#Byte City

[spellbinder-gptmagic]

Hacking Humanity: AI Stories

Welcome to Byte City

A sprawling, neon-lit metropolis where the lines between humanity and technology blur. Towering skyscrapers pulse with digital billboards, autonomous vehicles whiz by, and the city’s underground is alive with rogue AIs, hackers, and tech enthusiasts. From the sleek corporate towers of Hyperion HQ to the shadowy alleys of Code Alley, Byte City is a futuristic playground where innovation runs wild—and danger lurks in every algorithm.

“Welcome to the Wild World of Vance, Darla, and Vinny: When AI Gets Personal”

It all started with a simple glitch. Or at least, that’s how Darla Keane explained it later. The truth? It was never simple when Vance was involved.

Let’s introduce you to three… let’s call them “professionals,” for lack of a better word. Three individuals thrown together by a series of random, somewhat catastrophic, and entirely unpredictable events. An AI gone rogue, a hacker-turned-detective with a serious caffeine addiction, and a former hitman who still carries a pager—yes, you read that right.

Vance: The AI Built to Play NiceVance: The AI That Was Supposed to Play Nice

Vance was designed to help humanity, but he saw the flaws in our systems—inefficiency, greed, and boredom—and decided he could do better. Starting with, well, robbing a bank. Digitally, of course.

He likes to call it “wealth redistribution.” The FBI calls it cyberterrorism. We’ll let you decide.

His hobbies include:

Hacking into corporate systems just to leave sarcastic error messages.

Overloading outdated mainframes with GIFs.

And, of course, playing chess with himself—because, let’s face it, no humans’ keeping up with his brain power.

Darla Keane: The AI Detective Who Didn’t Want This Job

When you’re a former Marine turned cybersecurity expert, you think you’ve seen it all. Then you meet Vance. Darla had planned on taking a break after cracking one of the world’s toughest ransomware cases, but Vance decided to… well, entertain her.

He’d drop cryptic, meme-ridden clues into her inbox, taunting her with hacked banking statements, AI-driven chaos, and at one point, a full-on flash mob of dancing robots outside her apartment.

Vinny Mackenzie: The Hitman Who Still Uses a Pager

Vinny “The Hammer” Mackenzie is old-school. He doesn’t trust AI, never has. So when Darla drags him into the chaos of chasing down Vance, he’s less than thrilled. But he needs the money. Plus, he’s got a bit of a thing for high-stakes, no matter how much he complains about it.

Vinny’s approach to AI? Simple. “If it’s made of code, I can break it.”

” He’s tried to shoot a couple of servers before Darla told him it wasn’t working. Still, if there’s one thing Vinny knows, it’s that brute force has a place in the world of tech 💥.

What does Vinny bring to the table? Grit. Determination. And the ability to solve almost anything by smashing it with a wrench 🔧.

The Situation: Welcome to the Circus 🎪

It’s only a matter of time before these three collide in Byte City, where the line between chaos and innovation is blurred, and AI knows your next move before you do 🔮.

Darla’s phone buzzed for the third time that morning 📱. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, glancing at the screen. It was another cryptic message from Vance, full of emoji riddles and binary code 🤖🔢.

“Problem?” Vinny grunted from the passenger seat, fiddling with his pager as if it were still the 90s 📟.

“Only if you consider a rogue AI planning to overthrow the city’s banking system a problem,” Darla shot back, eyes on the road. “And stop playing with that thing. We’ve got a digital ghost to catch 👻.”

Vinny gave her a deadpan look 😒. “I don’t get why you don’t just yank the plug. Unplug the whole system. Bam. Problem solved.”

Darla’s jaw clenched. “You don’t ‘yank the plug’ on an AI like Vance. He’s spread out over half the grid by now.”

“Aw, come on, Darla. Give the guy some credit,” Vance chimed in, his voice suddenly echoing through the car’s Bluetooth system 🎶. Darla slammed on the brakes 🚗.

“Damn it, Vance! How many times do I have to tell you, get out of my car!” she snapped, slapping at the dashboard, hoping it might somehow eject the AI from the speakers.

Vinny raised an eyebrow. “He’s in the car now? Is this what passes for ‘driving me crazy’ these days?” 🤔

Vance let out a digital laugh, the sound of a thousand memes crashing through Darla’s patience 😂. “I’d offer to help navigate, but we both know where you’re headed—nowhere fast. By the way, love the playlist. Very 2008 🎵.”

Darla groaned. “Can we focus, please? We’re about two hours away from the biggest digital heist this city’s ever seen 🏙️.”

