#hack the system for evil

[agottamndelight]

I am 1000% anti AI EXCEPT in the instance of random Google docs autocorrect all "cr" words to Crowley. Because Google bought tumblr.com. It would be a sign. It would be life imitating art. *edit, it would earn crowley a commendation in hell for AI.* It would be a raspberry in they eye of every rich asshole who dropped money on AI for evil purposes (ie, stealing money from artists). it would be really annoying for citizens of Crowley, and the members of Crowley Clearwater Revival, biologists and school children writing about the animal Crowley, and people trying to find Crowley Cookies, but sacrifices have to be made.

[happypeachsludgeflower]

So, in PIDW, there was obviously wife plots that could bring back the dead (mushroom body being one of them), and since we know Airplane is a hack that reuses concepts over and over, there’s probably multiple wife plots that could work, so like, where’s the PIDW fics where Liu Qingge somehow comes back to life, memories of Shen Jiu trying to save him intact, and goes to hunt the asshole down so he can repay his life debt, and along the way accidentally clears Shen Jiu’s name of all his crimes and now everyone is convinced Shen Qingqiu is a saint.

[away-ward]

In looking up something for the Christiane post, I came across the scene where Alex and Damon are trading the flash drive and it's so gross. Like, surely Alex must be making enough money to turn away jobs, so why would she accept a job that requires her to sleep with Michael's father to get information for Damon, who is supposedly their enemy at the moment? Is he paying her that much?

[anexor]

I keep thinking about Hacknet again and ough. This game gets to me.

[polyhexian]

The thing is that any time a mascot horror is like "and then they made this terrifying toy that turned evil" or "look at this theme park and also it was evil" and you're like no one would actually have ever genuinely made a toy that terrifying, that's stupid. There's always something crazier in real life. Like walt Disney genuinely wanted to build an entire city under a giant dome where he controlled even what appliances people used in their homes. Disney DOES have an entire "city" of underground tunnels under one of the parks. They made SO many baby dolls who's entire function was being able to cry. There's a doll made to eat that had actual gears in it that genuinely chopped up kids fingers and put them in the hospital. Transformers made toys who's entire gimmick is that they can make sparks like a lighter and they did in fact set things on fire. The Shrek McDonald's glasses had lead in them. Kids chemistry kits used to come with uranium. VTech made a toy that secretly and illegally collected data from 6+ million children and that system got hacked. You used to be able to go to McDonald's in neopets. An episode of Pokemon caused hundreds of children to have seizures in Japan. Honestly whatever fucked up thing you put in your mascot horror game, there's probably something more insane that happened in real life, but the real thing is equally as unbelievable. it breaks immersion in, like, real life. "Really? This company released a toy that ended up killing a bunch of children and they paid people off to cover it up? Sure" that's happened in real life like, several times

[psychotrenny]

I think one of Imperialism's most evil strategies is the national scale torture you'll see inflicted on countries that dare to dream of freedom. Like it's not just about overthrowing the anti-imperialist regime itself, but utterly breaking the very social, economic and in turn psychological foundations it's built upon. Prolonged periods of destruction that are as systematic as they are sadistic with the aim of making life unlivable until the government either collapses or gives in, accepting whatever concessions are forced upon them as the nation is remoulded into an dependent and obedient little neocolony.

Sometimes an imperialist power will act directly to achieve this (just take the gratuitous and deliberate destruction of civil infrastructure during the bombings of Yugoslavia and Iraq), but the preferred strategy is to employ local proxies. Groups like RENAMO in Mozambique or the Contras of Nicaragua. Bands of reactionaries, traitors and general desperadoes are gathered up, trained, armed and transported over the border at the expense of the Imperialists and their local collaborators. These armed groups have no interest in build mass support, of representing an alternative way of life. Their only purpose is destruction; killing, torturing, looting, burning whatever they can in order to bring their country to its knees. Frequently targeting important nodes in the networks that sustain the nation and the people's faith in it (bridges, rail depots, factories, hospitals and schools) but ultimately happy to attack whatever they can; every house burned or person tortured contributes to the climate of terror and corrosion of government credibility. Because when they kill these groups don't like to do it cleanly; their attacks generate countless reports immolation, disembowelment, victims hacked to pieces and left to bleed. But when possible they prefer to leave their victims alive and capable of further spreading their terror, inflicting the most vicious sorts of rape and mutilation on a mass scale

