In my last column I promised I’d get to . I also asked him and politely and in writing not to interact with it. I want to report back on how that went in the same unemotional factual and unbiased way as before.

They interacted with it. That’s not really the story though. The story is that the two of them had never spoken before. Within 12 seconds of each other showing up on my page they had. Without meaning to I had built something that brings men together. I never planned to go into this line of work but the data speaks for itself.

Then I want to talk about what Toyolo did after that. Because he kept going. And today he slid into my DMs.

Who Is Toyolo

His bio is one word: “asshole.” He has 61 subscribers. When this started he had 58. That’s 40 more than Fish and Jish. He’s posted more than 100 notes since October 13. He reads Derrida and Žižek and Heidegger. He draws. He teaches a few teenagers philosophy and says they sometimes “absolutely eviscerate” him. He’s going to be Luigi for Halloween.

He describes himself well enough on his own so I’ll let him:

“i dont think people understand how smart i have to be, in order to achieve the stupidity i so proudly display.”

PART ONE: THE NIGHT THEY MET

OCT 11:

7:38PM: I publish my first column.

1 hour 5 minutes and 51 seconds later at 8:44PM Toyolo comments:

“Stuff like this is why I asked if you’re in highschool. Why was I even tagged in this?” I tagged him because the article was about him. I’ll accept this as a fair question.

7 minutes and 43 seconds later at 8:52:09PM Fish and Jish posts a comment of about 300 words:

It ends with “go fuck yourself” and a promise to “absolutely restack this post on how much of a cope it is.”

12 seconds later at 8:52:21PM Fish and Jish replies to Toyolo:

“bro, this is pathetic, right? Haha”

This is the first recorded contact between the two men. Fish had just finished writing 300 words to me. His very next move 12 seconds later was to turn to the stranger next to him and ask if he was seeing this too. Toyolo never answered him.

4 minutes and 39 seconds later at 8:57PM I ask both of them again not to interact with my article. 10 seconds after that Fish restacks it to his own feed and tags his friends and . He calls it an “absolute crash out”:

He promised he’d restack it and he did it 5 minutes later. I respect a man who keeps his word.

At 9:09PM Toyolo replies to my request not to interact:

“Eat my shorts.”

At 9:22PM Fish posts a note about me to The Stern Golem. In it he says he won’t tag me “because I don’t want anything to do with him either.”

Please keep that sentence in mind.

At 9:32PM Toyolo restacks the article with a drawing:

It’s a pen drawing on a yellow notepad of Bart Simpson pulling his pants down. It says “Dear Theo, Eat my shorts dude” and it’s signed “♡ Toy xoxo.” He actually sat down and drew this. He set the pen next to it for the photo. I’ve decided to see it as a gift. It’s the most engaged thing either of them posted about me with 4 likes and 3 restacks.

OCT 12:

At 4:50AM Fish says he’s “tempted to make a counter article tagging him, to say how pathetic his victim complex is, and see how he likes it.”

This is not wanting anything to do with me 7 hours and 28 minutes in.

13 hours 19 minutes and 47 seconds after Toyolo posted his drawing at 10:52AM Fish finds it and quote restacks it:

“Haha, you and I both after this Theo guy did this bullshit 😂”

You and I both. This is the second time Fish reached out to Toyolo. The first time he asked if Toyolo was seeing what he was seeing. This time he’s saying they’ve been through something together. In a way they have. I put them through it.

1 minute and 4 seconds later at 10:53AM Toyolo posts a poem and asks for critique:

I don’t know if these two things are related. I just think it’s worth noting that the poem went up 64 seconds after someone told him “you and I both.”

54 minutes and 25 seconds later at 11:46AM Toyolo replies to Fish for the first time:

He says he went through my stuff and thinks I’m “a lil touched by God if you know what I mean.” He says he’s “probably going to try and just avoid the poor guy.” He calls my whole circle “less than mid” and “very pathetic. The lot of them.”

It took 14 hours and 54 minutes from Fish’s first “bro this is pathetic right?” but Toyolo finally answered. And he used the word pathetic. Fish had already used it four times since the night before. They now share a vocabulary.

