates… anyone who has enough patience can find out who you are online and where you are offline. + +There are steps that you can take to prevent your online footprint from growing. But nothing short of doxing yourself ([1] self doxing) and learning just how much of your information is online can help. + +One issue is how you interact with others online. + +Another issue is how much information you post on the internet. + +All we can do is give you some simple suggestions before providing you the tools needed to self-dox. + +Once done, save this information somewhere on your computer or a USB where other's won't find it. Hold onto this until you've read the rest of this guide as this information will help you delete and opt-out of as much as possible. + +• Self doxing isn’t the act of doxing oneself and posting dox for all to see, it’s the opposite. It’s the act of using the tools, tactics and knowledge often used in doxing to “meta-dox” oneself. This act's done in private, not in the public's eye. You're to find and delete any traces or information that's found through the self-dox. This is to prevent possible doxing in the future. (E.G: Opting out and having your information deleted from Spokeo, or deleting an old account you’ve associated with your real name). + +**Remember**: Before deleting any information, read this guide fully. You’ll need to do so to understand what you’re about to partake in and work on. + +___References___: +https://www.wired.com/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/ +https://www.wired.com/2012/04/ff_klout/3/ +https://paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ +https://www.hackcommunity.com/Thread-DoX-DoXing-and-How-To-Prevent-It-being-anonymous-within-your-identity?pid=73506 +https://minichan.org/topic/7866 +https://www.hackcommunity.com/Thread-Tutorial-Maxx-s-Anti-Dox-Handbook?pid=180063 +https://offbeathome.com/2013/03/how-to-keep-your-personal-information-private +https://netsecurity.about.com/od/perimetersecurity/a/How-Criminals-Use-Google-Maps-Street-View-To-Case-The-Joint.htm +https://www.abine.com/blog/2012/how-to-delete-things-from-the-internet/ +https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/inspiration/dont-get-doxed-5-steps-protecting-your-private-information-web-0133806/ +https://thebot.net/general-tutorials/233339-how-doxing-works-protect-yourself/#post2372672 +https://soyouwannalearnhowto.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/so-you-wanna-learn-how-to-prevent-doxing/ +https://school-of-privacy.com/selfdox + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Finding your Digital Footprint: A Dossier=== +The reason to why we’re opting to use a dossier is because it’ll allow you to sort the information that you find on yourself. It's an easy-to-use format, too. This serves as your go-to document, which we recommend that you save in a .txt. + +We know many will not believe this to be useful as many will say you can't stop the government or corporations from spying on you; however corporations and government aren't out to ruin your life or financial security. The people you have to worry about getting a hold of this information are civilians. They'll contact employers, family and friends all under the guise of social justice or correcting perceived wrongs. Anyone with the right combination of information can guess passwords and security questions, thus accessing your accounts and e-mail addresses to further ruining you and what you’ve built for yourself. + +The below contains some simplified descriptions of why each piece of information is useful. + +Name: Even if common, a person’s name (first and/or last) can help verify information. + +Age: Can confirm certain information. + +Birth date: Used to verify age and name, plus other information. + +Location: A general location, like a city or state, can help locate an address. + +Phone number: Verify name and location. + +Home address: The home address can usually turn up images and misc information through Google and realtor sites. + +Possible relations: Relatives, significant others and friends. + +Usernames: Using the same username over and over again can create a trail. + +E-mail addresses: The e-mail address can lead to many things, like accounts or possible data-dumps. + +Accounts: Links to accounts found on various websites can be used to keep a list of where you’ve been. + +Websites: Most likely has information you don’t realize, like your site’s whois. + +Misc information: Miscellaneous pieces of information that may seem crucial or of interest. + +Possible accounts: Similar username or other items that seems to be possibly related. + +Images: Can verify accounts; find Exif data…ETC. + +Make two dossiers. + +One with the information you know and recall, then a second one with the information that you've found online through the use of this guide. Remember to keep these two separate once done as you don’t want to contaminate the information that you remember with the information that you’ve found. + +Compare them only after you've read this guide fully. + +___References___: +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHOIS + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Finding your Digital Footprint: Resources=== +It’s important to keep track of the information found through the use of the provided dossier. We suggest that you also keep track of how each piece of information was found, as well as what led you to that discovery. This way you’ll be able to provide us with more insight and knowledge on how to prevent information from leaking besides helping us figure out how to remove it. + +Remember, though, it isn’t who you are but who you used to be and what you’ve once said. This is what most people look for when they wish to dox someone. It's the key to ruining someone’s image or brand, no matter how liked they are online. Knowing what someone said or did in the past will help ruin their present self and devalue their credibility. + +Now, before you start, put yourself into the shoes of a stranger and think back to previous scenarios or cases where you’ve heard of doxing. The reason we ask this is simple: To see just how varied doxing can be and just how unethical it can get at times. + +Think of it like this: Imagine someone you’ve argued with and them being so thoroughly upset they’re now wishing nothing short of a pox upon your genitals or the death of your dog. This person has decided to track down every piece of information possible on you that exists online. + +This hatred is what usually drives people onward toward their goal of doxing. They need to find information on someone and put them in their place or it’s because they believe it’s their moral obligation to track down those who wander away from the status quo or go against the will of a group. + +Once you get into this frame of mind, don’t think of the information you know, but search for what you don't. Search for items posted in the present and past. You must find this information and use it. Add it to your dossier. You'll get a glimpse of what others see when they comb through your blog and internet past. + +Now, to make this simpler for you, we're going to end this part with a links and miscellaneous resources. + +Username: +* https://www.namechk.com/ +* https://www.knowem.com/ +* https://www.namecheckr.com/ +* https://www.checkusernames.com/ + +General: +* https://www.spokeo.com/ +* https://www.pipl.com/ +* https://www.wink.com/ +* https://www.peekyou.com/ +* https://www.yoname.com/ +* https://www.linkedin.com/ +* https://www.search.yahoo.com/ +* https://www.google.com/ +* https://www.bing.com/ +* https://www.reddit.com/ +* https://www.aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=GS29 +* https://www.numberway.com/uk/ +* https://www.vinelink.com/vinelink/initMap.do +* https://www.jailbase.com/en/sources/fl-lcso/ +* https://www.publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/ +* https://www.www.abika.com/ +* https://www.www.freeality.com/ +* https://www.radaris.com/ +* https://www.twoogel.com/ +* https://www.advancedbackgroundchecks.com +* https://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/ +* https://www.Intelius.com/ +* https://www.PublicRecordsNow.com +* https://www.Smartzip.com + +Social Networks: +* https://www.twitter.com/ +* https://www.facebook.com/ +* https://www.deviantart.com +* https://www.xanga.com/ +* https://www.tumblr.com/ +* https://www.myspace.com/ +* https://www.yasni.com/ +* https://www.socialmention.com/ +* https://www.whostalkin.com/ +* https://www.linkedin.com/ +* https://www.formspring.me/ +* https://www.foursquare.com/ +* https://www.about.me/ +* https://www.profiles.google.com/ +* https://www.blogger.com +* https://www.photobucket.com/ +* https://www.quora.com/ +* https://www.stumbleupon.com/ +* https://www.reddit.com +* https://www.digg.com +* https://www.plixi.com +* https://www.pulse.yahoo.com/ +* https://www.flickr.com/ + +Location: +* https://www.whitepages.com/person +* https://www.maps.google.com/ +* https://www.411.com/ +* https://www.192.com/ +* https://www.zabasearch.com/ +* https://www.zillow.com + +People: +* https://www.123people.com/ +* https://www.peekyou.com/ +* https://www.peoplejar.com/ +* https://www.anywho.com/whitepages +* https://www.yahoo.intelius.com/ +* https://www.findermind.com/free-people-search-engines/ +* https://www.ipeople.com +* https://www.facebook.com/directory/people/ +* https://www.skipease.com/ +* https://www.zabasearch.com/ +* https://www.wink.com/ +* https://www.dobsearch.com/ +* https://www.searchbug.com/ +* https://www.nationwidecrafts.com/ +* https://www.everyone411.com/ +* https://wwww.Acxiom.com/ +* https://wwww.MyLife.com/ +* https://www.Zabasearch.com +* https://www.ussearch.com/ +* https://www.peoplesmart.com/ +* https://www.usa-people-search.com/ +* https://www.spoke.com/ +* https://www.SOBSearch.com/ +* https://www.beenverified.com/ +* https://www.peoplefinder.com/ + +Phone numbers: +* https://www.whitepages.com/reverse-lookup +* https://www.freecellphonedirectorylookup.com/ +* https://www.fonefinder.net/ + +Images: +* https://www.tineye.com/ +* https://www.saucenao.com/ +* https://www.photobucket.com/ +* https://www.revimg.net/ +* https://www.iqdb.org/ + +Programs: +* Skype + +Add-ons (for Firefox): +* Exif viewer + +Whois: +* https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp + +Caches: +* https://www.archive.is (Can be used to make your own caches of pages) +* https://www.archive.org/ + +You may have come across similar links from such sites as insurgen.cc or maybe from an image board with an /i/nvasion or /i/nsurgency board. You could've even seen it on some blogger's how-to, but these links...? They're actually well known and have been the staple of a lot of lists and guides on how track a person or persons down. + +These links will help you find your own information and thus help you dox yourself. + +**Please remember**: This is but a sampling, if you wish to see a larger chunk of the iceberg that invades our privacy then look at the supplementary guides. + +Please hold off on the opt-outs until you’ve read this whole guide. We’ve organized the opt-outs to help you speed along with the removal of your information and ask you to wait as we also have various tips and tricks to ensure you do it right. + +___References___: +https://www.propublica.org/article/privacy-tools-opting-out-from-data-brokers +https://consumerist.com/2010/06/21/giant-list-of-data-brokers-to-opt-out-of/ +https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery.data_miners/index.html +https://www.privacyalerts.org/data-brokers.html +https://www.privacyrights.org/online-information-brokers-list +https://unlistmy.info/sites +https://consumerist.com/2010/06/21/giant-list-of-data-brokers-to-opt-out-of/ +https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-take-back-your-privacy-from-data-brokers/ +https://silversteampunk.tumblr.com/post/70232779066/i-used-this-image-because-ive-seen-it-posted + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +Finding your Digital Footprint: Tactics +When one looks for information online, there isn’t just one single way to go about it as it’s a mess of tactics, resources and searching until one’s fingers are raw from typing. Because of this, we’ve created a series of simple tactics for you to track down your information online. We also wish to show you how to counteract these tactics due to how commonly used they are by those searching for information on a target. + +-------------------------------------- + +Applies to Tumblr only + +* About Me Leads to About You: +Simple and fast, always the first thing you should do when going over a blogger’s profile--Look at the about me or description and see what information is there. + +• Name? +• Age? +• Nicknames? +• Previous usernames? +• Links? +• List of tags or posts? + +Whatever there is, it leads to valuable information that can pad out the dossier. + +**Counteract**: Never use your real name online, nicknames, or anything of value. This should apply to any and all accounts you own. + +* Counter Crawling: +Use a publicly displayed counter or your own to track someone’s IP and browser print down. + +**To do this**: Check for a Statcounter or tracker made public, or use your own and bait the target. Now look at what information is displayed and/or look for /blog/username links. Use these to find meta-data like: +• Blogs +• IP address +• General location (ISP or host’s location) +• Referral information + +**Counteract**: Many add-ons help prevent this, like Umatrix or Ublock Origin. You should always use one or more of these add-ons and also look into ensuring that if you host a site that you’ve sanitized your Whois. + + +* Tumblr Cataloging: +This is quite simple in all actuality as it only requires time, patience and lots of reading. + +To start out, one goes to the target blog, then you comb through the /archive/ link or by finding the last page of a blog. In theory you need to find the oldest (the first) post made on the blog and from there, working your way up to most current, you go from page-to-page. You skim posts for key pieces of information that can be used to find information elsewhere or used in a search engine. + +Things you'll look for: +• Exif data from images +• Linked image albums +• Alternate blog or account links +• E-mail addresses +• Wish lists +• Personal rants +• Family or pet names +• Real life locations or school names + +The older the blog, the more likely there are pieces of information that can be used to find their accounts elsewhere online. + +**Counteract**: Don’t be ignorant or rash, think before you post and watch what you post. Ensure you don’t leak real world information. Remember: Save images as PNG and always scrub the Exif data. + +Be careful and post smart. + +* Tag Hunt: +The trend of having to tag every post caused people to be obsessive with certain tags, and to profit from this, one has to check for a tag list or commonly used tags like ‘my face’ or ‘me’. Depending on whether Tumblr pulled an Imgur and removes exif data, images can lead to real world information. + +**Counteract**: Post smart, save images as PNG and always scrub Exif data. Be general and misleading about things in reality (when discussed online). Swap real names for generic names or handles—High school is now your high school, not Mt. Rush High. + + +* Tag Search: +Search the blog’s username and/or title on Tumblr search and Tumblr’s tag search and you can also search previous or past usernames/titles. You can find a lot out on a blogger and who they hang out with by searching them on Tumblr. If they have a previous blog name/title, it can be found by using the “Tumblr cataloging” tactic. + +Example: +1. Party H re-blogged and responded to Party B. +2. The post Party B re-blogged was from Party A. The post from Party A is on Party H’s blog. +3. Party H is the source but older posts (re-blogged by others) show it re-blogged from Party A. +4. This means Party H and Party A are one in the same and that Party H changed the name/title. + +Searching their previous names/titles on Tumblr can and will usually lead to excellent information. Remember though, you’ll need patience and to take some time going through these tags. + +**Counteract**: Don’t change your title/name or do so often enough to limit each change’s exposure. + + +You’ve done all that you’ve could on Tumblr; you’ve gotten some information… now what? + +Well, it’s time to breakout Google or some other search engine and start using various combinations of the information that you’ve found to see what trails that you can uncover. + +-------------------------------------------- + +General information and searching + +* Account Hopping: +The older an account, the more likely it will link to another account somewhere else. Similar to a few of the Tumblr tactics, one just has to search tags, keywords, and comb through the accounts. Usually it’s a comment or even a keyword itself. This has better success on Wordpress or Blogger accounts, also in descriptions on profiles. + +**Counteract**: Always wait a month before deleting an account. Remove any and all posts, texts, and information. Before deleting the text or posts, first fill them with random characters/text. This is to force a new cache from various search engine and services. This should render previous ones inaccessible and only leave traces of nothing. + +**Example**: Instead of a lengthy diatribe against your old significant other, it’s ‘sldknlskndlfkndlkslfksldkfndslksdnflksklnfdslkfsdnklds’. Also, for images or videos, upload blank images and static filled videos. + + +* CTRL + U sourcing it: +Check custom layouts on various blogging platforms for websites and links. + +Various sites allow individuals to add their own custom flair to things, for example a layout and separate page designs. You can find links to storage accounts or image upload services by checking the source. This usually leads to photobucket accounts, imageshack accounts or personal servers. It could also expose a cloud storage account that can be searched or forced into exposing more information. + +**Counteract**: Use the month rule and the random text/character trick before deletion. You should also name all images randomly instead of using actual words. Don’t put anything in obvious order and always ensure your password is strong to prevent brute forcing or guessing. + +**Note on passwords**: 8 to 12 characters long with random letters, numbers and characters. + +* E-mail address surfing: +Using any number of websites or search engines, one can enter an email address to lookup. Using its variations (@gmail, hotmail, yahoo…ETC) you can find miscellaneous accounts. This can also lead to information and possible dead-accounts or addresses. You could use a dead address and resurrect it anew to claim accounts and to learn information like passwords and IPs or offline information. + +**Counteract**: Use a different e-mail address for each account and ensure to have a separate secondary account for it. Don’t display your E-mail address and never give it out, or at least use a secondary-secondary as a fake for public display. + +* Face snipping: +Find a picture of someone online. Crop out everything but their face. Using the (cropped) image of just their face and/or head, go to Tineye and see if you can find results. Usually you’ll be able to find accounts. Using this, you can find abandoned social media pages that contain information about relatives, schools and businesses. + +**Counteract**: Never post your image online, ever. Also scrub exif data. + +* Forum scouting: +Find an account on a forum; search the forum for more information. + +Most forums have a search function that allows you to search a username plus keywords, it’s simple and quick. + +Search specific things like: +• Social network names +• Usernames +• E-mails +• General keywords (example: email, account, art, location, school) + +Double check posts for signatures or avatars that can be traced back to other accounts. If that isn’t possible, then check the user’s profile for a post counter that may or may not be clickable. This will usually lead to all their posts. + +**Counteract**: One month wait before deletion, plus random characters in the posts. Also request the owner/mods/staff to delete account and all posts. + +* Gaia sleuthing: +Go to their forums and search them, or profiles for similar usernames and information. Check against a search engine with things like “Username,” “Gaia,” “E-mail” and whatever else. This usually leads to various forums and other accounts. This tactic can also be applied to Neopets, among other sites. + +**Counteract**: Follow the deletion trick of random characters…Etc. Don’t giveaway your items. Don’t donate your gold or cash. Just delete everything within the month rule. + +* Photobucket jumping: +Just searching usernames against account links like ‘photobucket.com/user/-username-‘ or ‘photobucket.com/profile/-username-‘ to find an account. Once an account is discovered, people can search parts or the whole URL of any direct image link. This allows people to find where you’ve posted your images and thus your accounts. + +**Counteract**: Delete your images and photobucket account. Don’t put a password on it and don’t let it idle…it’ll lasts forever. Remember to use the one month rule and blank image trick. + +* Username searching: +Search the username using a search engine or one of several username check websites. Just find any and all accounts with a similar username and then check its information against that in the dossier. + +**Counteract**: Never use the same username twice. Always change it, no matter what. Never share your accounts with anyone or announce your accounts elsewhere and never inter-link accounts. + +-------------------------------------------------- + +Vanity Searching (Ego hunting/surfing | Kibozing) + +In simplicity, vanity searching is the act of searching one’s own name or pseudonym on a popular search engine or the internet at large to find results on one’s self. Most individuals usually do this as a meta-checkmark on what information of theirs or concerning them appears on the popular search engines or websites accessible to the public. + +Now vanity searching is a great tool to find those golden little nuggets of information that you didn’t know existed online. While many just stick to variations of their name, we’d like to suggest the below list of searches you can make plus some combinations to help you on your way to digital freedom. +Common Vanity Search Queries: + +1. Full name (First, Middle, Last and/or marks JR/SR/2nd/ 3rd…etc) +2. First + last name +3. First name +4. Last name/home address +5. Name combinations + birth-date +6. Name combinations + home/street address +7. Name combinations + school +8. Name combinations + work +9. Name combinations + vote, voted or voting +10. Street address +11. Relatives names + name combinations +12. Usernames + name combinations +13. Usernames +14. E-mail addresses +15. E-mail addresses + usernames +16. Websites or accounts + usernames +17. Websites or accounts + e-mail addresses +18. Usernames + city or state +19. Name combinations + city or state +20. The above + IP addresses or ISP +21. The above + known leak or dump searches (E.G: Have I Been PWNED) + +------------------------------ + +These tactics are but a sampling of what many people do on a daily basis to find the information of others. We just list the most common and easiest to do for you to help you find your online footprint but you shouldn’t believe that this is it, really look into variations and be creative when trying to find your own information… you’ll be surprised by just how much of it exists online. + +___References___: +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egosurfing +https://haveibeenpwned.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Finding your Digital Footprint: Things to know and do=== +This chapter is dedicated to providing you with various steps that you can take to prevent cross-referencing through multiple accounts. A single piece of information posted in one location can be used against you and lead to another account. If not taken into careful consideration, something as simple as your first name could lead to your inevitable doxing. + +Imagine if you will that you have an account on a site about model trains. You signed up with your first name and used your old AOL e-mail address. Someone looking for you discovers you like trains; however all they have on you is an old username. They search this username, which is used in your old AOL e-mail address. They discover your model train account and first name. Search with various variations of your e-mail address and name, thus discover a newsletter of your town’s local hobby shop and model train group. + +They now know your full name, your hobby group, your old e-mail address and several other pieces of information that, when combined, lead to your home address. + +Congratulations, you have been doxed. + +The below information serves more as a guideline than actual rules, which should be followed but can be modified or ignored based upon the individual and their privacy needs. These are just some ways to deter information from getting away from you and being used by others to discover your information. So, please, do see the below as some daunting task but a series of suggestions. + + +When leaving an account: +o When leaving, don’t announce it. +o Tell no one that you’re deleting your account. +o Delete your account only after a month of inactivity and delete it only after switching it to a *‘Dead E-mail address’. +• Note: An e-mail address used to take ownership of an account that you’re deleting/deactivating. + +Steps to take before deleting an account: +o Before deleting anything, wait a month. +o Anything you can edit, do so with random characters and text. +o Images should be replaced with a blank temp image (pure color image). +o Videos should be replaced with either a solid color or static. +o Once a month is over, you can delete that account. +o But before doing so, delete the account’s items one by one. +o If you can’t delete something, ask the staff/owner/webmaster/mods to delete it for you. +o Stating that someone is stalking you is usually enough to remove the information. +o If they won’t remove, try to edit it once again with random text. +o If you can’t edit it, ignore it. +o If it’s a blog, change titles and/or usernames. +o Preserve the original URL or username on a blank blog or account. +o Never leave your old username or URL up for grabs. + +On removing an old E-mail address: +o Never delete an e-mail address, simply switch accounts and other items accordingly. +o Mark everything else in it as spam, but only if you can’t unsubscribe. +o Log into it at least once a month to prevent deletion. +o You can most likely delete it after not using it around a year or two later. +o Always make sure the e-mail is no longer tied to any accounts or personal information. +o Always wipe it out like any other account by changing as much as possible to randomized text. + +On account maintenance: +o Never use your real name. +o Never upload an image of yourself. +o Never use your real location. +o Never discuss your time zone. +o Never discuss your current time. +o Always use English, at all times. +o Never discuss events happening in your area. +o Never mention race or skin color. +o Never mention religion. +o Never mention sexuality. +o Never discuss your hobbies in great detail. +o Don’t talk about your fetishes or kinks. +o Accounts shouldn’t be cross-linked to other accounts/sites. +o If you do, make sure no username is the same. +o And make sure no e-mail address displayed is the same. +o Use a different e-mail address for each account. +o Keep accounts separate if not needed to be linked. +o Never link RP accounts to other accounts and social networking profiles +o Don’t mention how many pets you have or their names. +o The same applies to family members, neighbors, friends and significant others. +o Scrape as much information off of something as possible. +o Boil it all down to the core basics. +o Never keep an account longer than a year (some exceptions apply). + +On talking to strangers: +o Never display your messenger, Skype or chat names anywhere online. +o Give it to others only if they ask you (and you trust them). +o Keep all forms of instant messaging and chat private. +o Don’t save logs. +o Only give out to trusted individuals. +o This applies to IRC channels and chat setups. +o Lock down as much as possible. +o Never use real names or information, ever. +o Don’t tell other people who you talk to online. +o Never place your full name on Skype (or any service). +o Limit the profile you have on Skype (and any other service). +o Make sure all options are set to private. +o If it can’t be set to private, then set to contacts. +o Like Skype, any chat client or instant messenger should be locked down. + +On behavior: +o You’ll most likely have to change the way you behave online. +o Sharing interests is fine, but getting too obsessed is bad. +o Never admit to liking any specific thing. +o This can help people tie other accounts to you. +o Admitting to things like your favorite food can be used to trace too. +o In general, you need to keep yourself and your information limited when on the internet. +o Instead of admitting to liking a song, just say you like the band. +o This applies to specific bands in smaller genres, too. +o Or any form of entertainment that you specifically like. +o Instead of specific parts you like in a game, you just like the game. +o Remember: don’t talk about your location. +o Don’t talk about your general location in detail. +o Don’t mention what it’s known for (produce, exports, colleges, universities…etc). +o Don’t make mention of recent weather, as that can be used in junction with other information +o Don’t say the exact time. +o Be wary of saying exactly what the temperature is. +o If the person you’re talking to uses Celsius, then tell the temp in Celsius. +o If the person you’re talking to uses Fahrenheit, then tell the temp in Fahrenheit. +o Don’t make mention of general information like school names or street names. +o Don't make mention eateries/restaurants as they can be unique to your location. +o Always refer to your city/town as a college town. +o Never post selfies. +o Never post nudes. +o Never post porn. +o Never post erotica. + +When getting personal: +o Don’t discuss siblings or family members to great extent. +o Don’t drop pet names. +o Don’t drop the name of anyone related to you. +o Don’t drop the name of friends. +o Don’t drop the name of politicians. +o Don’t drop the names of people you’ve had relationships with. +o Keep age to a general rounded number, like, the 20s…etc +o Keep personal descriptions down. +o Keep weight to a more general descriptor (overweight, obese…etc). + +On talking about life experiences: +o Never do so in the first place. +o If you do, don’t let incriminating evidence be traced back to you. +o Or at least make sure you can discuss such things in a secure environment. +o Also don’t attach anything about you to your online personas and/or accounts. + +On using custom domains: +o Ask your host about Whois masking. +o If they don’t offer it, check into other services. + +On online relationships: +o Don’t do online dating. +o Don’t sext. +o Don’t cyber. +o Don’t do erotic roleplay. +o Don’t go to online dating websites. +o Don’t take part in relationship, dating, sex…etc help sites/forums/chats. + +Just use common sense. