Handmade Black Leather Bound Journal

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except for a few low-to-mid-level monsters who made it up onto our rock, i’ve had the whole night to think about why we haven’t been able to log out. and i’ve got ~~~drum roll~~~…nothing. it makes no sense. more on that later, once i have something useful to say.

figuring out that i don’t know what the problem is didn’t take long—dad wasn’t even snoring yet (parents are easier to appreciate when they’re asleep, aren’t they?). the rest of the time i’ve been thinking through what it means, being stuck here.

i already mentioned last time the possible good news, if there could be good news in this: vr logout failure is a thing. a thing that almost always nets fame or fortune. i could be set for life before i even start highschool.

the catch: all the routes to that fame and fortune require selling your story and, more importantly, your game feed. no problem, right? my feed’s been recording the whole time we’ve been in here. yeah, problem—i’m not the only one in my feed. who else is in my feed? my dad. my dad is in my feed! let me repeat. my. dad. is. in. my. feed. i’m not going to be able to sell it if the entire feed is just one long painful demonstration of how bad my luddite (thanks, ms. welsh) dad is at all this. plus, let’s say somehow i could, i’d rather die than show that to the world. and even though the feed’s just being recorded and not being viewed by anyone yet, i still feel like i’m being watched all the time, constantly wondering where the pov of the feed is.

it's like when everyone at school started using monkachet, with its location tracking and way lower privacy settings and vr and ar postings, and everyone knew where everyone else was all the time, what they were doing, who they were doing it with, which posts they were looking at, which they’d liked, which they hadn’t. it’s like that. not to get too freud on myself, but this is a nightmare starring all my greatest fears about my parents, and i feel like everyone at school is already watching. watching right now, even though i know they aren’t. but they might as well be. the distance between something digital being private and something digital being online for the whole world to see is, like, not even there. there is no space. i'm just off stage right now, and my whole school—no, the whole world—is in the auditorium, and any second someone may push me onto stage and my life will be over.

but, anyway. i don’t know if i can last long enough for us to get out of here and for that to happen without losing my mind anyway. both my parents have pretty much learned to not ask me to help them with technology because of how crazy it makes me—how could anyone be as bad as they are at simple devices like vr rigs?—but in here i won’t have a choice. i’ll have to help them. with everything. all the time. every day. every week. maybe for months.

i’m hyperventilating, and i think i can almost imagine my avatar has ashtma too. ech.

ok, feeling better now. i took a break from journaling and a few more fodder monsters crawled up onto our spot. they were a good distraction.

so, there are two possible outcomes that don’t make me want to throw myself on my naginata. one, we find a way out soon. i’m working on that but have no ideas yet. two, we’re stuck in here for a while but have a feed worth selling when we get out. for that to work, i’m going to need to help my dad level up so that the feed isn’t twelve months of awful newb action.

when the sun’s up, i’m going to work on leveling him using the spider eggs. they’re about as weak as the lower level creatures and monsters we might run into in this forest during daytime. he should be able to handle several, which could get him up a level before we go after mom. fingers crossed.

update

nope

total fail

managed to kill a raven by accident

and himself

of course