I love you all
I have been gifted a tiny bit of VPN quota from a relative to allow me to upload my beatsaber creations. Its been the most important thing for me to put out, had found a very kind community, was known-ish in it. I spent multiple weeks working on one of the projects i had planned, it was the only thing do to daily. Since it was finished life's been nothing after nothing after nothing. Fear, stress, depression, power infrastructure might get hit, planning for loss of power, loss of water, loss of food.
Constant stream of people asking for internet in news website comments. On the verge of crying 80% of the time.
I'm not gonna buy atrociously prices VPNs, even in this state people are scamming eachother with fake VPNs.
I miss life, life's been on pause for more than a month. the best describer of life is that it's on pause, that's all.
I was never at risk for depression, my friends who were now have it and struggle with it.
I have lost weight and gained a few more white hairs tho.
I love everyone and everything, i wish to get back to life.
Will be seeing you hopefully in a better state.
-Pooya (slabs37)
edit 2026/4/14:
got connected via another paid vpn, don't think this one will last long either. i put the wrong url, because ofcourse i did...
slabs! Been thinking about you man.
I'll keep it short: How can I help with a VPN?
Don't know what access is like, what you can get on, etc. but if there's somewhere I can point my funds and get you online more, tell me. Can't do much of anything from this side of the world, but may be able to help in this small way.
hetzner is accessible! the one i'm using is vless, using snapp.ir as host, port 80, ws transport, hetzner ip ws host, and a uuid, nothing more. it would mean the world if anyone could set one up.
I already pay for two VPS servers monthly, one of which already has a VPN since my family is in Russia. I can gladly give you unlimited access to it or host a new one for you. I DM'd you the IP addresses, please check if they work for you and reply there.
Edit: unfortunately slabs told me the servers don't work for them. They also asked me to tell y'all that they're locked out again, and that they love you.
I may be willing to set this up for you. Though I am a bit in doubt about the potential legal ramifications of this should you use the proxy for less-nice activity than uploading beatsaber maps... I also don't know you nor have I read posts by you here before. So this is all just tildes-trust and because I would hope someone would do the same for me in your position.
I am not sure if you have consistent access to tildes, but if you do. Feel free to PM me with instructions of what you need (I have software / infra background, but am not familiar with the specific tools you mention and the obfuscation required for your censorship case). If you don't have consistent access, please be complete in your instructions and allow me some days to set this up before checking in again.
I dont mind paying for a VPS for a couple of months.
I have a similar concern but thinking that maybe we can get them proxies that are restricted to something like Proton's VPN service (or any other decent free VPN service)? Maybe even just a simple tildes proxy so that we can at least properly talk this with slabs?
[insert I-know-some-of-these-words-meme here]
Tildes, I call upon thee! Who can help/set this up? I'm not well versed here, but willing to put forth the funds to assist.
Stay safe on the other side of the world man. I’m glad to hear you’re still with us and doing reasonably well under the circumstances.
Serious question: have you considered trying to get out?
No country allows Iranians right now, all of them kick us out
22/4/2026 Connected via a ~500 bytes per second vpn right now that someone on github sent, i got it through email notification. Thank goodness github sents those, and allows you to reply from there.
https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/586
I really really hope gmail stays open.
Here's some more stuff i wrote down to help control my emotions.
On 18/4/2026 at night i found that github.com was completely open, from there i downloaded as many v2ray and socks5 lists as i could find
On 19/4/2026 i tested everything i downloaded, and from more than 50000, none worked, but some had ping!
So i started researching on github. I found a lot of tunneling methods written by Iranians that seemed to have been working a little while in this blackout, but no longer do.
I found a repo that was all people talking to analyse these things, from China's GFW to Iran to Russia to Pakistan and so on. I started talkings in the topic about this current blackout and found 'paqet', which seemed so absurd that i thought it unstoppable (make a non standard tcp packet from scratch, unless the firewall does a complete packet decode and inspection, it shouldn't know what it is, it's got no standard header)
That one seemed to have been working the longest, a Iranian had also come and talked there using this method weeks ago.
While doing these, researching, testing, talking, i was feeling great, how i normally felt before all of this, i had taken notice of how i was feeling and enjoyed it a lot.
I began trying to find someone to set it up for me, but then i checked the issues page aaaaaaand a Iranian guy has come there and said its stopped working. Greaaat.
In the repo someone found 'ip tunnel' which seemed to be working, he tried to set one up but it seems to require a barebones server and didn't work on DigitalOcean's VPS.
I had started to use github to download some files from the web. Using Actions to download them to a repo, then downloading them from the repo to my pc.
