#jailbreak online

[kittycouch]

Holy shit

[iosjailbreak]

How to jailbreak iOS 16.6?

iOS 16.6 jailbreak: Top jailbreak tools

Here is how to jailbreak iOS 16.6 online and with Palera1n, all the latest updates about iOS 16.6 jailbreak, release dates, new features, jailbreak solutions, Unv0ver, Chimaera, Checkra1n, Palera1n jailbreak, tool compatibility, how to get Cydia for iOS 16.6 online, and top jailbreak tools.

Refer to the full guide : iOS 16.6 jailbreak click here>>>

How to jailbreak iOS 16.6?

The Palera1n jailbreak for iOS 16.6 is now available to the public. So now you can jailbreak iOS 16.6 running devices on your PC or online. Also, you can jailbreak iOS 16.6 online with the Palera1n limited tool. Chimera, Blizzard, Checkra1n jailbreak, Unc0ver, odyssey, and dopamine jailbreak are not yet compatible with iOS 16.6.

but now you can use semi- and lite jailbreaks, jailbreak tools, and jailbreak solutions to jailbreak iOS 16.6. Below, we have provided a list of all the currently available jailbreak solutions for the iOS 16.6 version.

Learn more about – Beats Studio Pro Headphones: Review

iOS 16.6 jailbreak solutions and top jailbreak tools

All the well-known jailbreak solutions for iOS 16.6 / iOS 16.0.1 have been tried and tested by us. The jailbreak tools listed below are compatible with iOS 16–16.6 (iOS 16, 16.2, 16.5,16.6). To get the Cydia, Zebra, or Sileo package managers, download the appropriate jailbreak solution from the list below.

The most recent jailbreak methods for iOS 16–16.6 are regularly added to this page. Additionally, all jailbreak methods work for iOS 16.6 to iOS 17.

Pikzo jailbreak

Pikzo is a jailbreak repo extractor for iOS 11- iOS 16.6. it is the finest repo extractor in the world. You can obtain a lot of applications, games, apps, and much more. Also, you can get other solution apps from Pikzo. PiKZo is supported by all device models.

Pikzo compatibility:

iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 ProMax, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 ProMax, iPhone 12, iPhone-12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone11 Pro Max, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE (1st gen), iPhone SE (2nd gen), iPod touch (7th gen), iPad Pro (4th gen), iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd gen), iPad Pro (3rd gen),iPad Pro (1st gen), iPad Pro (2nd gen), iPad Pro (1st gen), iPad (7th gen), iPad (6th gen), iPad (5th gen), iPad mini (5th gen), iPad mini 4, iPad Air (3rd gen), iPad Air 2

The latest update of Pikzo jailbreak

Adding support for new iOS 16.6 and new iOS 17.1 beta

Adding new social tweaks

importing new themes with the new versions

optimizing the  Search options

Cripzi jailbreak for iOS 16.6

For jailbreaking on iOS 16 to iOS 16.6, Cripzi is the best repo signer. Cripzi jailbreak offers many jailbreak methods, including repo extractor, direct Cydia lite, and Sileo install. This is the only jailbreak that can be done online and works on all iOS 16.6 to iOS 17 iPhones and iPads.

Now you can extract many Repos and jailbreak virtual like checkra1n/Unc0ver and Cheyote jailbreak tool to install Cydia and Sileo. Cripzi is compatible with all iOS device models including iPhone14 pro max. Also, this supports all iOS versions from iOS 11 to iOS 16.3How do I get the Cripzi jailbreak for iOS 16.6?

Step 1: Tap on the above button and go to the cripzi jailbreak guide page. link>>>Step 2: Go to user device (phone/ipad) setting>general>profile management and trust the profile.Step 3: Open cripzi repo signer and tap the ikeplor repo list.Step 4 – Select the repo you want and tap add button.Step 5: Allow a few minutes to extract the repo.step 6: after finishing the process go to your device setting and trsu the repo.Step 7: Enjoy the jailbreak

Esign patch app

The Esign patch app is one of the most popular iOS 16.6 jailbreak app signers. Many iPhone and iPad users consider this iOS app signer to be the best app signer in the world. This iOS app signer is the best there has ever been. 4.8.2 is the new version of the esign app. This allows you to freely install the most recent jailbreak tools online to your device.

Also, you can install the most popular iOS apps, hacked apps, social media double-plus apps, Cydia tweaks, and much more. now you can download the Esign app from the below button.

Palera1n lite jailbreak for iOS 16.6

Palera1n is a jailbreak for checkm8 exploit-supported devices (A11 or below). Currently, support ranges from 15.0 to 16.6 with PC. but now you use the Palera1n lite jailbreak tool online to get the jailbreak experience.it is compatible with iOS 16.6. tap the below button and get the palera1n lite online.

Zeon jailbreak

Zeon is a jailbreak solution for iOS 16.6. It works with iOS 16 and all later versions. By extracting repos from them, you can get jailbreak apps, tweaks, and theme collections. Zeon can be downloaded from the Zeejb Appstore.

This is the first ever convenient Repo extractor for iOS 16 – iOS 16.6. Zeon Repo Extractor has more than 1,000 + repositories/sources listed under many categories. Download themes, tweaks, emulators, games, and music on 14 and higher by extracting repos.

Sileem for iOS 16.6

Sileem is a well-known and well-liked first jailbreak solution for iOS 16 and later versions. As a result, Sileem is the best way to jailbreak iOS 16.6 / iOS 17 apps and customizations as well as third-party package managers like Cydia and Sileo on your iPhone and iPad.

Sileem’s most important points

There are Japanese and English versions available.

iPhones running iOS 16.6 and iPads running iPadOS 16.6 are both compatible.

All iPhones and iPads running iOS / iPadOS 16.6 are compatible.

