[Insert dial-up noises here. From your imagination or memory. Engage. But first...do you remember the Windows boot-up sound? You should probably include that. Also, if we are going to be completist, your dial-up modem noises should probably include the AOL stick figure traveling across the screen as it loaded with the "You've got mail!" at the end. (Not very cyberpunk. Possibly too cheerful. Maybe we should disinclude the "You've got mail" from our memories.") Well, let's leave it for now.]
The Internet. World Wide Web. Cyberspace.
From almost the beginning, webspace felt like somewhere separate from the physical space in which we lived. Our physical reality wasn't great. But the web could be anything. ANYTHING. This was before the days where "the Internet" (and, afterwards, "the internet") was regulated by corporate expectations (things like maintaining a "professional web presence" complete with your real birth name, representative professional photography, WordPress or SquareSpace style website that's been designed "mobile-first" (aka minimalistic with large squares of up-close photography).
(Definitely not allowed to ramble anymore. Everything must get to the point. tl;dr. Oh yes, and include a bunch of SEO keywords but be over 300 words long on a page and be informative in edu-tainment to your target audience.)
But in 1997, when we first embarked on our webpage journey, the only pressures we felt came in physical reality.
GeoCities felt like freedom. At 11 years old, we learned how to code HTML from scratch, simply from looking at other sites' source code. No books, no teachers. If it was hard, we didn't notice. If it was easy, we didn't care. We desperately wanted to belong to this realm of abundant creativity, where anything could blossom into being.
No idea what the actual address was, but...it was an actual address. You could browse through "neighborhoods" and click on little pixelated house images to see what your "neighbors" were up to on their own personal websites. We built our website in Area51 where other fantasy and sci-fi webpages were located. Did our address start with a 9? Area51/94873? Something like that? How many numerals? I have no idea. Perhaps another alter has memory of the exact webaddress.
The website itself had a black background and red text. I think a repeating dungeon-y tiled-background. Two little red .gif dragons (they moved! an actual walking sequence!) bordered either side of the title, alongside pixelated torches with actual moving fire.
How long did we spend staring in awe at our own home page? --It was pretty amazing, though.
We hadn't made the dragons or torches, ourself. We had no idea how, but we made sure to take images from places that offered them for others to use. Like gifts to make the web cooler. ("Here, have this walking red dragon .gif I made with mere pixels and magic!" essentially.)
Giving away dragons became such a thing that there were entire webpages devoted purely to magical creature adoptions. You could explore their realms, page by page, forest by glade by den, and land up on a page where creatures and their pedigrees were displayed. There, you could apply to adopt, the artist-author would roll dice on their genetics between two parent creatures' characteristics, and you would wind up with your very own, entirely unique, creature that only you were allowed to have and display on your site.
We were way too intimidated--and already blocked artistically from abuse by then--to dare do something like that, ourselves, on our own site. But we admired, wide-eyed, and tentatively adopted and brought magical creatures "home."
By 12/13 years old, the realm of the web was more important to us than reality. We existed in reality. We fought to get by in reality, but the web had real magic. (Cybermagic? Is this why we love cyberpunk aesthetics + magic so much? Think Shadowrun RPG but something still alive in us rather than borrowed entirely from those creators.)
We were alive in the world wide web. (I miss that feeling.)
Naturally, we wanted to share this wonder with our real-life friends. So we started an HTML club for other gifted program students at our junior high, taught everything we knew of HTML to anyone who wanted to listen, ...and then ended up making a second home on the web with a friend who felt the pull of art and magic as much as we did. It was called Mycrea, from "Mythical Creatures" and our friend leapt immediately into creating creatures, scanning them, and painstakingly, pixel-by-pixel cleaning up the scans and giving them transparent backgrounds so her critters could live seemlessly in their new world. We have many memories of sitting beside our friend at her parents' computer, watching her work a magic of her own. (Now she is an award-winning comic artist with graphic novels published by Scholastic, for one).
Meanwhile, the Dragon's Domain continued to exist. We didn't make any of our own creatures for it, but we did pour our writing into its pages.
The next part of this story brings deep humiliation. Will it be too painful to tell?
Were we 13 when it happened? (13 tends to be when anything happens in pre-teen stories, so, maybe?)
There was a scene we read on someone else's website. They, too, had an immersively-minded site, where they had loaded their fiction for anyone to read. (Online, digital reading before the Kindle e-reader released in 2009 was a different landscape entirely. It's even different in feel than the invention of the blog. Livejournal began in 1999, but I don't recall its popularity being a thing til around 2001-ish).
