#i was all set to log in and my password wouldn't work and now it won't load the log in page properly at all

[vagueconfusion]

the spotify wrapped page is glitched lmao

[shieldfoss]

I am near tears, and consequently so fucking mad, about the state of our digital environment right now. (Hi mom!)

For backstory, I am a pretty good programmer. My mother is one of the smartest people I know - I... think I am smarter? But I wouldn't put money on it.

"STEM bro think's he's smart, is also a mama's boy" - ok fair, so for social proof:

She splits her time between consulting and writing advisory papers for government policy now that she's sold her part of the company and "retired," and me, you might have seen if you trawl youtube looking for people giving programming talks to live audiences.

But I mean. She is retired. Past retirement age really.

And I spent all afternoon helping her set up her new computer, through a mess of password policy stuff, harddisk encryption, google and microsoft unexplained-and-unexplainable 2FA account bullshit, the whole fucking works.

And we got there. We got there.

By which I mean "After three or four hours of getting help from what would otherwise be stupidly expensive billable hours, one of the smartest women in the country finally succeeded in not losing all of her very important accounts during a computer replacement." My dad was barely any help at all despite an entire career of using computers - he stopped 10 or 15 years ago and he's out out.

This is what we offer people? This is what we require of people, if they want to participate in modern society?

How the fuck does anybody survive this? How do regular people manage their insurance, or track their car payments? How the fuck do less skilled people even make it through the day?

Watching the helplessness on my mother's face at one point this afternoon near broke me.

Huh, writing that last paragraph knocked something loose - update the first paragraph of this post, I am not "near tears" I am in fact crying. Guess I found out what it was that bothered me the most.

I don't think it changes anything though - so I'm sad for my mother, but I am mad that this is where we are taking the world - colossal and uncaring automated systems that can change on a dime without your input or acceptance but whose works you must submit yourself to if you want anything but a cold log hut in the middle of nowhere.

[salternateunreality2]

Kunsel says:

We should maybe have a stricter definition of what counts as "hacking", okay?

It was a slow day at work, and he decided to guess people's email passwords in 10 attempts.

How does it go?

YESSSSSSSSS

Pro tips: make your password long, that is the most important factor. Use a password manager, most of them have a free option. Adding complexity does help, but focus on length first. Size does matter here. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) also helps a lot.

---------

Kunsel: Zack, gimme your password!

Zack: ...

Kunsel: Come on man, I need it for something!

Zack: 😭😭😭 buddy I would, but I forgot it again 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Kunsel: Ok man, it's ok, let's look around your desk...here, under this pile of chip bags, I think i saw...yeah, here's the penguin toy...and yep, Password Penguin has "Zack'ss00p3rp4ssw0rd!" written on the bottom. Let's try it!

(it works)

Zack: THANK YOU KUNSEL I THOUGHT I'D LOST HIM AND I COULDN'T REMEMBER AND-

Kunsel: *wheeze* Zack let go, I need to breathe *wheeze*

-----------

Kunsel tries to guess Roche's by typing it in.

M0t0rcycle!

ShinyDancer

Sh1n33D4nc3r!

He's in.

------------

Kunsel tries to guess Sephiroth's. On the 9th try, he gets it: Seph+Jenova4ever

Horrible things are uncovered along the way and now he needs to send Sephiroth some information very discreetly.

------------

Lazard. Kunsel knows better. He gives a few guesses, but decides to actually hack this.

He sets up a hash capturing tool over the internal network and waits for Lazard to log on. He does. Kunsel captures the hash and starts cracking it.

Three days later, the hash cracker has not worked and he has to give up on that.

Kunsel: Sir, I need to get into your email, will you please send me your password?

Lazard: Of course not, that is unsafe and against company policy. However, you're welcome to come to my office to perform any actions we both deem necessary.

Kunsel goes over and Lazard is using multifactor authentication, so just having the hash cracked wouldn't have worked anyway. He sets up a keylogger surreptitiously on Lazard's workstation while "performing updates" and showing Lazard new features in his email.

The things he captures with that keylogger:

* Numerous emails covering for boneheaded shit the SOLDIERs did.

* The letter "A" typed about a thousand times into a text file labeled "definitely not screams.txt".

* Moogle searches for "how to convince your employees to get therapy", "pasta recipes", "therapists near me", "child psychology for adults", "play therapy for adults", "cat psychology", and "shrimp pasta recipes".

* The password: &oh'ihiy_-8_gi"it"gi_ipkb0(-ur#3-@--LXS4ever--9(9;0(!08(098+pihjboigig(@ukopih

Then it is a simple matter of finding a zero-day race condition hack in the MFA software, timing things just right, and entering the password and hacked MFA key at the perfect moment.

Kunsel of course has pity on the man after seeing even more emails such as...

* Explaining to Roche that doing squats over his motorcycle makes it look like he's humping it, and it is making people uncomfortable.

* Asking Genesis to please not actually firaga the recruits this week, they don't need a lawsuit. No, it's not character building. No, even though it was part of his home training and Shinra sanctioned training a few years ago.

* Inviting Sephiroth over for shrimp pasta to discuss strategy.

* Asking Angeal to seek therapy so the others will follow his lead.

* Telling Zack that he could not have a therapy flamingo in the office. Even if it was a lawn ornament.

* Warning Hojo not to take Sephiroth this week.

* Warning Hollander not to take Genesis and Angeal this week.

* Reaming Heidegger out very politely for all his BS.

Kunsel logs out without doing anything. Lazard needs a break.

--------

Kunsel calls Angeal pretending to be the help desk. Angeal, a bit embarrassed over his upbringing and unsure because he feels unused to technology, eventually gives Kunsel the password: BanoraBoys123!