Method for successfully installing iOS 16 to iOS 16.6 Jailbreak applications, iOS 16.1 – iOS 16.1.2 Jailbreak apps, iOS 16.4 / iOS 16.4.1 Jailbreak apps, and even the latest iOS 16.5 Jailbreak (beta) apps

There is no danger to the device’s warranty.

Under Sileem, several jailbreak iOS 16.3 / iOS 16.3.1 applications and modifications are accessible.

U04S Store

Uo4s Store provides the ability to install Uncover Jailbreak online on your devices. Now you can get the Unc0ver Jailbreak tool for iOS 11 to iOS 14.8 online using this store. Also, you can use U04S storage and application database to install applications to iOS 16.6 running devices online. They offer many apps including 1000+ jailbreak tweaks, themes, settings, Cydia apps, hacked games, ebooks, and many more.

ODYY Store

Oddy jailbreak store provides the ability to install Taurine and Odyssey jailbreak online. Now you can install Taurine jailbreak from the Oddy tool. Moreover, it can be used to install Selio, apps, tweaks, and more. 

Compatibility: iOS 13 to iOS 16.6

Appdb pro application database

Appdb Pro will be the most popular iOS application database in the world in 2023. It is now compatible with iOS 16.6. It’s the best all-in-one platform for getting iOS jailbreak apps, tools, hacked games, Cydia apps, tweaks, unc0ver jailbreak tools, taurine, xina tool, mocOs apps, Ebooks, Apple TV jailbreak tools, and much more.

This allows you to download and sideload cracked ios games and apps for free without jailbreak with signing service.

DLEASY App for iOS 16.6

Dleasy allows you to Download/Share images & videos from social apps easily! – Allow you to Download/share images & videos from social apps easily! Now it is compatible with iOS 16.6 and all iOS device models, including the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

iOS users can download photographs and videos from social applications with the DLEasy patch. ( social applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Roket, Messenger, Reddit, TikTok Plus, Tumblr, Tweetbot, Twitter, VK, WhatsApp, and YouTube, Long-press a picture or video to save it to your iPhone.)

Xina jailbreak

The Xina jailbreak is a rootless jailbreak designed for A12 – A15 devices running iOS 15 to iOS 15.1.1. Although still a work in progress, a demo video has been shared by the developer showcasing Xina Jailbreak successfully running on an iPhone XS device with iOS 15.1. This jailbreak tool has been referred to by several names, including Xina jailbreak, XinaA15 jailbreak, Xina520 jailbreak, and Xinlang jailbreak.

Now you can download Xina jailbreak online from the below button.

Blizzardboard

Blizzardboard is a new app for jailbroken and Non-jailbroken iPhones that can be used online for iOS 16 devices. This app can replace your iPhone/iPad Homescreen icons with SnowBoard-compatible iOS themes. That means you can install Cydia/Sileo/Zebra themes without jailbreaking your iPhone/iPad.

iOS 16.6 with the computer (new methods)

Let’s look at how to jailbreak iOS 16.6 on a computer. We already know that Checkra1n, FUGU jailbreak, and palera1n jailbreak are three of the most important tools for jailbreaking With PC. Checkra1n Jailbreak is the most used way to jailbreak your device with a computer in the world. With the Checkra1n tool, you can jailbreak your iOS 12 and later devices.

>== Checkra1n jailbreak

>== Fugu jailbreak 

>== palera1n jailbreak

Palera1n Jailbreak

Palera1n Jailbreak tool was released for iOS 16 and now it is compatible with iOS 16.6. it is a semi-tethered jailbreak tool. So you need a computer to use this jailbreak tool. But you can use the Palera1n patch tool to get the Palera1n online. Sileo is the default package manager for the Pelera1n jailbreak.

The updated palera1n jailbreak tool now supports iOS 16.6. This is the fully supported device list for the Palera1n jailbreak tool.

Compatible devices

A8 / A8X – Phone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2A9 / A9X – iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone SE, iPad (2017) 5th Generation, iPad Pro (12.9 in.) 1st generation, iPad Pro (9.7 in.)A10 /A10X – iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, iPad (2018, 6th generation), iPad (2019, 7th generation), iPad Pro 10.5″ (2017), iPad Pro 12.9″ 2nd Gen (2017)A11 – iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X.

Checkra1n-jailbreak

Checkra1n is a permanent jailbreak tool. But you need a computer to do this jailbreak process. Now, checkra1n jailbreak is compatible with iOS 15. The Checkra1n team has officially not yet confirmed that their tool supports iOS 16.6. They released their new version-checkra1n 0.12.4 beta with support for iOS 12 to iOS 14.8.

It may also be possible to jailbreak Apple T2 security devices. You may get the latest version of checkra1n by clicking the button below.

iOS 16.6 jailbreak without a computer: online

Uncover jailbreak, Taurine jailbreak, chimera jailbreak, and Odyssey jailbreak are world-famous online jailbreak tools.

Unc0ver jailbreak

Unc0ver is an online semi-untethered jailbreak.Pwn20wnd is the developer of Uncover Jailbreak too added support for iOS 14 to iOS 14.8 with their latest tool update. unc0ver is compatible with A12-A13 iPhones running iOS 14.6-14.8. Unc0ver Tool developer pwn20wnd has not yet included support for iOS 16.6 iOS version.

you can download Unc0ver jailbreak online from the U04S store.

Taurine jailbreak

Taurine Jailbreak has been introduced by developer Coolstar as the second stable jailbreak tool for iOS 14- iOS 14.3. but the Coolstar new tool is compatible with iOS 15 running devices.

Taurine Jailbreak: iOS Compatibility

iOS 14.3 / iOS 14.2.1 / iOS 14.2 / iOS 14.1 / iOS 14.0.1 / iOS 14

Dopamine jailbreak iOS 16.6

The Dopamine jailbreak is the latest jailbreak tool released for iOS devices. but it is not yet compatible with iOS 16.6. Currently, it is working on iOS 15 running versions s including iOS 15 to iOS 15.5. Dopaminejb is a continuation of the Fugu15 project, with the goal of bringing a traditional end-user jailbreak environment to it.