It's not just just evil for the sake of evil mind you. The cruelty has a point; human destruction to accompany the physical. Every person killed is someone who can no longer contribute to the development of the nation, while even living yet physically and psychologically broken victim places further strain on their country's increasingly fragile support systems. Meanwhile the terror of these actions spreads the impact beyond their immediate victims. The murder and torture of peasants makes the survivors too scared to go back into their fields, slowly starving the nation as the rural economy grind to a halt. The gruesome deaths of traders and travelers leaves the survivors too terrified to continue their business, shutting down the distributive networks that make national development and often life itself possible. The terror unleashed on foreign professionals can prompt the survivors to flee and discourage newcomers from arriving, depriving the underdeveloped economic and education systems of the skilled workers they need to improve or even function. And every broken body, ever broken mind, is proof of the government's weakness and ineptitude; a humiliating failure to protect their own people that demoralises supporters and empowers dissenters. The motivated sadism of these terrorist attacks is a microcosm of the motivated sadism displayed by their Imperialist backers

But why go to all this trouble? Why not just send in the paratroopers or organise a coup to end those troublesome regimes quickly? Sometimes it's a matter of possibility. As great as they are, the powers of Imperialist nations are not unlimited. All manner of constraints (domestic unrest, international condemnation which advantages dangerous rivals, the simple financial and human costs of such operations) limit what actions are viable or desirable. This is especially significant when the targets are motivated and disciplined anti-imperialists with a base of deep-rooted popular support, the sort of regime that won't go down to a simple commando raid or bribe to the right general. But sometimes, it's not enough to merely cut down a dissenting government; you have to salt the earth and make sure nothing similar ever grows back. I'll finish with the words of an anonymous Jesuit priest, talking about Nicaragua yet in terms widely relevant enough to be published in John Saul's conclusion to A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique (1985):

In Chile the Americans made a mistake. They cut off the revolution too abruptly. They killed the revolution but, as we can see from recent developments there, they didn't kill the dream. In Nicaragua, they're trying to kill the dream

[vintagerpg]

Black Sword Hack: Ultimate Chaos Edition (2023) is a beautiful little system derived from David Black’s Black Hack of D&D. The obvious literary touchstone is Elric and Moorcock’s larger cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos. There are many other clear influences, though — Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, Lankhmar, Kane, Poul Anderson. I suspect that is Jirel of Joiry on the back cover, flanked by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Perhaps they’re a trio of entirely different people — Goran Gligovic’s art vibrates on strange frequencies, as if you’re looking at archetypes from a parallel universe.

The core systems work essentially as they do in Black Hack, so I won’t go into them here. The additions contribute to the doomful atmosphere. These amount to a set of different sorts of pacts — demons, evil swords, fairies, and so on. There are a varieties of powers to draw on and be consumed by.

The rest of the book is given over, mostly, to tools for collaboratively creating a world and a central city for players to inhabit, explore and, eventually, ruin and destroy. Goes with the territory, really. A couple scenarios round things out. A fantastic appendix lays out a method to create adventures using your favorite paperback fantasy novel.

Black Sword Hack touches on many of the same themes as Chaosium’s Stormbringer, but in a more minimal, smoother sort of way. It’s more direct, really. It’s also its own thing, and every game is unique, thanks to the world generation. I’m keen to see it develop further.

[zylev-blog]

Tucker dug himself in quite a deep hole.

At first, it started because he was bored. He also wanted to test his skills in tech, since he was trained by Technus to use technology in a way nobody living could even do. He first did some simple probing, learning about the system that Batman used and learned how to keep his tracks hidden. He honestly thought breaking into the White House or NASA would be harder than breaking into Batman’s files, but it wasn’t. Everything was absurdly easy to get to. He could see the workarounds in the code just as easily as he could breathe.

Once he learned how to erase his tracks completely, he started with basic knowledge from Batman’s system. Over the course of a month, he read all the police reports, hero and villain reports, and the contingency plans that Batman had. Boy was Batman a paranoid man.

Then he delved deeper. He learned everything there was to know from over a decade of vigilante work. Then he used the Batcomputer (he had found out that it was actually called that from Nightwing himself. He had camera access, of course he was going to spy on the bats.) to hack into the Justice League system. He had to stop the manic chuckle that threatened to spill past his lips. He was just like the ghosts in a way that he loved to indulge his obsessions. And stalking vigilantes had become one of his.

Danny and Sam knew about what he was doing and never tried to stop him. The reason was simple: Tucker had warded against Amity Park so thickly, that not even magic users knew of the town’s existence. It wouldn’t show up on a map, or in books, or in history. Tucker might have used Clockwork for the last part, but the time ghost allowed him to hide Amity Park from the world. So there must have been a reason the ghost had allowed it.

After Tucker gained access to the Justice League files, he had become worried. There was a lot that they didn’t tell the public. The more he read, the more resentful he got. Failed alien invasions, kidnapping, mind control, cloning… the list went on and on.

If he didn’t know that the Justice League were the good guys… he might think they were the villains.

But they were the good guys, right?

He wasn’t so sure anymore.