----------

Genesis' is guessed on the 7th try because Kunsel didn't want to bother typing in an entire stanza of Loveless with numbers instead of vowels.

1nf1n1t3_1n_myst3ry_1s_th3_g1ft_0f_th3_g0dd3ss__w3_s33k_1t_th7s_4nd_t4k3_t0_th3_sky_r1ppl3s...

He sends an email from Genesis inviting everyone to a Loveless recital on Tuesday. It backfires because several people, including Genesis, show up and have a great time.

-----------

Kunsel tries Zack's little trooper friend next. He's a tough nut to crack. He won't pick up his PHS to get vished, won't click on Kunsel's phishing emails, and won't tell Zack or Kunsel his password.

Kunsel captures his hash and cracks it. It takes a full 24 hours, but he gets it in the end:

!1986fuck_this_shit

[mediocre-shark-tales]

Qsmp x Streamer reader (1)

Summary - A friend has asked you to join the QSMP to help fill some gaps in the lore and regain the viewership that qsmp has lost. So you get your very own event where most of the qsmp members finally meet you.

Warnings - None for this part

There is a chance for this to turn into a love trope of some kind but for now there is focus on fluffy platonic-ness

Masterlist

I sat down in my blue gaming chair and been to turn on my computer. Today I would be joining a new Minecraft world, one of my friends was an admin of this place. I had kept up with it mainly because I loved to watch my friend play their role, but I also had become friends with some of the streamers they already had in the world. I was a pretty well known streamer, definitely not anywhere near the level of most of them. However I was at a decent spot and I had the chance to meet a few of them occasionally. I hit it off well with Tubbo, Charlie and Philza. Through them I got to meet many more streamers and had gotten a collection of friends to stream with, however since I lived in the U.S.A, timezones made things tough. But I still made it work.

Anyways, my admin friend had asked me to be a new member of this lore and world simply because they needed someone to fill a few holes in the lore and it would benefit their time limit for the next bg lore drop. As most know they had just recently dropped the Purgatory double week bomb. After all the work that took and the time they had to use, now they needed to step up their game and make the next big lore drop. Of course they wouldn't tell me anymore than a summarized context of what my lore was going to be and also explaining why I was there.

If I was to summarize all of this better, I would say they needed me to help keep up the viewership or better yet the engagement. So they had more time to perfect the next lore event.

Absolutely nobody besides the admins knew I was joining the qsmp, I told no one. I had tweeted out after we had finalized the date and time for my entrance into the world. Telling my fans to clear their schedules during that date and time and big news was going down. Of course they began spamming that post with questions asking for more hints. I instead ignored the post and any questions regarding it from that day forth.

I typed in my password and opened up twitch, I had about 5 minutes left before I needed to start stream. So I quickly started up everything, me being me I had already pre-prepped hours in advance. My viewers would be given 5 minutes to join stream before I would start actually streaming. However while they danced to my stream starting soon music and replaying clip of sharks, I would be prepping on the qsmp.

Days ago my admin friend had kicked everyone off the qsmp so I could login and get my name changed. This way when everyone logged back on for the event today, no one could accidentally find out the secret before the event was over.

Finally it was time and I watched as my viewer count began to skyrocket, people screaming in chat that they have been waiting for today for forever. I smiled it was always fun to see my chat get excited about something like this.

I logged into the qsmp, everyone had just gotten kicked for the event. I was the only one besides admins allowed on the server right now. They set me up in my lore relevant area. Being a streamer known for my love for sharks, they decided to introduce me as a mer-person. Except instead of the mermaid one may think of, I was half shark. Similar to that older show named H2O, once I got into water I could choose to shift into my mer-form. My friend had done an amazing job creating this mod and making sure I was the only one who could access the powers but others could still see it.

Besides the obvious visual change, it also allowed me to breathe underwater and swim 5x faster than the others. Though foolish could keep up well with me seeing as he has his shark fin now too.

The Admins had me hidden on an island they built for this event, though they said I could keep it if I wish to make my home there. On this island, I would be caged up inside this little hut. Even though this hut was too small for anything really to fit in it, there was a secret hatch that led down to a hug basement where I was caged and kept. The idea was that I had been captured by pirates and caged away. So the members of the qsmp were now tasked with saving me from the pirates. of course the pirates were all played by admins that usually played the 'workers'.

My stream timer ended and I started up my screen to play for the best experience my viewers were gonna receive. I wanted to keep them in suspense so I had made my own mini lore like message. It started off with the sound of a typewriter as text showed up of screen. "Todays stream will be a little bit different, for the first few minutes you will experience the perspectives of other streamers." Tubbo, Philza, Foolish and Niki's current streams all popped up for them. I had found a way to show their live streams while also adding having my sounds and text play for my viewers. "For an easier experience choose a streamer to watch for a bit, you'll know when is best to come back. Otherwise you can stay, however the live stream on the screen will switch every 5 minutes." I watched as my viewership went down, most people choosing to watch from a specific streamer instead of my way.

I smiled and on a separate screen I pulled up all 4 streams, I would switch between them on my own accord until they got close enough to me. This would help entertain myself since I couldn't do much right now, besides exist in this 1 by 2 block fish tank.

I watched Phil's stream first, he had just logged back into the server. "Hello new people, turns out today some new lore is happening? The admins said that some crazy stuff had been set up, like another event." He was about to teleport somewhere as the members who had logged on today were all wanting to meet up. But the admins had instead teleported them to the movie theater. This spooked him but he quickly recovered of course. "Oh hey fit! Do you have any idea what's going on today?" I smiled to myself as I watched them begin their little theorizing huddle. Tubbo had joined them in seconds, he had been itching for some changes recently and was overly-excited.