12 minutes and 30 seconds after saying he’d avoid the poor guy at 11:59AM Toyolo posts almost 200 words on my article:

He tells me to walk away and block him. He calls my work slop that belongs in a SkyMall catalog between an air fryer and a heated foot massager. He offers to teach me how to read philosophy and “how to put a sentence down so it stays down.” He also says “If you need somebody to talk to, I’ll listen, and I mean that.” I believe he does. I also want to point out this was 66 minutes after he asked strangers to critique his poem.

At 1:35PM I restack Toyolo’s Bart Simpson drawing:

“wtf this is awesome !” I meant it. It’s a good drawing.

At 3:24PM Fish replies to me in my own comments:

He says he’s not sure why this got out of control. He says he genuinely wanted to talk about belief vs non belief and respected that believing is comforting for me. He says he’s “always up for a normal discussion otherwise.” I want to say on the record this was kind and I appreciate it.

2 minutes and 29 seconds later at 3:26PM Fish replies to Toyolo’s comment:

“Thank you, exactly!”

This is Fish’s third attempt to connect with Toyolo and his most open one. “Thank you exactly” is what you say when someone finally puts into words what you’ve been feeling.

Toyolo has not replied. As of this writing it has been 9 days 2 hours and 21 minutes.

To be fair I should include what Tamara Ageeva said in my comments:

“you did write a whole Substack article on an online exchange you had with those two and then you TAGGED them.. of course they’d reply, why not?” She has a point. I tagged them and they came. I just didn’t expect them to see each other when they got here.

PART TWO: AFTER

The friendship didn’t happen. Toyolo moved on. He was looking for something else.

OCT 13:

9:14PM:

“I’m dying to fight someone, but there really are no good arguments on the Internet worth contending with. BABYWORLD truly is erasing singularities left and right as it encroaches.”

Please remember the word babyworld. It comes back.

OCT 14:

10:36PM:

“Genuinely as rude and cruel as I’m found to be, I’m a very good teacher. If you want to learn philosophy I promise I’m happy to help.”

This is the second time he offered to teach. The first time it was to me in my own comments.

OCT 17:

5:16PM he tags my co-host:

“@Nikki Kirigin wanna debate that hegalian logic leads to worse lovers?”

I’m not going to speak for on this.

OCT 20:

From 9:25AM to 9:49AM Toyolo posts at least 5 notes about a writer named Corey Q. That’s 24 minutes.

He calls Corey “dogwater.” He says Corey’s writing “seems to always be about highschool level.” That’s the same thing he said to me. He also writes “I have been waiting to be mean to Corey since I first read his page.” At 9:49AM he posts a screenshot to prove he already thought Corey was a moron before Corey said anything bad about his work.

I respect the paperwork. I also have a timeline. We are both men who keep receipts.

In between those he posts this:

“I love the genre of men on this app that is both sensitive, talentless, and opinionated.”

I don’t know if this is about Corey or me or both of us. I’m choosing to believe it’s about Corey.

OCT 21:

11:43AM he posts a drawing and writes “I fucking suck.” One minute later he says he can’t draw a pumpkin: “Orbs are killing me lately.”

I disagree. I’ve seen his Bart Simpson.

2:00PM the police and the Secret Service and a health inspector all flash their badges at him for separate unrelated reasons. At 2:07PM a building inspector shows up too.

“HOW MANY OFFICERS OF THE STATE MUST I TEND TO THIS MORNING?”

I’m only reporting what he said.

3:18PM he restacks the newest episode of my podcast Bad Infinity:

“This is genuinely the limit of hegelianism. Nothing can be lost, no one can bleed, it’s babyworld.”

There it is. Babyworld. Seven days and 18 hours after he said he was dying to fight someone and couldn’t find a worthy argument he found one. It was my podcast.

About 2 minutes later at 3:21PM he slides into my DMs.

The DMs

He had already messaged me once before this. I don’t have the date. Here’s what he said:

“If you get around to writing my piece, people like and absolutely hate me. Would possibly be free fuel. I get around so finding people online who have stories about hating me are neither few or far between. If you want to try a path of amicability however, I’m happy to talk to you about philosophy in ways that help elucidate my gripes. There is no necessity in disliking each other. If you choose to fight tho, and I do truly love to, please give me a good one. Don’t make it boring. Make sure there’s fruit on the tree if we are to climb it.”