Cheyote jailbreak

Cheyote Jailbreak is the new jailbreak tool that will be released by Cool Star for iOS 15. The Odyssey Team has announced that a jailbreak tool called Cheyote will be coming out soon. For the first time, it will work with devices running iOS 15 and iOS 15.1.1. but it will not be compatible with iOS 16.6 running devices.

Chimera jailbreak

Chimera jailbreak is not available for iOS 16.6 or iOS 16 versions. currently, it is compatible with iOS 12 to higher versions. Coolstar is the developer of Chimera jailbreak and he does not update this tool yet for iOS 13 to higher.

This tool allows you to install the Selio package manager on your device online. however, now you can get Selio lite app for iOS 16.6 to higher running devices using the palera1n semi-jailbreak tool.How to download and Install iOS 16.6 on Your iPhone?

Apple iOS 16.6 runs on all iPhones starting including iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, and this update includes features relevant to all those handsets. Among the issues in iOS 16.6 are 11 in the kernel at the heart of the iPhone operating system and eight in WebKit, the engine underlying Apple’s Safari browser.

Open the “Settings” app on your iPhone or iPad.

Go to “General”

Go to “Software Update”

Select “Download and Install” for iOS 16.6 / iPadOS 16.6.

Which phones run iOS 16.6?

Those phones that supported iOS 16 will continue to run this update. That means any iPhone 8 or older. All iPhones since iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, and this update includes features relevant to all those handsets.

Top 5 jailbreak tools

Checkra1n jailbreak

Unc0ver jailbreak

Palera1n jailbreak

Xina jailbreak

Taurine jailbreak

iOS 16 jailbreak solutions – 2023

Pikzo jailbreak

Cripzi jailbreak

DLEASY app – 2023 new trending app

E-sign Signer -jailbreak Cydia installer

U04S Store-Unc0ver jailbreak online installer

Oddy Store – taurine jailbreak online installer and iOS app downloader

Appdb pro – tweaks apps + new iOS apps installer (online)

Zeejb app store

Whatsapp patch app – WhatsApp hacked app

Youtube patch app – youtube hacked app

lightning sign app – IPA signer

Zeon

Hexxa plus

Palera1n Jailbreak virtual

Xina jailbreak online tool

Selio virtual signer

blizzardboard

According to user rankings, the most popular 2023 Jailbreak solutions are the Pikzo jailbreak and E-sign patch (jailbreak installer) application.

iOS 16.6 jailbreak updates

iOS 16.6 was just released to the public. Apple iOS 16.6 for iPhones, iPadOS 16.6, macOS Ventura 13.5, and watchOS 9.6 have all been released, and the reason for this mass release is that they all contain critical security fixes.

Great news! iOS 16.6 is now available for iPhone users, here’s what’s new. link>>>

iOS 14.8 taurine jailbreak is now released to the public. Get it free now.>>>

iOS 16.6 Reddit updates

Dose palera1n Work on ios 16.6? [A11]

I have an iPhone 8 running iOS 16.6 and I’m wondering if they are ANY available Jailbrakes for it includingpalera1n or other ones

iOS 16.6 features

Here’s what iOS 16.6 might bring to your iPhone.

Verification of iMessage Contact Key

In December 2022, Apple revealed iMessage Contact Key Verification, and the first iOS 16.6 beta looks to feature elements of the tool’s structure.

“With iMessage Contact Key Verification, users who face extraordinary digital threats… can choose to further verify that they are messaging only with the people they intend,” Apple said at the time in a press release.

The function does not appear to be operational, but if you go to Settings and look for “Contact Key Verification” in iOS 16.6, you should see a setting for it. At the moment, tapping the function simply opens your Apple ID settings.

iOS 16.6 is yet to be released by Apple. Apple may incorporate additional capabilities in iOS 16.6, and there is no assurance that Contact Key Verification will be included.

Check out what’s new in iOS 16.5 and why you should download it right now for more iOS news.

Apple releases iOS 16.6 beta 5 ahead of upcoming iPhone software update

All the action is happening around the iOS 17 beta and Apple is getting closer to releasing an iPhone software update. Apple has released the fifth iOS 16.6 beta for developer testing.

iOS 16.6 has been in developer beta form since May. The next iPhone software update will probably be released this month.

Apple iOS 16.6 White Screen Error: Fixes, Causes, Affected Devices, and More

Thе Latеst Bug: Applе iOS 16. 6 Whitе Scrееn Error

Discovеring a nеw bug in thеir Applе iPhonеs, usеrs who updatеd to iOS 16. 6 arе еncountеring an unеxpеctеd challеngе. Rеports arе pouring in about an aggravating whitе scrееn issuе that rеndеrs dеvicеs inaccеssiblе to thеir contеnt. Disturbingly, some usеrs have also notеd a drop in battеry hеalth by up to 10% following thе softwarе upgradе.

[scalematez]

For people who weren't at SAHcon

Apparently the creators of The Unofficial Homestuck Collection have revealed that they've been working on an online website version of it, making it readable on mobile and available for people who don't have 4 gigs of storage to spare.

The Flash elements are all emulated using Ruffle, and it has mods built into it (that you can add and remove at your leisure).

It was only just released to the public yesterday, so it may have some bugs, but it does currently have (from what I can tell) the entire thing, including the archives of the other MSPA comics like Jailbreak and Problem Sleuth.

[kazekagevi]

Bonds Beyond Words: If Eywa Wills It

PART ONE PART TWO

Pairing: Aged-Up!Neteyam x Fem!Human!Reader

Word Count: 3.1k 

Tags: dark themes, indirect mention of r*pe, suicide attempt, eventual NSFW, aged-up! Neteyam, reader has PTSD, Neteyam dislikes humans (except for you), eventual jealous/possessive Neteyam, future Olo'eyktan! Neteyam, interspecies slow burn, angst, fluff, probably OOC, POV’s all over the place, forgive the inconsistencies. 