There conversations were cut short by a qsmp worker walking in playing a loud noise to get their attention. Phil had walked over expecting to be given a book to read, how ever this time the qsmp worker had been given a sign to hold. This sign was enlarged so everyone could read the words 'sit down'. In seconds everyone had their own seat and went dead silent.

The screen turned on and a short video began. It had the same animation style as the purgatory video. They watched as Minecraft pirates rode through a storm on their pirate ship. Seconds later they could see the pirates pulling up a fishing net, but they couldn't see what was in it. The shot changed to an over the shoulder shot with the viewer following the captain, before it showed his face. Watching as his face slowly turned upward into a menacing smile. In the next shot, you could see the ship had docked up to a small island. The captain and his crew walking towards this small hut. One crewmate held a shark tail fin over his shoulder, it looked lifeless. However in the next second there was lots of movement from it, multiply cremates running to help that helpless crewmate. The video ended a a really short shot of an arm grabbing out onto the sand. Then text appeared on the screen "Please save me.." written in red with my coordinates right under it.

"Quick get those cords!" I heard Phil yell as he began to type the coords in chat. Within seconds 5 different members had typed them in chat. After that the group was off, lead by Philza. I watched as Niki, Foolish, Tubbo, Fit, Phil, Bagi, Mouse, Pac, and BBH all began racing out to my location.

Within another 5-10 minutes they had found my island, as they came closer they realized all the pirates were on the island. Phil instantly took over the role of diplomat, trying to talk to the pirates. "We are here for someone, they told us they needed help. Will you do this the easy or the hard way." Of course within seconds they were battling the pirates. It didn't take long as the real fight was meant to be with the captain. That admin was killable however it was gonna take some work from the members, this admin could also spawn random enemies. It took a few more minutes before they killed off the admin, at this time I saw my viewership begin to rise again. I knew they would figure it out, so I toggled off the live streams and turned on my view. They could see my screen and my face-cam now. I smirked at my chat as they went crazy, but I just stayed quiet and showed them my character in third person. This of course just set them off even more as this was completely new to the server.

I heard the voices of my friends getting closer to my room, "Wow this place is actually huge down here! Look treasure!" I heard turbo yell. I unmuted myself in the proximity chat, however I was attuned to sound like I was behind a few walls and such. This way it would sound like I was actually in a tank. I yelled into the mic, with this auto-tuning, I would have to yell to be heard. I would only turn it off when they broke me out of the tank.

"Help! is some there!" They went silent before I heard Phil again followed by Fit. "Yes we are here, where are you!?" "Over Here guys!" The door across the room finally opened and all the members poured in. "Y/n! OMG is that you!?" I heard different people yelling my name as they came closer to see me. "Yes it is, now would you mind breaking me out of here!?" Fit instantly began breaking the glass, water and myself poring out now. "Hey Y/n! nice to see you again but one question... where are you legs!?" Foolish asked. I smiled as I got the message along with everyone else about how the next bit was lore related. "Well you see, I'm a mer-person. No not the classic mermaid you might think of, I'm not part fish. Instead I'm part shark, if you couldn't tell by the shark tail and shark like features I have." When I was in mer-person mode, I also had a dorsal fin on my back. "However seeing as I'll need to be on land you will probably see me more like this." I hit the t button on my keyboard and seconds later my mer form had been toggled off. I heard gasps of wows and awe all around me.

Another message from the admins told everyone that was it for the new lore today, as in that would be all I was allowed to say. Not necessarily that my lore was actually finished for my newly joined status. More was to come of course.

"Wow so we are like the shark people here!" Foolish yelled. I laughed. "Yeah I guess so!" Then I heard another gasp. "Oh my gosh y/n you need to come meet the eggs!" Niki said louder than usual but not yelling. I smiled. "I would love to meet them!" I was told they had left them behind in the hint that they would have to fight something. You know, gotta keep our children safe and all.

While all of the members got into their boats to leave, I instead turned my mer-mode back on and began to swim back with them all. Of course I had to explain how I could breathe underwater and swim faster when I was in this form.

Swimming onto the shore, I turned the mode back off and followed everyone up to spawn. All the parents left, promising to be back quick with their corresponding kids. Basically I was left alone, but pac had decided to stay back to keep me company. I hadn't met him yet so I was glad to get to know someone new. "So do you know everyone here?" I looked at him in game. "Yes and no, like I have met the majority of people on this server before, but I'm only really close with a few of them. But that is only because we hit it off so well when we met that we immediately added each other on things. You know what I'm trying to say right?" Pac nodded in game. "Yeah that makes sense, well I hope we can become good friends too!" I smiled wide, "I'm sure we will Pac." A moment passed and the eggs started to show up.

Smiling faces filled the group again as I met a chatted with all the eggs that were currently online. I surprised most of them by being able to read their signs without the translation device. When I was younger I had decided to learn Spanish and later on I began to learn German as well. The drive to learn German only intensified when I met and became friends with Niki. I am a fast learner so while I wasn't quite perfect, I was at least good.

When Talulah began to play her flute, I danced along with it. Later I would hopefully get to drop the hint that I loved to play instruments too. Which is how I became friends with Wilbur, so hopefully I could befriend his egg too. This brought up the question of when I might get to see him online, it's hard to tell with that man. Especially since he's such a big deal now in the music world with his band.

Either way, I was so glad to have joined this server. I could wait to help move the lore along in a cleaner more flowing way. I especially was excited to have a new way to stay in touch with my friends, make new friend, and hang out with them too.

To be continued...