I replied 😂

Then today at 3:21PM:

Toyolo: Can you do me a favor before you write about me
Me: Yeah bro anything
Toyolo: I’ve promised a few people I will work on only accepting good fights for the time being. I need you to take a few steps to ensure it’s good
Me: Ok bro let me know the steps
Toyolo: I’m assuming like the first one your going to go through what has been said, and where yes?
Me: Yes I will be using data analysis technique and summarization like prior sir
Toyolo: Ok so make sure to partition argument from vague. Bc when it’s vague, you will leave yourself open to rejoinder. I admittedly have not done a substantial job at explaining the reasons behind my choices of jab, but if you focus on these, it will be a waste of everyone’s time. Perhaps as small tidbits. Also, could you give a read to the essay I told Nikki to read
Me: Sure link me bro
Me: we are open to what we allow sir I of course will be as specific as the ai will allow for, as in time stamps and elapses
Toyolo: Oh idc about that, perhaps if you’re using ai, ask it to map out my argument or what it could be before you document. Most of my critique of you will amount to laziness or sloppy scholarship trying to make something of itself
Toyolo: It is painful to talk to people who identify as “hegalian” bc nothing gets “spent”
Me: Ok! I can give u a preview of it
Toyolo: Another thing. Please be mindful of your usage of lolcow. You leave yourself open substantial with this as it’s asymmetrical
Toyolo: Interesting I see I see

He asked for steps and I followed them. He said to separate argument from vague. So his argument is in one section below and his jabs are in another. He said to have the AI map out his argument before I document it. I did that too. I want this to be a good fight. I don’t want it to be boring.

His Argument (mapped as asked)

The essay he told Nikki to read is Derrida’s “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve.” It’s in Derrida’s book Writing and Difference. It’s about Georges Bataille reading Hegel.

Here’s his argument as best I can lay it out:

1. In Hegel everything negative gets taken back up into something higher. A loss becomes a lesson. A contradiction becomes a synthesis. Nothing is wasted. Bataille calls this a restricted economy. Everything spent comes back as profit.

2. Bataille says real life has pure loss in it too. Laughter and sex and sacrifice and death don’t pay you back. Bataille calls this the general economy. Some things are just spent.

3. If you think like a Hegelian every fight is just a step toward a synthesis. You can never really lose so you can never really be hurt. That’s what Toyolo means by babyworld. “Nothing can be lost, no one can bleed.”

4. That’s why he says it’s painful to talk to Hegelians. Nothing gets spent. You can’t have a real fight with someone who turns every hit into material.

5. Applied to me: I’m a guy who takes every mean thing someone says to me and turns it into a column. That’s restricted economy. I spend nothing and turn everything into content. On top of that he thinks I’m lazy and my scholarship is sloppy.

I think that’s a fair map. Toyolo can tell me if I got it wrong. He knows where my comments are.

His Jabs (small tidbits as requested)

• I might be in high school.

• Eat my shorts. Also in drawing form.

• My work is slop and belongs in a SkyMall catalog between an air fryer and a heated foot massager.

• I may not have more than one neuron firing.

• I’m “a lil touched by God if you know what I mean.”

• My whole circle is “less than mid.” “The lot of them.”

• My podcast is babyworld.

By the Numbers

The night they met (Oct 11–12)

Metric Fish and Jish Toyolo Comments on my column 7 3 Restacks of my column 1 1 (with original art) Times he reached out to the other 3 1 Uses of the word “pathetic” 4 1 Times he said he’d avoid me 1 1 Times he came back after saying that 4 1 Fastest return after saying it — 12m 30s Poems posted for critique 0 1

After (Oct 13–21)

Metric Toyolo Subscribers 58 → 61 Notes posted 100+ Times he’s offered to teach me or anyone 3 Uses of “babyworld” 2 Time from “dying to fight someone” to calling my podcast babyworld 7 days 18 hours Time from that restack to DMing me about 2 minutes Writers he’s said write at a “highschool level” 2 (me and Corey) Officers of the state encountered this morning 4 Drawings of Bart Simpson made for me 1 Days Fish and Jish has waited for a reply 9

• Total comments on my first column: 20

• Requests I made not to interact: 3

• Strangers who showed up to call me a slur: 1 (reported 👍)

• Strangers who came to say “Brave ✊”: 1 (thank you)

• Nikki: “This is so funny I’m still laughing”

Conclusion

Toyolo says nothing gets spent with me. I’m not sure that’s true. I spent a whole weekend on Fish and Jish. I spent most of today on this. I fell asleep on my couch under a blanket from Greece and woke up to a man winking at me about the afterlife. I have bled a little. Just not where he could see it.

