A Shout of Light

This was the beggining of the current form of the US fascist movement and it underpins the entire thing about it to this day. If you live in the US and Gamergate isn't familiar to you, you're missing critical history to understanding US fascism. I'm not joking even a little bit here, you will understand modern United States fascism so much better if you are familiar with Gamergate.

And who helped me with that? Not people calling for some nebulous revolution. Not people telling me that the system was useless. Not people preaching at me to grow my own food. It was a church food bank partially funded by the state of Texas that some southern hippies donated a bunch of Whole Foods nonsense to.

And you know what? I’m sick and tired of defeatism. What can we get done right now, huh? Are you gonna accept something a bit better to help people right now or are you waiting for your perfect utopia to come to you?

which combined with ilya loving just making things up and saying them (as seen in the "yes, the rumors are true-" scene) offers the very funny idea that ilya actively tries to offer as much privacy as possible by just throwing out stories about them at random so there IS no central story for people to hound shane about.

assorted backstories a la "ilya just started talking and found out with everyone else where he was going with this":

they got snowed in at all stars one year (b-but wasn't that year in florida?) and decided there was nothing better to do

it started as a bit and neither is willing to give up first

they paired off to combine forces like nato

they paired off to limit how many kids they could have in the future to make sure hockey stayed fair

ilya lost a bet six years ago

shane lost a bet three years ago

ilya got tired of remembering phone numbers for his hookups and shane's is easy

ilya got tired of having to look things up in english and french when talking to other people and decide to marry someone who speaks two languages to save time

shane is gifted enough (wink wink wink) that other people are cowards and only ilya was brave enough to rise to the challenge (this one gets him in trouble on the phone later but it also gets him laid that night at home and also confuses the online speculation about who tops and bottoms, so net positive tbh)

yuna hollander is the best manager in the business and a political marriage was the best way to secure her services longterm

Often, merchants keep their own scrolls. Non-traders may access these scrolls through the exchange of tokens: but, instead of giving a token in payment, a reader must accept a token.

The merchant then makes a note on the scroll that they have given their token to the reader. (As an aside: many people can read and write in the future.)

Every merchant has a unique token. Merchants and scribes recognize the tokens of everyone listed in the scroll, and therefore know which trader(s) sent the reader to them. If they make a barter, they may have an agreement that a portion of the trade shall be shared with the previous vendor.

Merchants freely give out these tokens, though they must ask the reader to accept them first (however, they usually tell the reader that they cannot access their scrolls if they refuse to carry their token, so it is not a question of choice).

Overmorrow's morrow, we call these tokens "cookies". We recommend that readers regularly clean out their pockets, as too many cookies can make their journey heavy. It's not uncommon for readers to end up with multiple tokens given by the same merchant. The order in which these cookies are stacked reveals a lot about the journey the reader has taken- this is one example of how their movements can be tracked, and one of many kinds of "footprint" that we leave on the internet. It is a trail better kept than those of an animal through mud, for it cannot be washed away by rain (though Two-morrow's scrolls are susceptible to decay, though they are made of metal, not paper).

We call it "The Internet" as it is a kind of web, though it is woven with connections and words rather than physical thread. The tools we use to access this Web are similar to scrolls, as they are highly-compact, yet carry a lot of information. So, in addition to gaining access to the merchant's scroll, you can also keep a record on your own personal scroll.

The tool on which I'm transcribing our conversation is called a Mobile Phone, for it is portable (mobile), and it can carry sound over greater distances than anyone could shout or walk in a day.

(Funnily enough, the action of searching through written information is called "Scrolling", though you must imagine that you are unfurling the page as you go, like this... Do you want to try? Yes. It is made of a very fine material. It's called "glass". It can be found in nature, rarely... Have you ever seen lightning strike sand? No? Uhhh.... Have you ever seen an angry mountain? Uhhh, like, the ground was shaking and you thought you angered a god. Sorry, I mean, you angered a god. Uh-huh. It killed your cousin? My condolences. Do you remember what the top of the mountain looked like before that happened? If you get sand extremely warm, it looks like that, and you can stretch it and shape it while it's still warm. Well. No, no, it's fine. I think I'm already messing with the space-time continuum enough by showing you this. Anyway, if you press your finger to this square here- it's a type of pocket. And within it, I can retrieve my own information. It's printed flat.)

Accepting a token on your Phone is sort of like that: there's a hidden pocket, but it can be emptied like any other pocket.

Once reader empties their pockets, or removes the token of a specific vendor, they must ask your permission before giving you a replacement token in the future.

Those who have their information written on these scrolls will often find that destroying the information contained within is not straightforward, as these scrolls are copied across several different Phones & hidden in various caves.

There is a library for those who care to visit it by the name of "Wayback". These librarians believe it is in the best interest of us all if they keep a copy of every scroll, and in every stage of the scroll's creation. This can then be checked against other scrolls in order to see how the information has changed over time.

Anytime someone modifies a scroll, someone might make their own copy and transport it to the library of Wayback. There are other libraries such as this, and anyone with their own scroll, scrolls or scroll-making abilities might make a copy of anything that gets written in any scroll, at any time that they please.

So, a "digital footprint" refers to this. "Digital" is the realm of this unseen Web, and, being unseen, it is much easier to leave footprints without intending to, and much harder to scrub them away.