[rohirric-hunter]

I made an @ellipsus-writes account yesterday and with one day under my belt here are my first impressions.

It's basically Google Docs, but without being associated with Google. You're able to edit documents from any device with a web browser, which is a lot more convenient than the WebDav server I'm currently using.

Things that are less than ideal:

There aren't a lot of customization options. You can switch between light and dark mode, but I would like to be able to set my document backgrounds to a color. Also it would be better if you could change your view layout. Right now it looks like this:

and I would prefer to have these documents in a list, rather than these big bubbles. The bubbles might be cool if you could change their color or add an image background to them, but as is they're just boring white and taking up a lot of space. I have only 12 documents in this folder and it's a bit silly that I can't see them all at once.

2. You might also notice that these documents appear to be in a completely random order. They're actually in the order I last edited them in. I prefer my documents to be in alphabetical order, and this is an option that exists, but a) when switching to this view it for some reason defaults to reverse alphabetical order and I then have to manually select regular alphabetical order, and b) this setting will not be remembered between sessions.

3. I can't seem to get rid of the, "Need help? Chat with us" popup at the bottom of the page. It takes up an annoying amount of space, and I wish it was collapsible.

Things that worry me:

Instead of having a password system, Ellipsus sends you an email link every time you go to log in. There's nothing wrong with doing it this way I guess, since you can access the link from the same device you're accessing the website from, but it kind of just smacks of being different for the sake of being different. Makes me worry about security. Not that I write anything worth stealing.

Instead of having a normal profile system, Ellipsus uses Gravatar, which is some "universal internet account" nonsense that I will absolutely not be using. This probably won't be a huge issue, though, as I don't really plan on using the collaboration tools, so I won't need to make a profile. I wish I could change my email address, though, as I accidentally used the wrong one to make the account. I might make a new account.

I don't understand how all this is being paid for. There are no ads, the account is free, but the hosting is all done by Ellipsus. While text does not take up a ton of space to host, it does take up some space, and that costs money. Are the creators doing it out of their own pockets? Do they have a donor? Will there be donation drives to support it later? Or will they adopt advertisements in the future or introduce a "premium" option where you can pay for additional features? The last one normally wouldn't worry me, but since it is currently so bare-bones I'm a bit antsy. What if you have to pay for the option to have your documents in alphabetical order by default?

Their advertising is. Vague. I put this off for a long time because looking around on their website there was a lot of talk about how you're a writer and super creative and also they'll never steal your data to train AIs, but it was really hard to find a place where it outright said what the product was. This concerns me because it makes me feel like the company has something to hide.

Good things:

It's a platform that does the same thing as Google Docs without actually being Google Docs. This is a powerful pro. I'll probably keep using it for now.

Oh yeah and they don't have an app. A few years ago this would have gone in the less-than-ideal section for me but these days with the way app stores are about user generated content it's probably best to avoid the whole thing. I followed their suggestion to set a link on my homescreen (through Firefox) and it works very well. I was worried it might be laggy (Tumblr was laggy when I used it through Firefox) but it's been very responsive. No server access if you're not connected to the internet, but if you have the document already open then you can keep typing into it and it will update when you reconnect. This is the same way I used Google Docs back in the day and perfectly serviceable in my opinion.

[alo-piss-trancy]

Maybe I should just ask this on a reddit sub or smth but I figured I'd try here first since I'm hoping the tags are more active now that the new game is coming and people might be replaying the series. Dragon Age question:

Okay so, I have all 3 base games (Origins, 2, Inquisition) on disc for my ps3. I've played through Origins, exported that worldstate to 2, and am now on the last act of 2. But there lies my problem. Apparently you can't export from 2 to Inquisition, you have to enter all your choices into the DragonAge Keep website, then export THAT into Inquisition via an EA account and it'll link up with the console.

Unfortunately to do that I think I need PSN access to go online. But uh... I've had this ps3 since I was like 13, and my profile seems to be bound to my dad's old email address (I was pretty much the only one who played the console, so the few times he got on, I think he just used my profile instead of the others we made for him and another family member. He pretty much only played Arkham City which has multiple save slots, and I was always ahead on progress/trophies, so this wasn't an issue at the time). I never played online and neither had he (idk why/how he set up the email part), so I've never actually had to sign into PSN before.

From what I'm reading, once a profile is bound to an email for PSN, it cannot be unlinked. So I HAVE to log into my profile with his info if I want to keep over a decade of game saves and trophies, including my Dragon Age saves, and still be able to go online.

I do know the email, because it is automatically filled in when I hit the PSN icon. But I think we've tried many passwords and his birthday and it never works. I'm wondering if maybe he didn't finish setting the account up way back then??? But it won't let me link the profile to a new PSN account I made with my own email, so his is clearly bound to it in some way.

I guess I could try customer support on their website and pray they'd be willing/able to recover the info and help me change it, but I'm not sure they'd even bother since it's a ps3 with no actual online play history/friends list and we've never bought anything digitally.

I'm just wondering if anyone has advice on what I can do if I can't get into this damn PSN. If I made another user profile on the ps3 and attached my own new PSN to that one, could I log into Dragon Keep's site, set all my choices for the first two games, & successfully link EA/export to Inquisition? It'd suck not being able to have all 3 games/trophy lists on my main profile, but at the end of the day I just want to be able to finish the trilogy with my worldstates instead of a default one 😭🙏 Or would it somehow not work since I wouldn't have any save data from the first two games on that ps3 profile?