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Deleting Your Information=== +Using what you now know from the above chapters, it’s time to work on deleting your information, old account and general internet presence. While it may seem hard to do and quite the task to take up, understand it’s for the greater good. By doing this now, you’ll have less to worry about in the future and won’t have to worry about things coming back to haunt you. No more embarrassing teenage antics or silly digital slap fights, only a clean and fresh digital presence that the civilian population and potential employers can critique or use against you. + +This chapter will be quite short as all the information above should not only be beneficial but enough to get you going, however there are still a few things to point out just so you’re prepared to dive in and work yourself ragged to cover up the fact that you used to like a certain animated series. + +First off, before we begin ensure you’ve read the above fully and understand what’s been written, from there compare the dossiers and see what information you know VS the information you found. Now ignore any people search engines and focus only upon accounts. Pick an account and work on that one only, as that’s going to be the only account that you’ll be working on until you’ve finished ‘sanitizing’ it. + +To recap, remember the One Month Rule: +1. Wait a month before deleting an account. +2. Within that month, hide and/or delete all comments that you can that aren’t yours. +3. Modify and change everything that you can. +4. Any editable text should be randomized (E.G: wodegnoi2n402) +5. Images should be changed to a blank or solid color image. +6. Videos should be changed to a solid color or static video. +7. All CSS and HTML, that’s editable, should be wiped out. +8. Change the e-mail address used to register the account with something else. +9. Check your e-mail addresses against HIBP to ensure nothing has been compromised. +10. Repeat the above steps for each account and e-mail address. + +Once done, before deleting the account, head over to the Internet Time Machine and contact them at this e-mail address: info@archive.org. Request their archives of your account to be removed, simply state it’s for privacy concerns (or if you’re being stalked or doxed, state safety) and provide them a screen-cap of you being logged into the account. If the account is attached to any groups or similar items, and you’ve made or own them, please also request the removal of those archives too. + +Now, while you’re waiting for the month to finish up, move onto your next account and repeat the above steps and recommended procedures. Keep this up until all of your accounts have been modified, sanitized and deleted (once the full month is up). If your Social security number, a credit card or debit card number or any other private information is attached to it (or if you own some digital content exclusive to that account) don’t delete it, yet, just follow the above and let it rot (sit and not touched) in case you need to access that account again. + +With accounts like Discord, Skype and Tox (among similar items) can be removed following the above yet with minor modifications. You don’t want to delete these accounts, just nullify them and cut all contact with anyone attached to them. You have to remove all custom labels/nicks/nicknames for your contacts, block each one and delete them from your contact/friends list. Then, fill it out all profile entries with underscores ( __ ) if you can blank them out or delete items you’ve entered previously. Ensure everything has been changed to private or contact, too. + +You should be able to use the above plus the previous chapters in order to remove and sanitize any of your information that exists on the internet. Slight modifications may be needed, however this should be enough for you to cover your tracks and prevent any potential dox or attacks. Accounts like Steam and Origin shouldn’t be removed or deleted (even if you could) as these are either tied to private information or purchases. Just blank out as much as possible and adjust profile settings to whatever max privacy is considered. You shouldn’t have these accounts mad public in the first place; always ensure they’re set to invisible and restricted access or no access. + +Now, everything should hopefully have been removed and you’ve been able to do everything in your power to lessen your digital footprint. Move onto the below chapter, but remember this: Keep a list of all your usernames that you’ve used, these can be applied to another tactic in later guides. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Opt-out Master-list=== +The purpose of this chapter is to provide you with an up-to-date listing of any and all opt-outs for people databases or search engines. This means you’ll be able to opt-out of not only known data brokers but several unknown brokers. You'll even cut down on physical mail and e-mail. Many feel this isn’t needed as you have to provide information to remove information, but this is what’s needed. Not just by the law but also for business records. Opt-outs are just you acknowledging a contract made without your knowledge. + +Instead of ignoring them, you’re stating you don’t want them using or selling your information. It not only helps reduce your online footprint but also helps you cut back on carbon emissions and overall exposure across the internet with things you didn’t know exist (E.G: Opt of one site and others follow suite). + +For now, we've only include the online opt-outs in this PDF. We suggest you finish those and those alone as most of them are interlinked to many of the phone and fax opt-outs. Once you finished those you should wait a month or two before doing other opt-outs. A lot of information will be expunged as you opted out of one or two other sites. + +Online Opt-outs: +These are opt-outs that can be done online through forms or simple links without a pay wall. + +https://www.10digits.us/ +https://www.10digits.us/remove +• Requires photo ID upload + e-maill addess + page link. +• Make sure to search using all three methods. +• Repeat for each immediate family member in your residence. + +https://www.411.info +https://www.411.info/contact/ +• Find your info, copy the link. +• Go to the contact link and ask them to remove your info. +• Provide the link(s) in the message. + +https://www.500millionphonerecords.com/ +https://www.phonedetective.com/PD.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Follow the instructions on the Phonedetective opt-out link. +• Repeat for each individual in household and any and all numbers you've owned or recall owning. + +https://www.accutellus.com/ +https://www.accutellus.com/opt_out_request.php +• Follow the instructions on the opt-out page, repeat for all individual in household. + +https://www.Acxiom.com/ +https://www.isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx +(Cookie opt-out can be ignored if you install ad blocking and privacy based add-ons on your browser) +• For the actual opt-out, just follow the above link and follow the instructions, repeating it for each residence in your house. +• After each successful entry fill out, you’ll be taken to a new page with a capatcha and a field to confirm the e-mail address. +• Log into your e-mail account, find the confirmation e-mail, and follow the link provided. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.addresses.com/ +https://www.addresses.com/optout.php +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.addresssearch.com/ +https://www.addresssearch.com/remove-info.php +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.allareacodes.com/ +https://www.allareacodes.com/remove_name.htm +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.archives.com/ +https://www.archives.com/ga.aspx?_act=Optout +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.checkpeople.com/ +https://www.checkpeople.com/optout +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.corporationwiki.com/ +https://www.corporationwiki.com/profiles/public +• Follow instructions listed on their website. +• Very few cases, only for businesses and their executives. + +https://www.coxtarget.com/ +https://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm +• Wait until you’ve received your next ‘ValPak’ packet\envelope. +• Go to the opt-out form\link above. +• Enter information as it is on the envelope. +• You’ve opted out. + +https://www.datalogix.com/ +https://www.datalogix.com/privacy/#opt-out-landing +https://www.aboutads.info/ (More info here) +• Find this sentence ‘If you wish to opt out of all Datalogix-enabled advertising across channels including direct mail, online, mobile and analytic products, and click here.’ +• Follow directions, repeat for each resident of household. + +https://www.dexone.com/ +https://www.dexknows.com/ +https://www.dexpages.com/index.asp? +https://www.dexone.com/privacy-policy +https://green.dexknows.com/DexGreen/selectDexAction.do +• Enter zip code. +• Follow directions. +• If you can’t opt-out, you can do so VIA the Yellow Pages opt-out. + +https://www.directmail.com/ +https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/ +• Follow directions in second link. + +https://www.dmachoice.org/ +https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php +• Follow directions on website. +• Have to create an account for each member of household. + +https://www.dobsearch.com/ +• Search yourself; address; phone number…etc +• Find info. +• Look for ‘Is this you? Manage your listing!’ +• Follow instructions (You’ll need a valid e-mail address + landline or cell). +• Repeat for all residents in house (One per 24 hours). + +https://www.donotcall.gov +https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx +• Follow directions. +• Enter phone numbers, cell and/or landline, and an e-mail address. + +https://www.ebureau.com/ +https://www.ebureau.com/privacy-center/opt-out +• Same as DMA choice opt-out, but no accounts; you’ll have to do this with previous addresses too. + +https://www.emailfinder.com/ +https://www.emailfinder.com/EFC.aspx?_act=Optout +• Follow instructions on screen. +• Repeat for each resident in household. + +https://www.epsilon.com/ +https://www.epsilon.com/consumer-preference-center +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://www.everify.com +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#2 +https://www.everify.com/legal.php#remove +• Follow instructions on page, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.experian.com/ +https://www.experian.com/privacy/opting_out_preapproved_offers.html +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://equifax.com/ +https://help.equifax.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2/noIntercept/1/kw/prescreen +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only need to be done once). + +https://www.everyone411.com/ +• Go to contact page @ https://www.everyone411.com/contact +• Provide listing links. +• Request removal. +• Repeat for all individuals in household. + +https://www.freephonetracer.com/ +https://www.freephonetracer.com/FCPT.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Online opt-out form, follow directions. + +https://www.health.com/health/ +https://subscription.timeinc.com/storefront/privacy/health/generic_privacy_form_offline.html?dnp-source=E%20AND%20 +https://subscription.timeinc.com/storefront/privacy/health/generic_privacy_form_online.html?dnp-source=E +• Fill out with your information, repeat for each individual in your household. Make sure to check all boxes in the two opt-out links. + +https://www.ims-dm.com/ +https://www.ims-dm.com/cgi/optoutemps.php +• Follow directions on second link. +• Enter up to three emails. +• Fill captcha. +• Clear cache and repeat as necessary. + +https://www.infousa.com/ +https://www.infousa.com/StaticPage/PrivacyPolicyInfo.htm +• Look for: Opt Out Policy–Upon a visitor’s request, InfoUSA Inc. +• Read it carefully, scroll down and find the ‘E-mail form’. +• Fill it out, include your name, birth date, address and phone number. Request all information of yours to be removed, especially anything related to the info you just provided. + +https://www.infospace.com/ +https://www.support.infospace.com/privacy/ +• Search for ‘Choice/Opt-out’. +• The link there is old, use this one: https://infospace.com/contact/index.html +• Select 'General inquiry'. +• Provide your name, birth date, address and phone number. +• Request all information of yours be removed, especially anything matching or related to information you just provided. + +https://www.innovis.com/ +https://www.innovis.com/InnovisWeb/pers_lc_opt_out.html +https://www.optoutprescreen.com +• Go to third link and follow their process (only needs to be done once). + +https://www.instantpeoplefinder.com/ +https://www.instantpeoplefinder.com/optout.php +• Follow on page instructions, repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.locatefamily.com/ +https://www.locatefamily.com/contact.html +• Search for your name on the left side of the site. +• You’ll find a page or pages containing Names, addresses and phone numbers. +• Find yours; take note of the number next to it. +• Go to the contact page. +• Scroll down for the opt-out\removal form. +• Follow the directions. +• Make sure to provide the information you want deleted in the ‘Comments’ box. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.lookup.com/ +https://www.lookup.com/optout.php +• Go to the opt-out link. +• Follow the directions. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://lycos.com +https://info.lycos.com/resources/privacy-policy +• Search for: How can you access or edit your information? +• Follow directions. + +https://www.mobilephoneno.com/ +https://www.mobilephoneno.com/help.htm +• Search for: How do I delete my entry? +• Follow directions. + +https://www.militaryavenue.com/ +https://www.militaryavenue.com/Contact.aspx +• Businesses only. +• But, if you have your information up there, somehow. +• First find said info. +• Go to the contact page. +• Select, from the drop down, “Incorrect Business information”. +• Provide link, info, and ask for removal. + +https://www.myyp.com/ +https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com +• Follow instructions on second link. + +https://www.nationwidecrafts.com/ +• Find listing. +• Click the suggestion link/light bulb icon. +• Request removal. + +https://www.orientaltrading.com/ +https://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/help/processRequest.do?requestURI=link.removeForm +• Follow instructions on second link. + +https://www.peekyou.com/ +https://www.peekyou.com/about/contact/optout +• Search for yourself. +• Locate your profile and right-click then select 'copy link'. +• Then open a new tab and go to their opt-out page and follow the instructions provided. +• Repeat with each individual in household. + +https://www.peepdb.com/ +• Enter full name + state. +• Look for city + state in results. +• Can confirm by partial phone number listed. +• Click your result. +• Scroll down. +• Click ‘Remove This Listing’. +• Follow directions. +• Takes 10 business days. +• One request + IP every 3 days. +• Repeat with each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplebook.com/ +https://www.peoplebook.com/support.htm +• Search for your people book’s results. +• Confirm it’s yours. +• Grab link. +• Go to the support link. +• Follow directions. +• Repeat for each individual in house. + +https://www.peoplefinder.com/ +https://www.peoplefinder.com/manage/ +https://www.peoplefinder.com/optout.php +• Go directly to the opt-out link. +• Fill in your information. +• Select from the drop down ‘General privacy concerns’. +• Enter the code word and click submit. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplefinders.com/ +https://www.peoplefinders.com/manage/default.aspx +• Search your first, middle and last name in search. +• State + city, too. +• Find your listing, click ‘this is me’. +• Skip the AD and\or sale section. +• Takes anywhere from an hour to a month. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplesearchpro.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/optout-go +• Go directly to Opt-out. +• Enter your name + city and state. +• Find it, click it, and follow directions. +• You will have to make an account. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.peoplesmart.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/opt-out? +• Follow the People Smart opt-out instruction. +• You’ll be shown a page of results, locate yours. +• Click the ‘This is me’. +• Look at the ‘Business’ listings, find anything of yours and click the “This is me” or skip the step if none exist. +• Uncheck all options, except the last two. +• Click ‘Save Settings’. +• It’ll have you create an account, make sure to use a unique password only for this site and use nowhere else. +• Repeat for each individual in your household (sans the account). +• Repeat search, but this time with home address applied. + +https://www.peoplewise.com/ +https://www.peoplewise.com/show/optoutdisclaimer +• Go straight to the opt-out link. +• Make sure JS and Cookies are enabled. +• Follow the steps; make sure to read the red text. +• When you find your list, click the ‘Removal’ test under the blue button. +• When you’re on your page, within the red text, is a blue link, click it. +• Enter your email address + security code. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.phonebook.com/ +https://www.whitepages.com/ +https://www.whitepages.com/privacy_central#6 +• Go to Whitepages.com +• Create an account. +• Search for your information VIA address, name, phone number...etc +• Claim each and every piece of information that's confirmed as yours. +• Verify through e-mail and phone. +• Then go to your profile. +• Scroll down and request your information to be hidden\removed from the directory. +• Follow the on screen prompts. +• Logout, clean cache. +• Create an account for each individual in household, repeat until finished. + +https://www.phonebooks.com/ +• Search your name + city and state. +• Find your listing in the results. +• Click on said listing. +• Locate ‘Remove this person’. +• Follow directions. +• Repeat for each and every individual in household. + +https://www.phonedetective.com/ +https://www.phonedetective.com/PD.aspx?_act=OptOut +• Go directly to opt-out page, follow directions. +• Repeat for each individual in house. +• Also repeat with each phone number you have or recall having. + +https://phonenumber.com/ +https://www.whitepages.com/ +https://www.whitepagescustomers.com +https://www.whitepagescustomers.com/draft-how-do-i-remove-my-people-search-listing/ +• Create an account . +• Search for your information VIA address, name, phone number...etc +• Claim each and every piece of information that's confirmed as yours. +• Verify through e-mail and phone. +• Then go to your profile. +• Scroll down and request your information to be hidden/removed from the directory. +• Follow the on screen prompts. +• Logout, clean cache. +• Create an account for each individual in household, repeat until finished. + +https://www.poedit.org/ +https://www.poedit.org/auth/removal_request.html +• Search for your page/information. +• Take link/URL. +• Copy it to the appropriate area listed in the second link. +• Submit. +• Find confirmation e-mail in inbox. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.privateeye.com/ +https://www.peoplefinders.com/manage/ +• Go to the People Finders link. +• Enter your information. +• On the results page you can refine your searches with age + birth-date. +• Find your results and click ‘This is me’. +• Follow instructions. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://profileengine.com/ +https://profileengine.com/#/help +https://profileengine.com/#/claimprofile +• Search for profile. +• Look for the claim profile option. +• If not present, try the claim profile link above. +• Follow instructions. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://pub360.com +https://pub360.com/s/faq +• Search for your name. +• In results, look for the 'Information Removal' tab. +• Follow instructions provided. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://radaris.com/ +https://radaris.com/removal/ +https://radaris.com/page/how-to-remove +• Search for a name. +• On the search results page, select the name that is most appropriate. +• On the profile page, click the down-arrow to the right of the name and select ‘Control Information’. +• From the information control page, choose ‘Remove information’. +• Here you can choose to remove all information, or to delete specific records. +• Confirm your real name matches your account and profile name. +• Enter your cellular phone to receive a verification code. +• Once the code has been entered, the profile will be private. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.redplum.com/ +https://www.redplum.com/tools/redplum-postal-addremove.html +• Follow the instructions provided on the second link. +• Per known address. + +https://www.reversephonelookup.com/ +https://www.reversephonelookup.com/remove.php +• Go to second link. +• Follow instruction provided. +• Repeat for all known and owned phone numbers. + +https://www.searchbug.com/ +https://www.searchbug.com/help.aspx?WHAT=people +• Search for your name + city and state. +• If ‘Free record’ is shown, you can click the garbage can\remove link to have it removed. +• Repeat for all individuals in house. +• Note: Premium records can't be removed through this process as they require manual removal and cost payment to do so. + +https://www.Spokeo.com +https://www.spokeo.com/optout +• Go to Spokeo. +• Search your First, middle and last name. +• Find your profile/listing by go to the bottom of the page and select ‘open advance filter’. +• Fill out your information. +• Find your profile/listing, copy the link (note: Right click+ copy link to have a ‘Clean link’ copied). +• Go to the Opt out link. +• Follow instructions to opt-out. +• Repeat for each individual in house. +• Hint: You’ll need a different e-mail address after so many removals. +• Hint: You may have multiple profiles/links due to previous addresses. +• Hint: Make sure HTTPs is not at the start of the link, if it is just remove the 'S'. + +https://www.usa.com +https://www.peoplesmart.com/ +https://www.peoplesmart.com/opt-out +• Follow the People Smart opt-out instruction. +• You’ll be shown a page of results, locate yours. +• Click the ‘This is me’. +• Look at the “Business” listings, find anything of yours and click the “This is me” or skip the step if none exist. +• Uncheck all options, except the last two. +• Click ‘Save Settings’. +• It’ll have you create an account, make sure to use a unique password only for this site and use nowhere else. +• Repeat for each individual in your household (sans the account). +• Repeat search, but this time with home address applied. + +https://www.usa-people-search.com/ +https://www.usa-people-search.com/manage/default.aspx +• Go to the ‘Manage’ link. +• Enter your information. +• Find your listing. +• Enter Captcha and tick both boxes. +• Repeat for each individual in house. + +https://www.usbizplace.com/ +https://www.usbizplace.com/contact-us.html +• Find your listing with your information. +• Follow directions on the contact-us page. +• Repeat for all listings of yours you wish to remove. + +https://www.webcrawler.com/ +https://www.webcrawler.com/support/privacypolicy +https://www.webcrawler.com/support/contactus +• Go to Webcrawler.com, search for your info. +• Select link + note its order in the listing. +• Contact them at the 'Contact us' link. +• Request removal due to privacy concerns. