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.