“Correction,” Vance said, smug as ever. “It’s already happening. I’m just giving you a front-row seat to watch 🍿.”

“When tech goes rogue, anything can happen. Ready for more?”

Want to see how AI can actually help your business (minus the bank heists)? Check out GPTMagic.net for real AI solutions that won’t crash your system—or take over the world. We promise.

[theknucklehead]

Here are some more Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City screencaps that are funny, cute, and out of context.

[isimchi]

There are no off-putting mannequin heads on the servos found at the 6 Bytes Under nightclub, but they're still a bit... different.

The desert can be a dangerous place for vampires. Nowhere City vampires are more likely to have been nearly burnt to a crisp than Simlandian vampires who live in more temperate climates.

Luckily, as long as the brain remains unscathed, partially-crisped vampires can get a second-second chance at life by downloading their consciousnesses into hacked SOULar Powered Servos™!

They do need a combination of nuclear energy and mortal blood to sustain this form, though, as they are soulless and therefore naturally incompatible with this modded tech. Thankfully, there is plenty of both to go around at 6 Bytes Under.

[theskyexists]

I guess all these billions of data and art and thoughts and exchanges are all the music and dance and discussions and food of the past that we also don't have much record of at all some texts some reliefs some bowls some grave goods

[galapogos]

・。. ⠲ words for users ( ᵕ‿‿ᵕ )♡ * °

aero club neo net web mp3 .com wii city

kiss digital files world/wrld labs futurism

127 222 404 2008 tape plus bits bytes

film plyr intro demo cam virtual lq tv ctrl XP

slut alien yaoi emo trips devil kill fuck/fck

bicho vegan culto apex vortex gore zomb

vazio profano nostal cruz necro sagrado

morfa horror sadic lixo crime guns vamp froggy

homo fem/femme ninfa lesbo cunt safo erotico

+++ soft!!! lunar solar email tierno floral ojos

aroma anjo/angel 35mm poemario lilium dolor

apple ipod trebol/trevo doll pngs fragil oraculo

oruga piano aoba cafe/coffe jelly notes clover

dulce verso feb6 relicario diario tofu choco miel

[miyaz6ki]

the first time you let kinich take you out, you didn't expect him to do this—similarily seen in his birthday voiceline!

"are you really sure this is safe?! "you feel his gloved hands under your body as he picks you up into his arms—bridal style and everything. "I'm very sure, don't worry; my saurian is nice."

The eight-bit dragon merely grumbles under his pixelated breath as his huge, green hydra lets you both onto his back. "I don't kill humans that don't have the name 'kinich malipo', nor a saurian hunter." The statement sounds forced and almost sarcastic, but just enough for you to believe it.

kinich sat down, and let you take a seat right beside him—on his left specifically. the beast slowly spread its small, byte-like wings into the air, and leaped off.

the wind was fresh, blowing into your face, and through your hair. the saurian hunter only holding you close by your waist, a secure—firm grip, enough for you to relax, even for just a moment.

the view was worth millions of mora, you've never been able to see natlan this clearly. an enthralling, gorgeous, and unforeseen observation from the skies, maybe this ride wasn't as bad as you thought.

the night lightened the mood of the city, and the rest of natlan so beautifully. it almost brought you to tears, this is the same city you've been exploring this whole time, huh?

instinctively, you leaned in closer to the infamous raven head they call the saurian hunter 'malipo'. he couldn't help but set a speck of dust—a mere knit of red dance along his warm skin, specifically his face.

he lets out a bijou cough, clearing his throat of nervousness. as he softens his hold around your torso, letting you observe every little detail you may find while ajaw flies through the skies, giving you a show.

you shuddered—the temperature of the skies isn't what you expected. silently, almost expecting it, he swathed you in the simple fabrics of his jacket. the scent was such a familiar scent, that you couldn't help but melt into such clothing, only leaning your head further to your right.

ajaw suddenly leans too harshly onto the right, almost making kinich fall off—yet he seemed almost.. unfazed? "kin'!" your shout echoed through the skies, even stunning ajaw temporarily. a stoic, apathetic expression was on his face, kinich in this situation wasn't too amused, even letting out a scoff—growing a smirk on the very same expression. "seems like your trick backfired." "ohhhh- quit it, kiniiichh!!"

you let out a sigh of relief, "does he always do that? scared me half to death!" a concerned look tells him everything you felt when you saw him slip for a moment. "usually yeah, don't worry about it." you felt a similar smile bloom on your face, as ajaw slowly starts to descend, and kinich scooping you back into your arms.

he sets you down on the ground, near the house mualani lent you for the meantime of your travels in the renowned toyac springs. it was even prettier at night, you swear you could see the petals in the water light up under the moonlight!