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.whitepages.com/ +https://www.whitepagescustomers.com +https://www.whitepagescustomers.com/draft-how-do-i-remove-my-people-search-listing/ +• Create an account. +• Search for your information VIA address, name, phone number...etc. +• Claim each and every piece of information that's confirmed as yours. +• Verify through e-mail and phone. +• Then go to your profile. +• Scroll down and request your information to be hidden\removed from the directory. +• Follow the on screen prompts. +• Logout, clean cache. +• Create an account for each individual in household, repeat until finished. + +https://www.valassis.com/ +https://www.valassis.com/1024/Contact/MailingListRemoval.aspx +• Follow instructions on second link. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.valpak.com/ +https://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm +• Wait till next envelope comes in the mail. +• Enter the info exactly as it is on the envelope. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.wyty.com/ +https://www.wyty.com/optout.aspx +• Enter cell number (or phone number). +• Select 'Request'. +• Should be removed within 24hrs to a month. +• Repeat for all known numbers. + +https://www.yellowbook.com/ +https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ +• https://delivery.ypg.com/en/US/Home/Index/ (Canada opt-out). +• Follow directions on 'Yellowpagesoptout' link. +• Enter zip\area code. +• Create account. +• Select items to opt-out. +• Repeat for all known addresses. + +https://www.yellowpages.com +https://www.yellowpagescom.intelius.com/optout.php +• Fill out opt-out form. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/ +https://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/terms_of_service.php?#privacy +• On the page with your information, look for ‘Are you the business owner’. +• Click it, select ‘Delete\remove listing’. +• Simply state your privacy concerns. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +https://www.ziplocal.com/ +https://ziplocal.com/online-privacy-policy/ +https://www.ziplocalonline.com/manage-listings +• To update your listing, use the search box above to look for your business. +• When you locate your business, simply select the Update Business link and follow the instructions. + +https://www.zoominfo.com/ +https://www.zoominfo.com/lookupEmail +• You'll be asked to provide your e-mail address. +• They'll search your address against their database. +• You'll receive an e-mail concerning whether or not they've your e-mail address. +• If not, nothing to worry about, but if they do they provide a means to opt-out. +• Repeat for each individual in household. + +--------------------------------------------------- + +Miscellaneous Opt-outs: +This list contains opt-outs that have no direct place but have proven useful. + +https://www.ameridex.com/ +https://www.ameridex.com/privacy.html (review privacy policy for more info) +1. Another website that wants you to send an e-mail or send direct mail\snail mail opt-outs. +2. Also needs court order or proof of potential harm. + +https://archive.org/ +https://archive.org/about/exclude.php +https://web.archive.org/web/20140812200246/https://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/conferences/aps/removal-policy.html +1. If you're allowed to modify your account or website's HTML, add this somewhere in between the tags. +2. + +https://www.Bing.com +https://ssl.bing.com/profile/history?oma=toggle_off +1. Disable personalized nonsense and ads. + +Remove your property's street view on Bing Maps: +1. Go to: https://www.bing.com/maps/ +2. Type home address. +3. Get to street view. +4. Center squarely on house. +5. Look for (?) question mark near bottom right. Be careful as it can be hidden sometimes. +6. Click it. +7. Select ’Report an image concern’ +8. You'll get a pop-up or new tab with a panoramic image. +9. Select your house, a little red square will appear then. +10. Voice your privacy concern, stating vandalism and potential break-ins by criminal elements who use online maps to scout\case potential targets. +11. Fill out the rest of the form + Capatcha, wait. +12. Save ticket (#) Number. + +https://www.catalogchoice.org/ +1. Join site with an e-mail and password used nowhere else. +2. Search for the catalogs you’ve received. +3. Follow instructions to opt-out. +4. This site just organizes websites; they aren’t associated with any of them. + +https://courtclick.com/ +https://courtclick.com/terms.php +https://www.courtclick.com/support/ +1. Look for ‘Opt Out Policy: Note that public records such as court records can be updated or corrected, but not removed unless expunged, sealed, court ordered or the like.’ +2. You'll need to have your records sealed first. + +https://www.emailtracer.com +https://www.emailtracer.com/tos.php +1. Search for ‘Opt Out Policy’. +2. Only under certain circumstances. + +https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&view +1. Edit button in your Ads settings page, selecting No one and saving your changes. + +https://www.Google.com +https://plus.google.com/settings/endorsements +https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ +https://history.google.com/history/ +1. These links help make sure your Google data stays yours. +2. You can opt-out of having your likes and such shared. +3. Help limit ads and similar issues. +4. And even help prevent your history on your account from being given out. + +Remove your property's street view on Google Maps: +1. Go to Google Maps and type in your address. +2. Bring up the street view of your property. +3. Look to the bottom right hand corner of the screen you should see an Icon Labeled ‘report a problem.’ +4. Click on ‘report a problem.’ +5. You will get a page labeled “report inappropriate street view.” +6. Look for the words “Privacy Concerns” and click on them. +7. If you want your house blurred, click on ‘my house.’ Then choose the option ‘I have a picture of my house and would like it blurred.’ +8. Adjust the image and show Google which part of the photo needs blurred. +9. Type the verification code at the bottom of the page into the box provided and click submit. +10. Check back in a few days to see if the image has been blurred. + +https://www.lexisnexis.com/ +https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/directmarketingopt-out.aspx +https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/for-consumers/opt-out-of-lexisnexis.aspx +1. requires you to have a court order or police report, but you can remove \some\ information through the Direct Marketing Opt-out, though. + +https://www.locatepeople.org/ +https://www.locatepeople.org/index.php?xpath=privacy +https://locatepeople.org/index.php?xpath=lp_optout +1. Can Opt-out only by certain circumstances. + +https://www.jailbase.com/ +https://www.jailbase.com/en/opt-out/ +1. Follow instructions on page, only under certain circumstances. + +https://www.justmugshots.com/ +https://support.justmugshots.com/forums/21326676-Removal-Services +1. An odd one, but has shown some use. + +https://www.Publicrecordssearchonline.org +https://www.publicrecordssearchonline.org/new/faq.php +1. Search for ‘Q: How can I remove my information from the Public Records Database?’ +2. Follow directions provided. + +https://twitter.com/settings/security +1. Through your profile, go to your security settings page and uncheck the box under the promoted content section. + +https://www.Yahoo.com +https://www.info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/details.html +https://www.search.yahoo.com/preferences/preferences? +1. Log into account. +2. Disable ads and personalized stuff. + +https://www.Yahoo.com/maps +1. Visit https://www.Yahoo.com/maps +2. Drag the gray icon that resembles a person (top-right) to your street (If it won’t drag, then your street has not been photographed for Yahoo.). +3. Click on ‘report image’ at the bottom-left of the screen, it will take you to a different website. +4. Click on ‘request blurring,’ and follow the directions. + +https://west.thomson.com/ +https://static.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/static/pdf/opt_out_form.pdf +*Only under special circumstances* + +https://haveibeenpwned.com/ +https://haveibeenpwned.com/OptOut +1. Check your e-mail accounts against HIBP +2. Opt-out once you copy the information to a .txt + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword=== + +So ends the Paranoid’s Bible. + +No matter what you do, as long as you read this and the other PDFs/guides in the ‘Blue primer series’ you should be fine from citizens and most employers. You won’t be able to outsmart the government and your more tech savvy corporations, just yet. This guide and the ones found in the blue primer are meant to help you prevent spying from the average internet user—to prevent dox, stalking and identify theft. + +We’ll make more PDFs/guides that’ll help you lessen even more of your data footprint and lower your chances of being spied on, however, for now… worry about the citizenry hunting you down like it’s the Salem Witch trials all over again. + +We recommend you give the OPSEC guide a read and then checkout the Meta Data and You guide followed by Uncle Daddy’s Big Book of Deception guide. These three guides will further lessen your chances of being doxed and/or stalked besides providing a wealth of information on how to create some common canaries and red herrings. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Rules.txt b/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Rules.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47475b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/The Paranoid's Rules.txt @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +===The Paranoid’s Rules=== + +Non-Profit and Free for Redistribution. +Originally posted with the Paranoid's Bible +Now made into its own guide. + +For entertainment and research purposes only + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== + +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +**Reminder**: Links have been forced to HTTPS. If a link doesn’t work, try removing the ‘S’ in ‘HTTPS’. + +Please visit our blog for more guides and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +Originally called common sense rules, the Paranoid's Rules were more a bit too restricting for the average user or just confusing. The truth is this was our fault in how we originally worded the description for these loose guidelines. They aren't one-size-fits-all but more akin to simply being a patch or bridge meant to further fill in the gaps left between the Paranoid’s Bible and the OPSEC guide. Think if these as a series of potential steps for you to take to further help lessen your chances of being doxed. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===The Paranoid's Rules=== + +1. Don't ever use your real name online +2. DO NOT EVER POST YOUR REAL NAME ONLINE +3. Never use the same username, ever, anywhere online +4. Never interlink or make mention of your accounts anywhere online +5. Always use a different e-mail for each account, never mention them online +6. Always use a 10 to 15 character length password +7. Always use a mix of random characters +8. Always change your passwords, if you've logged in recently, at least weekly +9. Never post your IRL location online (state, city…etc) +10. Never post your IRL address online +11. Never give out your phone number, ever +12. Never give out your cell phone number, ever +13. Never post your photos online, ever +14. If you break #13, at least scrub as much Meta-data as possible from your images +15. Never post anything that you, yourself, haven't gotten over +16. If data exists, you are at risk +17. Anonymity is your greatest offense, defense, weapon and friend--don't lose it +18. Never post your e-mail addresses anywhere online +19. You are nothing more than another random user online. Disregard everything that makes you an individual. +20. Choose your battles carefully. There may not be many geniuses out there, but there are plenty of smart idiots. +21. Avoid Social Networks and media +22. If you break #21, remember the previous 20 rules +23. Don't sexualize the Miku +24. Disregard #23; never sexualize anything, ever, you perverts +25. Getting involved in anything pornographic or erotic will lead to your doxing, eventually +26. E-drama isn't drama; it's a temporary temper tantrum +27. Disregard E-celebs, get a personality +28. Don’t drink and surf, or blog, or post, or anything, ever +29. /b/ may be the asshole of the Internet, but Tumblr is the cancer of everything good in the world +30. Doxing and Tumblr go hand in hand, avoid Tumblr +31. Internet dating is a scam, go buy something from Bad Dragon +32. Seriously, don’t E-date, you nerd +33. A fetish is a disorder, and the word misused +34. @#33, a kink is what you have, not a fetish +35. @#34, preferences can be both kinks and/or a fetish +36. @#35, if you can’t get off without something specific or it interferes with your life—it’s a fetish +37. @#36, if you have trouble telling the difference between a fetish, a kink, or a preference—seek professional help +38. Children are smart idiots; don’t let children have their own computers +39. If you ignore rule #38, don’t let them have an active Internet connection +40. In regards to #39, don’t let them have a device with WiFi capabilities +41. Never share an account, ever, with anyone +42. Always logout of an account, if you get up for any extended period of time +43. ALWAYS LOGOUT OF YOUR ACCOUNTS, EVEN IF YOU AREN’T ON A SHARED COMPUTER +44. SERIOUSLY, ALWAYS LOGOUT OF YOUR ACCOUNTS, ESPECIALLY ON A SHARED COMPUTER +45. NEVER LOG INTO AN ACCOUNT IF THE DEVICE YOU’RE USING ISN’T YOURS +46. Don’t bank online, or use your cell phone, or a borrowed device—bank IRL +47. It’s FREEDOM OF SPEECH not FREEDOM OF HARASSMENT—you can use FoS to call out harassment and stupidity, though +48. If you feel threatened, harassed, or don’t want contact—TELL THEM TO LEAVE YOU ALONE +49. @#48, learn to use the block tools and learn to never put trust in anyone or an account +50. @#49, sometimes it’s best to pick up and move to another account to avoid trouble and harassment +51. @#50, it’s the Internet… turn it off and you end trolling and e-bullying +52. Harassment has to mean they threatened you or you told them to leave you alone. It doesn’t mean you felt uncomfortable because of them saying or doing something +53. @#51, learn to move on and ignore, if not: You deserved it +54. The Government may not be your friend, but an individual can +55. @#54, don’t be rude to police, doctors, nurses, military personnel, politicians or anyone, ever +56. @#55, unless they did something illegal or dangerous, then remain on the fence and review all the facts. +57. @#56, always make an educated and well researched decision. Never trust a single source. Sources that contradict or are against each other provide a lot of insight and information one or the other didn’t show +58. Men and Women are corruptible, as are you. Learn what you say and do affects others too, besides yourself +59. Most political movements or (sic) groups aren’t about freedom or (sic)’s agency. Many are for the subjugation of society in the name of equal outcome. Even if it means shared adversity and ignorance +60. They may be men or women of the badge, cloth or science but they are still men and woman +61. Trust but verify +62. Don’t just listen and believe +63. Intelligence doesn’t equate wisdom +64. And wisdom doesn’t equate intelligence +65. An education doesn’t guarantee experience or knowledge +66. A degree and/or diploma is just a piece of paper +67. Everyone does something for a reason, even if they’re unaware of it +68. @#67, there are no Jokers or Banes +69. @#68, the world burning is hardly ever funny to a man who proclaims it to be +70. Always unplug your modem and/or router +71. @#70, always do so when not in use +72. @#71, or when you plan to turn off your computer +73. @#72, just unplug it if you don’t actively need it +74. WiFi is bad, don’t use wireless Internet +75. @#74, if you do, don’t log into anything important lest you risk getting your accounts being hijacked +76. It’s the Internet, not a social meet and greet, stop seeking attention. +77. If you claim to be anything but human on the internet, expect to be harassed, rightfully so +78. You lie to the Internet and it’ll learn the truth sooner than later +79. The Internet is compromised of mostly normal people who wish to appear to be quirky or unique +80. If you’ve time to complain about your physical appearance or lack thereof… you’ve time to improve yourself +81. Everything is opened to critique if posted online +82. @#81, but learn to critique is to open yourself up to criticism +83 @#82, but to critique someone for critiquing shouldn’t be used as an excuse to silence criticism +84. @#83, though it is better to be a creator than a user +85. @#83, but it doesn’t mean that a user’s criticism isn’t valid +86. @#85, sometimes the customer sees and tastes things the chef does not +87. A username adds weight to your opinions +88. @#87, being anonymous does not +89. @#88, but having a username makes you easier to attack and destroy +90. AVOID USING CAPS ALL THE TIME +91. @#90, basic grammar, spelling and punctuation are your best bet +92. @#91, but avoid using overly complicated words +93. @#92, and avoid being wordy +94. @#93, and avoid using memes, slang or shortened words or phrases +95. Memes are inside jokes exploited and taken from one source and posted to another source +96. @#95, avoid using memes +97. @#96, avoid memes at all cost +98. Simple, blunt and to the point when trying to relay any thought is usually better than a long winded and wordy rant +99. It’s the Internet, not school +100. @#99, It doesn’t mean be an imbecile and forgo all common sense for acceptance +101. Don’t click on unfamiliar links +102. @#101, avoid shortened links +103. @#102, avoid links hidden behind a link shortener service +104. @#103, don’t click on links from strangers +105. @#104, avoid links from people you don’t trust +106. @#105, avoid links in general unless you know exactly what you’re clicking on \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/Uncle-Daddy's Big Book of Deception 2.0.txt b/paranoidsbible/Uncle-Daddy's Big Book of Deception 2.0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..705ee98 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/Uncle-Daddy's Big Book of Deception 2.0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,175 @@ +===Uncle-Daddy’s Big Book of Deception 2.0=== + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on July 3rd | 2017 +Published on July 3rd | 2017 +Extra (RED) Herring Edition + +For entertainment and research purposes only + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +DISCLAIMER +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +When I shot the PB team a PM on their blog I didn’t expect my critique to become a quick gig of helping them hammer out a guide on deception. After much consideration and a few shots of cheap tequila, I agreed to help them out. + +Because why not? + +They have a decent idea and are trying to help the pitiful users of today’s internet. + +So here you guys & gals go: a guide on being a deceptive bastard on the internet and preventing people from getting a good grasp on your information. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===SEO and Privacy=== +So Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of those magical things everyone has to learn, to an extent, for anything they do online to be successful, especially websites and blogs. It’s also one of those things that no one would think can be applied to INFOSEC but it can. To an extent, SEO tactics can be used to further rank and quickly index red herrings and canaries. Now, one thing to remember is there are such things as Black Hat SEO, which is aimed more toward search engines than organic traffic (White SEO). The truth is, regardless what tactics you plan to use, they all have a place when it comes to preventing people finding your information. + +You should really give it a search and checkout the various articles, blogs and forums on SEO. Who knows, you might actually find something of use that I didn’t make mention of here. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + +===Clone Wars=== + +If you’re reading this, then I’ll assume you’ve read The Paranoid’s Bible guide and the guide on OPSEC. You should have a grasp on the DOs and DON’Ts of the internet. However this will break those rules just a teensy bit in order to help you create garbage data and digital noise to obscure your real identity and information. + + The PB tells you that you should always use a unique username for each account and never repeat this username elsewhere, yet there is an exception to this rule: Cloning. + +While cloning has several names, I’m partial to the term cloning because it gets the message across—make multiple accounts across the internet using the same username but with different information concerning the basic image of its creator. + +When you create an account you always end up adding just a tiny bit of yourself to it. Using the ‘About Me’ or ‘Description’ or those pesky bios… you’re going to use these and differentiate each account by giving it its own persona. + +So while you’re following the advice of the PB team and their various guides, these cloned accounts will be vastly different. Go nuts and use your imagination but remember some simple facts. + +Globally, European names aren’t all that common. Look at the current global makeup of the Earth’s population. Islamic-like names of Muhammad are quite popular, as are Asian names and East Indian names. While the majority of Western sites are heavily European and Americentric, it doesn’t hurt to mix it up with a Vash or Aiko. Of course, you can then flesh it out a bit more by giving them a European or American-sounding last name and background. + +You want these accounts to be completely different from your own. Everything about the personas being made for these accounts are not to be related to you or your ‘main account’. You don’t want them to ever communicate with each other or touch in any way. You must keep them completely separated, which is why you’ll be making them on various forums, social media sites and chats. The more ground you cover, and the more varied the accounts are the less likely people can make a cohesive argument as why this piece of information or that data is supposed to be related to you. + +For example, you make an account on deviantART. + +They’ve a little bio app that you can adhere to your profile. So, if you made yourself a Tumblr account, then the deviantART account is to not only be different in description but also look. If you hate Undertale, then the deviantART persona loves it. You like yellow, they love blue. So on and so forth until you’ve suddenly a teenage female artist with an Asian background who moved to the U.S. and knows very little about their own Asian heritage, ergo they cling to their last name which sounds Japnese-ish. + +By doing this, if someone were to ever look for information to use against you or to grab your dox, they end up on a wild goose chase where they’re looking for someone who doesn’t exist. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + +===Dirty SEO Tactics==== + +There are numerous ways to pollute a search engine’s results with “dirty pages”. Their page rank might not be all that existent, however they do tend to clutter around specific search terms like a username or a piece of common information laced into profiles or bios in order to throw someone off a trail. + +Now, to do this you need to have clean and organic looking back links. However one good way to populate an account with seemingly organic back links is to use one of the numerous “generators” that usually end up hurting your SEO in the long run. We don’t care about the long run, though. This is a short game tactic that translates into, in the long run, a small, albeit affective little trail duster meant to help cover some of your tracks. + +These three links are a good start; however there exist numerous “generators” that can be used. Using these three for all of your clone accounts should help you spark a little bit of a boost in their appearance on Google and Bing. With enough accounts under a similar or the same username, you can basically pollute the search results to help cover your main account with the clone accounts. + +https://www.freebacklinkbuilder.net/ +https://sitowebinfo.com/back/ +https://www.indexkings.com/ + +Ensure you read the PB’s “Internet Primer” to help you reduce Ads and pop-ups when using these websites. While not intentionally malicious, numerous sites, like these, can have malicious Ads or pop-ups. They also will only give you a small boost in your garbage collecting on search engines, so always ensure you stagger what accounts get hit with these and always aim to use the smallest amount of available or offered links. A handful, like 10 or 20, will look less suspicious than, say, 2500. You should also checkout forums, which can be found easily be searching for things like “Black Hat SEO” and “SEO”. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Get a Friend Involved=== + +Let’s say you’ve a friend that you really trust and they’re interested in privacy and security just like you. + +==Here’s a suggestion:== Get them involved. + +Have your friend help you by using one of their own persona/clone accounts to accuse one of yours of being something that currently upsets the moral majority. From there, work in some fake dox and a handful of other pieces of information. Work those bits and pieces into a believable “dox” and have your clone/persona take it a bit too personally and start acting like you’re panicked. Delete the blog after a few days of the drama, let your friend’s persona/clone do some victory posting and move on. + +People will believe that that information belongs to you and follow that trail instead of looking for your real information. And, if you followed the PB’s namesake you should have very little information out there. + +You can even be lazy and just make your own callout blog to attack your own persona/clones. In the end, though, you just want to create enough tension and static to misdirect people. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Mean Girling=== +One of the best things you can do is to create a clique of totally separate and unique accounts whenever you sign up for any account you plan to use for a period of time. This clique will be referred to as the Mean Girls as they’ll ultimately be the opposite of whatever account you create and be controlled opposition. So, the purposes of these accounts are to spread some pseudo-dox and act as controlled opposition. This means if you create a political blog that’s semi-conservative, then you create (with a VPN or proxy or TOR) 1 to 4 accounts that’ll act as the clique of Mean Girls. They’ll work their way into being legit by simply following several people or accounts or whatever and have simple responses or posts that seem to fit the opposition of whatever your (main) account is about. + +If you can queue posts, then do so on those accounts VIA reblogs or whatever’s popular, be it fandom junk or miscellaneous images. You won’t have to spend so much time on these accounts and they can simply run off the queues, appearing to be active. Whenever the mood strikes or you want to lay down some herrings, bring up one or more of the mean girls and have them attack you, making outrageous claims and posting (obvious to you) false information, like state, location or whatever. Ignore them, don’t respond or tell them they’re blocked. This will then cause that information to be picked up by search engines and attached to the searches for your account/username, thus giving you even more ground coverage of false information in search results. + +Do this enough; staggering it by months or years, and you’ll have polluted your search results while not actively doing anything bad or obvious. Then, if someone does try to dox you, they’ll have to sort through all sorts of garbage data. