i really hope you wont have to delete your works 🙏 haven’t seen any updates from you on here or ao3 in a while, i hope you’re doing well!
Oh, don't worry too much about me. Prolonged absence from AO3 is just what I do, I guess. I was actually hoping to get a new chapter out last weekend, which fell flat due to some obligations, but who knows, maybe this weekend, finally.
As for deleting my works, I'm at least 99% I would pull through with it in a worst case scenario, but there's now a small, teeny tiny silver lining on the horizon. Apparently, California won't require age verification in non-commercial operating systems that are developed by decentralized teams. (Probably because the law is virtually unenforceable in those cases). So there is hope.
The most detestable aspect of the whole miserable, failed existence that is Donald "Krasnov" Trump's life is the fact that he has absolutely no taste in anything.
Whatever room he decides to inhabit sooner or later turns into a fucking episode of Dynasty.
And you know, this... This is where I draw the line. We have seen once proud nations descend into fascism before. As a species, this is not our first rodeo. BUT AT LEAST THEY WORE HUGO BOSS UNIFORMS WHILE SILENCING THE OPPOSITION!
A hundred years from now, TV documentaries on the downfall of the United States will be virtually indistinguishable from a fucking rerun of The Bold and the Beautiful.
Stop him! STOP HIM NOW! Or at least get out there, find a 21st century Albert Speer and hook them up! My eyes are bleeding, I hate all of this so much!
I think it's not talked about enough how the coming age of de-anonymization has the potential to kick the loneliness epidemic into overdrive.
I'm all for young people socializing offline, but here's the thing: The spaces that kids used to meet people outside of their families up until the early 2000s are simply gone now. Take away their means to socialize online with reasonable privacy, put them in suburban homes where you have to go on a thirty minute drive just to get to a grocery store, and you've already created a perfect hell of isolation and dependence.
We're seeing portrayals of the 80s and 90s in popular media now that depict the freedom kids had back then as a consequence of poor parenting, almost as though to justify our own poor treatment of our young today. Parents seem to ignore the very obvious fact that the perceived safety they create comes at the expense of the next generation's ability to run this planet.
Going outside? Nope! Too dangerous because CRIMINALS! Never mind the fact that violent crime is at an all time low, and a lot of it could actually be helped by proper socialization.
Going online? Nope! Too dangerous because PORNOGRAPHY. Never mind the fact that this is coming from people who would hide porn magazines under their beds when they were fifteen.
Why doesn't it occur to the people who come up with this kind of nonsense that a well-adjusted social life might actually be the answer to many of those problems?
Right now it's becoming a feedback loop: Kids who have absolutely no friends at an age where it would be perfectly normal for them to detach themselves from their parents inevitably end up in bad places. Online or offline.
You keep them away from everything until they are eighteen, and then, when they come of age and you legally can't restrain them anymore, they are thrown into a world they should have instead grown into. You create a problem, and when it comes back to haunt you, you double down.
Right now, the last relatively safe spaces for teens to socialize are building walls to keep them out, while claiming it's to protect them.
I got a comment (which has since been deleted) on my last post, essentially saying that, if I delete my AO3 account to avoid having to de-anonymize myself, they [the legislators] win, and that I should, instead, fight back.
I don't fully agree with this. Yes, obviously fighting back is the way to go right now. Finding ways around this whole mess, sure.
But here's the thing: Retreat is not surrender or defeat. They only win the moment I verify my age or my identity online. If I step away from the Internet, they do not get their way. It's not a win for me either, obviously, but my conscience is more important to me than anything I have ever posted online.
I know I haven't really "linked" my infrequent AO3 activities with my very infrequent Tumblr activities, and I'm not sure how many of my readers actually know I have this poor excuse for a blog... Still, I'd like to share this here:
AO3 is very important to me. It was a huge part of my life from 2018 - 2022, and while I'm less active now than I used to be, it hasn't stopped being my favorite site.
It is with a heavy heart, though, that I must prepare for the end. Not to sound dramatic, but age verification (and through that forced de-anonymization) is coming. In fact, it's coming faster than I feared.
It remains to be seen whether or not AO3 will comply with legislation, but if that happens, there is only one route for me to go: Delete everything.
This isn't just a matter of me refusing to give out my identity. It's a matter of my works, be they ne'er so vile, drawing in others who might get tempted to give up their anonymity in order to read what I have posted. This is simply unacceptable.
I think it's good to prepare for a worst case scenario: In case I really have to pull through and delete my fics on AO3, I have made an archive of all works, finished or unfinished, that can be downloaded on Gofile (I might switch to a different hosting service in the future if it proves more reliable).
https://gofile.io/d/1d8yGt
This is purely preemptive. I'm still actively writing, I'm still planning to update my current main work, I still have drafts I want to finish and post. Any new chapter or fic will be added to the archive. I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as I can.