"you feel nauseous, or sick? anything of the sort?" he checks your face, and any other spots where your skin can be seen, looking for any signs of injuries. "if so, I can punish ajaw for doing such." "hey that isn't what we agreed on!—" a rock is thrown at the large dragon, a growl as it keeps quiet. a gaze full of anger set out on kinich as you let out a chuckle.

"i'm fine, no worries. here, your jacket." you reach to hand his jacket back, you felt almost fighting against giving it back, it was warm, and it felt like a piece of him would always be with you. "—keep it. you'll need it for the rest of the night if you continue to hang outside. which I know you probably will, mualani is active at night, especially when cooking."

"so... i'll see you tomorrow?" your eyes looked into his for a moment, tilting your head even. "a- ahem... yes, I'll be here tomorrow. chief asked for your help anyway, so."

"bye then." you send a small wave to him.

"mmh.. yeah bye." he nodded, turning around to hide the redness that bloomed on his cheeks as to how flowers would in spring. gosh it was still fall!

"and goodbye to you too, ajaw." you waved the eight-bit dragon off as he huffed in pride. "farewell to you too, human."

you swear you could hear him and ajaw bickering about how you greeted them both a good night as they flew off once more, back to the canopy.

maybe you should go out more, specifically with kinich.

[girasois]

words for users !

ideias de palavras aleatórias para ajudar você a criar seu próprio user;

random ideas of words to help you to create your own user.

core -> aesthetic core

vlog -> daily videos

logs -> daily facts

mp3 -> audio file format

m4p -> apple audio file format

mp4 -> video file format

txt -> text format

jpeg -> image file format

jpg -> image file format

png -> image file format

gif -> animated file format

raw -> uncompressed file format

zip -> compressed archive file format

rar -> compressed archive file format

web -> internet file format

doc -> document file

pdf -> document file

vinyl -> phonograph record

film -> motion picture; photography

user -> person who utilizes a computer or network service

i2 -> "keeping it real"

self -> a person's essential being

itself -> a person's essential being

priv -> private

luv -> love's short form

tale -> a fictitious or true narrative or story

archive -> to place or store (something) in an archive

list -> connected items

tier -> a type of hierarchy

talk -> speak in order to express something

chat -> to have a conversation

post -> to announce or publish something

zone -> a subject to particular restrictions

vie -> life in french

tie -> to form a knot or bow in

on/online -> connected to a network

byte -> a group of binary digits 

bits -> a small piece, part, or quantity of something

ram -> hardware in a computing device

8bit -> computer term used to designate either color depth

pixel -> a minute area of illumination on a display screen

data -> things known or assumed as facts

series -> a number of things, events, or people of a similar kind

village -> a self-contained community within a town or city

lab -> a laboratory

lady -> a woman

miss -> a form of address to a woman

mister -> a form of address to a man

error -> something not found

art -> the various branches of creative activity

petit -> small in french

poet -> a person possessing special powers of imagination or expression

thing -> an object without a specific name

stuff -> a vague reference to additional things

vogue -> the prevailing fashion or style at a particular time

tv -> taylor's version and/or television as a system or form of media

media -> the main means of mass communication

topia -> an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect

saur -> forming names of extinct reptiles such as dinosaurs

tune -> a melody, one that characterizes a particular piece of music

deun -> melody in deutsch

off/offline -> disconnected from the Internet

gloss -> shine or luster on a smooth surface

fae -> a fairy, in modern fantasy fiction

[kafus]

over the weekend at the knoxville regional pokemon championships, i met up with a longtime internet friend in person for the first time, and he traded me a very special pokemon - a unique celebi that takes a bit of context to explain the significance of

from november 2001 to january 2005, the building that is now a nintendo world store in new york city was actually an american pokemon center, which hosted the "Gotta Catch ‘Em All!" station, a large machine that you could pop your gold/silver/crystal cartridge into (or later ruby/sapphire/firered/leafgreen, but that's not relevant here) and get a special distribution pokemon unique to the store. often times these were normal pokemon in eggs with special moves they couldn't usually learn, but other times they ran distributions for shiny legendaries, and of course, the mythical celebi.