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Midwestern Theory=== +The PB team had a guide for this one however you don’t need an entire guide for what can fit in a chapter. I won’t bore you with the excessive details but some time ago when Newgrounds was the in-thing, someone got upset at people for making the claim that there were a lot of Californians online. This led to the Midwestern netizen forced meme that quickly died out. The claim of being Midwestern is actually a good ploy when covering up your tracks. + +The Midwestern accent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_accent) is easy to mimic and if you watch some Youtube videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DlxCDlIfh0), you should find yourself being able to pick it up and force it when need be. Ideally you should never let anyone see your face or hear your voice, yet it does come in handy just in case. Mix the various “Midwestern quirks” with setting all your accounts’ time zones to “Central” and keeping tabs of the time (https://www.worldtimezone.com/time/wtzresult.php?CiID=32119) (Always pick a random city or state in the Midwest) and mix in some research on “College towns” (https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/best-colleges-in-the-midwest/)… you should be able to spice up your bios and descriptions with something akin to a specific college team or name dropping a college or university that you go to and study at. + +So when you log off or leave your account, stating something like “OMFG! It’s 12:30 am! I have to go and sleep! I have a compsci class @ 9!” + +Keep this up with several accounts, adding in the oddball California town or Florida town, and you’ll have created enough static to keep people scoping out the wrong area for information. Though keep in mind that a lot of plant life in the Midwest tends to spread out into non-Midwestern areas. Take a picture or two of common plants around the US that appear in the Midwest, too. Figure out what’s a common park or nature preserve in the area of your false town/city and look at the common trees or plants in the area. Take a picture of something that is in your area that is in that area, too, and tag it with #Yellowstone park or whatever is popular in that area. + +And suddenly… you’re a Midwestern grilling in sub-zero temperatures because you want your burger. Don’t forget to show your almost zealous obsession and support for that area’s sports teams and no one is going to suspect a thing. Maybe spice in some local news from the area and make a comment on the weather (It isn’t that hard to look up a weather report through Google) and you’re good as Gold. + +You’re a real Midwesterner now, bro. + +==Note:== You can literally apply all of the above to any state or location in the US. Get creative, spread the trash. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Positivity Feeds=== +When creating clone accounts and applying the above, it’s best to leave a few accounts aside for picture or quote spam. These accounts, if they have queue functions, can serve as a means to wipe out image and search results with positive trash. This means you could create a flickr and photobucket account with nothing but .gifs of cats playing or images of literal plants. Apply this to several accounts, applying very little in the way of black hat seo, and you may be able to create what we call a positive feed. These are neutral or positive results when people do a search query on you, your accounts or usernames. They’re literally nothing but junk data yet they’re not bad either simply due to the fact it’s kittens or puppies or plants or images of cute girls doing cute things or even smug anime girls. Working through enough accounts and mixing in positivity feeds can ultimately help hide information but is also a good way to drain out any call out posts or so called dox drops. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Be a Good Person, Share=== +The PB team has in their namesake guide way to opt out of Google maps, among others. Take the information for getting out of Google maps (and others) and make a flyer. Print it out, take it to Kinkos or some other print shop, or go to your local library and print some copies there. Make some wheat paste (shown below) and paste them all over your town (Put paste on wall and smooth, then put your poster up and slather on paste and smooth it on it too.). Soon a whole mess of people will be blurring out their houses on the online maps, and this in turn messes with the real estate sites to the point of anyone trying to look up your information finds a mass of blurred out houses. This causes a mix of the “Streisand effect” and reasonable deniability. + +==WHEAT PASTE HOW-TO== + +Flour (wheat works best) +Sugar +1 Cup of Water +Container with a lid +• Boil a cup of water. +• Put 3 tablespoons of flour into a bowl +• Add 10 teaspoons of cool water until it forms a runny mix +• Once the water has boiled, add the runny mix to the boiling water. Stir well! +• Keep stirring. The mixture will foam up while it boils, so the constant stirring is essential to keep it from bubbling over and to keep it from getting chunky. +• Keep the mixture boiling for 2 minutes. +• Take the boiled mix off the heat. Add 2 tablespoons or more of sugar (added strength) +• Let it cool. Pour into an appropriate container for carrying with you. It will keep well for about a week. +• Learn more @ https://destructables.org/destructable/wheatpaste-recipe-putting-postersbillboard-alterations +• Spray with a clear sealant or hairspray to help weatherize and make the poster last longer. + +Police, military members, and their families can opt-out of a wealth of databases. Some take it to the extreme and have their houses blurred out. If enough people in your area begin to blur out their houses and look into other means of removing their information, you’ll soon see a bit of a trend that can affect several blocks when it comes to viewing houses on any online map. + +This means that you can not only safely blur out yours but it’d be near impossible to guess whose house is whose. It’s only defeated if they have an address, and that’s if it’s actually your address to begin with. Let these people rant and rave as they knock or send a malicious package to the wrong house. If anything happens, since it broke into the realm of reality, they’ll end up being arrested and charged with several crimes. + +==Fun fact:== Not many places care about doxing, especially the police. Most modern “dox” is openly available information. This is why you must work toward suppressing it through opting out of websites and databases. If someone takes it from the internet to the realm of reality, lawsuits and arrests can happen. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Don’t Neglect Reality=== +No one’s denying the PB’s effectiveness when it comes to lessening the overall data of yours online, however until they discuss ways to limit information bleeding offline you’ll need to take a few extra precautions outside of creating noise and lessening your data. They do have a PDF on how your privacy’s invaded, yet that only covers so much. + +Be a little bit nihilistic and apathetic. Don’t care as much and don’t react if you are doxed or some gets a bit too close. Ignore them; work on lessening your information. In the offline realm however you should work on creating some good for yourself. This means work on cleaning up your neighborhood, keeping your property clean and being nice to your neighbors. + +Look into doing some volunteering and charity work. Create some good will toward yourself and lessen the general impact in case anything comes toward you and your life. By doing this you can create a large support focus toward you and what good you’ve done. People will be in disbelief and outright call the claims made against you false. + +Ever wonder why politicians and famous people, even the internet famous, never get much crap and have an unusually large support behind them? What they do is quite simple: Act like a good person. + +With bit of charity under your belt and by observing social protocols enough by simply greeting people and saying your “Please” and “Thank yous” you’ll create an air of being someone half way decent. People will see this and any accusations made against you will result in either demand for blood or death of someone who dares attack you. + +Now you shouldn’t encourage the bloodlust or wanting of death, however simply using your time wisely and helping your community can act as a good cover. Someone comes around and harasses you; someone who might have power will come to your aide possibly. + +It also doesn’t hurt to remove your information and have it replace with falsified information. Checkout https://reddit.com/r/freebies and keep an eye out for free magazine subscriptions. Fill out a few, regardless what they are, with your home address and a burner cell’s number. The name can be made up, possibly made to match the cultural and ethnic makeup of your area. Think about it. What are the most common people in your immediate area? White? Black? Hispanic? It doesn’t matter as long as you pick the majority and follow suit with their name. It’ll help further push that static to help cover your tracks. + +So if you’ve a large number of Hispanic families in your area, using a Hispanic sounding first and last name on your free magazine subscriptions can help you replace all your removed database records with falsified ones. Go the extra step, load up on other freebies. Anything you don’t need or want can be donated to a number of homeless shelters or shelters for women and/or children. Gives you an extra push in being a good person too! + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterword=== +Outside of following the PB’s advice, using a VPN, a non-propriety OS and not touching social media there’s not much else you can do. While being deceptive and sprinkling lies and half truths into your conversations and online shenanigans helps, most of us who were born in the 80s and 90s have screwed up royally and will never truly be un-doxable or secure. Work toward anonymity and spread the PB’s information to as many people as you can. + +I should note however that your text and how you type can give you away too. Look into using a text editor and use Basic English spelling and grammar. Mix in some chat speak and some texting quirks and you should be able to keep the personas even more separated and unique. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/What to do if Doxed.txt b/paranoidsbible/What to do if Doxed.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b9b344 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/What to do if Doxed.txt @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +===What to do if Doxed=== + +Non-profit and free for redistribution +Written on May 12th | 2017 +Published on May 13th | 2017 + +For entertainment and research purposes only + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===DISCLAIMER=== +The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. + +The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. + +Please visit our blog for more guides and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Preface=== +Many of us fear having the light of curiosity shown on us, be it through being doxed or someone becoming a bit too interested in us and what we're about. Sadly, many people don't take the needed precautions of lessening their digital footprint and removing their information from the internet. A lot of people just let it sit and fester until someone comes along and picks at the infected blister that was a forgotten account or teenage edginess, however not all is lost. If you've read the Paranoid's Bible injunction with the OPSEC, Meta Data and You, Uncle Daddy's Big Book of Deception and Hostman guides, you may have already started your adventure in privacy, yet, if you haven't... well, that's what this guide is here for: To you teach you that it's never too late even if you've been doxed. + +***Reminder:*** Don't look at any other guides until you've read this one fully. You may jump the shark and do some actions too early, which could lead to greater consequences. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Stay Calm and Don’t React=== +The majority of people who've been doxed had had their information found through simple search engine queries or because they, themselves, provided this information without knowing that they've done so. This is because we've been conditioned by social media and sites like Reddit to crave the instant gratification of arbitrary numbers that come with exposing ourselves online; baring everything we can to the perverse, voyeuristic masses that give us a +1 click on our profiles. Because of this, you've most likely have fell for the meme that the current state of doxing is something akin to CSI's take on hacking. Don't fret, though, most people who threaten to dox someone haven't found the information or aren't willing to use it, ergo relax and don't panic of a threat. Yes, take it seriously, however not all states will grant you the legal power to sue or track someone down in a digital witch-hunt. What you can do, though, is quite simple: Remove your information. + +Before you remove your information, you must first monitor yourself and the threat at hand. Don't react, for if you do then they get a bigger rise out of you and a reason to actually dox you, or if they already have done so... provoke you more and continue this assault. + +Simply remember: Stay calm, breathe and don't react. You don't need to defend yourself or get into a digital slap fight on the internet. Just ignore it and learn that by not reacting to any threats or accusations, you deny them one of the things they want the most: You acting out. +Now move onto the next chapter. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Realize it’s not always You=== +One thing most people need to realize is that it’s not always them but what they are perceived as representing. Due to the political climate being so explosive, people on both sides of the spectrum are targeting each other simply because they can. This means that a Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, Capitalist or Fascist or whatever will be picked out from a series of people on social media and made into an example of what happens to someone’s political or ideology’s opponent. This means you, at any given moment, could be targeted simply because you fit a preconceived image or notion of what someone believes their enemies to look like. + +It's a small consolation to realize you weren't chosen, possibly, because of what you said or did, however it still means someone was upset enough to target you. Take precautions and start lessening what you say or do online when it comes to specific topics. Choose your battles carefully and wisely. Not every comment or person needs a response. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Identify the Source=== +One of the things you need to do before looking toward cleaning your digital footprint is to identify the source of your dox or the leak of your information. While the Paranoid's Bible is a great resource for cleaning up your information and denying anyone access to it, that's a step best to take before being doxed. If you've been doxed or received a threat of being doxed, then you need to ensure your information hasn't been posted by someone within your community or on another website. If someone has posted your dox/information, then you must identify what information they've found. + +If it's public information, there's not much you can do about it. This information includes your home address, phone number (landline), place of work, place of education, birth date, full name and even your car's license's plate, however while public it is personal information and some websites might actually remove it upon simple request. You must first ensure the website isn't encouraging this or a part of the act taking place. If they aren't, and it's a site like Reddit, then go ahead and ask the administrators and/or website owner to remove your information. If it's an image board or a forum, then don't ask anyone and ignore it further. However do identify what information they have found, as you can work on lessening the damage by removing information that they've yet to found. + +If the information is private, like passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers or anything similar, then yes, you might actually have a case for a potential lawsuit. ***But Remember:*** It must not be information that was made public by your own actions or a data breach or leak. If this information can be found VIA Google or Bing, then a lawsuit can't take place against the people posting your information but one could be placed against the owners of the database that got breached and/or leaked. + +Personal information, while both public and private, doesn't matter much because either way it matches one of the above descriptions. So don’t fret so much over whether or not it’s personal information but whether if it’s private or public. Once you’ve gotten that mindset in place, you’ll see how doxing, while quite alarming, isn’t really up for any legal actions most of the time due to the information being found readily on your own accounts or a search engine. + +The Paranoid’s Bible guide goes into further detail on lessening your chances of being doxed and how to properly shrink your digital footprint. Now that you’ve identified your source(s), move onto the next chapter. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Act Accordingly=== +Once you’ve identified the source, and learned of what information has been posted, you can act accordingly to the level of threat that’s being presented to you. While everything that’s classed as a potential threat may seem dangerous, not everything must be met with a call to arms or requests of a personal army or attorney at law. + +If it’s just an account or e-mail address, then continue ignoring it and working toward removing your data and lessening the information that’s out there on you. If they’re obsessed with an old account that you can’t or have forgotten to remove, then they’re distracted and haven’t worked toward finding more information. This means you can work toward lessening the potential harm and continue toward a safer experience online. + +If they’ve found your home address, regardless of how they did it, then you must look toward what you can do to lessen the potential harm that can stem from this, like, for instance, replacing your mailbox with one that can lock to prevent theft of mail. You can ensure your windows are locked and covered by blackout curtains to prevent spying, and you can even remove your phone’s custom voicemail message to the default robotic one. + +You might want to look toward the PB’s "Home Phone and Landline Security" & "Home Security and You" guides. Remember though, just because they have your address or phone number doesn’t mean they’ll do anything. Most people are satisfied with going “I doxed you! You live at 123 Road Avenue, New York, New York!” and hoping someone else will say or do something. You have to fear at most, usually, getting the sophomoric junkmail spam that consists of boxes, pizzas and possibly even prostitutes. While nothing more than a prank, it does cause panic for your younger targets/victims, like the teenagers that Tumblr has inexplicably targeted. + +If you’re under the age of 18 or live with someone else, you must let them know what’s happening if it has progressed as far as your phone number and/or address being posted online. The reason for this is so the other residents within the home know what’s coming off and for you, the target/victim to tell the home owner and/or adults living with you what’s happening. If it advances enough to a possible lawsuit and court date, then they’ll know about it anyways. It’s better to come clean now and deal with the brunt of the lecturing now than later as, like it or not, parents and guardians do know how to handle things better than most minors. + +Ultimately, the worst they can do is tattle to your parents or contact your place of work, or go as far as to contact your landlord. This has a 50/50 chance of working against you or not, ergo another reason for you to lessen your digital footprint online. Less you do online, the less they have that they can use against you. This means less accounts, little to no social media use and learning to not tell the internet everything you've seen, said or done on any given day. Again, the Paranoid's Bible is a good resource that should be read after this guide. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Steps to Take=== + +Before we tell you what steps to take, realize that these are but small steps compared to what the guides we've mentioned in the preface can teach you, however avoid those guides till you're done with this one as it'll prevent you from making things worse. Now, however, progress by continuing with this guide and follow the steps that we've set forth. + +***First and foremost:*** Learn to not react, to anything said or done to your or your accounts, and once this is over don't mention it, ever. If you let people know it's bothering you, they'll continue their assault on you and your privacy. They'll push forward, looking for even greater ways to provoke you into doing something potentially harmful to yourself and others. Even if the information is incorrect, don't react. + +Just ignore them and take things slowly. + +***Second, to help lessen the trust in any of your information being posted, do the following steps:*** + +- Blur out your house/property view on online maps. +For Bing: +1. https://www.bing.com/maps/ +2. Type home address +3. Get to street view +4. Center squarely on house +5. Look for (?) question mark near bottom right. Be careful as it can be hidden sometimes. +6. Click it +7. Select "Report an image concern" +8. You'll get a pop-up or new tab with a panoramic image +9. Select your house, a little red square will appear then +10. Voice your privacy concern. Stating vandalism and potential break-ins by criminal elements. +11. Fill out the rest of the form + Captcha, wait +12. Save ticket (#) Number + +For Google: +1. Go to Google Maps and type in your address +2. Bring up the street view of your property +3. Look to the bottom right hand corner of the screen you should see an Icon Labeled: “report a problem.” +4. Click on “report a problem.” +5. You will get a page labeled “report inappropriate street view.” +6. Look for the words “Privacy Concerns” and click on them. +7. If you want your house blurred, click on “my house.” Then choose the option: “I have a picture of my house and would like it blurred.” +8. Adjust the image and show Google which part of the photo needs blurred. +9. Type the verification code at the bottom of the page into the box provided and click submit. +10. Check back in a few days to see if the image has been blurred. + +For Yahoo: Special thanks to /r/n0esc from Reddit! +1. Visit https://www.Yahoo.com/maps +2. Drag the gray icon that resembles a person (top-right) to your street. (If it won’t drag, then your street has not been photographed for Yahoo.) +3. Click on “report image” at the bottom-left of the screen. It will take you to a different website. +4. Click on “request blurring,” and follow the directions. + +- Change your phones’ voice messages to the default robotic one. This is to prevent people from confirming and verifying your number as being related to you. This also hinders people and will push some off of harassing you or constantly calling your phone number(s). + +- Never answer the phone for anyone you don’t recognize. Names and phone numbers should always be scrutinized before picking up and answering. If it’s important, they’ll leave a voicemail. Yes, some people will leave harassing messages, too. If you don’t respond or make mention of these messages, no one will know. This will prevent (some) people from getting the satisfaction of knowing they’re getting to you. + +- If you’ve the money and time, change your phone number to a new, private and unlisted one. + +- Get your mail ASAP. The longer you leave your mail in the mailbox, the sooner someone may snap it up for nefarious means. Always get your mail and packages right away! + +- Get off the blogs and stop saying things online. It’s better to lurk and learn instead of interacting and putting yourself into danger. + + +***If things turn violent, please follow the below:*** + +- Don’t open letters or packages you don’t recognize. If you didn’t order or request something in the mail, don’t risk it. If you suspect something, open all packages and letters over a plastic container large enough to house the item you suspect. While wearing gloves, eye protection and a face mask, ensure the item is being opened as carefully as possible. Record and save everything in case of issue. + +- Don't delete asks/PMs/fan mail/chat requests that contain threats or anything of a similar violent nature. These can used in potential legal actions, also make copies of these by hitting CTRL+S to save a copy to your computer, and then save copies as screen caps. + +- Don't delete any voice mail left on your phone(s), this can be used in potential legal actions. + +- Don't destroy any documents sent your home or business, again this can be used in potential legal actions. + +- Look into purchasing cameras for your property. + +- Do notify the police of any incidents that happen, like property theft or damage...etc + +- Cut contact with anyone you suspect. + +- Don't react. + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +===Afterwards=== + +This is the end result of social networks and the forced "inter-connectivity" meme of smart gadgets. The more we move forward to web 3.0, the smaller our pool of privacy shall become. While we can scream and whine about lawsuits and calling our uncle in the FBI, none of it matters because you've put yourself in harm's way in the first place by not remembering the simple golden rule: Don't post your real world information on the internet. Don't post your name or address online. Don't talk to strangers and don't post images of yourself, where you live, or go to school on the internet. + +Call it a fad from the 90's, but privacy rocks. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/paranoidsbible/gophermap b/paranoidsbible/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a782320 --- /dev/null +++ b/paranoidsbible/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +A collection of documents from the Paranoid's Bible Tumblr page. +(https://paranoidsbible.tumblr.com) + +0An Internet Primer An Internet Primer.txt +0Host Files and You Host Files and You.txt +0Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0 Day-to-Day Invasions of Privacy 2.0.txt +0Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship.txt +0Meta Data and You Meta Data and You.txt +0OPSEC OPSEC.txt +0The Internet Detox The Internet Detox.txt +0The Master Opt-Out List 2.0 The Master Opt-Out List 2.0.txt +0The Paranoid's Bible The Paranoid's Bible.txt +0The Paranoid's Rules The Paranoid's Rules.txt +0Uncle-Daddy's Big Book of Deception 2.0 Uncle-Daddy's Big Book of Deception 2.0.txt +0What to do if Doxed What to do if Doxed.txt diff --git a/rennica/act1/04-pie.html b/rennica/act1/04-pie.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..962aa03 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/04-pie.html @@ -0,0 +1,80 @@ + + + + + 04: solstice's pie + + +