Summary: You, a competent researcher and writer, awoke from cryosleep a year ago, only to be imprisoned by the RDA—they intended to force you and many other women into a selective breeding program to kickstart human repopulation. However, you, the other prisoners, and allied wardens formed an escape plan; it was carried out, but you are the lone survivor. 

A/N and Disclaimer: This is my first x reader fic! This is also my first fic on Tumblr in years! I've been reading a lot of ATWOW fics and thought I would write my own. I am also challenging myself to write in present tense (I'm a past tense girly), so please forgive any grammatical errors. Hope you enjoy <3

This story contains explicit content and is only appropriate for audiences 18+. MDNI. Please do not repost my work. 

The tracking device beneath your skin feels like a ticking time bomb—although you’re certain it doesn’t have the power to detonate, should the RDA find your location before the prison sector’s power unit comes back online, it could still bring mass destruction to this region of the extrasolar moon. As if the RDA hasn't done enough of that already. 

As you walk barefoot through the unfamiliar forest of Pandora, you wonder if this is heaven. Surely, you must have died along the way—you survived the initial jailbreak, then the evasion at dawn, and managed to remain mostly unscathed from the chopper accident. On Earth, you’d feel compelled to buy a lottery ticket. The thought alone makes you chuckle, and your mask fogs in response. Your laughs, albeit quiet, turn maniacal. Maybe you hit your head hastily fleeing the first bunker, or got thwacked by metal shrapnel in the crash. 

If you live, the escape will count as a partial success. Living would make you a hero; but as darkness falls on this foreign planet, you silently wish you had become a martyr like the others instead. 

You’re completely defenseless. You have nothing more than your respirator mask that won’t stop fogging due to your panicked breaths, and the clothes on your back. You adorn an oversized jacket that you stole from the valiantly deceased helo pilot, and your prison uniform—it’s nothing more than a flimsy, green hospital gown. 

You should know more about this place. You were chosen among an elite class of writers to research alien life on Pandora. You loved traveling and writing about new cultures—studying language, customs, and history. It was your pride and joy, your life’s work. Yet, the nightmare started the day you woke from cryosleep and you were forced into a tiny cell with three other women. In your year of imprisonment, two of them had already been selected into the breeding program, while you and the other, Claudia, were awaiting that same fate. 

You almost slip on a patch of sludge and break your fall by grabbing a tree stump. 

You do know, however, that this hostile environment will kill you if you don’t find the tribe you’re searching for. Certainly, your luck will run out soon. 

So, you stop laughing, blink away the tears in your eyes, and regain your focus. You’d slap your own cheeks if you could, but your mask renders the act impossible. You have to survive, or else the girls’ and allied wardens’ deaths will be meaningless. 

As you continue on your path, the mud starts to dampen, coating the soles of your feet. You presume this is from a recent rainstorm, or perhaps you’re nearing a water source. You swallow hard—inevitably, you’re thirsty. But if breathing Pandora’s air will kill you, the water will likely do the same.

As you carefully wade through the soppy terrain, you repeat the same phrases under your breath like a prayer or mantra. Even if you suffered amnesia and lost all your memories like a slate wiped clean, you could suffice to lose it all, except a few words which you memorized in Na’vi. 

Using these phrases would determine if you lived or died, assuming you weren’t slain with an arrow on sight: after introducing yourself in the language, you must tell them you seek asylum with the Omatikaya clan at High Camp and Max knows you’re coming. Lastly, you needed to say there is a tracking device under my skin, please cut it out. 

You recite these phrases again, except this time you mess up the grammatical structure on the last part. You winge, correct yourself, and continue on your course.

The planet begins to dim as time passes. As you avoid tripping over tree roots and crushing delicate flowers, you notice Pandora’s subtle glow. The bioluminescent spots that dot the terrain look like freckles on skin. It’s the first time you’re seeing the real thing up close, instead of in a tiny photograph. You’re as enamored as you are terrified. 

Your feet hurt and your shins ache when night fully settles. You’ve been traveling by foot for hours. Imprisonment and preparation for forced motherhood meant there was little opportunity for exercise in the compound. Your body isn’t used to lifting heavy things or globetrotting long distances. 

As you use the last of your energy reserves to think—to consider stopping in a safe area for a break—a tremendous force stops you first. 

This is it, you think. You know you're going to die. 

The force is a Na’vi, whom you cannot see. From their position behind you, an arm wraps around your abdomen, lifting your smaller body off the ground like a doll. The Na’vi lodges their elbow into your stomach, knocking the wind out of you, all so they can wrap their large blue hand around your small, human neck. Despite the panic, you notice how controlled the Na’vi’s grip is—just enough to hold you still without choking you. It feels like a strange paralysis. Your oxygen mask fogs as you pant in distress. 

“Why I should not kill you?” The Na’vi asks in broken English. The timbre of the voice leads you to believe this one is male. 

Say the thing! your mind reels. You resist the urge to flail your limbs. The slightest movements make the Na’vi tighten his grip—at this very moment, you notice his other hand holds a dagger to your throat. The space between your skin and the blade is miniscule, as is your proximity to certain death. 

So you do it, you say the thing. Except, it comes out all wrong:

“My… My name is Asylum at High Camp,” you stammer in Pandora’s native language. 

The Na’vi makes a sound of confusion. You won’t know until later, but Neteyam thinks your pronunciation is mechanical, unpleasant, and downright horrible. 

Your chest heaves wildly and your heart thrums in your chest like a drum. The realization hits like a truck. “Wait… No, that’s not right,” you say in English. Your jagged breaths aren’t allowing oxygen to circulate in the mask properly—the same goes for your brain. 

The Na’vi growls against your ear. You’re running out of time. You gather the last of your composure. 