By the afternoon of this day, access to github was now all but blocked.
That was one way of communication, one way of getting files after so long, blocked again.
A friends friend is a college professor and has the old filtered internet that we used to have, i had been, and still am, asking him to send messages on my behalf.
The extremely kind and friendly user fxgn had been trying to help me get connected again.
When github was open i has asked my friend to send fxgn instructions on setting up paqet and that he can come talk to me directly on github.
It felt horrible writing out the next message to him to say that paqet no longer works and that i don't have access anymore.
Felt wrong to ask the friend to send that message afterwards aswell.
On 20/4/2026 After hearing the news that Iran doesn't plan to even go to the negotiations, i was filled with fear.
I tried to get connected to the internet once again, but this time trying to tunnel through the college professor.
Found a way to make a virtual lan, got him connected, then setup a socks server on his end aaaaaand
I had 10kb/s. I was ecstatic! i loaded one web page with it, then nothing else loaded, the connection was all but killed.
No matter what we tried i couldn't get connected again.
I don't know exactly how long i stared at that one web page afterwards, we had started working on this at 9ish pm, after i came out on the inward spiral of sadness staring at that one web page it was 12.
I'm writing this instead of sleeping right now.
By writing out what happened i managed to get rid of the crushing weight i was feeling, getting blocked two times after i had found something...
There was also news that VPNs are now being sold at a higher price suddenly, Guess they used to use paqet to connect aswell. I can no longer figure out what they may be using
Ey i still have access to emails tho, lets see what i can still do.
CaniballisticApple's message comes to mind right now, i had downloaded the html of the tildes topic through github when i could.
In a forum-like-place where i never saw stuff like this (fortunately) it did feel weird to be the one to write these. Guess that comes with the perk of being an Only Iranian :]
Really genuinely, thank you.
Thanks for checking in every now and then, slabs
Hey thank you for saying this <3. currently it seems a combination of proxies and VPNS works for whatever reason. a vless proxy on the first layer, psiphon connecting through that on the second layer, it is very DNS dependant. it's still around 1kb/s but that's well and truly better than nothing.
And with github open once again (atleast in Karaj, seems to be province based) i've managed to download files and stuff at a clean 1mb/s. so the internet situation is improving atleast (for me, not many people sit down and try whatever stupid combination and anything that they can think of)
I've shared this to whoever has had a urgent need, but i fear sharing it too much because it might get disconnected.
As for life, it's been going, everythings price has increased multiple times yet again, last thing i bought was a coca cola, it was 80 tomans at the beginning of the war, last time i bought it for 100, now i bought it for 120, so that might be the last time i drink that for a good while. we've stock piled up on a lot of stuff so i haven't had to buy much else lately but they have gotten many many times more expensive aswell.
Everyone's mood is down and cautious, we've been jumpy today specifically because the cease fire could end at any time, and damn it's windy today and with its sounds i've had multiple spikes of adrenaline. it really empties you out after a while.
The ISP's are firing people and seem to be low on money, people seem glad to see it this way, because who buys internet when there is none? one of them (asiatech) has even given news that "We are NOT going bankrupt" so now we all think it is going bankrupt :]
The daily dose of depression is still available in news website's comments, each day there's atleast two people who are putting comments that they are now fully out of business and have packed up and sold everything they had.
My university has told us to come back for saturday, as we have on-site learning in the hospitals these semesters, perks of having had chosen Nursing, yaaaay.
I very well expect to go, be there for a few days (maybe less) and come back after the war continues.
Atleast it'll be some travelling and seeing more sights.
Oh yeah @CannibalisticApple had recommended photographing the nature here these days. I SAW MOUNT DAMAVAND FROM QOM'S HIGHWAY MORE THAN 100KM AWAY, not even my parents had ever seen it from this far.
I'm really not a good photographer and i really feel i need before and afters to show the difference in Tehran.
The mountains around Tehran are gorgeous and no one's seen them like this in a long long time, and that's while the city had heavy traffic like always! the government always blamed it on traffic...
I have taken pictures but i i doubt they'll be useful much, i hope someone else here has catalogued the weather.
Thank you guys for being so welcoming
Hope you're going have some community and "normal" on Saturday university times. Good on you for sharing, but yeah being mindful that overshare and it'll go away kind of sucks.
What you said about Mt Damavand reminds me of this haiku by Mizuta Masahide (水田 正秀; 1657–1723) , who was also a medical practitioner
The barn having burned
Now I can see
The moon
I am so happy that this was the first thing I saw when checking Tildes today. I was literally just talking about you last night with my mom. I wish I could provide more than just moral support, but I am just happy to know you're alive. As long as you're alive, there's hope for a brighter tomorrow. I REALLY hope that tomorrow comes sooner than later.