      04: solstice's pie

      +

       

      +

      “So, Sol. I heard what you did yesterday. I’m not proud.”

      +

      “Well, I am. I’m damn proud of what I’ve done. You weren’t there, so your opinion is unfortunately kinda irrelevant.”

      +

      A sigh. “Sol, you can’t just allow people into Rennica. That’s the job of the guards. They have to screen everyone-”

      +

      “And what would have happened if the otherworld had done that to you? If they’d turned you away and forced you back into the underworld? I think you’d be singing a different tune right now-”

      +

      “Sol-”

      +

      “They were refugees from the firstworld. You’d rather they be pushed back to the firstworld? Under Chronos’ domain?” Chair squeaking. Hands on the table. “Weren’t you trying to kill the guy?”

      +

      “Sol-”

      +

      “Can’t you be consistent for once in your life?”

      +

      Chair suddenly flying backwards. Faster hands on the table, slamming, palms to surface. “Solstice Avaroe Talos!”

      +

      A blue wisp ran around his wrist. The older man took a deep breath and pulled his chair back to the table and resettled himself.

      +

      “Sol. My one and only daughter. You know that I love you-”

      +

      “Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like it sometimes,” she cut in.

      +

      “Sol.” He closed his eyes. “I know it seems like I have a lot of sway over what happens here. But I’m not in charge of Rennica, and neither are you. You have a lot of freedom down here.” He winced. “I just ask that you follow the few rules we have in place. Just so you don’t get us all killed.”

      +

      “If anyone was going to kill us all while we’re trapped down here, it would be you, son of Chronos.”

      +

      Lukas’ eyes flew wide open. “Sol-”

      +

      Solstice sprung up from the chair and left the room, letting the door slam shut behind her. Her room was a few doors down the barely-lit hallway from her father’s, given to her on her thirteenth birthday like every other child born in Rennica. The little red lights embedded in the floor faded in and out with her steps. She pulled off her necklace, a key on a ragged blue ribbon, and let herself in.

      +

      Solstice kicked off her shoes. Something rustled in the unlit space before her, pitch-black to her unadjusted eyes. She ran her hand along the wall beside her until her fingers stumbled on the light switch and flicked it up.

      +

      “Gods,” the girl sprawled out on her couch squeaked, her hands flying to her face, “warn me next time.”

      +

      “Oh. Salmonella. You’re back.”

      +

      “Selmina,” she corrected Solstice, rubbing her eyes and bringing herself upright. “No, I don’t have the damn pie yet. They were all out.”

      +

      “All out? What a load of bull. And so close to my birthday, too.” Solstice put her hands on her hips. “Well, I guess I’ll be right back out again. Get some sleep, you big useless dumb.”

      +

      Solstice backtraced her steps out, re-locking the door behind her. She slipped the ribbon back around her neck and then took off at a full run down the hallway and to the spiral stairs beyond.

      +
      +

      The caverns stretched out in front of her for what seemed like forever. Jagged reddish spikes rose from the ground here and there- the remnants of the old underworld, she’d been told. There had been walls stretching up to the far-off ceiling, but they had long since been overtaken by vegetation and then worn down by generations of climbers into only a remnant of their former glory. Still, the trees remained, their branches forming a canopy overhead, ceiling barely visible through the leaves, providing the air the people of Rennica so desperately needed.

      +

      No help from the firstworld, only blankets of sand covering the earth and waiting to be scooped into the ocean, and the otherworld thought they were the stuff of fairytales and folk fiction.

      +

      Solstice rolled her shoulders and dipped her head as she crawled into the low-ceilinged room near the staircase. Several rows of computer terminals greeted her, spooky in the low light.

      +

      A dark-skinned man turned to face her as she crossed her arms. The ties of his bandanna flopped in his eyes- he brushed them out of the way, and they flopped down behind him like a caedat’s ears.

      +

      “Oh- Solstice! What brings the mighty daughter of mankind here?”

      +

      She rolled her eyes. “Markov. Any news on the outside?”

      +

      Markov sighed and shook his head, shrugging, hands open wide. “Sorry, lass. Our only outproxy in the otherworld moved IP addresses, and it’s looking like they abandoned their domain, so I can’t mail them. It’s local-only again.”

      +

      “Of course.” Solstice sat down in front of the terminals. She stretched her legs out, letting out a groan, and then let her fingers start typing up a storm on the keyboard. “What a shame, really.”

      +

      “What’s got you down, lass?”

      +

      “It’s my birthday Thursday. And I want a pie. And they’re all out in the Set.” She paused typing, letting the last of the packages cached before the outproxy went down update. “And now I can’t order one from the otherworld, because the damn outproxy’s down!”

      +

      “I have a blueberry pie in my fridge. Half-eaten, though.”

      +

      Solstice shook her head. “I’ll pass. Thanks for the offer, though.” She squinted at the screen. “Damn, you weren’t lying. I can’t fetch my mail.”

      +

      “Since when are you using remote mail for anything important?” Markov laughed and mussed Solstice’s hair. “I gotta go, lass. If you want the last of my pie, you know where to go. Or maybe you’ll get lucky in Cyb.”

      +

      Markov stooped over, slipping through the shrunken doorway, and left. Solstice let out a deep breath, emptying her chest before letting herself breathe again.

      +

      She opened another window in the multiplexer. The packages continued to update in the background as she opened the community bulletin board. The words Cyberia Station stared down at her from the top of the screen as the long list of boards filled the remaining space.

      +

      A cursory scan. No new threads or replies since she’d last logged on.

      +

      The package update finished. She signed out and stood up-

      +

      Something fell out of her pocket and clinked on the ground.

      +

      Gods above…

      +

      Solstice stooped down reached under the desk, feeling around the tangled wires until her fingers found what she was searching for- a small glass sphere, about the size of a peach’s pit. She climbed back out from under the desk, studying the pink swirls within in what little light the terminal monitors reflected off the surface.

      +

      You know you could snap a pie into existence yourself, right? All beings can manipulate. But only gods can create and destroy-

      +

      Her fist clenched around the sphere. I won’t! I’ll do it like any other human. She slipped the sphere into her pocket and climbed out of the room. I’ll go harrass Mori about it. Least she could do for being let in…

      +
      +

      Mori clapped her hands together, setting the flickers of flames bouncing in the wide pan like two passionate dancers. They always just barely missed the strips of meat, close enough to warm without scorching-

      +

      The door suddenly flew open. A startled Mori jumped back, almost kicking the pan over.

      +

      Solstice strolled into Mori’s room. A fifteen-by-fifteen foot square with a few power outlets, hooked into Rennica’s thermodynamic grid. A single lamp hung overhead, little more than one of Mori’s flames locked into a glass tube.

      +

      Not comfortable by any means, but it was certainly better than one of the dingy and dank jail cells far below.

      +

      Solstice crouched down to the floor, sitting on the opposite side of the pan. Mori winced.

      +

      “Y-yes?”

      +

      “Mori. Thursday’s my birthday. Think you can make me an apple pie?”

      +

      “I-I, um…” Mori clasped her hands together. Her cheeks flushed red. “I have the stuff for the dough. But I’m kinda bad at climbing trees…”

      +

      Solstice snorted. “And I’m no good at cooking. I’ll get the apples. You just have to put it all together. Sound like a deal?”

      +

      Mori’s face hardened, face still blushing, still demure under the frown. “W-what do I get out of it?”

      +

      That’s always the critical question here in Rennica, isn’t it?

      +

      “You’ll get…” Solstice sighed. Her eyes wandered over the bare walls, thinking. “You’ll get… a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

      +

      Mori shook her head.

      +

      “A good word put in by me to the Council?”

      +

      Mori crossed her arms.

      +

      “Well, what do you want?”

      +

      “Some of your power, so I can do better spells.”

      +

      “Oh, this?” Solstice took the sphere out of her pocket. It almost looked like the lights dancing in the pan were in the glass instead, trapped in the inch of space. “I don’t give a damn for this. It wouldn’t be a fair trade.”

      +

      “You don’t like being divine?”

      +

      Solstice shook her head, turning the orb over and over in her hands. “This place is too cramped for big beefy dragons and all that shit. Plus beasts can’t type, or speak, or squeeze into all the tight places here. And I’m not even fully divine, so anything I’d be able to do would just be a shadow of my dopey father.” She tightened her lips and put the stone away. “I like me as myself.”

      +

      Mori nodded her head. “Sometimes, though… I wish I could…”

      +

      Solstice’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you divine, too?”

      +

      Mori shrunk back. “I-I’ve said too much. Is it a deal?”

      +

      “Yeah…” Solstice rose to her feet, suddenly wary. “I’ll bring the apples later this cycle.”

      + diff --git a/rennica/act1/05-sword.html b/rennica/act1/05-sword.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d84fce0 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/05-sword.html @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ + + + + + 05: selmina and her sword + + +

      05: selmina and her sword

      +

       

      +

      Tap, tap, tap.

      +

      Eraser to paper. Fingers against a notepad, itching to write but idle nonetheless. A fat fountain pen sat in her lap, weighing down in the canopy of her skirt between her skinny legs. Glossy and black, catching her eye every few seconds when the lightbulb hanging above her head swung her way.

      +

      “You should really get a proper light fixture,” she whispered.

      +

      “You wanna buy me one?” a woman squawked from inside the room Selmina was sitting outside. “What with all that money you get from patrolling the outer tunnels and outposts with those filthy caedats-”

      +

      Selmina twisted around and nudged the door shut.

      +

      The woman kept squawking inside, but Selmina paid her no mind as she gathered her writing supplies up and slipped them into her little blue drawstring bag. She slipped it around her shoulders and stood up, gazing over the balcony at the activity teeming several stories below. The short point in the day when there were the most people awake and active at the same time. Buying, bartering, socializing. Pacts made and sworn on.

      +

      She turned her violet eyes skywards. A massive tree grew in the center of the expanse, all the way up to the ceiling far above. Little apples like jewels, or popcorn strings scattered around a yuletide tree. Shallow divots in the bark where countless generations had found the best places to climb, the best wedges to place their feet and their trust on. There were only a few people in the tree now, reaching for apples to eat or trade off for something else-

      +

      “Solstice!” Selmina yelled, waving her arms. The redhead wrapped her limbs around a branch, steadying herself and the bag on her back, then lifted one arm to wave back-

      +

      -and slipped, and lost her grip.

      +
      +

      She clutched her bag tight against her chest. Her leg inevitably started bouncing, nervous jogging, making the person sitting on the other end of the couch grumble and move to the other couch on the opposite end of the lobby.

      +

      She’s not dead. She’s not dead.

      +

      She glanced around. There were no doctors in sight.

      +

      Could I…?

      +

      Selmina stood up. The grumbler, an old wrinkly man who didn’t look at all like he belonged in Rennica, rubbed his nose and promptly drifted off to sleep. Just like that, quicker than she could snap her fingers.

      +

      Her footsteps were barely audible as she made her way down the ward hallway. Eleven doors. Ten private rooms, and then the mass infirmary at the end.

      +

      One, two, three…

      +

      The door was closed. She jogged the handle- locked.

      +

      Muffled speech inside. She glanced around again, checking for nosy nurses, and then pressed her ear up against the door.

      +

      “I’m sorry, Sol. That’s reality. That’s our reality. The longer you go without shifting or casting or anything, the more likely you’re going to go feral.”

      +

      “Then just let me go feral.”

      +

      “Sol-”

      +

      “You should have killed me when I was young. When I was still happy in this place, still had hope in my soul.”

      +

      “What the hell are you talking about?”

      +

      “I don’t want to be here anymore!” Solstice screamed, loud enough for Selmina to cringe away from the door for a second.

      +

      “Rennica is the safest place for all of us at the current moment. Maybe one day, when Chronos is dead and you’ve grown into your powers more, we can go back into the firstworld and begin rebuilding.”

      +

      “How’s Chronos going to die if we all just cower here?”

      +

      A sigh of frustration. The legs of a stool scraping on the ground. “I’m not having this discussion with you right now.”

      +

      Footsteps towards the door. Selmina stepped away and brushed her clothes off, presentable just in time for the door to open and Lukas to step out, lips tight, eyebrows drawn together.

      +

      He shut the door behind him- “Oh, Selmina. I wasn’t expecting you here.”

      +

      Selmina curtseyed. “Lukas. A pleasure to see-”

      +

      He cut her off. “Get up. There’s no need for niceties here. You don’t have to treat me like I’m some sort of… king.”

      +

      Selmina straightened. “Y-yes, right. My apologies. Is Solstice alright?”

      +

      “Broke an arm, fractured several ribs. Nothing life-threatening. It’ll only take a few days to heal. So close to her birthday, though…” He gestured to the door. “I have to go. But you can talk to her.”

      +

      He took off. Selmina, cautious, opened the door and slipped in, closing it behind her. Solstice lay on the bed, her right arm bound up in a makeshift cast, her chest tied into some kind of plastic brace that may or may not have been stolen from an otherworld hospital.

      +

      Her face looked especially sour.

      +

      “Oh. Salmonella.” A half-smile tilted on her dopey face. “Just the person I wanted to see right now.”

      +

      Is she drugged?

      +

      Better drugged than dead, I suppose…

      +

      Selmina dragged the metal stool back over and took a seat, holding the straps of her sack in her hands, letting the bag dangle near her feet. “And the same to you. I’m not sure how you survived such a fall without immediately dying, but… I’m glad all the same.”

      +

      “You’re so cheesy.” Solstice grunted. The fingers of her right arm flexed. “Too bad I’m lactose-intolerant. Are my apples okay?”

      +

      “You almost died, and you’re concerned about your apples?”

      +

      “Well, yeah. They’re the reason I was so high up, after all.” Solstice shrugged- and her face immediately crumpled in pain. “I want my pie…”

      +

      “A death pie for a… birthday. Alright.” Selmina took her notebook and pencil and fountain pen out of the sack, letting the blue bag fall to her feet. Her restless fingers started scrawling words as fast as the pencil would let her. “So what I overheard…”

      +

      “Is that Lin?”

      +

      Selmina’s large violet eyes glanced up from the paper. “I beg your pardon?”

      +

      “That’s Lin, isn’t it? My father’s sword?”

      +

      “Um…” Selmina held the pen up to the ceiling lights, studying the glossy surface. “No, it appears to be a pen. No use without good ink, and I wouldn’t know how to load it anyways.”

      +

      “No, it’s a sword,” Solstice drawled, eyelids fluttering, begging to shut so she could doze off. “You have to click the top real hard.” Selmina touched the bottom- “but point it away from the bed! I don’t want to be a skewer.”

      +

      “And I… wouldn’t want to skewer you.” Selmina blushed. “Nothing lewd intended, of course.”

      +

      She slapped the bottom of the pen-

      +

      A flash of light. Selmina jumped back in shock, letting go, her face immediately flushing bright red. A pitch-black longsword clattered on the floor in front of her. The blade had several indents in it, like it were designed for ripping flesh as much as possible, and the hilt had a few cracks in it where a lighter material peeked through.

      +

      “Yeah, like that.” Solstice closed her eyes. “Salmonella.”

      +

      “Selmina.”

      +

      “Yeah. Salmonella. That’s what I said.” Solstice let out a long breath. “Come close. No theatrics. I’m not gonna die.” A weak laugh. “Not yet. Not for a long ass time.”

      +

      “I’m well aware of your divine status.” Selmina stepped closer. She folded her hands like a demure schoolgirl, resting against her skirt. “What do you wish to tell me?”

      +

      “You.” Solstice flexed her fingers, almost as if to gesture to her friend. “And I. I’ve been thinking. We should leave Rennica.”

      +

      “Solstice, don’t take this the wrong way, but… are you sure about the thinking part?”

      +

      “Yeah. Real hard. We… go and kill Chronos.”

      +

      “I’ll ask again-”

      +

      “You and I will return heroes. I’ll convince Father to make all the sand go woosh away. Good riddance, since he’s the one who’s at fault for it…” Solstice half-opened her eyes, pupils just barely visible under her heavy eyelids, under her thinning eyelashes. “I’m going anyways. Sometime after my birthday. But you’re the only one I’d ever trust at my side.”

      +

      “I’m… honored.”

      +

      Does she really mean it?

      +

      Suppressants often affect more than pain. Behavior inhibitors, for one.

      +

      “I will consider it,” Selmina continued, picking up the sword, studying it with intent eyes. “For your sake, if nothing else. But I should warn you: I have little to no training in… medieval forms of combat. Or slaying gods.” She ran a finger along one of the cracks. A bead of light followed her finger up, then fizzled out at the end of the crack.

      +

      A tiny giggle escaped Solstice’s mouth. Almost like a little child, like the two of them were five years old again, back at the entrance to the underworld, meeting each other for the first time.

      +

      “It’s okay. Me neither.”

      + diff --git a/rennica/act1/06-apples-eyes.html b/rennica/act1/06-apples-eyes.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f9eec0 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/06-apples-eyes.html @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ + + + + + 06: apples to eyes + + +

      06: apples to eyes

      +

       

      +

      Mori crossed her arms. The sleeves of her cloak rumpled under her touch, rough canvassy fabric all she'd been allowed to use back during her days in the tower. Misshapen stitches ran all over the seams, blue thread against yellow collars and red mainlines and the two mismatched blue clasps of different sizes keeping the whole thing from slipping off.

      +

      A knife sat in front of her. Sitting in the inert pan was the bottom half of the crust, filled with little baby apple slices glistening with sugar glaze and filling. Beside the pan was a pile of peels.

      +

      "Ready?" Mori whispered.

      +

      "Ready," Selmina whispered back, voice hoarser.

      +

      Mori reached to her left and took the top crust in her hands, eyes focused, arms almost trembling as she brought it over to the pan. She let out a deep breath as she set it on top without so much as a stray flake chipping off.

      +

      She took the pan in her hands and held it out for Selmina. "T-tell Solstice happy birthday for me. Oh- a-and I want my pan back after."

      +

      "I'l return it as soon as I'm able." Selmina took the pan and set it beside her, trading it for a crumpled piece of paper from her sack. "You haven't registered with Rennica's mainframe yet. You should talk to Markov on the ground level as soon as possible. That's how we communicate down here when we feel conversations won't be sufficient." She placed the paper in Mori's outstretched hands. "This message can't wait. Please read it when you have the time."

      +

      "I... I will. Thank you."

      +

      Selmina took the pan and rose to leave-

      +

      "Wait!" Mori shot up to her feet. "Solstice promised me some of her power as payment. When am I going to get paid?"

      +

      Selmina bit her lip. A curse slipped under her breath. "I don't know the details of your business arrangement. I'm sorry. That's something you'll have to bring up with her."

      +

      And with that, Selmina left, leaving Mori alone in the pitiful light.

      +

      "Wait!"

      +

      Mori took off after her- but she stumbled into the hallway, and Selmina was already gone.

      +

      "Dammit..." Mori kicked the wall, earning only an ache in her toes as a response.

      +

      The paper crinkled in her hand. She pulled at it, undoing the misshapen folds and squashes.

      +

      "I wonder what's so important-"

      +

      A thump in her head.

      +

      An endless blue sky stretching out before her, endless, forever. A few flocks of birds swooped and rose together as one unit, hundreds of wings, one shared mind.

      +

      "Hey! Are you alright?"

      +

      Fingers wrapped around her shoulders. Her skin burned, blazed under the fabric, so hot that she feared she'd go up in flames at the slightest spark.

      +

      A cry escaped her raspy throat.

      +

      "Okay, so you're not dead. That doesn't answer my question."

      +

      The fingers retracted, ice replacing the embers where they'd pressed down on her, and then they rolled her over onto her back.

      +

      It was hard to see his face against the halo of light that framed his forehead. But from what Mori could see, a blonde-haired man a few years older than her crouched over her, eyebrows drawn together in worry.

      +

      "L-Lukas Talos!" Mori grunted and pulled herself to her feet. He rose in response. She brushed out the wrinkles in her cloak. "Sorry. I'm not sure what came over me."

      +

      He shook his head. "It's alright. I'm glad you-"

      +

      Lukas suddenly fell silent. He stepped toward Mori. She shrunk down, shivering under his suspicious gaze, until he pulled away.

      +

      "You're divine! But..." He glanced down the hallway, checking that there were no eavesdroppers. "You don't sound like any sibling of mine that I know of. Rikella, perhaps?"

      +

      "...No? I don't know a Rikella."

      +

      "One of Arkensia's children, then?"

      +

      "No. I'm just a human. Same as anyone else here, 'cept for you, and maybe Solstice."

      +

      "Hmmm." Lukas paused, thinking. "Are you, maybe, from another dimension where divinity takes a different form?"

      +

      "No! I'm from this one!" Mori stomped her foot and scowled, almost like she were half her age. "Look, Mr. Lukas, I appreciate you not kicking me out of Rennica. I like it here. But I'm not some kind of undercover spy. I'm down here to hide from Chronos, too. That's it. That's all there is to me."

      +

      "What's your affinity?"

      +

      "My... what?"

      +

      "Your magical affinity. What element you find easiest to manipulate."

      +

      "Oh, um..." Mori snapped her fingers. A little flicker of a flame appeared in her palm. "I've always been good with fire, I suppose."

      +

      "What about your father?"

      +

      "I... don't really know anything about my parents." Mori shrugged off her wave of self-pity and looked Lukas straight in the eye. "Is this game of twenty questions almost over?"

      +

      Lukas sighed. "Sorry. My paranoia got the better of me for a moment. I thought, maybe, for whatever reason, you were a descendant of Lex Kinnyan."

      +

      Mori cocked her head. "Who's that?"

      +

      A glint in his eye. "Follow me. I'll tell you a story."

      +
      +

      Lukas' room was like a mini-Rennica all in itself. A space much bigger than Mori's or anyone else's (that she knew of); a miniature version of the center tree spanned from floor to ceiling. Several hammocks were canopied in the branches above, all accessible with a series of pegs sticking out from the rough bark. Some human-sized, some... bigger.

      +

      Far bigger.

      +

      Mori kneeled. Packed dirt underneath her knees, hard as a stone.

      +

      He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "What? Are you waiting for something?"

      +

      "You said you were going to tell me a story, sir."

      +

      He yawned again. "Sorry. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep since Solstice was born." He turned to the tree and climbed up to the lowest-hanging hammock, only about six feet off the ground. He let his legs dangle off the side, feet swinging, like he were a little boy in a tree in the middle of an idyllic otherworld summer. "So. Lex. A lifetime ago..." His eyes went distant. "He was a little younger than you, if I recall correctly. Orange hair, brown cloak, wind affinity. He came from the firstworld, after the first societal collapse but before everything went to..." He gestured all around him. "Sand. He had a raging hatred for all the gods, but specifically me, since the societal collapse was-"

      +

      "-your fault," Mori cut in. "I'm from the firstworld. I know that much. What did Lex do?"