You tell him your name, properly this time, then continue with your monologue. “I-I seek asylum at High Camp, Max knows I’m coming,” you sputter like a dying engine. 

The Na’vi makes another sound of confusion, yet still seems dissatisfied. He gently presses the tip of the knife to your throat. 

“No! Please!” you beg. Your hands instinctively wrap around his glowing-freckled forearm, but you don’t tug. 

The Na’vi freezes. You can’t see it, but something is happening. 

Neteyam’s hairless brows furrow when a woodsprite lands on the edge of the blade he inherited from his maternal grandfather. The woodsprite lingers there, teetering on the edge. Then, it slots itself into the small space between your skin and his knife. You can’t help but cringe at the slight tickle of its tendrils against your collarbone. 

“Eywa,” Neteyam whispers to himself. His voice is so quiet that you cannot hear. 

The woodsprite travels over your clavicle and settles against the skin just below it. The woodsprite glows with vibrance. The light winks at Neteyam. He knows it's a sign. The tip of his knife drags gently against your skin, sending shivers up your spine. The woodsprite flutters away once his knife is over the spot where the tracker sits beneath the surface. His lips part—the area feels hard when he knows it shouldn’t be. 

Your eyes widen. You remember your lines, like an amateur actor taking the stage for the first time. 

“There’s a tracker!” you shout in English. Your shrill voice catches even Neteyam—the future Olo'eyktan—off guard. 

“A tracker?” Neteyam retorts, his voice laced with aggression and uncertainty. He doesn’t recognize that word, but your tone implies grave danger. 

You nod. “There is a tracking device under my skin,” you say in the Na’vi’s native tongue. “Please, cut it out!”

Fright flashes upon Neteyam’s face. Mentally, he’s reeling—were you sent here as bait from the sky demons? Is he falling into another one of their traps? Images of the tracker the Sky People lodged into the tulkun’s fin on the reefs of Awa'atlu flood his mind. His heart feels heavy when he thinks of Ro'a and her cub. 

Physically, however, Neteyam does as he’s told. He would never willingly take orders from Sky People, but he knows in this instance, it’s the only way to protect himself, his family, and his clan. He must abide by these orders for the greater good. 

Neteyam moves swiftly as he pins you against the nearest tree. He holds you there by your neck. Your eyes meet for a brief moment, then he zeros in on the neckline of your hospital gown. He uses his thumb to feel for the tracking device, raises his knife, and cuts. 

Pupils blown wide, you study his face in the moment of reprieve before he slashes at your skin. His eyes are bright yellow, like tiny suns or egg yolks. His lips are full, and as he grimaces, he reveals a shiny set of white teeth. His ears point backwards: he’s agitated. His tail swishes from side to side. He wears his hair in braids. Around his neck, he adorns an ornamental choker necklace. 

You howl through your teeth. Your jaw is clenched. The pain is unbearable, but at the same time, it’s the best kind you’ve ever felt. Even if this Na’vi should kill you right after, at least in your last moments, you’ll feel free. 

Blood pools around his knife as he cuts through the first layer of skin. He tries to ignore your cries as he presses his long fingertips into the open wound. He pulls when he feels a small piece of plastic; with a bit of effort, he dislodges it from your body. 

You sigh in relief when the Na’vi removes it, but the pain lingers—it worsens when you press your fingertips against the wound to stop the bleeding. Your eyelids are heavy. You feel lightheaded. 

The Na’vi removes his grip from your neck, only so he can destroy the tracker. Neteyam notes that trackers he’s encountered in the past tend to beep, light up, or some combination of both—this one has neither of those attributes. The uncomfortable knots in Neteyam’s stomach begin to untie, but he cannot give up his resolve. His work is unfinished. 

He presses the tracker against the tree bark, grunts, and he hacks away with his weapon.

Even as you’re bleeding—potentially to death—you continue to study the Na’vi’s physique and stature. This one in particular is muscular and athletic, and presumably taller than average. The way his muscles move under his blue skin is enchanting, and the way his freckles glow, you might as well be looking up at the night sky. You’re certain this will be your last chance to witness life on Pandora, or life at all—might as well bask in it. 

The tracker is chopped and diced into small pieces, like how you used to cut vegetables back on Earth. The Na’vi looks pleased with his work. Then, his hairless brows furrow again, he spits into his hand, and throws the pieces as far as he can into the Pandoran wilderness. He hisses. You think it’s some kind of power move, but you’re not quite sure, and you definitely don’t have the gall to ask. 

Neteyam stands still for a moment, bloodied hands on his hips. He has yet to face the elephant in the room—or in this circumstance, the tawtute against the tree. 

That blood is only yours. Your eyes roll into the back of your head; you see stars upon realizing just how much you’ve lost. 

---

You wake to the sounds of beeps and whirrs.

All is quiet. You’re in a small room with white walls. The lights are dimmed. Your breaths are slow and relaxed—but as the cogs start to turn, you begin to question if you’re safe or not. 

Pain shoots through your shoulder like a strike of lightning as you sit up in the cot you’ve been sleeping in. You wince loudly, and the noise echoes. 

Your mind briefly recalls the events of the last twenty-four hours, leading up to the encounter with the Na’vi. Evidently, it wasn’t a dream or figment of your highly active imagination. 

Your clavicle has been wrapped in a thick bandage. When you pull back the thin blanket that covers the rest of you, you realize the dirt and grime that covered your feet and legs has been washed away. 

You sigh in relief. You think you’re safe, until you discover that your old hospital gown has been replaced with a brand new albeit identical one—one with the Resource Development Administration’s logo on the tag. 

Your heart feels heavy. 

The escape was unsuccessful. The mission failed.

It makes sense now, as your vision swims through the confined space. This must be it—this must be where they took Seraphina, and Leah, and Clover. This must be where the girls who get picked go. Where they are prepared. Where they are taken. 