In this scene, the anonymous web-writer's heroine hid a dagger behind the thick curtain of her hair.
For some reason, this imagery stuck hard in an alter's brain/mind. We used the same imagery, the same moment, in our own fic that we posted on our webpage. Our heroine hid her weapon behind the curtain of her red hair.
We were so proud of the moment. It felt like borrowing the cool, amazing walking dragons and, like a curator, putting it up on our site with all the other shiny, cool moments we had found and collected, weaving them all together into a whole.
I think, in a moment of pride, like a younger sibling happily showing off their work to an older sibling which they had plagiarized/mimicked, we brought our fic to the attention of this web-author.
They read that moment and instead of recognizing that we were young, inexperienced, and alone in trying to build a creative life of our own, they came down on us...quite scathingly.
Looking back on it, I think they were right to be upset that we had stolen their cool moment for our work and story.
However, they could have handled how they spoke to us with more grace.
Elfwood, originally called Lothlorien, was founded in 1996 (but became more as how we knew it in 1997) as a home on the web for artists to upload their work. Every image displayed in a gallery format, and when you clicked on the image you could see it in full, with a space for comments underneath. It was the precursor to deviantART, if that site is known to you, and was very well-known at the time.
When we were 12 we opened our own account for a gallery on Elfwood. There, we uploaded scans of our extremely-non-professional-quality artwork. Why was it unprofessional? Because we were twelve. And not a virtuoso twelve year old, either.
(I can remember how intensely afraid we felt every time we uploaded something. Again, see entry under: terrible homelife, not supportive at all, but we needed support for our art growth somewhere and we hoped it would be here, that we would be welcome here).
The comments we received were very kind...up until they weren't. Around 2001, the Internet shifted. From being open, friendly, supportive, and creatively experimental, it started to become harsh, critical, closed-off into narrow channels of what's acceptable and what's not.
Our Elfwood gallery got overrun by trolls attacking our juvenile art for looking too...juvenile. We absorbed the harsh things they said in particular about our coloured pencil and ballpoint ink sketch of the goddess Hestia which was the coolest thing we'd managed to draw to-date...and never posted again.
We've already talked about how mythical creature adoptions were a thing, where artists/website-coders drew and illustrated unique, one-of-a-kind (literally) creatures for other people. These were entirely free. I don't even recall there being an exchange of services involved at all. The only thing I think recipients did "in exchange" was to link back to their webpages. But even that "exposure" wasn't a "loss leader" to ensure that their paid products found new eyes/customers. Did these artists feel exploited for all their hard work? I never recall any complaints, besides frequent reminders that their waitlists existed as waitlists. I also recall our friend receiving an extra-special mythical equine that had a fire mane and tail, named Ember. The creator of Ember issued a notice that there had been jealousy over Ember and how extra-unique and extra-special she was and that they didn't get anything so great. Which, to us felt shocking because it's like complaining about the cat you have adopted from an agency not having a particularly cool set of markings, like perfect white socks or a spot that looks like a heart. Don't you love your cat? Aren't you attached, emotionally, to her? There is no one that looks like your cat, either. That's what unique means.
This drama happened on the Orchard Message Post, a forum with thread-based posts where people gathered to play with and role-play their adopted mythical creatures.
We loved the premise...but in practice it was overwhelming and caused lots of inner panic attacks (things we pushed through and tried to ignore and never allowed to show on our face or in our mannerisms off-line or on-line).
See, what do typical people do when they get together to create fictional immersive worlds with creatures that have unique genomes? Well, they go straight for the romance-and-breed plotline, even as teenagers.
The argument can be made that frolicking in the field with your mythical stallion named Kah'Luath (a made-up word the creator said meant "honey," for his warm, honey-like coloring) and being accosted by mares (and their role-players) trying to flirt with you would be too much for any 12 year old. But there I have to stop you. I've known kids since kindergarten who fall head-over-heels in love and want to play the romance plotline with each other, kissing, holding hands, fake marriages, the works. We were not that child.
I'm asking back to see if any alters wanted any of that on the Orchard Message Post, and I'm getting negatives. Our plea that "there is more to life than romance" started early. (Inwardly, it's as loud as a scream).
Having to fend off suitors for beleagered Kah'Luath at 12 was a bit much. No matter how hard we tried to steer play towards any other subject did not work.
Luckily for us, the first X-Men film (of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, etc. fame) released in 2001. The second we came home from seeing the movie, alight with the possibility of a world where anyone could be special and any character could be created and inserted to live there, we went straight to the promotional website 20th Century Fox had made for the film. Alongside cool graphics and an interesting aesthetic, it had a character generator, mixing and matching various traits as presented in the film. (It felt a bit like a character adoption, honestly, looking back on it).