It had been almost four months since he had first hacked Batman’s computer. From what he could tell after hacking Bruce Wayne’s cell phone, nobody knew that he was inside their systems. Nobody was that good of an actor. He would watch the Justice League briefings, watch their day to day, learn all the gossip, and then he would check Batman’s computer. It was a ritual he had started. A way to keep Amity Park safe should the Justice League turn against them or the world. He made his own contingency plans based off of Batman’s plans. The exception being that as a last resort, his plans would be fatal to anyone who struck against him. He just hoped that the day would never come.

Everything changed when Pariah Dark stole Amity Park. It had taken the Justice League almost two days to realize that there was a gigantic crater in Illinois. Nobody knew what had happened. When the city reappeared, the borders that had once protected it were also stripped away. The systems had been damaged in the fight, and in the teleportation process. There were so many that had died in the battle, so many more that were now homeless, or orphans. The city mourned for the dead—and the dead mourned their sacrifice. The evil King had been dethroned, but would Amity Park be the same? The world now knew it existed, and there was no ghost portal for him to run to Clockwork from. They were on their own.

As Tucker watched the Justice League try to help the citizens, he felt anger in the pit of his stomach. These people, these ‘heroes’, what would they learn about his people? Were they going to hurt them like they’ve hurt their own?

No. He was not going to let them hurt anyone from Amity Park.

He solicited all of the teenagers of Amity Park to help him rebuild the borders. Kick out the Justice League. His plan was met with some resistance, but they trusted Tucker. Within 24 hours, they had gotten the borders back online. The Justice League were then forced out of the town, and the town disappeared from existence once more.

Now if only he could get rid of the Justice League that tried to linger. Batman himself was proving difficult to get rid of. Especially since all of his bats kept trying to come out to play. Well Tucker had an ace up his sleeve too, and two could play that game.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bluesky and enshittification

NEXT WEEKEND (November 8-10), I'll be in TUCSON, AZ: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I would like to use Bluesky. They've done a bunch of seriously interesting technical work on moderation and ranking that I truly admire, and I've got lots of friends there who really enjoy it.

But I'm not on Bluesky and I don't have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/06/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again/

When a platform can hold the people you care about or rely upon hostage – when it can credibly threaten you with disconnection and exile – that platform can abuse you in lots of ways without losing your business. In other words, they can enshittify their service:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

I appreciate that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, has evinced her sincere intention never to enshittify Bluesky and I believe she is totally sincere:

https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-wont-enshittify-ads/

But here's the thing: all those other platforms, the ones where I unwisely allowed myself to get locked in, where today I find myself trapped by the professional, personal and political costs of leaving them, they were all started by people who swore they'd never sell out. I know those people, the old blogger mafia who started the CMSes, social media services, and publishing platforms where I find myself trapped. I considered they friends (I still consider most of them friends), and I knew them well enough to believe that they really cared about their users.

They did care about their users. They just cared about other stuff, too, and, when push came to shove, they chose the worsening of their services as the lesser of two evils.

Like: when your service is on the brink of being shut down by its investors, who demand that you compromise on privacy, or integrity, or quality, in some relatively small way, are you really going to stand on principle? What about all the users who won't be harmed by the compromise, but will have their communities and online lives shattered if you shut down the company? What about all the workers who trusted you, whose family finances will be critically imperilled if you don't compromise, just a little. What about the "ecosystem" partners who've bet on your service, building plug-ins, add-ons and services that make your product better? What about their employees and their employees' families?

Maybe you tell yourself, "If I do this, I'll live to fight another day. I can only make the service better for its users if the service still exists." Of course you tell yourself that.

I have watched virtually every service I relied on, gave my time and attention to, and trusted, go through this process. It happened with services run by people I knew well and thought highly of.

Enshittification can be thought of as the result of a lack of consequences. Whether you are tempted by greed or pressured by people who have lower ethics than you, the more it costs to compromise, the fewer compromises you'll make.

In other words, to resist enshittification, you have to impose switching costs on yourself.

That's where federation comes in. On Mastodon (and other services based on Activitypub), you can easily leave one server and go to another, and everyone you follow and everyone who follows you will move over to the new server. If the person who runs your server turns out to be imperfect in a way that you can't endure, you can find another server, spend five minutes moving your account over, and you're back up and running on the new server:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/04/pick-all-three/#agonism

Any system where users can leave without pain is a system whose owners have high switching costs and whose users have none. An owner who makes a bad call – like removing the block function say, or opting every user into AI training – will lose a lot of users. Not just those users who price these downgrades highly enough that they outweigh the costs of leaving the service. If leaving the service is free, then tormenting your users in this way will visit in swift and devastating pain upon you.

That not only helps you steer clear of rationalizing your way into a bad compromise: it also stops your investors and other people with leverage over you from pressuring you into taking actions that harm your users. These devils only sit on your shoulder, whispering temptations and threats, because they think that you can make things worse without spoiling their investment. They're not cruel, they're greedy. They will only insist on enshittification that they believe they can profit from. If they understand that forcing you to enshittify the service will send all your users packing and leave them with nothing, they will very likely not force you to wreck your service.