I think all of us really at least need to try and comprehend the hell our superiors are currently thinking up for us.
Your entire identity will be digital.
Every purchase you make will be linked to your name in one database.
All content you consume online, YouTube, Pornhub, AO3, Wattpad, The New York Times, Tumblr, etc. will be linked to your name.
Every comment you post will be linked to your name.
When their environmental goals aren't met, they will limit your ability to purchase meat.
When the health care system starts to collapse, they will limit your ability to buy alcohol.
You will not be in control of your life for much longer. This isn't some dystopian fantasy anymore - the technical groundwork has been there for years, and we can watch it all unravel in real time right now.
Wow, I just remembered that I have Tumblr, and that it lends itself a little better to political commentary and tech discussion than the AN on AO3...
~*~
You might have already heard about this, but I'm giving you a rough summary so we're all on the same page: Several US states (California, Colorado, others following) are currently in the middle of implementing laws that would require your computer / phone / tablet to verify your age to websites, apps and really any service you want to use.
This is not the same as you just clicking a box that says "I'm over 18" when you go on Pornhub. The law requires that your date of birth, or at least an age bracket, is stored on your device and then submitted to those services, otherwise they will not work for you.
Why is this bad? Simply put, all operating systems will, in the future, give your personal information to third parties on purpose - and who is to say that they will stop at just your age? For now, it'll be "anonymous", but once the technical groundwork is laid out, what's stopping them from eventually making you register your government ID with your device so that it can then transmit your real, actual identity to every single website you visit?
If you're in the US right now, imagine what could happen if your country were to be slowly but transformed into a far right, fascist dictatorship (oops, that's already happening).
Now imagine that every website or app you ever used has a database that links your real name to the things you did on that site or app. You watched some gay porn? That's now linked to your name. You read some LGBTQ fan fiction on AO3? Yep, that's linked to your name. Finally, imagine your new fascist government not being so fond of queer people (oops, that's also happening right now). They will know who you are, they will know what you are. It'll be trivial to find you.
This isn't about communication. You can have zero friends, never text anyone, never call anyone, and they will still know you. Just going by the content you consume. The videos you watch, the articles you read, the posts you like, the creators you're subscribed to.
If you are keeping track of the political landscape in America, this should worry you. A lot. And it's difficult to dissent, because it's all being done to "protect the children."
Never mind the fact that any device you can buy right now already has parental controls built in. So you can also partly blame all the parents out there who can't be bothered to actually parent their brood.
There is still a chance that those laws might be found unconstitutional, but we can't simply rely on that faint hope.
~*~
So what can we all do to protect ourselves?
Most importantly, each of us needs a device that doesn't comply with these laws. A device that doesn't ask for the user's age (or any other identifying information), and that doesn't voluntarily give user information to third parties.
All major tech companies are going to comply. That's a fact. So any Windows computer, any Mac, any Android phone or tablet, any iPhone and iPad will implement this type of age verification soon.
Right now, our only hope lies in Free and Open Source (FOSS) operating systems. These are also technically required to comply with the law, but they are being developed by volunteers all over the world, many of whom don't fall under that same jurisdiction. It's not all that simple, and anyone providing one of these operating systems to citizens in the affected states could be held liable, but in general, they will remain easy to come by.
All you really need is a computer that can run Windows. If it's a Windows PC or laptop, and the CPU is made by Intel or AMD, it can also run Linux. Older Intel Macbooks are also great, but any Mac made since 2020, with the M series chips, won't get you anywhere.
Used laptops in good condition are cheap on eBay. Whatever your budget is, you're going to find something decent, especially since most Linux distributions have lower system requirements than Windows. Older business laptops are a safe bet, usually. Thinkpad, Elitebook, Latitude, that kind of device.
I can only recommend that you get yourself a cheap laptop like that. You don't have to spend a lot. The laptop I'm currently writing this on is a Thinkpad T480, which I bought for 300€ used. They're usually even cheaper in the US. If it's got an Intel i5 or i7 from the last ten years and an SSD, it's going to run well.
I also recommend that you use a separate computer for this. If you rely on the computer you have to get things done, and if you've got important information stored on it, that's not a computer you should run any experiments on.
A good place to start are tutorials on YouTube like this one:
Ubuntu has been the go-to Linux distribution for beginners for almost 20 years. It's one of the most polished distros out there, although it is made by an actual company, so it might be forced into compliance soon. In fact, the developers are already discussing how to implement these requirements in a non-intrusive way.
Other good options include Linux Mint and Fedora (the latter is my distro of choice). The installation process itself is pretty much identical for any regular distribution. There are outliers, but if you don't know them already, they're not for you.