I wonder if there's any new, smaller goal that you can make for yourself now that you've completed the beatsaber map. Even the tiniest little thing to look forward to can help people get through hard days.
Also, does anyone know a good place to share the Beatsaber map? I don't play it or know anyone with a VR headset, but I'd like to see someone playing it!
I had days where I was numbly sitting Infront of the SW radio trying to find news or something.
I got parts of my life I haven't talked about online, plans for doing a study on aphantasia, working and learning in a hospital, university classes, electronics repairs, woodworking, coding, etc, that are all on pause.
I took care of two baby chicks this past month.
Beat Saber stuff are my current excuse to go learn some new programs and make some random stuff since it's got a welcoming community.
Since I spent so much time on learning and creating stuff (in the realm of Beat Saber as i had chosen a while ago) it became the only thing i had to loose myself in.
That's my best way of handling the stresses at these times, loosing myself in something, games, books, art, anything that absorbs me.
After it was done i had two-three days of numbness, usually at these points i'd post it and get some feedback and the happiness that comes with having your creations get seen. After that the main goal of my days became finding a way to connect, and it seems right now i'm momentarily successful.
I'm thankful i joined tildes, there's such a wide range of people here but it's not swarming, i feel bad rambling about these things on tildes since it really isn't the place for them, but i need an outlet and connecting to a previously un-filtered site is much easier than say reddit or discord.
Seeing Iranians outside Iran protesting on TV genuinely gives me a warm feeling inside.
The reaching out and the 'been thinking about you' are some of the brightest highlights i've had these days, it's interesting that in the three times i've now experienced internet getting cut lately, i always feel numb for one day after getting reconnected and i get the joy and energy the day after with it lasting a good while. I never knew how important being seen was to me.
From the bottom of my heart, with the outmost gratitude I can give, thank you. I hope I can do something as amazing for you guys in return too.
Life's really interesting isn't it?
You say Tildes isn't the place for this, but what is the place for it? There's not really many dedicated spaces for venting about being caught up in a war—and even then, I'd say Tildes is absolutely the right place for it. If you were writing articles about your experience, chances are someone would link it here since it's rare to get a firsthand perspective of life in Iran right now. Seeing your experience as raw posts here on Tildes though is even more impactful.
What I love about this site is that it's a community. I love that I recognize names and can associate things like jobs and interests with them. I love that we can band together and support each other in times of need. We literally have a monthly mental health check-in thread. Even with people I barely know, who I've never interacted with, I feel a sense of connection just because we're all a part of Tildes. And even the smallest personal connection can make things feel more real. This is the type of online community that's become sadly rare.
So continue sharing your troubles, and your triumphs, and everything else! None of us are complaining, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we're always happy to see posts from you. Seriously, your other comment is pretty thought-provoking, particularly the bit about rain and how everything is so much greener. I don't know if weather control is at that level, but that feels almost like some divine sign of approval.
If you need ideas for a project, maybe you can try getting into photography (assuming you have access to cameras) or something similar to document the changes in scenery? I think most people would be trying to document daily life, so tracking the changes in nature would be fairly unique and could be a nice change of pace.
I'm glad for you and what you share, don't feel bad, you've got a perspective many of us wouldn't be hearing otherwise -- connecting with a community is why we're on Tildes specifically. I wish for peace and love to you and yours.
I already installed the map and the required mods earlier, I hope to play it soon. Tomorrow is Easter but maybe later this week.
All custom Beat Saber maps are findable directly on https://beatsaver.com/ and can be one click installed if one has the modding solution du jour. The Beat Saber modding community is extremely well organized and efficient.
@slabs37 I ended up playing it today. It's the first level in the video, ignore the rest. Great visuals! One day when things are better let me know if you want more detailed feedback. And good luck with your VPN search.
Was that your first go at the level, sight unseen? I haven't followed Beat Saber for a long time but that's impressive.
Thanks, but there's definitely room for improvement :D I did a quick check of the beginning beforehand but it was my first attempt at completing it (you can tell because there was no score on record).
This was actually my very first time using not only Vivify but even Noodle Extensions. I've tried to stick to a very barebones mod complement over the years in order to minimize the burden on my hardware and prevent lag (although to be fair, in recent years the choke point tends to be my wireless/mixed tracking setup). I guess now that I've pulled the trigger on that I should try out other Vivify maps...