Idk this whole system is fucking stupid, we should be allowed to unlink shit ☠️

[diari0deglierrori]

D:

Hiiiii!!!! @omarfor-mp3 I’m diari0deglierrori, I’m alive and (almost) well, sorry to appear like this out of the blue but I was desperate and I’m feeeling awful and I need to vent so I figured I’d make a new blog to explain a bit. I saw your post about a mutual disappearing and figured it could be me (in the eventuality of it not being about me, feel free to ignore). So! Where do I start.

It all started on a dark January afternoon, the sky was grey and the air- ok I’ll go straight to the point: so I was just chilling, using this app as usual, and then all of a sudden, the Wi-Fi went down for like an hour and I couldn’t use it anymore, so ok, I go on with my life (although very annoyed because I had things to say). So then it seems that the Wi-Fi is back, at least insta is working, so I come back here to make a post about it (I don’t even know if it got published or not though? Something about the Wi-Fi who stopped working right when I was about to watch a movie ?) But when I hit post an error message appeared, the one that usually appears when there’s not Wi-Fi, so I try turning on my phones data and all to make it work but it doesn’t change a thing, I only get error messages. Then foolish little old me thinks it’s only because of a bad connection again so I check everything else to see if they work or not, every other app seems to be working so I come back here and when I check on my blogs they all seem to be gone, only my main’s name appears (it kind of happened once but only lasted about 5/10 minutes) so I start to worry and check other peoples blogs to see if it’s just the app or me. I figure I can go on the trending page, I can search things and go on blogs, so I go on yours and see the post about a mutual disappearing and it hits me. I’m simply gone. My whole life for the past 9ish years, vanished. I’m devastated. Oh but the problems are only getting started! I somehow still think my phone is the main problem, maybe it crashed a bit somehow so I go on settings and turn it off, thinking that maybe it’ll kind of reset things (not like reset reset, you know? Just like when you turn it off and on? I can’t explain right, my brain feels crushed). So I do the usual, turn it off, wait for a couple of minutes and try turning it on again. It does, the screen turns on, it says it’s locked and to swipe up to unlock, which I do. But it doesn’t work, the screen doesn’t move. I touch the buttons and they work just fine, I mean I can put it on mute and stuff, but nothing that needs the screen. So I start to panic a bit, tell people to call it so I can see if it still works, so they do and I see it can ring but I can’t swipe to answer, it’s like it’s frozen or something. But like not completely, I don’t know how to explain. Anyway, long story short I think I broke my phone, I can’t use it anymore, but the screen stays on and the hours go by, as if it was just mocking me. This is when you realize you’re stupid and wished you did a backup before, which I never do because as I said, I’m stupid. So anyway I tried to go log on my tumblr on my laptop but it didn’t work, so I tried changing the password too but then it said that my account got terminated and that I should report it to the staff or something… so I did, I’m waiting to see if they’ll ever answer.

I looked it up and apparently it happened to a lot of people, someone even explained it better than me: 

“Originally it wouldn't load and said I needed to log in. I logged out and attempted to log back in, but it said my email/password was wrong. I tried to change my password and now it says my account was terminated. I've had this account for 10 years.”. 

Same thing happened to me. 

Aaaanayway, I’ve been dying inside ever since, hahahahahahejsfbkand 

(I’m tagging you because of the post btw, sorry to bother) 

[c0ntr01z3d]

Digital decluttering

Day 3

Today I got a new phone - the original one was in a pretty shitty condition (cracked screen, poor battery life and so on), so it was high time to change to a new one.

First, my idea was to give this device a brand new iCloud profile. Then, I did not want to create another account (again), I already have so many accounts that I cannot really keep track of them at all anymore. So I decided to use my original account with the new phone BUT without syncronizing all the things I had on my previous iPhone. Start anew! Yes, baby! What a great idea!

No. It was a TERRIBLE idea. I have so many apps, so many profiles with different passwords on my previous device that it's just silly not to transfer all the stuffs from there. To realize this, I had to download and log into all the apps I use on a daily basis... Such a waste of time.

I also had to face all the unnecessary photos, notes, voice recordings, pdf files etc. that made my iCloud stuffed. They made me soooooooo nervous. Why did I let these things pile up and take so many place? Anyway, I deleted a lot of stuff - it was intersting to see to which files I was not able to say goodbye, some examples:

photos of nice places, people and memories,

gosztonyi Street Podcast episodes,

song ideas that might be hits one day.

And what's next? I'll move my previous phone's stuff to the new one. It might take some hours. I need to be patient. No rush (though first I rushed this thing through). I wish I had done it in a way I was told in the mobile shop.

Sometimes I think, I know the tuti - but honestly... deep down I knew it wouldn't work out - there must be a good reason behind why people don't do this phone upgrading thing the way I originally imagined. Still, if I can really move all the settings to the new phone, I'll have to continue my digital decluttering. DAMN, I COULD DELETE EVERYTHING. Good God, I can be so impulsive, you know, when I want something, I want it NOW. And what do I want? Order. Peace. Everything to be at it's place. Trash needs to be thrown into the bin. Treasure needs to be digged. It takes so much time.

How I'm feeling now in one song:

[tombeane-blog]

Life Insurance

September, 2023.

"Hey Vern, Good news.  I no longer fear dying in a highly suspicious 'Household Accident'."

"Why's that, Tom?"

"Well, my wife recently came to me with a problem on her smart phone.  Since I remember the conversation somewhat differently than her, and, in the  interest of fairness, I'll present both sides of the conversation and you can decide what really happened."  

Her version of events.

"I can't access our bank account using my smartphone.  It was working fine yesterday and today it just gives me some message saying something about trying later." "Is yours working OK?"

