31 Comments
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Cynthia White's avatar

"I am a hacker of hope" I love this.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

I'm so glad, I wasn't sure about that line!

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Cynthia White's avatar

Cat, you could write the directions for making heating soup on a stove, and it would be magical and poetic, and people everywhere would suddenly crave soup.

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Geoff Anderson's avatar

The "viral" post was a cracking great read, and the referral by the incomparable Cory Doctorow was enough to me.

I haven't upgraded to paid (yet) but will soon.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

Please take your time, I'm still figuring out what people want to see under the paywall! thank you so much, Geoff.

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Bruce Cohen's avatar

A hacker of hope you may be, but by Phoebus Apollo you are surely a hacker of words. And sentences, and paragraphs, and … I believe you took that third hit off the Hippocrene the last time you visited the Commonwealth, and all of us the better for it. There”s very little you could write that would not be interesting, if not illuminating, to a lot of people.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

What a beautiful first line that is. I blush and thank you.

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Janet Brennan Croft's avatar

Hacker of Hope … I hope you know the work of Rebecca Solnit and maybe even follow her on Facebook? Her Paradise Built in Hell is one of the most hopeful things I’ve ever read.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

I don't but I'll look into it!

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Gail Marsella's avatar

Agreed on Solnit - she is grittily observant as well as hopeful.

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Dexanth's avatar

The hope line is beautiful, joining in the chorus of others. I don't know if Hacker is the class I'd assign to myself, but Hope-Aligned?

Been saying that one for years now, so it's lovely to see the same in the wild

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

These days, I think we all have to put a few points in our hacking stats, the straightforward official system doesn't really work out of the box ;)

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Dexanth's avatar

You know, on further reflection, whatever class I'd give myself, yep. Definitely there are the hacking points already assigned.

I suppose I always just thought of them kind of as gamer-brain for me, like 'Ah, the obvious route is glitching, but if I creatively use game mechanics...who cares if the designer wouldn't approve? The game is overtuned, glitchy, and full of obvious cheaters exploiting the system to ruin it for the others'

But in the end, it does feel like different metaphor, same essential truth :)

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Andrew Wynes's avatar

Of COURSE I was glad to subscribe. Especially for crackerjack essays and the potential for Community. Thank you so much forn being Out Here fostering hope.

It has been one of my deepest regrets that I was utterly broke and unemployed when I heard about your omikuji project (on LJ, no less!).

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

Patreon is basically Omikuji without the wax seals. I wished I could have done it for free but it was so much work without something like Patreon or Substack to handle the backend...and no site could melt hundreds of wax seals every dang month...

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C. S. E. Cooney's avatar

I love this, Cat. I'm so happy for you, and for us. And for Substack! May our reach ever rise to meet your grasp.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

Miss you so much, Claire.

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Lee Meade's avatar

Recommended by Cory Doctorow. High praise indeed.

Cheers.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

It's always an honor to have Cory say one is even mostly right about a thing.

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Tamsin Davis-Langley's avatar

Thank you for this, Cat, and for remaining the awesome person and writer I’ve been following since LiveJournal. 🥰

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

It gives me so much hope that so many of us never lost each other from LJ. We may be quieter, with different usernames, but so many of us are still here.

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Lee Meade's avatar

Pleased to meet you.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

SO HAPPY TO MEET YOU LEE!

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C.Z. Tacks's avatar

Oh hey, we’re on the same continent! That almost never happens to me.

I just ate my own bodyweight in latkes and despite being after dark it’s somehow still too hot to be alive in the tropics, so I don’t have anything intelligent to add, but I really loved the essay, and I also love this post script. Growing up in rural Queensland, we didn’t really have internet access at home until... gosh, it’d have to be the 90s? I remember it being a Huge Deal when the local primary school started teaching kids about computers, and that would’ve been ‘96 or ‘97. But, though it was somewhat delayed, my experience of the internet was very much a bunch of zany little websites and forums, with absolutely no connection to each other, passed around by word of mouth... plus Neopets.

The essay was Relatable Content™️, is what I’m saying.

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

I have eaten so much Christmas dinner stuff I really need to do whatever the secular version of going to confession is. Don't hug a cassowary for me, but psychically, like...tell them I love them?

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James Ryley's avatar

Hi Cat,

In light of your essay on the wonders of old world LJ, I just wanted to say hi. We used to chat there quite a lot, back in the early 2000s when you were living in Okinawa.

Dr Klig

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Crunchysteve's avatar

Yep, hope. It's what keeps us breathing. More than food or oxygen.

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Elusis's avatar

Dreamwidth still exists! Some of us are still there!

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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

I know! It never got to the level of LJ, but it's still going and valiant and I'm proud of its resiliency.

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Dec 26, 2022
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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

So nice to see you unhidden, Lee. ;)

Keelah Se'lai, my brother.

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Dec 26, 2022
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Catherynne M. Valente's avatar

I was afraid it was flirting with cringe--so glad you liked it! It was heartfelt, as cringe often secretly is.

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