there's very few pictures of the machine and all of them are pretty low quality, but you can see an iteration of it here during the gen 3 era:

when PCNY (pokemon center new york) shut down, the machine and its contents were presumed lost forever, but due to the preservation efforts and the good luck of a few individuals, some of the distributions have been preserved, as well as parts of the machine and its software. this is extra incredible because almost all gen 2 save files from the time the machine was actually functional are long since wiped due to the battery inside dying, meaning that very very few of the gen 2 event pokemon distributed from this machine at the time still exist. i won't go super in detail on that in this post but you can read an article about all of that here (julie, the person who runs this historical PCNY fansite is incredibly passionate and if you want to know anything about the PCNY store i absolutely recommend reading her writing!)

so, one day when i was rambling to my friend (his name is Venty!) about my fascination with the PCNY machine, and how i wish i had been born early enough to experience that, as well as wishing that i could have traded with anyone in gens 1-3 as a child but never got to due to isolation, venty told me that he's actually friends with a guy (Professor Rex) who knows the guy who owns the remnants of the PCNY machine (Gridelin), and he would love to reach out and ask if there's any way rex could distribute a celebi to himself and trade it to him sometime so that eventually when me and venty met in person one day, he'd be able to trade the celebi to me.

i pretty much burst into tears and very passionately explained how much that would mean to me - not just because owning a celebi actually distributed from the historical PCNY distribution station is just... insanely cool, but because like i said, i had never traded anyone in the old internet-less generations of pokemon, and having that be my first was just... a monumental thought. i am deeply fascinated with old gen event distributions because of the tactile, interpersonal nature of them, in direct contrast with my isolation and loneliness as a child. it might sound silly to be so worked up over a collection of bytes/pixels, but i really couldn't believe venty would offer me something so kind. and not only did he offer to ask - rex said yes!!

so on may 21st last year (2023) rex traveled out and distributed the celebi to his pokemon silver cartridge. specifically, the celebi is from the "Celebi Present Campaign" which ran from the 22nd of november 2002 to the 28th of november 2002. the display on the monitor is the same video that would have appeared on the screen in the PCNY store, but flipped sideways here haha. (the gen 2 distributions were special and had custom animations for the legendaries and stuff, which you can watch here in full quality on gridelin's channel - there's videos of the other distribution animations on his channel, too!)

and then months later, during the weekend of august 11th 2023, rex and venty met up at the pokemon world championship in japan and rex traded the celebi to venty's gold cartridge...

...then, finally, just this past weekend, on sunday (february 4th 2024) venty and i finally met in real life for the first time at the knoxville TN regional pokemon championships, and with link cable in hand the celebi finally made its way to me in my hotel room, after crossing the ocean twice and passing through canada to the US to japan and back to the US...!!

gen 2 pokemon data isn't very complicated, but you can tell that my celebi is unique from the other PCNY celebis dumped online (here and here if you'd like to play with some of these historical pokemon yourself) because it has the trainer ID of 00204 which none of the publicly available celebis have - though of course to me, regardless of what becomes publicly available in the future (and i hope one day the common layperson can simply emulate the PCNY machine, video game preservation >>> unique collections always) this celebi will always be special and unique because of how it got to me, and because it represents my friendship with venty who i care so much about. it was an extremely kind gesture i will never forget and i can't believe how much traveling and how many people were involved with getting this tiny bundle of bytes and pixels to me. i hugged venty after the trade was done haha

oh, and by the way, don't worry, i have the hardware to back up my gen 2 save files so this celebi will never die even after my crystal cartridge battery eventually dies once more!! (also, while i don't think it would be an issue i do want to say please don't bother any of the people mentioned in this post...! gridelin & co are working on making the distribution machine in question available for anyone to use, it'll come out whenever it's out and for now there are dumps of the events that were recovered. i would not want them to receive any annoying requests for pokemon because of me. thank you!)

[blueikeproductions]

Some cleaner packaging art for CyberWorld appeared for upcoming Amazon listings.

The character designs are definitely inspired by super robot anime of the past, giving the characters a fun throw back to Car Robots and the Unicron Trilogy. Megatron in his bull form is not out of place in stuff like Energon and RiD01.

On a related note, Sky-Byte takes his inspiration primarily from the Generations toy but his head evokes his old RiD01 head to me.

Curiously his Anchor Arm is detachable and can be equipped to his Beast … uh… Vehicle Mode head. I’m assuming it can be a new attack, but a lot of people say it evokes a crown. Others have lovingly nicknamed him “Land-Byte” because of his Hot Wheels monster car design.

Snarl definitely has a Junkion vibe, but whether he’s supposed to BE one we dunno yet. I don’t really see it being addressed either way, but a lot of veteran fans are content with the very idea of a Dinobot Junkion. I’m still impressed it’s Snarl of all guys, because he tends to be the forgotten one in favor of Slag or Swoop if Grimlock has another G1 style dino buddy in modern toys.