"I haven't done anything whatsoever to make it not work. I'm doing the same thing I've always done exactly the same way I've always done it.  "I've tried un-installing and re-installing the bank app multiple times.  I've un-installed the app, restarted the phone and re-installed the app multiple times.  I verified that no other apps were interfering.  I went through all of the app's permissions to verify nothing had changed.  My software is the latest version but I updated it anyway.  I checked to make sure none of the system registries were corrupted but I reset them anyway.  I closed all the unused apps, scanned the boot registries and cleared the cache."  "To be very clear, this is not my fault."

My version of the conversation.

"No work!  You fix!"

And so I began the standard husband protocol designed specifically for these types of situations.

Step 1. Ignore the problem until it threatens our marriage.

Step 2. Follow standard Navy Technical Repair protocol and f*$%k with it hoping I might accidentally fix it.

Step 3. Get serious and start a more systematic approach. A - un-install the app, B - restart the phone and C - re-install the app.  I did this in 30 or 40 various combinations of these 3 possible sequences.  It turns out there are only 9 combinations.  Didn't know that.

Step 4. I tried various ways of doing the same thing 4 or 5 times in a row just in case.

Step 5. I tried Step 2 and 3 again.

Step 6. I looked in the kitchen drawer where I found my lost keys not too long ago thinking maybe I'd get lucky.

Step 7. Realizing this was only going to be resolved with a bigger hammer, I advanced to the dreaded 'gotta do some sort of serious reset on this piece of crap' phase. But before taking such an irreversible action, I tried step 2 a few more times.

Step 8. So I tried a soft reset, a super soft reset and finally a reset with just a hint of lime.

Step 9. I realized everything short of a factory reset wasn't going to fix this thing.

Step 10. I backed up all settings and data to the micro-sd card which took 30 minutes.  Backed 'em up a second time just in case it didn't work the first time.

Step 11. Closing my eyes I hit 'factory reset' and began that long wait - hoping it wouldn't crash in the middle requiring a trip to my wireless provider.

Step 12. With the phone screen now looking like it did when we bought it long ago, I tentatively went through the restore data process - only opening my eyes when I heard a welcoming  'ding' sound.

Step 13. Voila!  The banking app is now functional.

Proudly handing the phone to my wife, I was expecting to hear something like, "I love you, you wonderful person.  You are definitely not just another manly hunk.  You are also sooo very smart.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna cook you your favorite dinner tonight and bake an apple pie - just for you."

Instead after a couple of minutes I get, "I'm trying to log onto Facebook and it's asking me for my password - which I can't remember.  THANKS A LOT!"

Again, there might be a little wiggle room for misinterpretation in the actual conversation.

But now there's a change in our marriage dynamics.

Realizing it might happen again, all of a sudden she may not want me dead after all.

"So I've got that going for me, Vern." 

[virgilfingsanders]

3:38

TW: Death, Gore, mentions of getting stabbed.