He might be right that I turn everything into something though. I’m a writer. That’s sort of the job.

Toyolo you asked for fruit on the tree. Here’s the tree. You’re welcome to climb it.

Fish and Jish is still waiting on you btw. Fish I accept your offer of a normal discussion. I’ll get back to you on the hearts thing.

Until Upsetting Person Number 3.

alt lit’s enigmatic pretty boy

a brief history of electric cereal, and every email i’m embarrassed i sent it

if you were anywhere near alt lit facebook in 2014 you probably clicked on electric cereal at least once. luis silva started it in march 2013 as a site for fiction, essays, poetry and “lit videos.” the whole idea was publishing everyone the big alt lit sites ignored. he said this pretty openly in an htmlgiant interview with alexandra naughton: the scene acted like anyone could join, but really only paid attention to a handful of people, so the ignored people started sending their stuff to him. i was one of the ignored people.

i have proof. in september 2013 steve roggenbuck opened applications for boost house, a house in maine where a few people would live together, work on his stuff, eat vegan and stay sober. i applied. under financial skills i wrote “i feel like i would be good at financial stuff i have no experience in it,” and a couple questions later, “im awful with budgets im running out of money by the second here in brooklyn.” asked about my social media strategy, i said “ppl liked when i tweeted at spencer madsen for a while and now im pretending to be tao lin.” asked about literature, i said all my ebooks took “a couple mins if not a couple seconds to read bc fuck long things.” asked about alt lit, i said “i used to think it was cool… its turning into a nothing thing, i wish ppl cared.” asked about activism: “ive done no actvism, ive argued on ppl on utube about 9/11 before tho.” asked what skills i’d bring: “no i cant think of anything im good at but i dont mind cleaning at all.” asked what furniture or appliances i could contribute to the house: “i have a toaster.” and asked if i had any concerns: “a lil worried about how big of a canadian population i hear is in maine.”

steve wrote back four days later. three spots, about thirty applicants, “i dident choose u for the first ppl of boost house :( im sory.” he offered to explain why if i wanted. i wrote back “its cool insstead of asking why i wasnt chosen can i ask if there was anyone i know that u picked jw <3.”

june 19, 2014, i sent luis four google docs with the line “i wont tell u which one metazen accepted.” the next day he wrote back, very professional, “Sincerely, Luis Silva.” he wanted three of the four: “the secret to the perfect something,” “GIF,” and “I Played CS 1.6 All Night And Then Things Got Interesting.” he scheduled them out like a real magazine and told me to make sure metazen was ok with me withdrawing. that was luis, he published almost everything i sent him. by the next year my bio said i had five stories in electric cereal.

that august they set up an interview for me. beach sloth wrote the questions, luis ran the site. this was the most important thing that had ever happened to me, so i spent from midnight to 4:30am on facebook messenger trying to get luis to put “pretty boy” in the headline. i pitched “electric cereal poster boy theo thimo.” i pitched “theo thimo the prolific alt lit enigma.” i offered to pay a friend for a photoshoot “where i look good looking.” i explained that pretty boy “is a term that has evolved to different standards” and now means “an up and coming young talented person to be on the look out for.” i said it was self aware, edgy, anti establishment. i asked if “not what alt lit needs but what they deserve” was the batman quote. at 2:49am i wrote “do not ignore me / this is important business.” he said no about thirty times, then “im saving you from yourself,” then “ok later.”

somewhere in the middle of that, at 4:08am, i sent him my actual answers. the first question was about being close to my fans online but far away in real life, and my answer started “thank u so much and great great question, i have so much respect for u and for electric cereal, what a great publication and I’m so proud to be a part of it.” luis quoted that line back to me in the chat with “lol.” when beach sloth asked if i was pro or anti tupperware, i said i thought he’d said “tupperwave” and it was a new music genre, and that i couldn’t support tupperware “until after i look up what charities they donate to.” when he asked how people can overcome loneliness, i said “the loneliness is real and it can not be overcome.”

i forwarded the whole chat to paul rizza with the subject line “*sigh* this is what i get for submitting to presses!!!” paul said “im on ur side.”