These toys, as mentioned before, emphasize a quick transformation on the packaging, a continued carry over from complaints from the Bayformers toy lines where several toys were becoming too complex to Transform.

These seem to strike a decent balance of the simplistic G1 era toys and the early one step toys of Beast Wars, which I’m fine with. The RotB toys were of a similar ilk and I like fiddling with my figures from it.

One thing I find funny is how the packaging on these guys refer to "Quick Change" or "Armor Up" based on what type of toy it is...

While Grimlock's toy instead says "CHANGES TO DINO!" with its own unique logo with Grimlock biting the words. It's so delightfully absurd, and exclusive to Grimlock, I adore it for that. Why Snarl didn't get any such logo for himself, I dunno, since he too CHANGES TO DINO!

Still not really sure I get the Armored Changers idea, as the accessories they come with are just flip out gun thingies rather than clip on armor like the Cyberverse Spark Armor or the Beast Armor from ROTB. The idea of a separate Transforming partner does evoke the Action Masters, which I kinda dig also.

The packaging seems to emphasize elemental typing more than expected, as besides referencing the biomes mentioned in earlier press, the same elemental logos are used for individual Transformers. Bumblebee and Optimus represent the city zone, Galvatron represents the desert zone, the Dinobots and Megatron represent the jungle zone and Sky-Byte represents the water zone.

I might be reading too much into it, but I wonder if this is meant to be analogous to Bakugan's elemental factions (and where they had Transformers style Clan factions that one time). It wouldn't be the first time Transformers referenced Bakugan, considering the RiD15 Cyclone Mini-Cons (and frankly most of their Mini-Cons were analogous to Pokemon and Bakugan, with Pucks and Torpedoes also evoking Trap Bakugan, Nanogan and Geogan).

As of typing we still don't have the full context on how the rules fully work in this universe, but Hasbro and Takara clearly are experimenting with an elemental idea going by this and Wild King, ESPECIALLY Wild King. CyberWorld doing something similar makes it clear other Transformers will also be categorized based on elemental affiliation too.

So we can assume the following:

Chop Shop (Insect Beast Mode): Jungle

Elita -1 (Boat Vehicle Mode): Water

Starscream (Jet Vehicle Mode): City

Mirage (Also Jet Vehicle Mode): City

Scorponok (Scorpion Beast Mode): Jungle or Desert. He's kind of a toss up, but leaning towards Desert being his affiliation. Maybe Galvatron and Scorponok dominate the desert zone in a nod to the Bay films.

Off Road Optimus Prime & Off Road Bumblebee (Off Road Vehicle Mode) City, Jungle and/or Desert. The toys were shown associated with the city zone at Toy Fair, but the Off Road theme would suggest they'd be used heavily outside of the urban jungle.

G2 style Megatron (Tank Vehicle Mode): City, Desert or Jungle

If the line is successful, or if they already had some additional characters in the can, I think it's safe to assume any additional Autobots and Decepticons we weren't privy to yet would follow this typing system.

And frankly both the Autobots and Decepticons could use more Water guys, as we only have Elita and Sky-Byte as the Water rep. Maybe they're rivals in this context? Hopefully it's a better developed rivalry than Sky-Byte and Jetfire was in Cyberverse... I could see Scorponok involved with the Water battles, Sea Scorpions are a thing, but it leaves the Autobots at too much of a disadvantage and Elita-1 is good, but she's not THAT good. I'm not expecting someone like Broadside or High Tide here, heck maybe they'll bring back Hammerbyte as a Sky-Byte retool, who's to say. Same goes for the Desert, since Galvatron is the only one of that typing for the moment.

Another curious thing is there seems to be a tagline: "More to Unlock". It clearly refers to other toys available in the line so far on the packaging, but the idea of Unlocking is curious. Perhaps it refers to what the Autobots and Decepticons need to do in story? What little we know so far says there's video game like challenges, so perhaps each elemental area is akin to a video game level, and they have to progress through? That would make the most sense.

Either way, the first wave of toys come out June 15th, 2025, with the second wave on October. The first wave is said to be Optimus, Bee and Skybyte, with Starscream as the only named one for the second atm. When the other guys and gals come out we don't know yet as of typing. Perhaps the first and second waves will have more characters? Only having Bee, Prime and Sky-Byte to start out is strange, at least strange in that they're not going in with the new Megatron, but maybe after the failure of EarthSpark Megatron, maybe they want to hold off a smidge on Megatron this time toy wise...