Couple: Analogical

Prompt: Person B (Virgil) knowing they're going to die from blood lose thanks to the gaping wound they're bleeding from. They call Person A (Logan) and have a casual conversation, telling them they love them one last time, instead of calling for help.

~~~

To Virgil, there was something unGodly about the timeframe 2 to 4 am. There always had been, starting when he was a teenage who stayed up to late on Tumblr and Instagram, and, he assumed, their always would be. Now 26, Virgil had an valid reason to be up from 2 to 4 am: Plan B, the high end night club in the middle of the city, wasn't going to run itself, and Virgil would hardly let all his hard work be for nothing, regardless of how anxious he is. Sure, owning a Club wasn't a 'Picture Perfect' job, but if Virgil didn't do it, then who would?

Certainly not people like his husband, Logan, who was a College Professor. Not that Virgil minded his husbands Job, but it often made it a struggle to spend any time together. Virgil needed to be at Plan B on the weekends, when Logan was off, and Logan left for the day around the time Virgil got home. But they had a way of making it work. Logan didn't have classes on Monday, and Virgil never worked Wednesday's, somehow making their less than ideal schedules work perfectly.

Maybe that's why Virgil had been so eager to get home. It was 3:38am on a Monday morning. The sooner he got home and crawled into bed, the longer he'd get to cuddle with Logan. Virgil had been so eager, in fact, that he didn't hear the man walk up behind him.

He didn't hear him pull out the knife. He didn't see a face in the darkness. All he saw was the stars above him, and the empty parking lot in the back of the club. Plan B closed at 2, and Virgil had been the one to lock up today. The only car in the parking lot was his own.

He could feel the blood running out of his stomach onto the parking lot, and realized he probably wouldn't live. Instead he'd bleed out on the cold cement of his own property, behind his own club. No one would even find him until Joan or Roman came in tomorrow, which probably wouldn't be until 6 or 7.

Virgil fished for his phone, pulling it out of his pocket. 3:39 blinked up at him, the box letters somehow calming. It didn't take long to unlock the phone - the password being his and Logan's wedding date - and to get to contacts. What did seem to take forever, though, was waiting for Logan to pick up.

"G'mornin' love. When'll you b'home?" Logan asked, slurring his words together in his half asleep state. In the flat Virgil and him rented, he was laying the king sized bed, eyes closed, and barely awake enough to answer the phone. He wasn't necessarily concerned at the moment, Virgil called at 4 am all the time when he had to stay at club overnight to deal with paperwork and didn't want Logan to worry.

"I can't be home until tomorrow, Starlight. Probably not until tomorrow evening, or even Tuesday," Virgil said, trying to apply pressure to the stab wound in his stomach, knowing very well that it wasn't doing anything. Instead, he mainly focused on the stars he could see, unable to make out constellations due to the light pollution of the city.

"Should I be worried that you're cheating on me with Roman?" Logan asked, his voice sounding a little more awake, but not much. He was still tired, and slightly upset. Logan knew, rationally, the Club that Virgil owned and operated would take a lot of time, but staying their for 2 nights? That seemed a bit excessive.

"No, no, you're the only one for me Starlight. I just - uh, I just got super backed up on paperwork. I'm trying to set up a new Club in the next city over, and, uh," Virgil spoke rapidly, hating lying but thinking it was better than the truth. "I just got a stupid 'mounta paperwork to do."

"Are you lying to me?" Logan asked, jokingly, as he rolled out bed and made his way to the kitchen. Virgil had a of stuttering and rushing his words when lying, but he also did that when nervous or excited or tired, and was, generally, very straightforward.

"Never, Starlight. D'you remember our first date?" Virgil asked, catching his breathe at the end and hitting the mute button just in time for a coughing fit. He was now coughing up blood, how perfect.

"O'course I do, darling. You took me stargazing. We drove an hour and a half away from the city just so there wouldn't be any light pollution and we could name the constellations. We talked about the multidimensional theory and you sang Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade while we danced," Logan whispered breathlessly, remembering that day when he was barely 17 years old. He made his way to the kitchen, making a single cup of coffee using the Keurig.

Virgil clicked the unmute button, laughing breathlessly into the phone as he remembered the amount of panicking he'd done over that night. He'd swapped his usual Panic! At The Disco shirt for a blood red button-up, but kept the black ripped skinny jeans he still wore to this day, and converse.

"My favorite death theory is still the stars," Virgil said, grinning slightly in his weakened state as he counted the stars he could see. Logans laugh carried through the phone, making Virgil's body automatically relax.

"You always were found of that one, even though it's highly illogical."

"Do you remember, 3 years later, when I asked you to marry me?" Virgil asked, keeping his eyes open, on the twinkling stars. If he closed them he may never open them again, and dying without seeing Logan one last time was not something he wanted.

"Yes, I do," Logan said, taking a long sip of his coffee before closing his eyes as he leaned against the Island in their kitchen, reimagining that night. "We drove out to the same spot, but instead of staying on the little hill to stargaze we walked around the surrounding forest until it got dark. You managed to recreate the night of our first date perfectly. Same meal, same constellations, you were even in the same outfit. At the end of the dance, you asked me to marry you, and I couldn't help but say yes."

A small smile slipped onto both of their faces as they thought about that night, noth going silent for a few minutes. It had been magical in every sense of the word. They'd ended up falling asleep on the hill and driving back in to the small apartment they'd shared in the morning, planning on giving their family the news within the week.

"D'you remember the little cabin?" Virgil asked, his voice slowly getting weaker. He could taste the blood on his teeth, which was making him sick, and it was getting harder to hold the phone to his ear ad he spoke.

"Of course," Logan said, the memory of the Log Cabin in the woods and the idea of spending a summer there coming back to him. "There was a little walking path to a long cabin with a wrap around porch. The cabin seemed in perfect condition other than the fact that there wasn't anyone there. I'd love to go and stay there. Investigate the forest of the surrounding area and watch the stars every night."

"You're birthday's next week, Starlight. We're going to spend a week in that cabin. I already cleared it with you're boss. The key to the cabin is hiding in the glovebox of my car right now," Virgil slurred his words together, the stars losing their dimness as the pain began to take over. Logan rolled his eyes at Virgs confession, the boy never could keep secrets, even for the sake of someone's birthday. "I've gotta go now, love. I'll be home tomorrow, Logan, I'll be home tomorrow."

"I love you, Virgil, don't overwork yourself," Logan said softly, finishing his cup of coffee and putting the mug into the sink.

"And I love you, Logan. More than the moon and sun and all the stars. You're my Starlight."

Logan smiled at the slurred words, assuming his husband was exhausted from a long day. In Logans mind, Virgil would fall asleep on the couch in his office, forgetting to charge his phone. He'd probably wake up, make a cup of coffee, forget to eat, and get started right away on paperwork, not even thinking to charge his phone until his lunch break, which would last 20 minutes at most. He'd come home around 6ish, complaining about office work, and would try, and fail, to sneakily wrap his arms around Logan while he was cooking dinner. With those thoughts in mind, Logan hung up and made his way back to bed, curling up in the warm covers and falling peacefully asleep.

Virgil pulled the phone away from his ear, barely making out a blurry '4:16 am' before his world went black. He smiled slightly, Logans voice in his head repeatedly saying 'I love you, Virgil'.

~~~

One titled 4:16 about Logan finding out about it and grieving? Maybe.

[becccaaawww1989]

*Long Post, But If You Like Reading Please Read*

So I've decided to take on a huge project that probably SHOULD have been done sooner, but I don't think COULD have possibly been done sooner. So here's the story and here's the project:

!STORY TIME!

I was a creative writing major in college... However, I have not written anything for a year, and the whole year prior to that, every time I sat down with a notebook or at the computer it was torture. I used to save my creative writing homework for last cause I knew I'd enjoy it, but my final year that wasn't the case. I was told in my creative writing classes that my writing - if it was good enough - would protect me. It would protect me from those embarrassing moments I was writing about, and from the anger of other people because when it breaks down to it, it's a story and we read for good stories. Well, that wasn't the case. My writing was good, and that wasn't the case. Rob was wrong. I was wrong.

Then enter two years of depression followed by anxiety. Pretty much convinced I had no support from anyone in my life and then at the same time my anxiety started making up conspiracy theories about myself... how convenient. I stopped going to church, I stopped really believing in God [like I KNEW, but like... do you even care? Clearly not, so why do I put my trust in you? Type thing]. Through a very emotional night I confessed what I had been holding in for months about my confusion, bitterness and anger to Evan and of course Evan suggested I start going back to church but I was so reluctant. I didn't want to, but any time I went with him I felt almost as if my body had been full of static (like TV static) before church, and after it was like living with a clear screen. I could breathe for a little bit.