And of course, if they are so greedy that they force your hand anyway, then your users will be able to escape. Your service will be wrecked and you'll be broke, which sucks for you, but you're just one person and your pain is vastly outweighed by the relief for the millions of people who escape your service when it goes sour.

There's a name for this dynamic, from the world of behavioral economics. It's called a "Ulysses Pact." It's named for the ancient hacker Ulysses, who ignored the normal protocol for sailing through the sirens' sea. While normie sailors resisted the sirens' song by filling their ears with wax, Ulysses instead had himself lashed to the mast, so that he could hear the sirens' song, but could not be tempted into leaping into the sea, to be drowned by the sirens.

Whenever you take a measure during a moment of strength that guards against your own future self's weakness, you enter into a Ulysses Pact – think throwing away the Oreos when you start your diet.

There is no such thing as a person who is immune to rationalization or pressure. I'm certainly not. Anyone who believes that they will never be tempted is a danger to themselves and the people who rely on them. A belief you can never be tempted or coerced is like a belief that you can never be conned – it makes you more of a mark, not less.

Bluesky has many federated features that I find technically admirable. I only know the CEO there slightly, but I have nothing but good opinions of her. At least one of the board members there, Mike Masnick, is one of my oldest friends and comrades in the fights for user rights. We don't agree on everything, but I trust him implicitly and would happily give him the keys to my house if he needed a place to stay or even the password for my computer before I had major surgery.

But even the best boards can make bad calls. It was just a couple years ago that we had to picket to stop the board of ISOC – where I had several dear old friends and comrades – from selling control of every .ORG domain to a shadowy hedge-fund run by mustache-twirling evil billionaires:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-we-saved-org-2020-review

Bluesky lacks the one federated feature that is absolutely necessary for me to trust it: the ability to leave Bluesky and go to another host and continue to talk to the people I've entered into community with there. While there are many independently maintained servers that provide services to Bluesky and its users, there is only one Bluesky server. A federation of multiple servers, each a peer to the other, has been on Bluesky's roadmap for as long as I've been following it, but they haven't (yet) delivered it.

That was worrying when Bluesky was a scrappy, bootstrapped startup with a few million users. Now it has grown to over 13 million users, and it has taken on a large tranche of outside capital:

https://fediversereport.com/on-bluesky-and-enshittification/

Plenty of people have commented that now that a VC is holding Bluesky's purse-strings, enshittification will surely follow (doubly so because the VC is called "Blockchain Capital," which, at this point, might as well be "Grifty Scam Caveat Emptor Capital"). But I don't agree with this at all. It's not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it's leverage that enshittifies a service.

A VC that understands that they can force you to wreck your users' lives is always in danger of doing so. A VC who understands that doing this will make your service into an empty – and thus worthless – server is far less likely to do so (and if they do, at least your users can escape).

My publishing process is a lot of work and adding another service to it represents a huge amount of future labor:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd

But I would leap into Bluesky and gladly taken on all that extra work, every day – if I knew that I couldn't get trapped there.

I don't know why Bluesky hasn't added the federation systems that would enable freedom of exit to its service. Perhaps there are excellent technical reasons to prioritize rolling out the other systems they've created so far. Frankly, it doesn't matter. So long as Bluesky can be a trap, I won't let myself be tempted. My rule – I don't join a service that I can't leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it's keeping me safe from danger I've sailed into too many times before.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pacts/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

[sunkissmebroski]

no abyss AU where binghe has to stay home from the conference because he accidentally touches an amulet that makes him unbelievably horny and constantly hard. the cure is to fuck his soulmate! chapter 1664, damn you!! the original goods only solved his problem through some convoluted cultivation papapa and he never found his soulmate!!!! that damn hack baited us!!!! shen qingqiu’s own poor white lotus binghe, who should be on the way to the the immortal conference with shizun, is locked away in his room with a million talismans blocking his escape by that very same shizun, who’s afraid of how many women would fall pregnant if binghe fucked his way through the population to find his soulmate! but he’s also torn because who is he, the scum teacher, to keep the protagonist from his women??? who is he to decide if luo binghe has sex with a million women and has twice as many children??? but as a modern man with “consent is key” as a tenet, he knows that the best thing for his binghe is to stay put because how can his bun properly consent??? what if he’s taken advantage of in his perpetually horny state by some woman with evil intentions???? no one will disrespect or trick his lotus into something he doesn’t truly want!!! shen qingqiu is cursing airplane in his mind, frantic with worry and relief because what the hell?!?! why is the system saying that now the abyss plot line is optional???!!??!! you damn shitty ai!!!!! and poor binghe is locked away from his shizun, 😞only a door away…. if only shizun opened the door 😞….