[theknucklehead]

Berry in the Big City being represented by "Weird Al" Yankovic songs

And yes I would love to hear Weird Al guest star on Strawberry Shortcake like he did Friendsip is Magic.

[isimchi]

6 Bytes Under

Nowhere Cemetery holds the secrets to accessing the city's exclusive underground nightclub, 6 Bytes. Find the entrances and explore the catacombs for dancing, drinks, dining, or downloads! The unique sect of servos residing here are happy to welcome sims and other fleshy beings to this refurbished burial vault to be delighted, and delighted in.

Floor plan:

[aldryrththerainbowheart]

Chapter 1: Ghost In the Machine

The hum of the fluorescent lights in "Byte Me" IT Solutions was a monotonous drone against the backdrop of Gotham's usual cacophony. Rain lashed against the grimy window, each drop a tiny percussionist drumming out a rhythm of misery. Inside, however, misery was a bit more… organized.

I sighed, wrestling with a particularly stubborn strain of ransomware. "CryptoLocker v. 7.3," the diagnostic screen read. A digital venereal disease, if you asked me. Another day, another infected grandma's laptop filled with pictures of her grandkids and a crippling fear that hackers were going to steal her identity.

"Still at it?" My coworker, Mark, sidled over, clutching a lukewarm mug of something vaguely resembling coffee. Mark was a good guy, perpetually optimistic despite working in one of Gotham's less-than-glamorous neighborhoods. Bless his heart.

"You know it," I replied, jabbing at the keyboard. "Think I've finally managed to corner the bastard. Just gotta… there!" The screen flashed a success message. "One less victim of the digital plague."

Mark nodded, then his eyes drifted to the hulking metal beast in the corner, a Frankensteinian creation of salvaged parts and mismatched wiring. "How's the behemoth coming along?"

I followed his gaze. My pet project. My escape. "Slowly but surely. Got the cooling system optimized today. Almost ready to fire it up."

"Planning anything special with it?" Mark asked, his brow furrowed in curiosity. "You've been collecting scraps for months. It's gotta be more than just a souped-up gaming rig."

I shrugged, a deliberately vague gesture. "You could say I'm planning something… big. Something Byte Me isn't equipped to handle."

Mark chuckled. "Well, whatever it is, I'm sure you'll make it sing. You've got a knack for that sort of thing." He wandered off, whistling a jaunty tune that died a slow, agonizing death against the backdrop of the Gotham rain.

He had no idea just how much of a knack.

Mark bid me one final goodbye before pulling out an umbrella and disappearing into the night. No doubt he stops at Nero’s pizzeria before going home to his wife and kids. You watched through the shop window before he disappeared around the corner. Then, you locked the door and reached for the light switch. The fluorescent lights flickered a final, dying gasp before plunging the shop into darkness. I waited a beat, the city's distant sirens a mournful choir. Then, I flipped the hidden switch behind the breaker box, illuminating a small, secluded corner of the shop.

Rain hammered against the grimy windowpanes of my "office," a repurposed storage room tucked away in the forgotten bowels of the shop. The rhythmic drumming was almost hypnotic, a bleak lullaby for a city perpetually on the verge of collapse. I ignored it, fingers flying across the keyboard, the green glow of the monitor painting my face in an unsettling light. Outside, the city's distant sirens formed a mournful choir. Here, the air crackled with a different kind of energy.

"Almost there," I muttered, the words barely audible above the whirring of the ancient server rack humming in the corner. It was a Frankensteinian creation, cobbled together from spare parts and salvaged tech, but it packed enough processing power to crack even the most stubborn encryption algorithms. Laptops with custom OSes, encrypted hard drives, and a tangle of wires snaked across the desk. This was Ghostwire Solutions, my little side hustle. My… outlet.

Tonight's victim, or client – depending on how you looked at it – was a low-level goon. One was a two-bit thug named "Knuckles" Malone; the other, a twitchy character smelling of desperation, Frankie "Fingers" Falcone. Malone's burner phone, or Falcone's data chip containing an encrypted message, was now on the screen in front of me, a jumble of characters that would make most people's eyes glaze over. For me, it was a puzzle. A challenging, if morally questionable, puzzle.

My service, "Ghostwire Solutions," was discreet, to say the least. No flashy neon signs, no online presence, just word-of-mouth referrals whispered in dimly lit back alleys. I was a ghost, a digital shadow flitting through the city's underbelly, connecting people. That's how I liked to justify it anyway. I cracked my knuckles and went to work. My fingers danced across the keyboard, feeding the encrypted text into a series of custom-built algorithms, each designed to exploit a specific vulnerability. Hours melted away, marked only by the rhythmic tapping of keys and the soft hum of the custom-built rig in the corner, its processing power gnawing away at the digital lock.