I think the challenge, in the future, will be that many Linux distributions and Free Software projects might simply falter under legal pressure. There are examples of this already. Ubuntu and Fedora are pretty sure to comply. MidnightBSD now explicitly forbids California residents to use their operating system in their license. It's virtually impossible to enforce this, but it is worrying.
The bottom line is, though, once you know how to install and use one of them, you will be able to install and use virtually any of them. If you're looking for an easy to use distribution that will 100% never comply with these laws, maybe Trisquel would work for you.
~*~
Once you've got a Linux distribution of your choice up and running, though, you're going to be faced with one sad reality:
If an application or website requires that kind of age verification, but your OS won't send the required information, the site will simply not work. This is where all of this becomes a battle of wills. You must be prepared to live without many of the sites and services you got used to over the years.
Facebook? Forget it. Twitter/X? Nope. Tumblr? Possibly. AO3? Might falter as well. YouTube? Definitely wants to have your information. Discord? Already fucking around with this kind of shit. Reddit? 100% compliant.
Large companies like Google and Meta have the funds to fight back against these laws. But they won't, unless a massive chunk of their user base disappears. This is the power we might still have, collectively.
The alternative? Obviously, you wouldn't set up a computer specifically to wiggle out of the law's grasp just to be unable to use it for anything.
Well, the Fediverse exists. Instead of Twitter/X, use Mastodon. Instead of Reddit, use Lemmy. The scale is much, much smaller, but you can help grow these social networks into their potential.
~*~
There are more steps you can take to protect yourself. As long as there are countries that keep the Internet relatively free, there will be VPNs. I've been using Mullvad for ages, and its never let me down.
Lawmakers are already scrambling to make VPNs illegal, or at least require ID verification to use one, but right now that's an uphill battle they will not easily win. At least not for the foreseeable future.
It's good practice to encrypt your data, of course, but that's really only handy if your computer gets stolen, or you get caught in a police raid.
You can also encrypt your communication, either with end-to-end encrypted messenger apps, or simply E-Mails with PGP encryption. I recommend it, but it's a bit off-topic here.
~*~
I'm going to leave you with a few links I think might be interesting.
It’s nearly the end of 2025, and half of the US and the UK now require you to upload your ID or scan your face to watch “sexual content.” A
New age-verification laws and tools are designed for child safety on social media and the internet, but adults are in the crosshairs, say pr
OK, I guess Tumblr is slowly turning into my Dream Diary?
Lately, I have encountered a phenomenon where I have dreams that would absolutely qualify as nightmares just based on their contents, but there is absolutely no fear response. I simply can't seem to give a shit.
Last night, for example, I had this dream where I was in an old-timey kitchen (it had a very heavy iron wood stove to cook on), trying to cook Bolognese sauce. Only, the walls were all made from glass, so I could see the surrounding corridors, and there was this horror grandma walking around out there staring at me.
She was tall, like twice as tall as myself, thin, her skin and flesh were rotting, her hair was floating in the air as though she was underwater. She had this toothless grin, and somehow I knew she was madly in love with me. But instead of being afraid, I always sort of just waved back when she waved at me, and thought nothing of it.
One day, I swear I'll remember to post my new chapters here immediately. I mean, it's not like I'm terribly active on Tumblr, but I do like to keep another channel open.
One day, I swear I'll remember to post my new chapters here immediately. I mean, it's not like I'm terribly active on Tumblr, but I do like to keep another channel open.
I use a media PC for my living room TV. I'm not gonna go into the reasons why I hate "smart" TVs with a passion.
The point here is, this PC has a screensaver enabled, which I totally forgot about, because it only activates after, like, two hours in idle.
That screensaver is extremely bright. Flooding the living room with the light of 1000 suns bright.
Last night I fell asleep in front of the TV, which literally hasn't happened to me in 10 years. I had a weird dream about a popcorn vendor on a street corner.
At some point, the screensaver activated. My dream was filled with a massive bright light. The popcorn vendor character said "Wow, another nuke? Must've been a big one!"
I woke up to the blinding light of my screensaver.
I love having a car without Bluetooth connectivity.
Internally, I'm like "If you call me while I'm driving, get fucked, I don't want to talk to you."
Externally, I can always say "Ooohh, I'm so sorry I didn't get your call, I was driving and I can't connect my phone to that stupid 2010 radio!"
But again, internally, I'm rejoicing. Old enough not to have Bluetooth, modern enough to play me tunes from USB. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
randomly remembering that one moment in 7th grade when my teacher walked into the classroom for first period, sat down looking already exhausted, and said completely unprompted "listen, guys, if you're being abused at home, don't tell me, tell the school counselor"
what a way to start a school day for a bunch of 13 year olds :)