two nights later i was back at 3:45am with a selfie for the article, “i look good in it but not pretty boy cute.” luis asked if i was wearing makeup. i said “maybe u believe my tang top is something sexy but it is just simple house attire / do not project ur beliefs on my unbiased photo of me.” then i sent him my cat’s butt by accident and he turned off chat. i forwarded that one to paul too: “meanwhile, Theo continues his efforts in taking complete control over electric cereal.”

the interview ran as “Beach Sloth enters the mind of Theo Thimo.” luis won.

in march 2015 an intern at a literary nonprofit called tethered by letters emailed shabby doll house looking for me. she wanted me for their new journal, F(r)iction, and said my “engaging and offbeat style” was exactly what they were looking for. the problem was that while i was “on pretty much every social media site that’s ever been conceived,” she couldn’t find my email anywhere. lucy forwarded it to me with “lol / hi theo.” i wrote hannah back within minutes: “here i am always eager to collab :) what do u have in mind?? i love trying new stuff, experimentin, etc. u kno the whole creativity thing / the weather is so nice here today.” then i forwarded my reply to lucy, fourteen seconds later. then i forwarded the original email to luis, without a single word of my own. obviously.

ten days later hannah said they’d love for me to submit, or i could write a blog post about my experiences publishing, since their community “loves to hear from more established writers.” i answered from my phone: “I’m emailing u on my phone! I’m doing social activities rn!” then i pitched her the electric cereal model. i said a format i’d been working with, “that has gained a bunch of attention to both me and the site I’ve done it w,” was getting an interview to run alongside my story. i said “it’s important that I tie my work along w my personal image,” that it would show her site treating submitters with extra attention, and that it would feel supportive of writing communities “to my fanbase :).” i also mentioned i had a novella coming out soon. she said that sounded nice, their publication director would be in touch, and then: “Top tip: I think he’ll like the word ‘fanbase.’” [did the publication director ever email you? did anything run?]

that winter i wrote “Tweeeeet Tweeet Tweeeet.” it was morning, i was high and on my second coffee, and i wrote the whole thing in one take. no edits, didn’t go back and change a word. it’s still one of the best writing experiences i’ve ever had, it honestly felt like i was being divinely inspired, like i was just taking dictation. afterwards i had this strange afterglow for hours. i went outside and stood on the frozen lake in front of my house and just looked up at the white noon sky and let the grey snow fall on me. i sent it to luis and he put it up on electric cereal the same day.

back in september 2012, before any of this, my friend peter had been emailing me photos of spencer madsen with subject lines like “vintage spencer photo (rare).” i wrote back “omg omg this picture omg lol omg rofl omg i cant omg.” peter told me he’d bought spencer the shirt in the photo, “i’m doing this to feed your obsession.” i asked him “How much does spencer madsen lift?” and he said he’d find out next time he saw him.

so in june 2015 when spencer himself emailed me the electric cereal link, “i’d probably publish a book of things like this,” i lost it. he said he was open to it including “non-genre things like tweets/emails/texts/thoughts/ideas/lists.” i was camping in the redwoods with no reception, so i made the people i was with drive me into the nearest town so i could answer him. they were not happy with me but idc. my reply started “spencer, I am extremely interested,” and then for some reason i told him my whole trip. i said i always thought places in america without reception were just a horror movie trope. i told him that earlier i’d walked up the river alone for two hours looking for “real nature,” until a park ranger found me and said “u can’t be down here,” and all i could say back was “but this is nature.” i said “this will all I’ll be thinking about probably, so I guess this vacation is over for me.” he wrote back that he couldn’t promise anything, “i’ve backed out several times before,” but to send him a 90+ page manuscript, measured “when sized down to 5.5x8.5”,” and he’d seriously consider it. then he signed off with “have fun on the west coast dude / its way better out there.”

i didn’t send it. not that summer, not that year. almost three years later, april 2018, i finally emailed him a google doc called STD, Working Order with the subject line “apologies in advance.” the first line was “i’m sending this email mostly to feel I am doing something w regards to my life.” i wrote “i can’t think of a way to preface this in any honest way to gain your interest” and asked if sorry house would want to publish a book with me at some point. he answered in an hour and a half: sorry house was very uncertain, he was working two jobs, he probably wouldn’t publish anything for at least a year, and “i might close up sorry house indefinitely.” i thanked him for his “continued presence in my life’s periphery <3.”

meanwhile electric cereal was turning into a press. sara sutterlin’s baveuse went up for preorder in fall 2015, and that december luis was sending me interview material about it to place at alt citizen. luis was translating luna miguel on the side too. it really looked like it was all going somewhere.

then [what happened: which books people paid for and never got, roughly when luis stopped answering and went MIA from the scene, how you found out, etc.].

today electriccereal.com is an australian blog about where to buy CPAP accessories. it has articles called “CPAP 101: Snore-No-More?” and “Zzzs Aplenty: Top CPAP Machines for OSA Relief!” no beach sloth, no pretty boy, nothing. just sleep apnea machines.