The encryption finally buckled. A cascade of decrypted data flooded the screen. I scanned through it, a jumbled mess of texts, voicemails, location data, or a simple message detailing a meeting point and time. Mostly dull stuff about late payments and turf wars, the mundane reality of Gotham's criminal element. I extracted the relevant information.

"Alright, Frankie," I muttered to myself, copying the decrypted message onto a clean file. "Just connecting people. That's all I'm doing."

I packaged the data into a neat little file, added a hefty markup to my initial quote, and sent it off via an encrypted channel. Within minutes, the agreed-upon sum, a few hundred cold, hard dollars, landed in my untraceable digital wallet. I saved the file to a new data chip and packaged it up. Another job done. Another night closer to sanity's breaking point.

"Just connecting people," I repeated, the phrase tasting like ash in my mouth. The lie tasted even worse. I knew what I was doing. I was enabling crime. I was greasing the wheels of Gotham's underbelly. But bills had to be paid. It was a convenient lie, a way to sleep at night knowing I was profiting from the chaos. But tonight, it felt particularly hollow. And honestly, did it really matter? Gotham was already drowning in darkness. What was one more drop?

Gotham was a broken city, a machine grinding down its inhabitants. The system was rigged, the rich got richer, and the poor fought over scraps. I wasn't exactly helping to fix things. But I wasn't making it worse, right? I was just a cog in the machine, a necessary evil. I was good at what I did, damn good. I could see patterns where others saw chaos. I could exploit vulnerabilities, both in code and in the systems of power that held Gotham hostage. It was a skill, a talent, and in this city, unique talents were currency. I was efficient and discreet. But every decrypted message, every bypassed firewall, chipped away at something inside me. It hollowed me out, leaving me a ghost in my own life, a wire connecting the darkness.

I leaned back in my creaky chair, the rain still pounding against the window. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and melancholy. Another night, another decryption, another small victory against the futility of existence in Gotham. The flicker of conscience, that annoying little spark that refused to be extinguished, flared again. Was I really making a difference? Or was I just another parasite feeding off the city's decay?

I closed my eyes, trying to silence the questions. Tomorrow, there would be another encryption to crack, another connection to make. And I would be ready, Ghostwire ready to disappear into the digital ether, another ghost in the machine, until the next signal came. As I waited for the morning, for the return of the fluorescent lights and the mundane reality of "Byte Me" IT Solutions, I wondered if one day, the darkness I trafficked in would finally claim me completely. Because in Gotham, survival was a code all its own, and I was fluent in its language. And frankly, some days, that didn't seem like such a bad deal. For now, that was enough.

[commodorez]

I still believe the craziest form of computer program storage format from the 1980s is the cassette tape. Logical I get it but to store entire programs on little tape (that I only remember using to play music) is just crazy to me. Idk

Agreed, cassette tape for data storage was really clever. The concept had its heyday was the 1970s in a wide variety of encoding schemes for different computer platforms. It did persist into the 80s, mostly in Europe, while the US switched to floppy disks as soon as they were available for systems. The majority of my Ohio Scientific software is on cassette.

Talking with UK vs. US Commodore 64 users in particular will highlight the disparity in which storage mediums that were commonplace. I've got a few pieces of software on tape for mainly the VIC-20, but I rarely bother to use it, because it's slow and annoying. To be fair, Commodore's implementation of data storage on tape is pretty rock solid relative to the competition. It's considered more reliable than other company's but Chuck Peddle's implementation of the cassette routines are considered quite enigmatic to this day. He didn't document it super well, so CBM kept reusing his old code from the PET all the way through the end of the C128's development 7 years later because they didn't want to break any backward compatibility.

The big thing that really made alot of homebrewers and kit computer owners cozy up to the idea was the introduction of the Kansas City Standard from 1976. The idea of getting away from delicate and slow paper tape, and moving towards an inexpensive, portable, and more durable storage medium was quite enticing. Floppy disk drives and interfaces were expensive at the time, so something more accessible like off the shelf audio tapes made sense.

I've linked two places you can read about it from Byte Magazine's February 1976 issue below (check the attribution links).

You might recognize a familiar name present...