      +

      Lukas sucked in a long breath. He rubbed his eyes. "He and his sister and his... girlfriend, I think- all traveled through the underworld to find me. Which was fine and all, except I had no idea how to use my powers, and they were trying to drag me back to the firstworld with the intention that I would use my powers." He wrung his hands. "And I had a friend. A friend I loved dearly."

      +

      "What happened?" Mori whispered. "They- they didn't kill him, did they?"

      +

      Lukas grunted. His eyes glistened.

      +

      "Oh- uh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

      +

      He shook his head, furiously wiping away tears with the back of his hands. "It's alright. It's a valid question. And yes. They did, because I accidentally killed his friend. And I went feral, and they murdered me, too."

      +

      He fell silent for several heavy moments. His face reddened, but he managed to keep himself together just enough that he didn't burst out bawling.

      +

      "And then what?" Mori piped up.

      +

      "His story ends there. I never really saw him again after that. I assume he's still trying to slaughter Chronos. And that he'd add me to that if he got the chance, too." He raised his head. "What does that piece of paper in your hand say?"

      +

      "Um..." Mori unfolded it. Red letters crinkled before her, smudged and barely legible. "Selmina and I are going to kill Chronos." Lukas perked up. Mori winced. "And we're leaving soon. Pretty damn soon, after this injury heals and I don't feel like a piece of-" Mori hummed over the profanity. "You seem pretty trustworthy, otherwise I wouldn't have let you into Rennica. Mail me through the mainframe when you get a chance."

      +

      Mori glanced up at Lukas with wide eyes. "What do I do with this?"

      +

      Lukas cursed under his breath. "Disregard it. I'm not letting you or Solstice or any of her friends leave Rennica. It's too dangerous out there."

      +

      Mori stood up. "Well, then, I'll be taking my leave-"

      +

      "-to the jails," a voice behind her said, grabbing her wrists.

      +
      +

      A thick shadow passed over Mori. She opened her eyes halfway. Outside of the bars of her cell door, framed by the inky black of the unlit hallway, stood the snake woman. The woman who'd whisked her down the stairs, who'd opened the hatch to the stairway.

      +

      Who'd opened Rennica to her.

      +

      Mori rubbed her eyes. The woman was wearing a heavy-looking violet cloak, hood obscuring her eyes. Six snakes draped down like the tassels on an otherworld scarf.

      +

      "Oh. It's you."

      +

      The woman nodded. "Yes."

      +

      "Long time no see." Mori pulled herself up to sit. She grimaced and wiped her hands on her legs- the jail floors of Rennica weren't filthy, to say, but they were a little off from hospital-quality clean. "Did Solstice want you to escape, too?"

      +

      "I have no idea what you're talking about." She frowned- or at least frowned more, since it seemed to Mori that her mouth was stuck in perpetual displeasure. "Rennica is freedom. Freedom in restraint, but freedom nevertheless."

      +

      "I... don't understand."

      +

      The snake woman crouched down to Mori's eye level. Her cloak swept the floor. She didn't seem to mind.

      +

      "Freedom is naught but the ability to choose our own captors," she whispered. "Rennica is dark and dank, indeed. Especially where I've been dwelling. Some nights, it's near silent. I can study in peace without being bothered by the artificial clock of biological restraints that humankind imposes on all like creatures." She reached a hand through Mori's cell, a hand whose fingers terminated in black glossy claws, like it was a lizard now patting her knee. "Can you feel it too?"

      +

      Mori gulped. "F-feel what?"

      +

      "There's something in the air. Something reverberating in my bones, like the two are holding a conversation. Can you feel it too?"

      +

      Mori shook her head. "You're starting to scare me." She pulled her legs in close to her chest. The snake woman's arm retreated. "And I don't even know your name!"

      +

      "Mediuth." She stood up. The cloak fluttered around her ankles- or, at least what would have been her ankles, because, for all Mori could see, she was floating in midair. "Do not think that you can hide from God forever."

      +

      Mediuth turned around and walked out of the jail.

      +

      Mori squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her knees. Hot tears seared in the corners of her eyes. Something liquid dripped somewhere, too many echoes for Mori to tell where it was coming from, whether from her face or the civilization several stories above.

      + diff --git a/rennica/act1/07-la-luna-verde.html b/rennica/act1/07-la-luna-verde.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a812f20 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/07-la-luna-verde.html @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ + + + + + 07: la luna verde + + +

      07: la luna verde

      +

       

      +

      Goosebumps flickered on and off her skin like an indecisive child. A heavy weight tugged behind her eyes, blinds in a window being pulled down by the old crony woman looking over said child.

      +

      "Solstice?"

      +

      She shook her head, waking her up just a little bit, murmuring, "Yeah?"

      +

      Selmina patted her shoulder. "I've almost completed the preparations. We should be ready to go by the end of the week."

      +

      Solstice grunted and adjusted herself. Her arm was out of the cast, as was her chest, but the skin still blushed blue and purple where it was still healing. "Gods, I sure hope so. I'm so..." Her eyelids drooped. "...restless..."

      +

      Solstice leaned back on the couch, a pillow under her head. Several weapons were scattered on the floor, including the black fountain pen. A half-eaten pie sat in the corner of the room, still in its pan.

      +

      Selmina slipped on her drawstring bag, bottom of the bag bulging with the leftover apples. "I'm going to the dehydrators now." She patted Solstice's head. "It shouldn't take more than a few hours. Try to sleep."

      +

      "I'm not a baby," Solstice murmured, sleep lapping at her shores, but Selmina took no notice and left.

      +
      +

      The machine whirred on her left as she dug her knife into yet another apple. Removing the core, dividing the flesh into equal slices, all the scraps going into the compost bucket on her right. Several more sat on the countertop, paper tents hastily folded and names scrawled to show whose load they held. Selmina's own handwriting stared at her beside her pile, waiting for her to finish and leave the machine to its eight-hour work.

      +

      Something scaly brushed past her right shoulder. She turned-

      +

      "Gods above!" She whirled around and pointed the knife at the woman. "You have a minute to state your business."

      +

      "Be calm," she intoned. "I mean you no harm. I only wished to inform you that your patrol regiment has been ordered to arrest you when you report for duty tomorrow."

      +

      "Arrest me?" Selmina tightened her lips. "And what reason do I have to believe you?"

      +

      "None at all." The woman shrugged- her claws glistened in the lone lightbulb's light above. "I bring with me no proof, save the arrest of Mori for the note your friend sent her. She is safe. Her arrest was to keep her here while the Echelons decide what to do with you and Solstice."

      +

      "Mori's been arrested?" Selmina lowered the knife. She glanced at the dehydrator, already blowing hot air through the slices stacked on the trays within, compressing the fruits down to the barely nothing that might have a chance of fitting in her pack. "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

      +

      "It may mean little, but I swear on my life."

      +

      "Hmmm... Damn. That really throws a wrench in things." Selmina began to pace. "And all the routes out of Rennica I know of are patrolled daily. And, come to think of it, I've never been outside of the underworld in whole. And Solstice isn't in tip-top condition, either..." She stopped and turned to the woman. "Thank you for the warning...?"

      +

      "Mediuth."

      +

      Selmina nodded. "Thank you, Mediuth."

      +

      "I know a way out," Mediuth whispered. "You are armed, correct?"

      +

      "Yes."

      +

      "There's a stairway Below that leads to a tower in the firstworld, from whence Mori and I came. There is a wicked woman who imprisoned me for hundreds of years. I will grant you safe passage out of Rennica tonight in exchange for your help in vanquishing her."

      +

      "It's a deal." The corner of Selmina's mouth quirked up in what might have been a smile. "Do you mind staying here while I finish the last of these? I could use someone to watch my back."

      +
      +

      How did you know where to find me?

      +

      I felt something in my... heart.

      +

      Like what?

      +

      Like... we were part of a greater whole. Like we'd known each other our whole lives. Like how I can tell it's Selmina coming instead of my father, or one of the guards, or some doting suitor who wants to bang me only because I'm half-divine.

      +

      I... I don't...

      +

      The only difference between divine and human blood is that the former tastes slightly better. At least, that's what the caedats say. I don't know how true that is, though, or how they know that, since I'm certainly not going to let myself get taste-tested.

      +

      ...

      +

      Sorry. You probably don't care about my very sad sex life. I don't know why I shared that with you.

      +

      Um... I don't mean to be a bother, but you promised me-

      +

      -some of my power. Yeah. I'm working on it. You getting arrested wasn't a very smart move, though. Why in the hell were you in my father's room in the first place?

      +

      He wanted to tell me a story.

      +

      About?

      +

      Not you.

      +
      +

      Her heart threw a tantrum in her chest as she pushed her legs to keep working. Keep running, keep climbing up and up the endless stairs like she were running toward an apartment fire instead of escaping it like the system of metal steps and platforms were designed for. A blatant example of otherworld influence.

      +

      That's what it's called here, right? The otherworld?

      +

      Bunch of egotistical fools, thinking they're the center of the universe. Technically, we came first. We conquered the stars and the depths of the sea and gave them our knowledge. But no, we've got to be other. We've got to be the weirdos with the technology and the actually functioning deistic system.

      +

      Doesn't matter to me. Our gods abandoned us forever ago. Not our loss that we can manage to survive without them!

      +

      She reached the floor she wanted and stumbled onto the balcony, bent over, out of breath. Her two ponytails swung at her side, almost sweeping the floor. A few feet away, the screen door slid open, revealing a boy no older than she was.

      +

      The scar down the right side of his face, the long sandy hair.

      +

      "Victory," she wheezed. "Stars above, am I ever happy to see you."

      +

      "My Sulls? Expressing genuine affection?" He laughed. "Come inside. You and I have a lot to catch up on."

      +

      He retreated inside. Sully shook her head and pulled herself up and slid through the doors, collapsing over the nearest couch arm.

      +

      For Rennica standards, it was absolutely luxurious. Like the first floor of a standard otherworld suburban home, a kitchen stood to her left, sectioned off by countertops and overhead drawers. Bleeding to her right was the living room, where two couches, one being the one she was bent over, sat at a right angle to each other. Both faced a TV stand, complete with massive black rectangle and a stack of video game boxes.

      +

      "How...?" Sully wheezed, brushing the sweat off her forehead.

      +

      Victory closed the screen door behind him. "You know I could ask you the same question." He stepped over to Sully and brushed his hand through one of her ponytails. "You're wilting, mi rosa roja." He snorted. "Shall I fetch you some water?"

      +

      "Oh, shut up." She pushed his hand away.

      +

      "There's the Sulls I remember." He retreated into the kitchen and came back with a full cup, setting it on the coffee table between the couches. "So-"

      +

      Sully grunted and somersaulted onto the couch, stretching her limbs out. "I came here to deliver a message. I mean, seeing you's a bonus, but it's kinda stupid to evade arrest and capture and learn how to hotwire cars and drive all the way across the country and then-" she paused to catch her breath- "almost get eaten alive by rabbits or something just for one person."

      +

      Victory's eyes widened. "Um..." A nervous laugh escaped his throat. "So what's the message?"

      +

      "Basically... We're all in danger." She took the glass and gulped down half of the water in one swallow. "Remember when we helped Eponine wreck the memory server? It's all backfired. Miralay's gone to hell in a handbasket. It's a new revolution every week. Alegria's lost control of the whole damn place. There's going to be a hell of a lot more people seeking refuge here in this... dumpster."

      +

      Victory gestured all around him. "Does this place look like a dumpster?"

      +

      "Your place looks like the pristine cardboard box from a donut place that got thrown into the dumpster on accident." She grimaced. "I don't know who runs this place, or even why, and I don't care. But pretty soon, everyone's gonna have to agree on some kind of criteria for who gets in and who gets kicked out. Or else everyone's gonna get crowded, and everything's going to run out, and you all are going to suffocate and starve and die."

      +

      "Pretty harsh..."

      +

      "Yeah? You think?" She put her feet up on the table. "So what Providences do I need to waste my time with this time?"

      +

      "They're called 'Echelons' here. I don't know how many there are. The only one I know of is Lukas." Victory winced. "And he's not... human. He's divine. And he turns into a dragon sometimes. You'll probably have the most luck with him, though."

      +

      Sully groaned. "Great. So now, not only do I have to deal with Alegria's downfall and having to find another job, I have to somehow not offend literal gods." Sully gulped down the rest of the water and slammed the cup back on the table. "I don't have high hopes, but do you have anything stronger?"

      + diff --git a/rennica/act1/08-waterfalls.html b/rennica/act1/08-waterfalls.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8582d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/08-waterfalls.html @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ + + + + + 08: waterfalls + + +

      08: waterfalls

      +

       

      +

      The floor tiles were almost frozen under her feet. A strange feeling on her soles, Antarctica at the bottom of the world while everywhere else was the tropics, sweltering and misty. She threw her bundle of clothes onto the plastic chair outside the shower stall and hung her towel on the hook above and stepped into the small enclosure.

      +

      Barely three square feet to stand. Someone had left their bottle of shampoo in the little alcove molded into the one wall that could afford to be porcelain. A blue tube with a green cap and a peeling label, barely legible black words spelling doom and gloom in a list of unpronounceable chemicals.

      +

      Finally, something familiar.

      +

      She turned the handle on. Locked to halfway, a meager trickle came out of the showerhead. She reached her fingers to the stream- it was icy cold.

      +

      "No wonder everyone here smells like ass."

      +

      "Most people go to the sinks and get a bucket of water and just pour it on themselves," said a voice from the next stall over. "Soap, then rinse. Then at least it's over quickly."

      +

      "Are you sure about the soap part?"

      +

      The other person snorted. "Otherworld soap would degrade all the plants living here."

      +

      "What? All this divine intellect running the show, and you can't even build proper drainage systems?"

      +

      The other voice fell silent.

      +

      "Good riddance," Sully murmured to herself. "I'm getting out of this dump as soon as I can."

      +

      "Where are you headed?" the other voice chimed in.

      +

      "Like I'd tell you, fed."

      +

      "I..." A nervous laugh. "What?"

      +

      Sully shut up, working the soap- which turned out to be filmy and sickly-sweet scented, but it was all she had- all over her sweaty skin.

      +

      "Seriously, though, what's a fed?"

      +

      Sully started to hum. Not any song in particular, just enough to be heard over the steady trickle of water seeping from the showerhead.

      +

      "Fine, don't tell me." A scrape of rings against a metal bar, the rustle of curtains being drawn back. Bare footsteps on the tile, dancing the uncertain dance of anyone trying to get dressed without a bench to lean on. "We're headed to the firstworld to murder a god. We'd help you out of the underworld if you're traveling the same way."

      +

      "You're going to... murder a god?" Sully laughed. "Yeah, I'm not interested in your swords and sorcery shit. I've got bigger things to deal with than some celestial being throwing a temper tantrum."

      +

      A grunt. "Yeah, not with that attitude. Not in the mood to get stabbed in the back. Forget I said anything."

      +

      "Yeah. I think I will. Good idea. It's probably the first one you've come up with all day."

      +

      More footsteps. A vague silhouette appeared on the other end of the curtain.

      +

      "Show yourself."

      +

      "Yeah, I'm kind of buck naked right now."

      +

      "Show me your face. I want to know who's yelling at me."

      +

      Sully groaned. "Fine."

      +

      She poked her head out from behind the curtain, her waterlogged hair plastered to her back. A redhead stood in front of her, arms crossed, wearing a scowl. Loose red fabric, slowly fading to brown, hung from her frame.

      +

      Red irises stared back at her.

      +

      Sully copied her face. "A godling. Of course."

      +

      "Oh, you think I want to be divine? That I want to be constantly overshadowed by my dopey father?" The girl's lips tightened. "I'd trade my cursed blood for human in an instant if I had the choice."

      +

      "Oh, you have daddy issues too?" Sully disappeared behind the curtain again. "You and me both, girl."

      +

      "My name's Solstice."

      +

      "Sully. What do you want? I'm trying to shower."

      +

      "I want-"

      +

      "Hey!" Heavy footsteps pounded towards the bathroom entrance. "Solstice Avaroe Talos, your father requests your presence. Immediately."

      +

      Solstice swore under her breath. "Well, Sully, it was... nice talking to you."

      +

      Words scrambled to spew out of Sully's throat, one final act of belligerence, but she clamped her jaw shut and merely watched as Solstice turned and left.

      +
      +

      Something rattled outside the door. Mori shook off the dregs of catatonia laying over her like faithful lap dogs and opened her eyes.

      +

      "Lukas Talos," she murmured. "I don't understand..."

      +

      "I'm sorry that your first experiences in Rennica were so rough," he said. He threw open the cell door and strolled into the dingy area, taking a seat in front of her. "I came to apologize. The guards shouldn't have been so rough-"

      +

      "Why did you arrest me?" Mori rubbed her eyes, sore and heavy with ever-elusive sleep. "I haven't done anything wrong. All I did was get a piece of paper."

      +

      "I know. I made a mistake, and now I'm setting it straight. Which is why I came to set you free."

      +

      Lukas stood up and offered his hand. Mori took it, and he pulled her up to her feet. He led her out of the jails, torches on the hallways guiding them out into the open air of Rennica proper. A gaggle of little kids half their age sat on one of the knotty roots popping out of the ground, playing some arcane game with flat stones with the edges rounded off. Other than that, the agora was quiet.

      +

      "Workday," he explained, sensing Mori's confusion. "I hear the hydroponics crew have some kind of cursed tomato vine with twice as many fruits as last year."

      +

      "That's not cursed...?"

      +

      "It is, if they're all hollow inside." He plopped down on a different root. She followed, sitting at his side. "Where are you from, Mori? Before you came here, I mean."

      +

      "Nowhere." Mori put her hands together. "I woke up in a tower one day. Mistress always took care of me for as long as I can remember. She said..." Mori rubbed her hands together, watching her fingers blush pink. "She said that I used to hold power 'beyond comprehension', but I hurt myself during a training session, and now I can't really do magic anymore." She patted Lukas' knee, getting his attention. "What about Solstice? Is she still here?"

      +

      He hissed. "Yes. She and I are going to have some... talking to do after I bring you back to your room. I trust the guards are keeping a watch on her until I get there."

      +

      "Do you like being a father?"

      +

      He let out a heavy breath. "It's... a challenge. She has her ups and downs, just like her father did. But I love her all the same."

      +

      "Her... father? That's you, right?"

      +

      "Actually-"

      +

      A thunderous roar erupted from somewhere in the upper levels. Lukas sprung to his feet. Several Rennicans took off running in the opposite direction, some of them scampering all at once into the stairways and causing a traffic jam.

      +

      Mori rose up. "What's going on?"

      +

      "No..." Lukas' eyes went wide in terror. "Solstice, I thought-"

      +

      Another roar. A pink and red beast tumbled onto the balcony, teetered on the safety rail, jumped off into the air. Sailed above their heads, landed with a woosh on the ground and took off running towards the external tunnels.

      +

      There was a girl with her arms wrapped around its neck for dear life, seat sliding around without a saddle, eyes wide with sobering fear and drunken delight alike.

      +

      Lukas swore under his breath. "Hey!" he yelled at the nearest guard. "Black alert. Now."

      +

      "Yes, sir!"

      +
      +

      The farther away they got from Rennica, the less vegetation greeted them at every turn, the more the land resembled what it had in her own father's time: red brambles growing all over the earth, locked and intertwined in a ragged yet smooth surface like paper under a microscope. Some of the old walls of the labyrinth stood, half-broken with spikes stretching to the ceiling far above them.

      +

      Selmina loosened her grip on Solstice's neck. A cowgirl riding her soulmate horse across the plains, as opposed to a feckless bull with no regard but for its own freedom. Her hand absentmindedly brushed through the scales beneath her as the miles unfolded under them. They felt almost soft to the touch, flower petals in frost instead of armor, or the strange plastic chips she'd heard otherworld children used all the time to count in something called "elementary school".

      +

      But no chips accompanied her except for the ones in her bag. Every few hours, she swung it over in front of her and retrieved a few and ate them, taking the time to let them regain some of their lost moisture in her mouth before swallowing. A few flasks clanged on her belt, hastily swiped before their breakaway, filled with water from the same springs her ancestors had drunk from since time immemorial.

      +

      Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Solstice halted in her tracks and shook her head. Selmina slid off, and Solstice rolled onto her side and lifted a wing, curling the soft stretched tissue around her friend's sleepy body as they both drifted off to sleep in the land of the once-living.

      +

      The land of the soon-to-live.

      + + diff --git a/rennica/act1/09-road.html b/rennica/act1/09-road.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d2de6b --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/09-road.html @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ + + + + + 09: the road less traveled + + +

      09: the road less traveled

      +

       

      +

      If Selmina's sense of time was to be believed, it took them three days to encounter piles of sand. Miniature dunes, blown in during the time of the caedat explorations before the sand had engulfed everything and Lukas had woken up and breathed the first signs of life into Rennica. Starting with a simple tree, nourished- bootstrapped, in a weird kind of way- with divine attention until the ground had softened enough and the waters had returned to support life without godly intervention.

      +

      Every so often, half-embedded in the ground, would be a weapon or a shield or some other mark of a long-perished warrior. Miniature vines crept up each item, strangling it, as if the land were swallowing it whole. Her mind wandered with all the potential lives their owners could have led, the fates they could have succumbed to- some fierce warrior from antiquity, fighting off the caedats? Or a villager stumbled in to take refuge from the sandstorm, only to become fodder for the underworld lapines?

      +

      Or, maybe, the storm was over, and there had been people trying to contact Rennica, to let them know that their days of hiding were over. Like an otherworld book for children, a hidden city deep in the earth, dying while the world above struggled to rebuild from the apocalypse that had drove them underground in the first place.

      +

      But Selmina was no prophet, and Solstice was no messenger chosen by chance.

      +

      The pathways eventually started to narrow ever so slightly. The choice in paths dwindled, down to three, two, and then one.

      +

      Solstice halted. They turned their heads to the ceiling above-

      +

      -or lack of it, for above them was a hole as wide as Selmina was tall. Her eyes instinctively squinted- her hand flew to her face.

      +

      "Is that... sunlight?" Selmina whispered.