Notes:

• I left out the feminism answer from your Boost House application. It doesn’t fit the funny tone and could pull the piece somewhere else. It’s yours to add if you want it.

• Before you publish: you’re quoting private emails from Luis, Spencer, Steve, Hannah, Peter and Paul. Short quotes are common in this kind of piece, but some people might appreciate a heads up.

I can put this in a doc if you want to edit it there before pasting into Substack.

Sources:

• HTMLGiant – Alt Lit Diaspora with Luis Silva

• electriccereal.com (now)

• Your Tumblr (five stories bio)

• Electric Cereal sidebar (interview title)

Upsetting Person Number 1: “Fish And Jish”

is a small, history-focused writer, probably Australian. He started his Substack, “Fish’s Substack,” in January 2025 and has about 18 subscribers. His bio describes it as a humanities blog meant to be better than campus magazines, which he sees as lazy and biased.

Most of his posts are history and heritage: empires and how they end, the World’s Fair, monuments, historical atlases, Kosovo, a recurring “Why History Matters” series, and obscure topics like Croatia’s alleged colonial empire or a tiny Chinese island once held by a dozen countries. He also writes some pop-culture analysis (Goldeneye, Mission Impossible’s AI villain, the Backrooms) and does occasional monologue podcast episodes.

He sometimes writes opinion pieces and rants: one on Gen Z toxicity, the “regressive left,” and LGBT cliques, written as an ally; one on counterproductive anti-terror policy; and a personal piece on the Bondi attack, written as a local. His recent Notes are in the same vein, complaining about Taylor Swift and influencers griping about men, and arguing that Anglo culture is puritanical about sex and nudity but fine with violence.

The Timeline

OCT 10:
1:51PM: made the Substack equivalent of a quote tweet about how most people get stuck being passive to her response to one of ‘s essays. They have the dream and the potential and never act on it, and she said that’s what separates people who get what they want from people who don’t.

2:51PM: I reply saying true contentment comes from worshiping Allah.

8 hours later, at 10:50PM, user replies with the assertions that slaves should never feel content, esp with the sole purpose to do nothing but that:

I was taken aback someone would speak to me like this online. I have not communicated with Fish and Jish prior to this interaction and his introduction to me was startling. My cortisol raised at the tone of his message. I wondered if his use of the word slave could mean he was familiar with Islam to an extent as it’s a common translation akin to servant of god. For a brief moment, I thought of explaining that you should feel content being a slave to Allah. Logically if you believe he is the lord of the worlds, the most compassionate, most merciful, creator of you, and master of the day of judgement, and if you believe as the Quran, as well as really I believe anyone who has experience with human nature, that humans are weak and feeble creatures, why wouldn’t you feel pride in worshiping and connecting to your creator? I don’t know, there’s so many more reasons why it’s okay to surrender your life to something greater than you, and I believe we end up sacrificing our lives for something else whether we believe or don’t believe. It’s as if there’s something wired in us to worship.

I replied 55 seconds later, at 10:51PM:

1 minute and 34 seconds later, at 10:52PM, he replies:

Fish and Jish, at this point, was really beginning to bother me. And, I was very hurt and was beginning to feel sad that he was speaking to me like this. I felt misunderstood and intellectually challenged and underesterimated. There was things that Fish and Jish was saying that made me bothered and made me feel like I needed to reply to set the record straight. I began to wonder if he was speaking to me in good faith.

3 minutes and 42 seconds later, at 10:56PM, I replied:

If he really wasn’t a slave to his desires, he should be able to walk away from them. I wanted to see if he believed what he was saying.

58 seconds later, at 10:57PM, he replied:

He said his desires aren’t chains for him, that they’re what make us human, and asked why I’d want to strip that away to be a slave to God forever.