We hit generate. It shot out a young woman with mutant self-healing abilities much like Wolverine's, and, like Wolverine, with adamantine claws and skeletal reinforcement. We were a bit bummed to discover she wasn't as much her own person as we would have liked, but... she was ours. We accepted her immediately. And we already had a place for her.
A.R., a player on the Orchard Message Board, announced that (inspired by the recently released film) they had created a separate forum dedicated to role-playing in the X-men universe. The year was 2020, (a whole 19 years later!), so, far enough in the future to open wide all possibilities but still close enough to where we were that we could stay grounded in terms of technology, politics, and humanity.
(Looking back as we type this in 2025, we can say that we did not predict a worldwide pandemic in 2020, but we did foresee the government becoming racist and building an extensive task force to kidnap people and lock children up in cages for the simple crime of looking different than those in power...ugh. Not happy to be right about that AT ALL.) (At the time it was a mere thought-experiment, a way to play in danger without being in danger. Or rather, if we're being honest, we felt like we were in danger all the time. We were raised in an abusive environment where we were hit, tied up, threatened with scorn, contempt, excision, at every difference we showed. To be secretly a mutant, someone capable and powerful, with an alliance of others like us, and to face danger together and survive it... It was a fantasy I couldn't resist...and that the other alters allowed me to have because they understood it. Even though now we are seeing the "promised land," the "land of the free and home of the brave" bravely *sarcasm* targeting people at their places of work and school then locking them up in concentration camps, in cages, or dumping them out of planes in the middle of the ocean, and being rewarded handsomely for it. What a joke.
In any case. We were glad to get away from the Orchard Message Board and all the thinly-veiled attempts to gain suitors (then pair off and make artist-drawn babies).
The X-Board had a simple system. There were character quizes/stat sheets that we needed fill out and turn into A.R., and then we could play on the message board with each new character.
Terrean was our first, she of the Wolverine-derivation. Then Dagger.
Dagger felt illegal. He wasn't the first male we had ever role-played, nor the first male character we'd ever acted out during playtime with other kids. But he was the first male we had created for ourselves to play. The first humanoid male. It felt so wrong, to step behind his eyes, to do what he'd do, to write it out, be it, become it, for the few moments of typing out each of this words and actions into those posts.
It felt like being allowed to be male...for the first time ever. (But our body is characteristically female. And transgressing those lines...in our religion? That would never be allowed. "What's female is female and what's male is male and never the twain shall meet...except in s*x?" (No wonder why men and women have so many problems understanding each other or getting along, ugh. Even looking through male perspective and male eyes felt wrong, let alone writing male characters).
But the moment was more potent than even that.
We have male alters, but this is the first time they were allowed to see themselves almost allowed to be that for real.
I distinctly remember K-- rising up to look at what we were doing, getting close to the front. Until you've experienced plurality, where a whole other entity or presence is moving around in your body, you will have no idea what I mean. The physicality of it. Like someone coming up behind you. Or leaning into your space. Or side-stepping to make room for someone within your own body. But if you're a reader of sci-fi or fantasy, and you're open to the seemingly "fantastic" being "actually real tho," you may imagine a piece of it. To feel the tenor of their thoughts...and their devastation and loss as they stand near you, realizing they can't have what you're creating in cyber-reality.
So here we were, embarking on a new platform with new characters. A few of the RPers on this new message board we recognized from the Orchard, but a few we'd never met before. It was one of these other players who made an emotional beeline for Dagger. Interested in him because he was male...and they were female? It was baffling and flummoxing and overwhelming and surely there was other plot we could co-create together. He was the first male character on the forum, but that didn't mean he was the romantic lead, y'know?
(Looking back, I wonder if that RPer was like, 16, not knowing we were a 13 year old who could type really well with a college-level vocabulary. (No idea how our writing sk1llz measured up in terms of fiction prose, but...yeah. I don't know. Carry on.)
This time of our life on the web, ~12-13 years old, was a lot about avoiding romantic plots with people...who wanted to get into our characters' pants. Or mouths. Honestly, it was overwhelming and traumatic. We have a lot of alters who are aromantic/asexual, or else are on those spectra, meaning they don't experience romantic attraction or s*xual attraction. A beautiful stranger is no different than a beautiful sunset. We can admire their harmonious features, their perfect symmetry, their crazy cheekbones, piercing eyes, long lashes, kissed-red lips, whatever, but it's a painting that moves? Hurray? Uh? Celebrity crushes (aka crushes on strangers?)? No.