You sit there for a few moments, then begin to hyperventilate. The Na’vi male must have left you there to die, and the RDA must have tracked you down anyway. Given that they lost all of their prisoners in the jailbreak, it made sense. They would do anything to get you back. 

You shatter like glass.

Tears prick your bloodshot eyes like thorns. You pluck each wire from your arm like guitar strings, separating yourself from any machines. They continue to beep, but at a different pace, like a sounding alarm. 

You search the room for an escape. You spot a pitcher and sponge on the counter adjacent to the bed. 

In the laboratory across from the infirmary room, Max looks up from his microscope when he hears a loud crash. He jumps up from his swivel chair and dashes across the hall, opening the infirmary door. 

Max has no choice but to undertake—you have a large shard of glass in your hand, and you use all the force in your tired body to resist. He grimaces as you continue to aim for a critical slice on your opposite wrist. His words fail to soothe. 

“Norm!” the unfamiliar man calls. “We’ve got a cutter!” 

Footsteps thump down the hall, then another man enters. “Holy shit,” he says. “What the hell is going on?!”

“I don’t know!” Max shouts back. 

Norm, in his human form, hops over the pile of broken glass, and crouches to meet your bleary, downcast eyes. “Hey… Hey! Stop! You’re safe here!”

You can’t stop the tears from coming. You shake your head and continue to thrash in Max’s arms. “To hell with you RDA fucks!” you spit at him. 

Norm’s eyes fall shut when a glob of saliva hits his left cheek. He counts to three before responding. “We’re not with them!” He grabs your wrists. “Calm down! You’re at High Camp!”

You freeze. You choke on a loud sob. “What?” you ask weakly. 

“I’m Norm,” the one crouching before you says. “That guy, behind you, he’s Max. We’re scientists allied with the Na’vi. This is the stronghold. You’re in our laboratory.” 

You sniffle. The room goes silent. “But this gown?” you croak, showing him the logo.

Norm sighs. “We loot supplies from RDA… That’s all.” 

“Take a deep breath,” says Max. You do as you're told, and your muscles relax. Max docks the glass shard from your hand and eases his grip. Norm nods in approval. “One more,” Max adds. Inhale. Exhale. “You’re alright now.” 

Inevitably, you start crying again. But this time, your tears are joyous. The tension breaks like ice—it’s melting. You’re awash in relief you thought would never come. It’s euphoric. It’s blissful. You’re free. 

A year of suffering and imprisonment is released in your loud sobs. Max catches you before you can fall to your knees on the remnants of the broken pitcher. Neither of them know what to say, so they say nothing. 

Norm, the one on the floor, wipes his cheek with the collar of his shirt. Then he reaches into one of the infirmary cabinets, procuring a dust pan and small sweeper. He does his best to clean the porcelain shards quickly and quietly. “Get her an Ativan,” he mumbles to Max on his way to the disposal bin. Max swallows his nerves. 

---

You’re moved into another room in the facility after your incident in the infirmary. When you come to, you feel slightly embarrassed. You didn’t even check to see if the door of that room was unlocked, which it was. 

“I’m sorry about your pitcher,” you tell Max as he returns from the linen closet with the blankets you asked for. 

Max chuckles. He wants to say he’s more than sorry about all that’s happened to you. He was aiding and abetting the lead warden—the one who came up with the masterplan. “Don’t worry about it. That pitcher meant nothing to me,” he assures. 

You crack a crooked, uneasy smile. The Ativan is starting to take its effect. Max smiles back.

You feel grateful. The scientists here have been nothing but kind and patient. 

You can’t help but also feel grateful to the Na’vi male who presumably saved your life. You don’t know where he is, how to find him, or if you’ll see him again, but you feel indebted. You want to ask Max how you can show your gratitude, but that will have to wait. 

“Thank you,” you say. “For everything.” 

Max nods with a crestfallen smile. “If you need anything else, I’ll be around in the lab all day. Norm will be spending some time as his Avatar, so he won’t be around until later,” he says. “You were out for two entire days, I’m sure you’re hungry. Feel free to have anything in the walk-in or pantry. We don’t always have meals together as a crew, but tonight we’ll have dinner together,” Max explains. 

You’re left alone once Max is sure you’re settled and calm, and won’t break the vase on the coffee table that he does care about. 

---

A/N: Feel free to leave any and all feedback on this chapter! Reblogs and likes are greatly appreciate. In part two, Norm and Max will discuss your arrival with our king, Jake Sully. <3

NEXT CHAPTER: PART TWO

[woso-dreamzzz]

Homework

Barcelona Femení x Teen!Reader

Summary: You try to get someone else to do your homework

Studying was such a bore for you. You hated sitting in a classroom and studying. Lucy told you that you had a restless soul and that's why you would prefer to be out on the pitch rather than stuck inside.

Playing for Manchester City had been a perfect outlet and the call to play for Barcelona had been a dream come true.

It was just a shame that the schooling system still kept you shackled.

Taking online classes was better than physical school but it just meant that the actual studying and doing homework was left solely on you. Keira sometimes would allocate times for you to do it but Lucy would always stage what she would call a jailbreak and take you to the park or get a snack.

Either way, actually doing the work was something that you struggled with.

Which was, as you glanced around the break room, you had an empty word document and a sheet of questions of Spanish open in another tab.

Most of the team were either in meetings or getting food so it was just you and the younger members of the squad. Your eyes roved over them all, glancing back at your screen.

Esmee and Salma were playing each other on FIFA. Jana and Bruna were watching with rapt attention. But you found your target in Ona, who was throwing grapes into the air and trying to catch them in her mouth.

You slumped into the seat next to her, placing your laptop in her lap.

She raised a brow at you. "What is this?"

You gestured to the screen. "What does it look like?"

"Your homework?"

"Wow," You said sarcastically," Well done. It is my homework. Has anyone ever told you you're a genius?"