1 minute and 9 seconds later, at 10:58PM, I replied:

3 minutes and 44 seconds later, at 11:02PM, he replied:

He explained the difference between desire and addiction, not understanding that they are, like all things in the world, one and the same. then argued that worship is the actual addiction, which he is right about but not in the way he thinks he is. Then tries to hurt my feelings with checkmark emojis next to each self defined symptom of addiction he can remember. Then he brought up rape as an example of a desire he doesn’t act on, which I simply only find to be interesting and nothing else.

5 minutes and 1 second later, at 11:07PM, I replied:

I tried to sound hard here.

20 minutes and 45 seconds later, at 11:28PM, he replied:

This was the longest he took to reply all night. He described heaven as an insipid place with no purpose where you’re not yourself anymore, like a junkie’s high, worshiping a narcissistic God forever. By now he’d called God totalitarian, monstrous, and narcissistic. I didn’t think anything I said would get through.

13 minutes and 4 seconds later, at 11:41PM, I posted Quran 6:109–111 as a response:

OCT 11:

1 hour and 27 minutes later, at 1:07AM, Fish and Jish quote-posted my note to his own feed:

He made our public exchange public. At this moment he began his pursuit in objectifying me and turning me into an object to be objectified by others. He changed my tense into the third person and without my consent like he was desecrating my remains. He is trying to turn our unique exchange and online interaction into a “everytime this happens just goes to show that it happens everytime” moment, like he just saw some crazy stereotype in real life that proves stereotypes are real. He wrote that arguments with theists always end with them regurgitating irrelevant scripture, and that we were never discussing the existence of God. I mean, you literally said, “at no point were we discussing the existence of god,” and in the same thread he says he’d rather see in order to believe, but okay. Like, is it really irrelevant? I don’t know what irrelevant even means to be honest, especially in this context.

1 minute and 54 seconds later, at 1:09AM, he replied to his own post:

He added that calling yourself a slave to God is not a virtue, and that it’s “cucked.” I don’t think you can be cucked by god because he does not need to covet. He simply says “be” and it is.

I didn’t respond for almost six hours. At 6:55AM, I replied:

I had just woken up and the sun was beginning to rise. I was feeling surprisingly well rested after falling asleep on my couch under a very thick blanket from Greece, and the sun from the window was a deep neutral orange.

51 minutes and 31 seconds later, at 7:47AM, he replied:

He said he’s not the one treating life like a slog test to get to eternal worship, “so right back at ya ;)”. With a winky face. At 7:47 in the morning. I was being winked at about the afterlife before 8AM.

1 minute and 52 seconds later, at 7:49AM, I replied:

I was inspired by Louis’s poetry with this reply.

5 minutes and 2 seconds later, at 7:54AM, he replied:

This was the nicest thing he said to me the entire time, and I’d like to thank him for it. Then he said it still wasn’t relevant, which, again, I don’t know what relevant means anymore. Everything is relevant is relevant, bro. Prove to me it’s not relevant, bro. I am being rhetorical too, bro. Don’t reply to this article, bro. Thanks, just give it a like and restack. Thanks, bro.

3 hours and 57 minutes later, at 11:51AM, I replied:

This is from the Quran too (22:46), which I didn’t mention at the time, so I guess technically I regurgitated scripture again.

6 hours and 13 minutes later, at 6:04PM, he replied:

I haven’t replied yet… I don’t really have it in me. I have come to accept Fish and Jish and hope he can be okay with me being on this site without upsetting or offending each other. I have already burnt too many bridges on X and am looking for a safe space to maybe share opinions or funny pictures I find online. Fish and Jish, I kindly ask you to respect my page by not commenting or restacking this article.

Upsetting Person #2: Toyolo

is a substack user who was… I actually don’t want to work on this article anymore, and the last one took way too much time to write even though I started using AI to help me near the end of it. But I will get to this Toyola guy, who left me a couple of even meaner comments if you can believe it but I honestly just brushed this guy off, he is sort of just a jerk for no reason, so that’s a sneak peak if you guys enjoy this new column. But, also I might delete it too but if depends if you guys like it or not. <3 thanks for reading. Toyolo, i have the same request for you as I did fish and jish, please dont interact with these articles about you. You’ll only be digging yourself into a deeper hole anyway. ANywways, peace.