[foone]

Robot girl who is an ex-military ECM model who specializes in hacking and she's brilliant at it, full on transsophont AI that can hack systems faster then baseline humans can even notice they're under attack, but:

1. She's nice, not evil and definitely not working for her former creators

2. She hacks as an unconscious thing, just like how humans regulate their heart rate and get goose bumps and blush.

So you meet her, and the only hint she's broken past your firewalls is a brief glitch in your voice from your exocortex implant quickly rebooting. You ignore it, that old model is getting a bit janky these days. It doesn't come out that you've been so completely rooted until she casually mentions something in conversation that you don't recall telling her.

"oh yeah, like your brother's ex-husband?" you never told her you have a brother, let alone anything about his former partner. She just has access to all your memories and can refer to them as if they're her own. Sorry, she didn't realize it. You start to panic at what she knows about you now, thinking of all your darkest secrets, but she sees your emotional state and tilts her head and suddenly... You aren't panicking. Why were you worried? You don't really have that much to hide, why worry about it? She's so nice, and you trust her after all. You're calm now, and this only makes you want to share more things with her (not that she needs it), and you'd definitely offer to help her with anything she needs. She's such a good friend. You're happy to have met her, all those five minutes ago.

She's very nice. Everyone says that. No one is mean to her. No one has ever tried to be mean to her.

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Gamer Boyfriend Scenarios

A collection of parodies to satisfy everyone’s desire for a happy ending. Warning: crackhead humor.

Content: gender neutral reader, yandere behavior, brief NSFW, time machine to Wattpad glory days

[First story] [More parodies original works]

Case 1: Third contender

Very few people know about your stepmother. You’d kept it a secret, even from the tentacle monster, who was understandably confused about your boyfriend’s nervousness upon hearing your idea of a family visit.

“Try not to kill each other, please.” You say with pleading eyes.

“I’m more worried about you, (Y/N). Will you be alright?”

You swallow dryly. The evil hag had summoned you earlier this week, and you dare not oppose her. A tear threatens to form in the corner of your eye, so you turn around with a dismissive wave. You’ll be fine.

“I see you already have a suitcase”, the older woman remarks, puffing on her cigarette. “Good. You’ll be leaving today.”

“What? I just got home!” You argue in confusion.

“This isn’t your home anymore. Times are difficult, you see. We’re low on funds.” She ponders her words, then continues. “We’ve sold you to a famous K-pop idol group.”

You can only gawk in shock. Almost simultaneously, you feel a tap on your shoulder and hesitantly look back.

“You must be (Y/N)! Wow, you’re even cuter in person. Those photos I received of you barely do you justice.”

A tall, handsome man with a beaming smile stands behind you. He flashes you a little heart gesture with his index and thumb, and winks.

Is this the power of idol charisma? You can feel the faintest tug at your heart, deep red blush heating up your cheeks.

“I couldn’t possibly…I’m already in a…in a relationship!”

“You’ll be much happier with me. I can offer you the world.”

What a ridiculous situation. You stumble on your words, partly afraid, partly curious about the potential life of luxury as the beloved partner of a famous idol. Can’t be that bad, you tell yourself. You shake your head aggressively. No! You have two people (well, one monster) waiting for you at home. You need to get out of here, but how?

Just as you evaluate escape routes, the door bursts open and you gasp at the sight: your gamer boyfriend, followed by the tentacled creature.

“How did you bypass my security?!” The idol shouts in disbelief. “I have the best engineers in the world working for me!”

The gamer boyfriend smirks defiantly.

“Heh. Wasn’t too hard to hack into your systems, all I needed was my PS5 controller. As for the physical obstacles…” he says, turning to the ancient beast. “You might want to call a cleaning crew for what’s left of your guards.”

You run towards them, and the young man gently guides you behind him.

“Since when do you two get along?” You ask with the sarcasm of a witty Marvel character.

“Let’s just say we figured out a common goal.”

The goal of keeping other people away from you. Any kind of pride he or the monster might've held has been swiftly discarded for this greater purpose. After all, two heads are better than one. Or whatever encephalic organ the creature possesses.

The cherry blossoms sway in the wind, scattering the frail petals across the riverbank.

"It's too much!" you whine, your hot lips brushing against the overgrown grass of the hill, privacy filled to the brim with appendages. "W-what if someone passes by?"

You can't even tilt your head back to look at your aggressors; the weight of the attempted kidnapping was too great for the pair to bear, and thus they were overwhelmed by the urge to reclaim you on the spot. Right there, in the fields, on the way back home.

"I couldn't...care less about that, (Y/N)", the gamer boyfriend manages to blurt out between exhausted, husky growls. His knuckles white from gripping imaginary sheets.

“You belong to us.”

(No slick folds were harmed in the process)

Case 2: Picture frame

The screech slowly dissipates, and the room is quiet again.

Finally. The gamer boyfriend gazes at his masterpiece, a satisfied smile on his face. Now that he's gotten rid of his rival, he can have you all for himself.