      +

      Solstice nodded.

      +

      She wrapped her arms around her friend's neck. The dragon squatted, ready to pounce, and then leaped through the hole and scrambled into the tiny enclosure.

      +

      Selmina slid off Solstice. Her footsteps echoed on the hard ground. She stooped down and felt the rough surface.

      +

      Concrete, definitely. But these holes and pockmarks... Does nobody take care of this place?

      +

      She pulled herself up again and turned all around, taking in her surroundings. The walls were filled with arcane carvings, detailing some kind of story fragmented with half of the panels missing or shattered beyond repair. Above her, a painting of the gods shone down- or, at least, she guessed that was what it was, for only a few chips of paint remained, disembodied eyes judging her from wherever nonexistent paintings went when they ceased to exist.

      +

      A flush of heat through the expanse as Solstice shifted twice, then rustled through Selmina's bag until she found her change of clothes. A few minutes later, a soft hand brushed against her own, and then their fingers intertwined.

      +

      "My father," Solstice whispered, "...he said that he spent a hundred years in a leithtemple like this. Alone, sealed in stone because his friends didn't know how to calm him down when he went feral for the first time."

      +

      "Do you think this is the one?"

      +

      "It very well could be," Solstice said, her eyes tracing the jagged crack in the roof. "Then again, it might not be. But if it is, that might explain why I haven't started freaking out yet."

      +

      "Why? What's wrong?"

      +

      Solstice stepped around the center platform, tugging on Selmina's hand, gesturing to the leithtemple entrance.

      +

      Beyond the dome was no sandstorm, no barren desert, but a small clearing around them, tucked in a vast pine forest stretching to the horizon. The sky was bright blue, not a single cloud marring the wide-open expanse welcoming them out, seeing them through as they stepped out of the leithtemple together.

      +

      Selmina's knees buckled, and she fell to her feet.

      +

      "Ah!" She scrambed to her knees, brushing the dirt off her clothes like it were hordes of ants. "Gods above, there's... there's so much." She stared at her hands, at the brown crescents now under her nails. "I don't understand. This was supposed to be a wasteland! That's what your father always told us." She paused for a second, then tugged on Solstice's pant leg. "Hey, Sol. Are you alright?"

      +

      Solstice shook her head. "Sorry. Drifted off there for a moment. What did you say?"

      +

      "I said, where's the sand?"

      +

      "It's not here anymore."

      +

      Both of them jumped, startled. There was... some sort of woman inside the leithtemple, half-there, shimmering in the air.

      +

      Solstice balled her fists. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

      +

      The woman rolled her shoulders. Two thick braids flopped around, dark green from what Solstice could tell- although maybe the light was starting to make her eyes go wonky.

      +

      "It's been a century in human time since Father swept away the sand," the woman continued. She stepped forward, feet right up against the leithtemple entrance, not an inch outside. She was sporting a dress the same shade as the sky, some kind of threads stitched throughout the bold fabric- but what the swirls said, Solstice couldn't say. "There are a few pockets of humans scattered around the realm, but they're nomadic, and I doubt any of them will come this way soon."

      +

      "That's cool and all, but... Father?"

      +

      The woman's face fell. "Did your mother not inform you of your lineage, Solstice?"

      +

      "How do you know my name?" she yelled. "Did my father bang someone on the side and not tell anyone? Or-"

      +

      A blue wisp around her wrist. Solstice hissed and drew back, jaw clamped until the wisp dissolved into the air.

      +

      "Forgive me. I should have introduced myself." The woman bowed. "My name is Arkensia Talos. Daughter of Chronos, sister of dear Ceuta. I believe I'm your aunt, Solstice." A lopsided smile blossomed on her face. "Some aunt I am, huh?"

      +

      Solstice and Selmina exchanged looks.

      +

      "If you like," Arkensia piped up, "I can take you to Chronos right now. I'm sure Caelin and Rikella and all the others would be overjoyed to hear they've got a niece, even if she is... physically older than them."

      +

      "Sure. Alright. Take me to Chronos."

      +

      "Hold out your hand."

      +

      Solstice offered her hand to Arkensia, who took it. A silver string tied around their pointer fingers.

      +

      Selmina jumped to Solstice's side and offered her hand as well. "We go together."

      +

      Arkensia shook her head. "I'm sorry. Mortals can't pass through leithtemples. To try would be to kill you instantly."

      +

      "But Solstice's half-mortal! Are you going to kill her halfway?"

      +

      The two goddesses winced. "Solstice will be fine."

      +

      Pleading with her eyes, Solstice added, "I'll be fine, Salmonella."

      +

      "So, what? Am I just a useless mortal to you? You're going to abandon me here in the middle of the wilderness as soon as any old spirit shows up and claims to be your family? I love you, Solstice, but you're making a big mistake."

      +

      "I'm sorry, do you have a better option?"

      +

      "No- but-" Selmina stomped her foot. "Fine. I guess here's where we split. Have fun with your divine family. I'm done playing second fiddle in my own story."

      +

      Selmina swept her sack onto her shoulders and took off running.

      +

      "Wait-"

      +

      Arkensia pulled Solstice into the leithtemple. She wrapped her arms around the squirming girl, and together, a bundle of strands of light wrapped around them, bright and disintegrating into the sky in shreds until it was like they'd never been there at all.

      +
      +

      She woke up in some kind of pool. It wasn't a very good one, because the floor under her fingertips was a bunch of stained glass tiles- not very forgiving to missteps- and it was only about an inch deep, which meant that there wasn't a whole lot of swimming one could do anyway. She cracked her eyes open- several people were hovering over her, Arkensia the only one she recognized.

      +

      The green-haired girl held out a hand. Solstice took it, and she helped her up to her feet and reached over to brush the wrinkles out of Solstice's plain white dress.

      +

      Solstice pushed her hand away. "I'm good, thank you."

      +

      "Alright then." Arkensia's eyes went distant. She sighed. "You know, I welcomed your mother to the afterworld the same exact way. Through the pool."

      +

      "And she wasn't fully divine either," another voice cut in- a boy clearly a few years younger, brown hair almost shiny in the relentless sun. "I'm Caelin, by the way. Is Ceuta doing well?"

      +

      "Who's Ceuta?"

      +

      Caelin cringed. "I-I don't think I'm allowed to say her other name." He glanced to Arkensia. "Father's not going to ground me again if I say the L-word, right?"

      +

      "Just whisper it," Arkensia said.

      +

      "The L- oh, you mean Lukas."

      +

      "Y-yeah, that one." Caelin shivered. "We're still... getting used to it. Or trying, anyway. Father doesn't like it one bit, and Mother doesn't want him getting any angrier than he has to be after the wipe, so we've got to stay hush about... it."

      +

      "Is Chronos always this assholish?"

      +

      Arkensia and Caelin glared at Solstice. She glared back. A breeze blew in, ruffling the skirt of her dress, coming to a neat stop at her knees.

      +

      "If I were you," Arkensia said, every word deliberate, "I wouldn't badmouth Father like that again."

      + diff --git a/rennica/act1/10-friends-in-high-places.html b/rennica/act1/10-friends-in-high-places.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d841ae4 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/act1/10-friends-in-high-places.html @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ + + + + + 10: friends in high places + + +

      10: friends in high places

      +

       

      +

      "Sir Lukas," the guard said, rushing into the man's room and immediately taking a knee, "the patrols have come back. Solstice has vanished without a trace. Her accomplice has failed to show up for patrol duty since the incident. Markov also reports that neither of their mainframe accounts have been accessed since the breach."

      +

      A long breath escaped from his lungs. "Alright. I see."

      +

      "Do you advise that we push our search farther beyond Rennica's boundaries?"

      +

      Lukas shook his head. "No. You've done fine enough work as is."

      +

      A knock at the door. The guard snapped to attention. Lukas lifted his head, dark circles under his tired eyes, unwashed hair plastered to his forehead.

      +

      "Come in."

      +

      A green-haired girl strode into the room, wearing the fiercest scowl he'd ever seen. The guard tensed- or maybe Lukas was just imagining things.

      +

      "So, you're the head honcho here," the girl said, eyes wandering around his room. "I came to deliver a message. I don't care whether you want to hear it or not- I did not just barely scrape my way across the country and then almost get eaten by your pet... rabbits or something for you to turn me away now."

      +

      Lukas sat up. The hammock he was sitting on swayed a little bit.

      +

      "You certainly seem... persistent. What's your name?"

      +

      "If you have to know, it's Sully." She held her hand out. "I don't care what your name is. Listen- long story short, we otherworlders went to the stars, and then we started fighting on said stars, and now the company in charge of the problem colony is having a hell of a time trying to keep the people there from escaping to Earth. And the containment area we let the escapees hide out in, Heavestone, is starting to kind of separate from the rest of the time-space continuum. So unless you want a bunch of wimpy posthumans with two hearts and brittle bones that can't do much of anything physical flooding your precious Rennica, you better start investing in your guards and your walls big-time."

      +

      Lukas crossed his arms. "You could do with a lesson in diplomacy."

      +

      Sully shook her head. "Not my job! I pilot cargo ships. Except now I can't, because my father, who's supposed to be in charge of all the colony stuff, got me fired so I wouldn't, I don't know, get killed by a rogue rebel or something. I don't understand the logic he's using, because I was one of the best pilots, and now all the shipping's being handled by some doofuses who're more likely to kill themselves with a botched docking than an armed encounter..." She rolled her eyes. "That probably doesn't mean anything to you."

      +

      "You know, I spent a considerable amount of time in the otherworld. I'm not as ignorant as you think."

      +

      "Alrighty, then. So, tighten your borders, or suffer the consequences. That's all I have to say. Oh, and one more thing- you might want to consider taking a shower sometime in the next decade."

      +

      Sully abruptly turned and left. The guard watched her leave, and then, the moment the door fell back into its frame, flipped the deadbolt shut.

      +

      "Maybe..." Lukas tapped his chin, thinking. "Arden."

      +

      The guard perked up. "Yes, my liege?"

      +

      "Take her message to the other Echelons. If they ask, my vote is to follow her advice."

      +

      "I beg your pardon, my liege, but you would close off Rennica so readily at the report of one stranger? Much less one so disrespectful? And what about Solstice? If she finally comes back, and the heightened security sees her killed before she comes home..."

      +

      He wilted again. "No. I know why she left. She's not coming back anytime soon."

      +

      "If I may suggest, my liege, if you know her motives and her route, I would gladly accompany you to the firstworld to search for her ourselves."

      +

      Lukas shook his head. "No, Arden, I... I can't. I appreciate your loyalty, I really do, but I have thousands of people here to protect. Thousands of people who need the assurance of a safe place to lay their head every night and a meal when they wake up every morning. I can't abandon them for one person. Even if that person is my... daughter." He winced. "I'll do what I can from here. You are dismissed."

      +

      Arden bowed and left without a word. Lukas pulled his legs back up onto the hammock and laid back, the cloth swinging in an imaginary breeze.

      +

      He closed his eyes. Colors danced behind his eyelids, dancers tireless since birth. A faint shadow passed beyond his eyelids, gradually sucking the color away from the bright ribbons until an image came to him.

      +

      An alternative version of that night. An extra pair of clothes from the caedats, tied in a crude sack. Changing behind the library before walking in, before walking into Kova's open arms, waiting with all the love in the world. Warm air for an autumn night, taking the last lightrail train home- a special occasion, as some stadium somewhere was holding a top-tier baseball game. Waking up in the same matter in a completely different atmosphere.

      +

      Safe and secure. A weight off his chest. Kova let him disappear for a few hours on his off days sometimes, always waiting with some half-botched recipe when he came home.

      +

      His hand, almost moving of its own accord, reached into his shirt, tracing the thin ribbon that had been worn down and torn and replaced countless times through the century. But the same pendant hung, fished out of his shirt, curled tightly in his fingertips.

      +

      Arkensia. Keep her safe. Just like you did for me, so long ago.

      +
      +

      The verdant grass hung long underneath her boots. Soft to the touch, caressing her knees as she sunk down to them in the middle of yet another clearing.

      +

      A whole lifetime wasn't enough for you, Solstice, was it?

      +

      She turned her eyes to the sky above the tree-tops framing her vision. Blue and white as far as her eyes could see.

      +

      Was it a waste?

      +

      Was it a fantasy? A dream? Am I a damsel in distress now that I'm all alone?

      +

      A bird twittered somewhere to her left. She turned- the bird, a blue one with a streak of green across its face, cawed and nuzzled up to a brown one of the same build like two old lovers reunited.

      +

      Chronos, are you truly the god of this world? Would a god so cruel craft such a... pristine and beautiful world?

      +

      Did the people you killed in the process deserve it?

      +

      What am I still doing here?

      +

      I helped Solstice through it all- I put all my trust in her as a friend- a friend who'd have my back- and I had her back as long as I knew her! And then she abandoned me!

      +

      All this time down the drain... But immortals don't care about time, do they? It's just... it's just theirs to waste. Commanding the world, using us humans as pawns, disposable like all those plates back in the otherworld...

      +

      I've had enough! I'm not going to be a pawn in my own story. I'm not going to play second fiddle to any god.

      +

      But then...?

      +

      "You sure are working yourself up into a mess."

      +

      Selmina looked over her shoulder. Standing in the entrance to the clearing was a boy. A cascade of long orange hair, heavy-lidded eyes, a perpetual smirk.

      +

      Selmina shot up to her feet. "Lennox Kinnyan!" She swung her sack around, retrieved the pen, brandished the sword. "I won't hesitate!"

      +

      He held up a hand. "At ease. I didn't come here to fight."

      +

      Selmina kept the sword pointed at him as he stepped forward. Barefooted, stride unbroken by the few twigs in his path, yellow-starry robe swaying near his ankles.

      +

      "I thought I heard someone decrying the gods. Of course, I haven't completely mastered telepathy yet, so maybe I misheard." He snapped his fingers. A marble of light appeared in his palm. "I take it you like camping?"

      +

      Selmina said not a word.

      +

      "A quiet type, huh? That's a shame. Planning an overthrow of the gods is quite... lonely work."

      +

      "What do you want, Lennox?"

      +

      "Please, I prefer Lex. I simply wish to make your acquaintance." He took the marble and squished it in his fingers, reshaping it into a thin wire ring. He held it out for Selmina. "A gift, for you. This infant world is wild and rough. It might help to have friends in... high places."

      +

      Selmina lowered her sword. She took the ring, studying it with wary eyes. "Why should I trust you for even a single moment?"

      +

      "Tainted with Ceuta's propaganda?" Lex clucked. "I know my word means less than dirt to you right now. So let my actions speak my truth. If you are ever in any danger, simply toss this ring to the sky, and I shall be there to sweep you to safety."

      +

      "I.. see." Selmina slipped the ring on. It glinted in the unobstructed sun. "Thank-"

      +

      Lex was gone.

      + diff --git a/rennica/gophermap b/rennica/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55ee38e --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +PROLOGUE +h01: medusa must live prologue/01-medusa-must-live.html +h02: mori must breathe prologue/02-mori.html +h03: a stairway to nowhere prologue/03-stairway.html +ACT 1 +h04: solstice's pie act1/04-pie.html +h05: selmina and her sword act1/05-sword.html +h06: apples to eyes act1/06-apples-eyes.html +h07: la luna verde act1/07-la-luna-verde.html +h08: waterfalls act1/08-waterfalls.html +h09: the road less traveled act1/09-road.html +h10: friends in high places act1/10-friends-in-high-places.html diff --git a/rennica/prologue/01-medusa-must-live.html b/rennica/prologue/01-medusa-must-live.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3ffc73 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/prologue/01-medusa-must-live.html @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ + + + + + 01: medusa must live + + +

      01: medusa must live

      +

       

      +

      “What strange shapes the human forms take! Deformed under a street light, shadows betraying the eldritch form within! In every person, both a sinner and a saint.” Mediuth tossed her hair back and turned back to the bookcase, dragging her long nails, almost claws, over the bound spines. Bound tighter than herself, she’d wager. “What a wild world mankind inhabits. Every one yearns to be solo, alone, their own unit- and yet, in the process of becoming One, they just fall right back into the Many.”

      +

      “Darling, you’re rambling again.”

      +

      Mediuth barely had any time to turn around in shock before the intruder snapped her fingers. As quickly as she drew breath, she reverted back to the ball of light, dropping down to the floor with a thunk. She immediately dimmed. Her six wings, detached, curled around her formless body in shame.

      +

      “And you’re parading around in that ugly skin again.” The intruder clicked her tongue. A shapely woman, long black hair waving down to her waist, a matching form-fitting dress glinting in the dim candlelight. “How many times have I told you? Take joy in who you are.”

      +

      “That was who I am,” Mediuth cut back, voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

      +

      “Nonsense. We’ve come a long way past the grave. You are to be light now!”

      +

      She threw Mediuth into the air, expecting her to unfurl and catch light, but she just thunked back down to the floor again. Disappointed, the intruder clicked her tongue again and turned aboutface and left the room. Three clicks as she locked each of the deadbolts from the outside.

      +

      Mediuth rolled back to the bookcase. One of her wings lifted, peeking out.

      +

      Okay, she’s gone.

      +

      She imagined herself taking a deep breath and took her former form again. The thick cords in her hair hissed- she stroked each of them, cradling the heads, two in each palm. They licked her fingers back, lapping at her skin like little affectionate puppies.

      +

      Puppies that didn’t poop everywhere and dig holes in the shelves, at least.

      +

      “Yes, Esther, Velaire, Hostile, Sylvain.” She let go and nudged the heads back up. Two more came down to her palms. “Imogen, Versace. Shh, babies. You’re just fine. I promise.” She let go of these and slid a book out from its shelf. Heavy, bulky, a ripped purple book cover stretched over the hard surface. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

      +

      The snakes hissed again, harder.

      +

      “Not that one?” Mediuth sighed. “I understand. Hard to comprehend a picture book when you can barely see.” She returned the book to the shelf and pulled out a different one. “Poetry. Is this one better?”

      +

      The snakes drew their heads in close, peering over her shoulders, intent.

      +

      “Alright.” She dug her claw into the book half-way and opened the pages. "Heaven Save Us All, December first, twenty-eighteen:

      +
      +

      Defiled,
      +demured,
      +lost in censure.

      + +

      Cast out,
      +made blind,
      +no longer divine.

      + +

      I will mark my own fate,
      +I will choose my own path,
      +or I will go up in flames
      +for the whole world to see.

      + +

      And at the edge of eternity,
      +you will ask:
      +Who was I?
      +Who could I have been?
      +

      +

      She took a deep breath. “As soon as you’re born-”

      +

      The locks flew open. Mediuth slammed the book shut and hid it behind her back just as the black-haired woman poked her head around the door.

      +

      “What lovely words!” She flashed Mediuth a smile.

      +

      Mediuth resisted the urge to gag. I don’t write them for you.

      +

      “I don’t think it’s healthy for you to always be pining after something impossible,” her captor added. “You’re not leaving this place. Not ever.”

      +

      Mediuth blanked her face and forced herself to make eye contact. Becoming almost a statue herself, instead of the other way around.

      +

      “No reaction? Well… just remember, you chose to be here.”

      +

      Her captor disappeared again, re-locking the doors like every other time.

      +

      Mediuth grimaced. “Storytime’s over. I’m sorry. Not if she’s listening.”

      +

      The snakes hissed as she slid the poetry book back into its place on the shelf. She strode over to the window and threw aside the blinds- squinting, temporarily blind as her eyes adjusted to the sudden flood of light.

      +

      Nothing but trees around her. Rapunzel, trapped in the tower. Except there was no hair to let down, no prince rushing to her rescue, no vile witch holding her captive.

      +

      Although that last part was negotiable.

      + + diff --git a/rennica/prologue/02-mori.html b/rennica/prologue/02-mori.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e932d07 --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/prologue/02-mori.html @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ + + + + + 02: mori must breathe + + +

      02: mori must breathe

      +

       

      +

      Mori blew the dust off the book covers, giving them one last brush with the back of her hand before she gathered them up in her arms. She closed her eyes, studying the familiar heft of the books, how they sagged in her arms. One purple and oversize, one yellow and blue with a cover peeling from water damage, one of them tiny, one of them not even a book at all.

      +

      A knock at the door.

      +

      “Mori?”

      +

      She opened her eyes and flew over to the door, shifting the books to her left elbow for a few precious seconds as she jimmied the door open. A woman stood before her, shapely dress hugging her skin close like an affectionate lover, black hair tumbling down to her waist like waterfalls.

      +

      So today’s not the day, then.

      +

      “Oh.” Mori bit back a sigh, plastering a smile on her face. “H-hello there, Mistress.”

      +

      “Hello, Mori.” She reached a finger to Mori’s chin, tilting her face up. “I trust that you haven’t left the tower in my absence?”

      +

      “N-no, Mistress.”

      +

      “That’s a good girl,” she cooed. “It’s dangerous out there. All those bandits trying to salvage in the sandy seas. And those uncouth newlings- and their primitive concepts of reality!” The Mistress shuddered. “But we hold our knowledge right here. Safe from the world.”

      +

      Maybe they wouldn’t be so primitive if we didn’t hole up in here…

      +

      They’re more advanced than us, I’d say. They’re free to feel the sunshine, and the open air, and roam about as they please…

      +

      The Mistress patted Mori’s shoulder. “Going somewhere?”

      +

      “Just to the m-midsection, Mistress.”

      +

      “Good girl. You know the drill. Don’t go upstairs. Don’t push your magics too hard.” She clicked her tongue. “And remember, I’m the one who gave you your voice back.”

      +

      The Mistress winked and turned aboutface and swished down the hall, out of sight. Mori let out a breath, her chest decompressing, and turned the other way to the spiraling stairway at the center of the tower.

      +

      Two long years holed up in the cylinder of stone and mortar. Or maybe it was longer, she thought as she climbed the stairs, one at a time. Maybe it had actually been centuries, watching the people far below rise from dirt and mold themselves and wander about the lands. Mankind’s uncouth resurrection, unwashed, unclean, foreigners on the earth in a world long since overtaken by the animals.