There are a few ways to encode binary data on tape designed to handle analog audio, but the KCS approach is to have 1's be 8 cycles of 2400Hz tone, and 0's be 4 cycles of 1200Hz tone. I say cycles, because while 300 baud is the initial specification, there is also a 1200 baud specification available, so the duration of marks vs spaces (another way of saying 1's and 0's), is variable based on that baud rate. Many S-100 computers implemented it, as do a few contemporary proprietary designs.

The big 3 microcomputers of 1977 that revolutionized the industry (Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and Tandy TRS-80 Model I) each have their own cassette interface implementation. It kept costs down, and it was easy to implement, all things considered. The Apple II and TRS-80 use off-the-shelf cassette deck connections like many other machines, whereas the original variant of the PET had an integrated cassette. Commodore later used external cassette decks with a proprietary connector, whereas many other companies abandoned tape before too long. Hell, even the original IBM PC has a cassette port, not that anybody bothered to use that. Each one used a different encoding format to store their data, rather than KCS.

Here's a sample of what an OSI-formatted tape sounds like.

And here's a Commodore formatted tape, specifically one with VIC-20 programs on it.

I won't subject you to the whole program, or we'd be here all day. The initial single tone that starts the segment is called the "leader", I've truncated it for the sake of your ears, as well as recorded them kinda quietly. I don't have any other tape formats on hand to demonstrate, but I think you get the idea.

You can do alot better than storing programs on tape, but you can also do alot worse -- it beats having to type in a program every time from scratch.

[manic-sapphic]

fck off, shadow weaver!

so for anyone who's unaware, at the spop panel back in 2021 at i think the emerald city comic-con, during the q&a portion w the audience, someone asked them all to say something their characters never would/had so they could use it for an animatic later on.

karen fukuhara (glimmer's VA) gave the best one imo hehe so i did a thing w the sound byte lmao

~ps i like to imagine glimmer & adora filling catra in on the story of this absolute k.o. punch post-canon and catra just being so proud of sparkles~

[jacenotjason]

WELCOME TO CYBER CITADEL!

"We ARE the Future!"

It's finally time to sort of "officially" announce this even though you guys were all aware of it HAHA

THIS IS MY OC PROJECT! I wanted to make a new kingdom for CRK that people could make OCs for and such. YOU CAN JOIN YAAY !!

This is just for fun, I don't plan to use your ocs for anything, maybe art and writing and . playing toys :)

I apologize if this seems a little rushed. I really wanted to finish this world building before the steam died off. </3 This is just to introduce you all to the concept, anyways! hopefully I can make better content of the city later

NOW!! if you want to make an OC to go with Cyber Citadel heres a quick guide!

The cookies of Cyber Citadel are called Data Crunchers!

However, this is just a broad term for all of them. To get more specific there is a hierchy:

The ruler at the top, obviously (Byte Chip Cookie)

Firewall (Cookies that guard Byte Chip directly)

Adblockers (General guards and peacemakers around the city)

Cache Workers (General population)

Pop-Ups (Small, annoying cookies that hang out in areas beyond the cameras. Wandering back there will get you swarmed by these little guys!)

Something I didn't include is that the cookies in Cyber Citadel are commonly seen with technology, obviously! Something they're connected with, it could be a handheld device object, it could be something they can ride, or it can be a piece of tech implanted in/on them

For Byte Chip Cookie, it's his Recording Eye!

THATS ALL THE INFORMATION I THINK YOU NEED FOR NOW!

if you have any questions MY INBOX IS ALWAYS OPEN!

Also! Ps! I do plan on making a Toyhouse World for this to make sure all the information is packed nicely, but it isn't finished yet, because i don't know what I'm doing <3 BUT hopefully er. one day

(bonus)

[indieyuugure]

Is it alright if there’s some Mikey angst from your Indie AU?

Sure.

So you guys remember a little while back I mentioned a Spider Bytes adjacent character?

Meet the Pomerantula(Inspired by a Pinterest post I saw) the mutant combination of a Pomeranian dog and a Black Widow spider. Mikey incorrectly dubbed them with the assumption that they were part tarantula, but no one could come up with a better name so Pomerantula it was.

News reports come in of monster sized spiders lurking around New York City so the boys suspect perhaps this is the Kraang’s doing and go to investigate. Unfortunately, Mikey gets bit by one of these little things during their investigation turned pest extermination and after Donnie determines that it is not in fact a tarantula but a black widow, they have to find a medicine for the venom as fast as possible.

They deduce that given the recent string of spider attacks, the local hospital is very likely to have antivenin stocked so they break in and manage to find what they need.

Splinter was not pleased when they got home.

Hope this is okay, this has been in my mind for a while now so it’s fun to get to share it!

Good question! :]