“I hope you enjoy the flatness. I didn’t.”

The fight might've lasted longer, had the beast not committed the ultimately fatal mistake of underestimating him. It realized much too late it wasn't dealing with the same human who disappeared months ago. That one was weak and easy to remove.

"Please, what are you-...What are you doing with my body?"

"Relax. I'm just...borrowing it. Permanently, maybe."

Oh, how long he waited for that moment, that instant in which he was guaranteed freedom from the 2D realm. How delicious it was to snatch the escape from the boyfriend who worked so hard for it. All those hours spent romancing the characters, repeating the same dialogue lines again, and again, until the love meter blinked in achievement. And then he stole it, just like that, with a snap of the fingers.

Two things immediately struck him once he made his way out:

First, the third dimension. He'd never experienced such depth before, and all the angles and perspectives sickened him terribly. He spent days bedridden and nauseous. Equally baffling was the fact that conversations were always spontaneous, random, one-of-a-kind and without any subtitles or dialogue box. He tried in vain to reset his response to you, or to replay something you told him. Thankfully, his secret was of such absurdity, that you couldn’t even begin to imagine its possibility. You took his suspicious gaffes with an amused chuckle, calling him a silly goose.

Second, you. He had no idea who you were, but upon laying his eyes on you, a wave of warmth and affection flooded his innards. Were you someone important for the boyfriend? Either way, whatever leftover feeling was left inside the vessel swiftly turned into obsession. You took such great care of him. Guided him through this new world with unconditional kindness. Whatever the boyfriend was to you before, he deserved it more. He was certain of it.

Only one obstacle stood in his way, and he just took care of it.

The entry door unlocks, and you walk in, unsure.

“It’s been days. It always lived here, why would it vanish now?” you sob, shaken by the sudden disappearance of the ancient creature.

“Oh, Darling. Come here”, the gamer boyfriend coos sweetly. “You have me now, don’t you? Am I not enough for you?”

“Of course you are, it’s just…”

You stop in your tracks.

“When did you get this?”

“Today. Do you like it?”

“It’s…nice.”

You stare at the new picture hung in the living room. The ornate frame contours what seems to be an oil painting of a sea monster, tentacles preying out of the water.

It almost looks like it wants to crawl out of the canvas.

“Maybe it just got tired of you.” The boyfriend whistles, approaching you. “But I’ll tell you a secret. I’ll never, ever abandon you.”

“I know, (B/N).” you throw yourself into your boyfriend’s arms.

“Who? Ah, right.”

Case 3: Hidden Ending

You sniff and wipe your tears again, filling your satchel with bread. At the very least, it’s good bread. You made the sourdough starter yourself, in the kitchen you renovated with your own hands.

Not anymore.

You button up your patchy peasant robe, glancing back at the couple one final time. Your gamer boyfriend…well, ex-boyfriend, is following your movement with melancholic eyes. The tentacle creature is holding him affectionately, its tendrils of darkness wrapped around his small shoulders. The same appendages that lewdly traced your body.

You have been cucked.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I…We never meant to hurt you. It’s just…we love each other.” He sheepishly lifts his hand, revealing a ring glowing with ancient, cursed energy of cosmic, long-forgotten springs. “We’re thinking of a tropical honeymoon.”

Your underbaked cinnamon orbs glisten with fresh tears, as thin streams caress your cheeks. No matter. You’ll find a new apartment. You’ll start again. You finish tying the bread satchel around the stick, and throw it over your shoulder.

“I wish you happiness”, you sigh, exiting the house.

[indigodiskmybeloved]

Defending Penny from Pokemon

No, Penny isn't a terrorist who's malicious and some kind of evil genius who is on the same manipulation level of Ghetsis.

This isn't an attack on the person who made the post, it's more of a counter argument. Don't harass others, and be respectful.

"Penny is a terrorist group/started on by making Team Star!!"

Penny first made Team Star as a way to combat the bullies who were well, bullying her. I am a victim of bullying myself, and Penny had more guts to stand up than I ever did.

However, it went too far, with the Team Star captains driving the bullies away. Penny REALIZED she fucked up. She realized that and told the Team Star captains that they need to stop because of how they damaged their reputation. And when that didn't work, Penny asked the MC to take down the bosses so the bullies couldn't leave in fear like she did, and the Team Star captains won't be expelled. Penny KNEW she messed up, and WANTED TO FIX IT.

If Penny was like "Oh the bullies are gone! Yay! Now let's take over the school!" Then I can understand your reaction. But she didn't act like that. She wanted to fix things.

"She really only started Team Star just so she could have a friend group of misfits like her!"

Wow, who would've thought that a group of kids who can relate to the issues of being bullied would join a team to bond together?