So this one day, I am sitting at work, minding my own business and this little girl comes in and gets a french manicure. Conversations take off and she starts telling me how her Dad's a pastor and I started to open up a little bit about my story and my doubts and that I grew up in church yada yada yada. So she invited me to her church... and feeling like it was maybe God finally paying attention to me again, I went. And I continued to go for a couple of months. They were warm and welcoming and EVERYTHING I WANTED... but any time there were events, my schedule didn't match up and I started to think that even though Solid Rock was what brought me back into the habit of going to church, maybe that wasn't where I was supposed to be. Which sucked cause there were a lot of amazing people there.

So then this one day I was tapping through Instagram stories and my friend from freshman year of college had posted this quick story about the church she had started going to, 2|42. I sent her a quick message about what it was like, and she was happy to respond. I then texted Evan and said "we are checking out another church." I swear I could hear his eyes roll through the phone.

Showed up at 2|42 and it was kind of everything I wanted, but for the longest time couldn't find a way to connect so while I was still going to 2|42 I was looking around at other churches... being me and preparing for the future I was already thinking "okay, I want my kids to be able to be in JBQ and Missionettes..." but I felt God pull me back and kind of tap me on the shoulder and remind me that I don't know what the future holds or if I'm still gonna be around the area for that. I had so much else to worry about before I worried about JBQ for my currently nonexistent kids. So focusing on the now, I ended up staying.

In the meantime with all of this going on, (excuse the language, but I can't find a better way to describe it...) shit hit the fan in my own personal life. I was battling with my roommate pretty much almost on a daily basis, feeling left out - on purpose - belittled, ignored and I honestly don't know what I ever did to her. As well as the Gymnastics Club board was having issues and I cared way too much about them that their stubbornness and my will to fight for myself was causing issues. When it came to personal interactions between people I called friends, I knew that I was no longer this sweet innocent freshman, I had some dirt on my hands, blood on my face, and in a lot of ways I wasn't afraid to show it. Creative writing encouraged me to un-sensor my work, so you could say my vocabulary expanded. It taught me how to talk about things in my writing that I typically wouldn't talk about. Personal thoughts, experiences, family issues, fears, intimate conversations and connections with friends. But in most conversations it felt like I would have been more respected by the people that surrounded me in my everyday life, if I had just stayed sweet and innocent, and never stood up for myself... or had never even written at times. It was as if they respected me as a Christian when I was 100% all about Jesus all the time, but didn't respect me/my beliefs when I was struggling with my faith - which is a common thing to struggle with. It was as if loosing my innocence was what lost me respect which was strange because everyone else was allowed to lose their innocence and they were welcomed with open arms into the club of people that could earn the "Platinum Certificate of Depravity." So after a night at sidetracks, I said goodbye to Dave, told him I loved him and I remember closing the door that night and deciding I needed a break.

The weeks that followed were ones where I was realizing that if I wanted to keep my income (as a nail technician) I would have to retire from gymnastics. I could not pull out one final season. So the plan was to talk to the board and strike a deal to keep my position without doing gymnastics for one last year and see if anyone wanted to be "trained" to take it over from me. But if it hadn't been for a warning from a close friend, I would have been blindsided when told that the board had not only talked about it without including me or notifying me, but had also decided that in order to continue making the videos for the team for the 2018 - 2019 season and posting on the Instagram and promoting the club... not only would i be doing that for free, but I would also have to pay the FULL 210 club dues. Without doing any of the gymnastics that came along with it. Which was the reason we were all there to begin with. I wasn't going to pay to do a job I should be getting paid for, and I wasn't going to pay to record everyone doing things I wished i could still physically do... which by the way, sucks. So I quit right then and there, handed over passwords and walked away. I gave away most of my leotards a month ago. *Not belittling the club or the current board, I am just explaining my decisions and how it felt.*

But it really left me feeling alone. All I had was work, Evan and my roommates. However, 2|42 was promoting this thing called ROOTED. If you joined there was a chance you would become a small group afterwards, so after weeks of saying no, I finally said yes. The group was a total God thing, and tonight was the first night since quitting the gymnastics club and completely walking away from it that I felt like I was going to - in all aspects of my life - be okay.

So... with that being said, I have been thinking about it, and it is about to be a huge project. But I have gone through, removed all previous pieces of writing from my blog, it is currently "Under Construction". This will take MONTHS. But I have started writing again. It is darker, and heavier and not what one would expect. However, I want to show the transformation of my life through my writing. From the moments of lost friends, to realizing that I had lost them, to the issues that followed, with the loss of faith, to feeling - like I said - covered in dirt, scares, lies, pain, drama, ultimatums and the struggle between wanting to break away from it all and become someone or something else or becoming and embracing the person you are meant to be with all of your dirt all over you. Innocence gone, friends gone, yearly traditions gone, mock awards gone, potlucks gone, Halloween and Christmas parties gone, leaving group chats, exiting conversations... to this life that has gone from a bad reputation to someone who is reclaiming it. Surrounded to alone and from alone to surrounded. From unforgivable to forgiven. From supported to unsupported from writing stories to writing poetry, from innocent -> Guilty -> Forgiven and finally a story of life without God to a life with God.

I would really love the support from anyone who enjoys reading. You can follow the link and click on the follow button or (with that button) set up an email that will be linked when I first re-launch it. I will probably share this again, but I am really excited to "relaunch" something that has had such a negative impact on my life and turn it into something I am proud of.