Gosh, stories like yours reminds me of the early-to-early-mid days of reddit with lots of authentic positivity and genuine conversations. I'm glad you were able to access the resources you needed.
I hope you stay safe, wherever you are in Iran (I'm assuming). Hope things get better for civilians like you soon. Take care!
Take care man, let's hope this madness will soon pass.
I'm sorry things are so crap right now.
There may not be much I can do for your practical needs, but on the mental and emotional side, sending hugs.
All things are temporary. All things change. It won't be like this forever.
For whatever it may be worth, I wish you well.
I’m sorry my government is a war mongering bully. Does tor work for you?
I’m sorry my government is a war mongering bully. Does tor work for you?
I wrote this on 2026/4/5
Do not apologise for the war, it had to happen, it's Iran's government that's doing to most damage to the people.
It's out right now that it's been the governments doing to stop rain clouds and causing the droughts, so they could dig tunnels and fill them with missiles.
Since the beginning of the war, we've had the most amount of rain i've seen in my 21 years of life, and the most that my parents have seen in the last 40.
I'm seeing sceneries in Iran now that i've only seen on Youtube in Europe before, so much greenery where was dry mountains before <3.
We all have gotten this suspicion that dispersing clouds was their doing now.
In these times every single news that says something is not related or is false, has been the exact opposite.
They've put out the news that "More rain has nothing to do with weather stations getting hit" and the suspicion grows stronger...
A few of their missiles are failing to burn their fuel and are dropping from the sky after being shot back onto ourselfs and not exploding most of the time, and when they do explode on ourselfs they blame it on USA or Israel.
It's my government that I've been afraid of for most my life, police have always supported criminals more than normal people, criminals are safer and have more rights than normal civilians. It's from my government that I've always had to lie and pretend to about beliefs, that I have a second profile on my phone that's all pro-islam stuff these days.
It's this government that has been wasting God knows how much money on proxy wars and missiles and who-knows-what instead of anything for the people or infrastructure or anything.
Been filtering the Internet so that every single person in Iran uses VPNs and who knows how much money is wasted on them for the sole sake of being able to use the Internet normally.
The war is genuinely helping us in the long run, it's helping the nature here, helping the people. I'm sorry it's caused disruptions in your guys' lifes with fuel prices going up. It's my government that had a scorched earth plan and is now executing it, please keep helping, we need the help, don't go let things be unfinished.
If these guys stay our lives will be even more hell, so many more civilians will be killed and lives will worsen even more, please help.
Tor snowflake is dependant on 192.0.2.x IPs and those are blocked
I wrote this on 2026/4/8 on the morning of the cease fire.
You've doomed us. You've doomed us all!
These guys staying means every country is unsafe, they've found the achilles heel which is hormuz and they will use it.
These guys staying means they'll take out their anger on us... the citizens.
They aren't gonna spend any time and money on reconstruction, it's all gonna go towards more missiles or even trying to buy a nuke.
What i'm doing right now just writing this is essentially my death. If i post this while this government is still here and they run a check of me online i'm dead.
I'm shocked at how much price inflation has effected you guys, how much have we been handling over here? We've easily had more than 1000% increase in the past 15 years and we've adapted, how bad do we have it when so little increase in price has everyone reacting like this? :(
Okay so some strikes continued and ceasefire was ignored before even 24 hours passed, interesting.
They took a bloody school bag to the negotiation?
Media work and false news is all these guys know, bleh
2026/4/14
in the middle of the cease fire currently, went to visit some relatives in Tehran from Karaj, we passed 6 checkpoints but luckily didn't seem suspicious enough to be stopped (even checkpoints in the middle of a highway goddamnit).
On the mountain side they've put up a wall that wasn't there before... i think that's where a missile silo tunnel is.
They never did care about the people, but now they aren't even caring to look different than they are.
The people who are coming to work at the checkpoints may be people in need, they are paying them by the day, and with the internet getting cut, millions lost their income.
They may be actual people in need and not all fanatics...
All the love and strength from an internet stranger and I hope you have people to break down with.
Thanks for sharing your experience, thoughts and perspective. My life is better because of it.
Thank you <3
And if Tor doesn't work, does Snowflake work?
To anyone who wants to help but doesn't know how, you can run Snowflake on your computer and be a VPN-like entry point for users in need. You don't have to worry about someone using your connection for nefarious purposes because Snowflake routes through at least one more node before reentering the normal internet. Your IP won't show up in any logs.
I've been running Snowflake for years without issues.
Hmm that's a great idea. I'm going to look into this.
Which VPN works for you in Iran?
some hetzner IPs have ping but the old v2ray servers that were on them are gone.