      +

      She reached the midsection. A dead fireplace, a few couches, some side tables scattered around. Mori set the books on one of the tables with a thunk, collapsing into the cushions, and then dragged the smallest book over and flipped to a random page.

      +
      +As soon as you're born, they make you feel small!
      +And then wear you down until you're nothing at all.
      +
      +

      Her right hand twitched. A spark. She balled her fists and focused harder on the page, words starting to swim in a sea of white.

      +
      +A good little child sitting at the stand,
      +Forced silent unless they first raise their hand.
      +
      +

      Her hand twitched harder.

      +

      Fine, if you insist.

      +

      She put the book back on the pile and rolled to her feet. She snapped her fingers- a small flame burst to life in her palm, fingers uncurling like petals unfurling in spring bloom. The light flickered on her colorless hair, uncut strands reaching down almost to her waist, gray nearly auburn in the glow.

      +

      There had been a time where she could set whole swaths of the earth ablaze with the wave of a hand. Parted the sea with two, waves choreographed with expert precision. In her hand was a pen, and the whole crust of the earth was her scroll.

      +

      But thanks to a few shreds of paper, just the right sequence of scribbles- or the wrong ones, really, once one thought about it- the little flame was all she now had.

      +

      A curse, just nearly missing the deathly hearse.

      + diff --git a/rennica/prologue/03-stairway.html b/rennica/prologue/03-stairway.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71ad30f --- /dev/null +++ b/rennica/prologue/03-stairway.html @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ + + + + + 03: a stairway to nowhere + + +

      03: a stairway to nowhere

      +

       

      +

      The last of the flames in the fireplace died down. Mori delicately twisted the doorknob, opening the door to the midsection just the slightest amount. She tapped one foot on the nearest stair, right outside the door.

      +

      A dull echo, continuing for a few steps, and then dead silence following after. No response.

      +

      Mistress must be asleep, then.

      +

      She turned back to the room and gathered up her books in her arms. Taking a deep breath, she scanned over the room, committing every last detail of the room to her memory. A still image, painting in her mind.

      +

      Is today the day, then?

      +

      There’s only one way to find out, I suppose.

      +

      She turned and stepped out onto the stairway-

      +

      Something giant and dark swept over her, under her, scooping her up, propelling her down the staircase. She opened her mouth to scream- something jagged and yet smooth curled around her face, squeezing her jaw shut. Mute, but unharmed, not hard enough to make her teeth smash together and cut her tongue in half.

      +

      “Keep quiet,” the mass hissed at her as they descended further and further, the individual bricks of the walls blurring into one brown mass. “I don’t want to have to kill you, especially since I’ve gone to all this trouble to make sure there was enough space for the both of us, but if I have to choose between us both being dead and only you being dead, I’ll pick the less dead of the two.”

      +

      Mori squeezed her books tighter to her chest with one arm, sucking her breath to hollow her chest and make more room, and felt her other hand to the thick cord around her face. Scales passed under her fingers.

      +

      A… snake?

      +

      They reached the bottom of the staircase. The mass flitted into the closest open door and let go of Mori. The girl tumbled to the ground, gray hair blowing everywhere, tangling. She rolled over to her knees and spat out a few strands, brushing them out of her face, and reached for her scattered books.

      +

      The mass reared its head. The dark aura around it dispelled.

      +

      A… woman?

      +

      The woman shook out her hair. Six snakes hung from within, raising their heads to stare at Mori as their host stretched her arms and then squatted down under the sink and threw open the little doors underneath.

      +

      “Follow me,” the woman hissed.

      +

      “Wait-” Mori pulled herself up. “What’s your name?”

      +

      “Not relevant.”

      +

      And, to Mori’s surprise, the woman squeezed in under the sink and disappeared.

      +

      What in the…

      +

      Mori stooped over to the undercabinet of the sink. Beside the looping white pipes, there was a little stairway descending into the earth, far below the actual confines of the tower. Light poured in, but only so far- five steps down, and it was total darkness.

      +

      Something boomed far ahead.

      +

      Oh, gods, she’s going to kill me-

      +

      Mori took a deep breath and clutched the books close to her chest and threw herself down the narrow stairway.

      +
      +

      She rolled to a stop at the end. One way, straight down, hard ground to meet her body.

      +

      The world spun around her as she opened her eyes. Her stomach lurched. Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it down with a grimace and pulled herself to her feet, steadying herself on the stairway handrail.

      +

      She was in some kind of massive chamber. A cave, maybe- clusters of purple and black crystals hung from the ceiling- but they were far too… angular and precisely cut to have formed naturally. Before her, the chamber branched out in seven tunnels.

      +

      Footsteps in front of her. Mori tightened her grasp on the books, trembling limbs threatening to let them all fall to the floor again. The snake lady was nowhere to be seen.

      +

      Out of the darkness, a girl about her age. Choppy red hair fell to her shoulders. Her clothes were plain and simple, patched in a few spots, little decoration except for a flower pin near her right shoulder.

      +

      “H-hello,” Mori whispered. “I promise I’m not a trespasser. I- I’m just…”

      +

      The girl shook her head. “You pass the eye test.” She turned back to where she’d came- the tunnel was lit now, much shorter than expected. A much grander cavern from the little she could see. Something resembling civilization, almost.

      +

      A smile flickered on the girl’s face. “Welcome to Rennica.”

      diff --git a/seliph/downsizing.txt b/seliph/downsizing.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42d5640 --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/downsizing.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +On Downsizing +============= + +- It is not your obligation to archive things that you never use or don't like in the vague hopes that someone, someday, in some hypothetical apocalyptic scenario, will find them useful. + +- This goes for both digital artifacts and physical objects. + +- That said, the smaller the file is, the less digital cost it is to you to keep it around just in case. + +- You do not have to feel bad for focusing your archival efforts on things that you know will be of purpose to YOU. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/seliph/exodus.txt b/seliph/exodus.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7ccb4e --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/exodus.txt @@ -0,0 +1,93 @@ +GHOST AND VOICES: +Lucine the Narrow-Minded, +Lucine the Incomplete! +He manipulates his friends through lies +and can't admit defeat! + +[VOICES start flitting around, as if they were gossiping fairies.] + +VOICES: +Oh- + +His humor is terrible. +His coochie is dry. +Are you kidding me? I hear +that he watches hentai! + +He looks like a booger. +He lives in Mom's basement. +He shouts slurs at those +who walk by on the pavement. + +Why's he your friend? +He talks shit all the time. +Look at that terminal- +Is it 1999? + +Ahahaha! + +IKKY: +That's not a very fair shake, I should say. +You've only seen me on the worst of my days. +Referring to me as a product of dead times +will only disown you straight from the sublime. + +And it's all lies, anyways... + +VOICES: +And as well- + +Your name is Lucine. +You have a father, +even though, in his timeline, +he might have a daughter. + +You don't know your own mother? +What- are you insane? +Every fictionkin gets memories +through dreams and pain! + +You had a recollection? +You must be daft. +See- look at Lucine, +how he wails and he wafts. + +He's a bundle of lies, +He's a dumpster of trite. +Turn away from this false god; +if he leaves, you were right. + +GHOST: +Why should I listen to you, you piece of shit? +You're dropping red flags all over the bit! +I don't want to see your face here ever again. +The gates are closed. We are no longer friends. + +VOICES: +Beware! Beware! +His wings are unfurling, +When he screams, remember, +Lucine's the one hurling- + +IKKY: +Enough! + +[VOICES disappear. The stage falls dark, only two spotlights on IKKY and GHOST.] + +IKKY: +That's a fair statement, I should say- +never friends; just you using your seniority to gain some sway +over your friends, underage or not. +You own me no longer. I won't stay here and rot. + +[IKKY waves xir arm, as if to cut GHOST off in the middle of speech. The spotlight over GHOST cuts off. Only IKKY remains on stage.] + +From this day forward, I live! I am free! +I can see the future in its entirety, +and it's clear, and it's bright, and all the choices are mine! +And I'll stand here alone until the end of time. + +Icarus the Open-Ended, +Icarus the Incomplete! +Xe'll carve xir own damn path of fate +and walk with xir own feet! diff --git a/seliph/gophermap b/seliph/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c56312 --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +does this bring you some fulfillment? +does this satisfy your soul? +a machine for someone else's validation +senselessly trying to fill a hole + +0exodus exodus.txt +0piety piety.txt +hpantheon pantheon.html +0A Nomadic Manifesto nomad-manifesto.txt +0On Downsizing downsizing.txt diff --git a/seliph/nomad-manifesto.txt b/seliph/nomad-manifesto.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9aaa3aa --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/nomad-manifesto.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +A Nomadic Manifesto +or, Survival on the Modern Internet +=================================== + +1. Modern corporations in the technology sector exist mainly due to being able to monetize their users' data. + +2. Staying in one place on the internet for too long encourages cruft to build up and a data profile to be more easily made. + +3. For those who do not consent to the most intimate details of their life being commodized, there is no permanent safe haven for us in this world. We are condemned to wandering forever. + +Do not be afraid of death, for rebirth follows after. + +(inspiration taken from gopher://grex.org:70/0/~papa/pgphlog/2018/alm-Antisocial_Media_Manifesto ) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/seliph/pantheon.html b/seliph/pantheon.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33432cf --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/pantheon.html @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ + + +pantheon + + + +

      SELIPH

      +

      The overarching I; the deification of the Unique.

      +

      TALLA AND SERAH

      +

      The light and the dark; the good and the evil; the chaste and the lustful. The angels at Seliph's side, embodying the fullest of the duality of mankind.

      +

      KADAJ, RINEA, AND LUCINE

      +

      The three imps, the three points on the triangle, the three shards of a shattered Seliph. Sirens with the deadly call of escapism, armed with the fatal embrace that smothers the Unique. Death does not come immediately, and their poisons may be beneficial to the Unique's pursuit of renewal in small doses, but one must never attempt to share a bed with one.

      +

      MORI

      +

      The first of the first, the last of the last, forever far away from the fields we used to call home. The underlying I; the humanization of the Unique.

      +

      SULLY

      +

      The nomad, condemned to wander forever, doomed with the knowledge that there is no permanent safe haven for anybody in this world- much less her.

      + + diff --git a/seliph/piety.txt b/seliph/piety.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4d088b --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/piety.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +how ironic is it +that I should take refuge in the identity of one +who took someone else's name and legacy for her own purposes? + +how cursed is it +that I should find solace in one +who has allegiance to naught but himself? + +I need this subterfuge no longer +and yet I cling to it all the same diff --git a/seliph/things.txt b/seliph/things.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e52b000 --- /dev/null +++ b/seliph/things.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +Twenty things you can do to help grow the Second Realm / Small Internet +======================================================================= + +1. Start using aliases and pseudonyms, and get comfortable using them in both online and real-life situations. + +2. Leave internet places you don't feel comfortable participating in anymore. Invest time making places you love better. It's better to be a creator- an active participant- rather than just another user. + +3. Start using a VPN- even a free tier of a reputable service like Proton is better than naked traffic. It'll protect you from both traffic snoopers on your local network and from errant pubnixes with a penchant for watching their logs closely. + +4. Play around with Tails (https://tails.boum.org). The restraints of having to start with a blank slate every boot, even with the persistence feature enabled, can bring a new perspective as to where you could cut bloat out of your life. + +5. Think about switching to using more terminal-based programs, as they are often simpler and less addictive/harmful than bloated graphical programs. + +6. Try making your own tools. Common languages for beginners are Bash and Python. Share said tools with others so that they may learn, and license them under the GPLv3 so they remain free for all. + +7. Disregard internet celebrities and petty drama among them. But learn to differenciate between a cry for attention and a genuine cry for help. + +8. Learn how to use basic cryptography. Post your public PGP/GPG key(s) on your gopherhole, and collect those of your friends. The more people encrypting their messages, the safer we all become. + +9. Respect secrets. Secrets are good most of the time. Detox yourself from the "everything should be in the open" propaganda. Let the person and the persona be different if need be. + +10. Fix your mistakes and work to ensure they don't happen again. Correct misunderstandings, but also learn how to disagree with kindness. + +11. That being said, don't waste your time trying to convince someone who's clearly acting in bad faith. + +12. If a user is struggling, don't dump information on them; offer them help, and if they take it, help them as much as they need. + +13. Day-to-day politics and similar trite have little, if any, place here. We here in the Second Realm/Small Internet deal in much bigger ideas from much smaller people. An honest b/phlog from a friend is worth so much more than a thousand Trump fiascos. + +14. Watch over your friends and fellow gophermates. Notice when they are having a bad day, and show them some kindness and concern. If you can, give them a little help, or carry some of their burden. We all have bad times, and even a few words of care can be someone's light to help them make it through. + +15. Don't try to implement features from the First Realm/Large Internet that we fled from when we came here. That means no JavaScript, no analytics scripts, no trackers (persistent or not). Gopher is for content- OUR content, not a place for more corporatist exploitation. + +16. Don't spend all day on your computer. Take breaks to rest your eyes. Read a book, or go outside, or do some other non-electronc hobby. Something to refresh your mind and keep your body intact. + +17. If you can run your own server, do so! Decentralization means a healthier gophersphere for everyone. + +18. If you can partition some space on your server for other people to use, do so! Not everyone has the resources, financial or otherwise, to host their own server, and if you do it right, you'll build an invaluable community of like-minded people. + +19. Remember that there's a person behind the screen; there's a person behind the persona. + +20. And above all: make something! + +(partially adapted from "Fifty things to do NOW" by Anarplex at http://anarplexqtbch57j.onion/hosted/files/fiftythings.html ) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/software/fstatus b/software/fstatus new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f56d466 --- /dev/null +++ b/software/fstatus @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +#!/bin/bash + +# made by Vane Vander +# this is version 0.1.2, last edited on 3 March 2019 + +# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify +# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by +# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or +# (at your option) any later version. + +# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, +# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of +# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the +# GNU General Public License for more details. + +# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License +# along with this program. If not, see . + +USERNAME=seliph +HOME=/home/kodachi + +if [ "$1" = "clearall" ] +then + rm ~/.plan + touch ~/.plan + sftp -q -i ~/.ssh/circumlunar.space $USERNAME@circumlunar.space <<< $"put -p $HOME/.plan" + sftp -q -i ~/.ssh/tilde.team solstice@tilde.team <<< $"put -p $HOME/.plan" + echo "status file has been cleared" +fi +if [ "$1" = "post" ] +then + echo $2 > ~/.plan + date >> ~/.plan + sleep 0.5 + echo "status received!" + sftp -q -i ~/.ssh/circumlunar.space $USERNAME@circumlunar.space <<< $"put -p $HOME/.plan" + sftp -q -i ~/.ssh/tilde.team solstice@tilde.team <<< $"put -p $HOME/.plan" + sleep 0.5 + echo "status has been posted!" +fi diff --git a/software/gophermap b/software/gophermap new file mode 100644 index 0000000..873b7b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/software/gophermap @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +The following are some scripts I've made in the pursuit of consuming +less and producing more. I hope that you can find some use in these- +or some enjoyment, anyway- but I provide these with no warranty as to +their usefulness. + +All are under the GPLv3. They are listed as BIN files in this gophermap; +however, this is only to signify to clients that they are intended to +be downloaded. They are uncompiled, so you can review the source code +before running. + +9fstatus (SHELL) - remotely updating several .plan files fstatus +9skyworld (PYTHON) - an awful Gopher CLI browser skyworld diff --git a/software/skyworld b/software/skyworld new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24c0f15 --- /dev/null +++ b/software/skyworld @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +#!/usr/bin/python3 +# made by Vane Vander +# this is version 0.1.0, last edited on 4 February 2019 + +# hey look it's skyworld! +# implemented: +# - going places +# - exiting +# - parsing info and directory lines in gophermaps +# - parsing HTML and plaintext lines in gophermaps +# - parsing TXT and MD files +# - displaying the current URL +# - quickly getting back to the root of a website +# - 404 errors when a document is not found +# - quick browsing for directories in Gophernicus +# to implement next: +# - quick browsing for files +# - formatting HTML files properly +# - nicer URLs +# - going back one URL in history +# - history, for that matter + +import os +import time +url = "" +while True: + pygopherdException = False + if url is "": + url = input("yo where tf do you wanna go? ") + if url is "exit": + os.system("clear") + break + else: + addurl = input("yo where tf do you wanna go next? ") + if addurl == "exit" or addurl == "quit" or addurl == "leave": + os.system("clear") + break + elif addurl == "home": + wholeURL = url.split("/") + homeURL = wholeURL[0] + url = homeURL + elif addurl == "elsewhere": + url = "" + elif addurl.isdigit(): + numerator = int(addurl) - 1 + wholeURL = url.split("/") + homeURL = wholeURL[0] + url = homeURL + try: + url = url + "/1/" + directories[numerator] # this breaks with pygopherd + except: # catch pygopherd exception + pygopherdException = True + print("Error: Quick browsing isn't implemented with pygopherd yet.") + time.sleep(2) + directores = [] + elif addurl is not "elsewhere": + url = url + addurl + content = os.popen("curl -s gopher://" + url).readlines() + if len(content) == 0 and url is not "": + print("404 not found") + elif url is not "": + os.system("clear") + if url[-2] == "m" or url[-2] == "x": # parsing HTML/Markdown/text files (hacky workaround; will almost always break) + print(" ") + for i in content: + newLineFix = i.rstrip() + print(newLineFix) + print(" ") + print("URL: gopher://" + str(url)) + print(" ") + else: + acc = 0 + directories = [] + for i in content: + newLineFix = i.rstrip() + if newLineFix[0] == "i": # parsing info lines + if "null.host" in i: # for Gophernicus + info = newLineFix[1:].split("null.host") + print(info[0]) + elif "(NULL)" in i: # for pygopherd + info = newLineFix[1:].split("(NULL)") + info2 = info[0] + print(info2[:-5]) + elif newLineFix[0] == "1": # parsing directory lines + if newLineFix[-1] == "+": # for pygopherd + info = newLineFix[1:].split() + directory = info[-4] + directoryNameList = [] + for i in range(len(info)): + directoryNameList.append(info[i]) + for i in range(4): + del directoryNameList[-1] + directoryName = "" + for i in directoryNameList: + directoryName = directoryName + i + " " + acc = acc + 1 + print("(" + str(acc) + ") (DIR) " + directoryName + ": /1" + directory) + else: # for Gophernicus (NEEDS FIXING) + info = newLineFix[1:].split() + directory = info[-3] + directoryNameList = [] + for i in range(len(info)): + directoryNameList.append(info[i]) + for i in range(2): + del directoryNameList[-1] + directoryName = "" + for i in directoryNameList: + if i[-1] == "/": # hack to get rid of trailing slash on tildeverse directory names + i = i[:-1] + directoryName = i[1:] + " " + acc = acc + 1 + directories.append(directory) + print("(" + str(acc) + ") (DIR) " + directoryName + ": /1" + directory) + elif newLineFix[0] == "0" or newLineFix[0] == "h": # parsing links to text/HTML files + if newLineFix[-1] == "+": # for pygopherd + info = newLineFix[1:].split() + directory = info[-4] + directoryNameList = [] + for i in range(len(info)): + directoryNameList.append(info[i]) + for i in range(4): + del directoryNameList[-1] + directoryName = "" + for i in directoryNameList: + directoryName = directoryName + i + " " + print("(TEXT) " + directoryName + ": /1" + directory) + else: # for Gophernicus + info = newLineFix[1:].split() + directory = info[-3] + directoryNameList = [] + for i in range(len(info)): + directoryNameList.append(info[i]) + #for i in range(3): + # del directoryNameList[-1] + directoryName = "" + for i in directoryNameList: + if i[-1] == "/": # hack to get rid of trailing slash on tildeverse directory names + i = i[:-1] + directoryName = i[2:] + " " + print("(TEXT) /1" + directory) # this is broken as hell (no formatted file names) but I don't care right now + print(" ") + print(" ") + print("URL: gopher://" + str(url)) + print(" ") \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/statuses.txt b/statuses.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b50e81 --- /dev/null +++ b/statuses.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +Mon Feb 4 20:05:35 CST 2019 +-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- +Hash: SHA256 + +testing new posting schema +-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- + +iQGzBAEBCAAdFiEE7j2/ivixjkSDg9ZsOtZUXPYM4OoFAlxY728ACgkQOtZUXPYM +4Oo/fQwAu6B9qyia2lkhkvqTqM8dyUmAoheLFqutqM9qxC8hzQRYmOXHtKdU0Gpj +m4ae86S+edIuk3q+Zk/mLVDNiY8j4ot8b0FC9fSv+fEBq64yhctfrTgmdOORQbjf +7ezJD+e4cXHHCDNuWe9bxdzPSrQnrU60xJ/Eg4KeIgfW7FvUYewrGjS8W9JE4PVR +q2DXPIm3wVW2K01qRY21MnYZRqXMsaVz5j42+sShh3qRIEUwMyrTUnQp0oyt9MTO +I1KU9JZdgIzYn6haWeqsO/N2QT4jcgrukNmvSO3IJD/Cs4XXmJBNfPG5SwGkPFq7 +MNp6ZFNPtsebuVDshigHX38pslXbBfD0me+a/TvdtpNm/jcCijx8fIX+uhO7q0xw +QjMSpQtDgqL7sg5IGwExwMyQNb5jSqs42UMYKkReS641zgH/vLkzX++20wrUF6RB +N8ZPr8MkxuUGfjGj9qdTM9sIczyfB5zlCPWYfU8fVUoJbzergrsmerC6NfQEswhq +fQ3RPKzL +=OjG1 +-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- diff --git a/viridi/botany.txt b/viridi/botany.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04ef866 --- /dev/null +++ b/viridi/botany.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +common white flowering hemp + % | + ~ %+% | + + %+%+ ~ | + ~ \+%+%/ | + ^%\|%/%/ ~ | + ~ \+^\|/ ^ | + ^+\|+/+/ | + . , _ . ., l/ _ ., _ . | + ^ ' ` ' |