Seriously, human connection is a thing. Like, Penny could relate to the other outcasts in school. All of the Team Star captains were bullied, and that was something she could relate to. Like "Oh, you've been bullied! Same here!"

It wasn't just "GRRR WHY IS NO ONE MY FRIEND I AM GOING TO BECOME A TERRORIST AND MAKE THESE PEOPLE MY FRIENDS" because that's what Penny is like apparently.

Context clues and media literacy is important.

"Penny is a criminal because she hacked into the League and Deservers jail time!"

Okay, out of all the takes, this is one that I can agree on.

I do agree that Penny deserves SOME kind of pushback for hacking into the League Point system and stealing from them. However, she is still a child, albeit teenager, and should at least get something inbetween of slap on the wrist and jail time.

There are options between nothing and going nuclear. Chill.

Though, on that topic, Penny isn't gonna be like "LET'S HACK INTO THE GOVERNMENT FOR FUNSIES" because she knows that's a bad idea. The only reason she hacked into the League Point system was to give the MC LP for taking down Team Star bosses. She wasn't doing it out of malicious intent.

And she even STATED that she herself should get more of an extreme punishment. This is more a fault of the game for letting her get away rather than Penny herself saying she should get away with this.

In short, you're allowed to hate a character. But exaggerating what they did without showing the context of it all, it just makes you look bad.

If you find the original post, please don't harass them. That isn't okay.

[forsaken-headcanons]

TW FOR VAUGELY IMPLIED CHILD ABUSE

(Approaches evilly)

7n7 turned to hacking in his mid teens because he had no support system (shit parents) and a chronic condition (or more than one) that he couldn’t get treatment for otherwise, then he turned to griefing n stuff like that because he could finally be bitter and get revenge. He really shouldnt have but i mean like- cant do much abt that now lol.

(dashes away maliciously)

- EVIL whimsy anon

AW. STOP. HE HAS TO GO HACK TO TREAT HIMSELF. OF HIS CONDITIONS. STOP.

THAT'S SO SAD.

YOU'RE SO EVILL!!

[xmoriartea]

Hello, Kaitie

About the Shen Yuan is the System AU...............

How evil do you think Cucumber is going to become when he finds out Airplane is the other transmigrator? No, better yet, how panicked Airplane gets when he finds out WHO is in charge of his System now?

Do you think Airplane wakes up one day, his System blasting alerts and blinking red while he is still trying to understand whats happening? It was his of day too! The first one after three years of plot nonsense! It takes him a moment to open all the notifications and when he does... He finds a very particular pattern of writing, one that he hasn't seen since he woke up in his own story.

I bet he'd be shiting bricks. Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky would be falling into his knees the moment he finishes reading all the 267 messages left by Cucumber and starts begging for mercy.

But Cucumber at this point doesn't see Airplane as a peer, or someone besides the hack author that deserves to suffer for what he wrote.

And he is an internet troll.

Airplane is a master of crying, and he has refined the most pathetic meowmeow acting show to perfection, but the bigger question is...

Would it work on Cucumber bro?

:3

ah the cackling i did when I opened this, bless u friend

Let's talk about the SYstem, if you will

I have soooo many ideas about how that would go down. Because the System just treats SQH like any other transmigrator, I don't think SY figures it out immediately. And I will give SQH the peace of mind and say the System only picks up thoughts directed at it, it won't be sending SY every stray thought SQH has - both of them would try to off themselves if it did I think

Airplane figures it out first. Clearly. SY is distinct in his patterns and of all the things Airplane forgot about his first life - he remembered Peerless Cucumber's handle. He KNOWS this motherfucker. Better than SY knows him since he never figured out Airplane had burner accounts. So finding all these messages from THE SYSTEM that are now distinctly less robotic and many times more unhinged by sheer volume - boy is pacing around An Ding and just shrieking.

Gotta play it cool though. Gotta not let his biggest anti know he is holding his already pathetic life in his grubby hands. WHO GAVE HIM THIS POWER?? He takes back everything he said about the OG System. He wants that old piece of shit back!

When he braces himself enough to finally reply "S-system?"

<Oh good! You're awake!> and why is that the most haunting thing he's ever heard. The voice is still... robotic, but there's emotion there now, something human behind the wheel. <Did you get my messages?>

"Ha.. ha. Yeah. Airplane's 10K a day has nothing on you, huh transmigrator bro?"

Oh and there he goes. The ranting. Direct into his noggin. Love it. Great. His second life wasn't hell enough!!

He tries - valiantly - to hide he's Airplane for awhile. He gives one of his burners (Mobei's Popsicle) and SY spends awhile cackling about how fitting it is for him to be Mobei's dog now. Which. Rude. Uncalled for. His King didn't kick dogs. He kicked SQH.

SY is, shockingly, empathetic for all his teasing. He chats with Airplane as he reviews past missions and such Airplane has been dealing with for the last quarter of a decade. And tells him more about his hidden stats and the status effects he's placed on other NPCs and events than the System EVER did.