She rolled her eyes. "I meant, what is it doing here? On my lap?"

You sent her an award winning smile. "Do it for me?"

"Isn't that cheating?"

"It's not a test," You said," Just homework. Besides," You shrugged," It's been melting my mind. None of it makes sense. You'd just get through this so quickly."

She narrowed her eyes, easily seeing through your mediocre manipulation attempts. She glanced at your questions for a moment before she slapped some money into your hand.

"Get me a chocolate bar from the vending machine," She said," And an energy drink too..." She thought for a moment. "And you've got to be the one to ask Lucy and Keira if I can crash around your place tomorrow."

You almost groaned. You and Ona had been planning a movie marathon for weeks now but the tv at your place with Lucy and Keira was better than the one at her apartment so you had been trying to drop hints to Lucy and Keira about Ona staying over but neither had quite picked up on them.

"Fine," You said begrudgingly, standing up," A chocolate and an energy drink. Got it."

You slipped out of the room with little fanfare. If Ona managed to get your homework done quickly then the rest of your afternoon would be free to snack and muck around until Lucy and Keira came to take you home.

With the staff and the rest of the girls in meetings, the hallways were empty. You got to the vending machine with ease, punching in the code of Ona's favourite chocolate and energy drink. You've just fished them out when a shiver ran down your spine. A shadow fell over you.

You turned around slowly and was met with the face of your captain, dripping in disapproval.

"Nena," She said and your usual nickname struck fear into your heart," Aren't you supposed to be doing your homework?"

While Keira grew bored of making you study and do your homework, Alexia did not. Your very first day in Barcelona consisted of you walking into the locker room to see her standing by your cubby with the school schedule you had given over to the staff.

You were pretty sure that if you didn't already know Keira and Lucy from City then you would have ended up moving in with Alexia, if only so she could keep a close eye on your studies.

"I...er...Went to get some snacks?"

She raised a brow at you. "Really? Ona's favourite snacks? What were you meant to be studying today, your Spanish? If I go into the break room, will I find Ona doing your work for you?"

You didn't answer.

But that was answer enough.

Alexia sighed, one of those long drawn-out sighs that only ever really got used on you - and sometimes Mapi, when she was acting particularly like a kid.

"Sorry?"

"No, you are not." She took you by the shoulders, making you walk in front of her all the way back to where Ona was sitting, dutifully typing away at your homework. She cleared her throat.

Ona turned and immediately went pale. She looked at you. She looked at Alexia.

"She bullied me into it!"

"Liar!"

Alexia fixed you both with a stern look that you wilted under. "So, you're telling me a sixteen-year-old bullied you into doing homework, Ona?"

"Er...yes?"

"Go and do three laps."

"Alexia!"

"Do you want to make it four?"

Ona took off running and you shoved the drink and chocolate bar into her hands as she passed.

With her gone though, Alexia's ire was firmly back on you. She plucked your laptop up from the sofa and placed it on the table. You knew what she wanted so you went without fuss, slumping into the seat.

She made you watch as she deleted all of the work Ona had done for you.

"You're smart, nena," She said as she did it," You just do stupid things. Do I have to take you with me to my meetings now? To make sure you get your work done?"

You fought the urge to roll your eyes, not wanting an even longer lecture. You, however, didn't keep your feet out of your mouth because you replied," You hover enough. I don't need you watching my every move."

Alexia sent you a withering glare and you shrunk in your seat. You hastened to placate her and started typing. It seemed like you did understand what you're homework was telling you, the little break to get Ona's snacks must have given your brain the respite it needed.

Alexia slid into the seat next to you. She didn't do much - barely even checked her phone - but made sure to look over your shoulder as you wrote.

By the time, you've finished, it's time to break for lunch. Esmee and Salma had just left so you tried to catch up with them but the hand at the back of your collar stopped you in your tracks.

"You're coming home with me tonight," Alexia told you succinctly," I've still got clothes left over from when you last visited. You'll sit at the table and do that economics essay you've been putting off and, if you get it done without complaint, I'll check over what you just finished."

You made a face. "Is this your way of saying I completely flunked it?"

Alexia rolled her eyes and you knew by the way she tucked you under her arm, that she was no longer mad. "Focus on the positives, nena. If you're very good, we'll even order dinner to the house."

[eniyiblogu]

Hukuksal - Pro+

Roblox is an online gaming platform mostly played by kids and teenagers. Players use user-created tools to create, share and explore a variety of mini-games, virtual worlds and experiences. There are many different types of games on the platform, such as role-playing, simulation, racing and action games. Players can customize their own avatars and in-game items, interact with other players, and explore the creativity of the game creators. Roblox is a popular gaming platform for young gamers who usually want to play with their friends. In addition to the jailbreak script used, it is possible to play more advantageous games with the blox fruits script. Roblox Arsenal Script A script is a set of codes and instructions used to perform certain actions in a video game. Video game scripts help players control the behavior and movements of their characters and objects in-game. Scripts are written by game makers and may contain complex code that can be written in programming languages ​​(eg C++, Lua). These codes allow players to activate features and features that will affect the game world. For example, the mm2 script might include a damage-dealing function that reduces a character's health points. Video game scripts, for example the big paintball script, allow players to further customize the game. Features added to video games, called modifications, can be created through scripts. This allows players to make games more personal and enhance their in-game experience. Now you can get into a very advantageous situation from other players by using Arsenal script.