Do we have alters who are elsewhere in the various spectra? Yes. We have alters who are demisexual, meaning they can develop sexually-inclined feelings for someone they already have developed a mental or emotional connection or relationship with, but that still precludes strangers on the Internet, y'know?
(Bringing this to the modern era...swiping on photos ain't going to help).
Do we have more heteronormative alters not on those spectra? Yes. Btw...do we have gay or lesbian alters? Yes. Do we have nonbinary alters? Yes. Female alters in a female body? Yes. Male alters in a female body? Yes. Yes and yes and yes, and yes, it's complicated. But the alters seeking safety on cyberspace when our body was 12 and 13 years old didn't find it for those years. Creative hopes and dreams? Almost there, almost realized, but crushed by stupid one-track minds with a narrow definition of creativity and adventure.
Ugghghghghghghghghghgghghghghgghghgghghghgghksjdfoiwejfa;kjfdlskfjwoiejf
Should we talk to our therapist about all this? Probably. But we've enough to talk about already, and the thing about writing memoirs is that you release the burden of the secrets trapped in your throat and fingers. Could we talk to anyone about what we were experiencing at the time? No. No, we couldn't. Our parents had zero interest in the things we created in cyberspace, and they were awfully judgy about whatever they could get their grimy mitts on, like our drawings or the print-outs of our fiction.
By the time we were in high school, our parents had been "warned by the Internet experts" to expect that 80 year old men were toying with children on the Internet, and we were repeatedly harassed to never give out our name on the Internet and to never send e-mails that weren't encrypted. (WTF, were they even sending encrypted e-mails??)
Well, guess what. Not even three years later, mom was on Facebook once it opened up to the general public (in 2004 when it started it was only for departing high school seniors so they could stay in contact, like a digital yearbook signing at the end of the year with everyone's photos and info to stay in contact), giving away her name and likeness to whomever might look her up, and she was highly pleased by the attention, let me just say. She basks in the glow of Facebook these days, all the while saying she's not addicted and can quit anytime.
(Kind of reminds me about the advice of the 80s/90s never to get into cars with strangers, and then...Uber/Lyft happened. Also to never let strangers give you food...and then we had Ubereats which is even more disconnected from oversight than pizza delivery drivers).
(Advice kind of feels like whatever is convenient for them, or whatever lets them beat you with a stick at the time just to show superiority).
In summary, we couldn't say "Hey we're role-playing these characters whom we think are amazing and are like our friends but people keep wanting to use them for their own ends, their own fantasies, and don't really care what we want, so...help?" to people who exploited their own children as #societalachievementUnlocked furniture. So we're saying it now. (We tried to take plenty of other problems to them and that all went fantasticallly poorly, also.)
Someone else wanted to give it a go, try their hand at it. They made a few false-start characters on the X-Board, but eventually got their groove and found characters liking the things they liked, exploring the things they wanted to explore, like a good partnership or team.
It helped that now there was a whole cast of characters active on the X-Board. And GM and GM2, two mysteriously anonymous players who had volunteered themselves to steer wider-view plots that would affect all characters involved on the board. Like world events.
We settled into a kind of rhythm. Go to school, crash out on the computer as soon as we got home, relaxing to the beat of our fingers on the keyboard and our characters in dire straights until we'd recovered enough to do our homework. (We got harassed for this, though. Our parents thought that school, homework, exercise, and church were the only four things allowed to exist. (Or, as Dad put it, "You can't do something that looks like homework for a break from homework," since writing fictional worlds into existence looks like homework? Because it involves typing at a desk? So hypocritcal, because the first thing he does when he gets home from work is go and sit in front of the TV or a different computer screen, and what does he do for exercise, exactly? He stopped lifting weights in the basement or playing basketball with friends years prior to our high school years and hasn't done anything since, meanwhile we were dancing ballet 3-5 nights a week for 1.5-5 hours a pop and also doing marching band and then church basketball on top of maintaining straight A's in every class all the while being a slow reader who had to read every word to feel safe in learning (what if I missed something important?) But I wasn't allowed to post collaborative fiction with friends to unwind from school?)
(We didn't even mention that school for us started at 6am because we went to church-sponsored classes before the regular high school day started at 7am. And then Dad wouldn't let us go to bed until our hw was done, so that was something like 11pm at night and we still couldn't finish all of it. Teenage rebellion for us looked like going to bed EARLY (aka 11pm before hw was all done) and then getting up at 5am so we could have an hour in the day where no one was around us, where we didn't have to worry about communicating with people out to get us.)
P.S. Omg, crosswinds.net is back online???