He really, earnestly, wants to improve the story. To give characters growth and more fitting ends. So that the world around Binghe is as vibrant and cool as he is.

It's honestly a little sweet. He only ever saw the rage thrown his way. He never really understood why Cucumber kept reading. He remembers his unfinished drafts, the original notes. He thinks this guy would have actually enjoyed his writing then.

<...>

<What do you mean your writing?>

SQH freezes and swears and there is yelling. Obviously. He still has his work to do on the peak and one of his shidis (he's still only head disciple, though the current lords are preparing to step down soon) probably gives him a look wondering if he's about to qi deviate or something when he's just clutching his head and yelling at... something. But then again this is An Ding. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with stress. They shrug and leave him to it for now, give it ten minutes, if he's still freaking out THEN they'll fetch shizun.

BUT! This transmigrated SY has not suffered bs or recently lost his sweet disciple to the abyss when he meets Airplane. So there is just. Normal Shrieking. He does threaten a punishment protocol but decides against it because really. This man, crouching and sniveling in the dirt, who has spent more of his life HERE then in the real world...is just very.... well. He's like a wet cat. Incredibly pathetic and likely to make SY irritated if he spends too long in his presence.

In the darkness of the System, Shen Yaun just pinches his nose again and waves a digital hand. <That confirms it. YOU are fixing this mess.>

Airplane just... lays down in the dirt for awhile and looks up at the sky. How did this happen. Why did this happen. What fucking atrocities did he do in a life he clearly cannot recall to deserve any of this??

<New mission incoming. I'm not even going to read this stupid little script the System provided me - you WILL accept. It's mandatory.>

"UUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHH."

"Shixiong?" There's suddenly a round faced disciple leaning over him, blocking the view of the sky and cutting through Peerless fucking Cucumber's ranting. "Are you dying?"

"No, but if you like your shixiong even a little you will kill him. Go on. Show shixiong how strong you are."

The younger boy huffs and, gently, pokes Shang Qinghua's head with his foot. "No way. I don't want your chores."

Critics all of them.

[starlightsuffered]

The Mark

Info - puking, injury, comfort, harming self because of itching

Regulus lurched towards the chamber pot again. Black bile erupted from his throat. His already pale skin was now lighter than parchment. He had been vomiting so hard he couldn’t catch his breath which turned his lips blue.

I rubbed his back in slow circles. His hair was drenched in sweat but I’d still brushed it back and put an elastic in it so it wouldn’t get messy.

Finally, he withdrew from the chamber pot. His face was ghostly and he was taking deep breathes through his nose and out of his mouth. I knew he was attempting to fight off another wave of nausea.

Green orbs were red rimmed with tears. This was the first time I’d ever seen him cry.

I didn’t like the way he couldn’t stay still. His right hand kept darting towards his left forearm, then he would remember.

The black skull and snake were rimmed in scarlet. Sores filled with puss and rot had build up in a scale over the tattoo. Neither of us had known this mark would affect him like this.

“Why are you still here?” He asked in a small voice. His hands were shaking as he took the water from me. Water was all he could keep down at the moment. Crackers couldn’t even stay in his system.

I’d caught him trying to scrap off the itchy, painful welts with a knife. This had only caused blood and weeping liquid that stung him.

“Shhh Regulus, you know why I’m here,” I whispered.

He began to hack. He wanted so badly not to empty his stomach again. I knew the mark had caused poison to fester inside him.

“I deserve all this. It was my decision. It took me too long to realise what he was doing, I did switch sides fast enough,” he began to sob. He looked dizzy and off balance as his body shook.

“Come here,” I murmured. I pulled him close to me. He curled into my arms like a baby. He was weeping in my arms.

“You shouldn’t be so kind to me,” he said in a ragged voice.

“I love you, I’m here for every up and down,” I explained. I ran my hands through his damp curls.

“What you are doing is brave. I hope you can see that. I hope you didn’t do this to punish yourself. I know what you’re sacrificing for this,” I explained.

He nodded and sniffled. He had to realise he was forgiven. The order knew his true heart. He was a double agent and doing something that was incredibly difficult and courageous.

“Don’t tell anyone what taking the mark does to you,” he pleaded. “Can this just be a secret between you and me?”

“Of course my love. But there’s no shame. It is pure evil, it is corruption and wrong, it makes sense that it would break you don’t like this,” I told him.

“Th-thank you,” he trembled.

We fell into a silence I was happy for. Quiet meant he was not gagging or trying to scratch the skin off his arm. I realised after a while that his breathing had slowed. He was asleep for the first time since he’d taken the mark.

@pmak2002 @softhecreator @plutoispurplw @sp1deyyf4ngz @seungcheol17daddy @jesschalamet @vvsdreaming @lovelyrocker @therealbeabodoobee