[whoslaurapalmer]

twin peaks but it happens in 2010. laura palmer have iphone etc etc

this ask has been haunting me since i saw it last night oh my god okay okay so

i wanted to lead with laura being an influencer but no one was quite influencing in 2010 yet. but the point here being that i think she posts a lot online and cultivates her online image very carefully (very soft, carefree, excited teenager) and has a LOT of followers on everything and always gets a ton of likes. bc it's laura, she's so beautiful and special and popular, of course everyone is following her, of course everyone is liking all her posts to get a piece of her

she has a twitter (laurapalmer93) where she posts a lot of pictures with little captions like.......'morning donuts at the diner!!' with a picture of the donuts and a milkshake or a Coffee To Be An Adult, 'can you believe this guy? <3' with a picture of bobby making a face (or even.........dare i say it...........doing the dougie), a picture of donna and james with '<33333333' (modern emojis were just getting really big then but i myself was not a big emoji user in 2010 yet, so neither is laura), 'don't tell ;)' with a picture of her holding a cigarette (of course everyone still smokes in the high school bathrooms).

one time she gets away with posting the lyrics to if i die young by the band perry (IF I DIE YOUNG! BURY ME IN SATIN! LAY ME DOWN ON A BED OF ROSES!) (FUNNY WHEN YOU'RE DEAD HOW PEOPLE START LISTENING!) bc it's a popular song. it raises a few eyebrows but it's a song and it's laura. how seriously do you take teen angst, even among your friends? that's just what laura does. what's there to really worry about, huh? (the song was released in may 2010 but let's say the lead up to her death is in 2010)

on facebook she posts a lot of volunteer stuff. school dance photos, which she helps organize. buy some cookies to support the french club!! she's very involved with student council, and she organizes the group halloween costume. her facebook is filled with photos of her with other people, but not really any of just her. she doesn't post a lot of statuses, but they're usually about homework or tests or 'feels like summer!' towards the end of the school year. she's friends with her parents. she definitely takes ap classes.

she has a private vent twitter (lostinthewoods) with zero followers that she uses as a diary bc she thinks it'll be safer than having it physically written down. her childhood lisa frank diary with the tiny lock and glitter gel pens that she kept in her bed post went missing, after all. her vent twitter is filled with sooooooo many tweets bc this was still the 160 character limit days and she would just post and post and post especially late at night. (she definitely has string lights in her room.) she is a MASTER of using her phone with no one seeing -- she has the layout absolutely memorized. she was only caught texting in class once and of course the teacher let it go.

bob/leland finds her passwords and breaks into the vent twitter and leaves her horrifying tweets she sees later, instead of the back and forth they have in the diary and leland ripping the pages out.

i think she has a third twitter, for sex, but i'm not sure if that tracks for the time period? (snapchat wasn't a thing until fall 2011.) or like a forum sort of thing? i think it's still super easy for laura to sneak out, even in an increased security camera world. there's still a lot of stress on the, yknow, ~secret unexposed underbelly of the world especially in a time of more eyes on everything~ in the 2010s.

meanwhile, james posts music a lot on facebook, and also acoustic covers of songs. like. yknow. HEY SOUL SISTER. donna loves the original pusheen stickers. they record the picnic video on her flip video camera. mike loves icanhascheezburger, and he jailbreaks his phone. audrey gets really into audrey hepburn quote posting, Aesthetic France, black and white photos, berets, has a photography phase and carries and actual camera bc it's Vintage. she's an early tumblr user. no one else in school has a tumblr yet, so she feels very cool but also very lonely about it.

harry has very little understanding of social media, however cooper is very into all social media, he finds it delightful. he enjoys a good cat video. he looks through all of laura's photos, her tweets, facebook videos, and i think there's, honestly even more of a feeling of tragedy bc of how much more physical evidence there is available of laura's life, lingering fingerprints, last tweets, last posts, passwords to put in and information to see, cold blue computer light, the even worse voyeurism in people expecting so much of your life to be online, in watching it play out online, in the image laura created for herself online to be the person people expected

donna rereads laura's twitter in the dead of night, just over and over again. goes back through their texts. so much of grief has become so much more public with social media and using it as a teenager, and there's this back and forth in donna of not posting anything and then posting the most miserable statuses about losing her best friend.

i know i should get deeper into the investigation but i keep thinking instead of how laura definitely gets a 20/20 special. it's probably definitely called 'the secret life of the american teenager.' (bc there was that show on at the time with the same name) elizabeth vargas visits twin peaks, is appropriately grim, there's a lot of b roll of the town and the woods but without the grace of twin peaks' cinematography. they play up the creation of a narrative big, as they always do on 20/20. the revelation of her 'double life' is at the halfway mark and simultaneously not discussed enough and overestimated. 'laura palmer was your average, everyday teenager -- she liked horses. cats. she got good grades, was homecoming queen, had a boyfriend on the football team. she volunteered on weekends. she had her whole life ahead of her. or was there more to the story than anyone knew? was there a dark side to the all-american girl?' oh, it's agonizing. the trailers play up a lot of potential spooky woods stuff that isn't followed through on in the actual episode.

now 20/20 prides itself on getting the story right, so i feel like it's.........i feel like they have to say it's leland at the end (and they definitely never get into anything about bob). but i also think, for some reason, it could easily have a 'we never found the killer' ending. especially re: s3........the thing is, i feel like laura's death particularly is the kind of thing that shows up on 20/20, but the rest of the circumstances would've ended up on like the unsolved mysteries website (the last revival ended in 2010, before the netflix reboot in 2019) (especially with WELL OUR FBI AGENT WENT MISSING). and there's so much online to put together in a website about it, there's so much for people online to dig into who have never even been to twin peaks, to think they know a town and the people in it and the girl who died even if it's just literally THE MOST DISGUSTING VOYEURISM IN THE WHOLE WORLD i just think there's such a. horror in that. people have the most, just, enraging takes when they get involved in a Murder That Happened Somewhere Else. people thinking they alone can figure out a mystery they've never seen, they can of course see something no one else has. and it's different than the people in the town ignoring it -- i think a lot of the secrets in twin peaks stay the same, no matter the time period, so of course it's still, a terrible dying town killing the people in it, maybe even quieter than it is in the original, some new infrastructure but old buildings, not all of them occupied anymore, ANYWAY -- like of course yes people in the town ignore the same amount they did in the original, all small towns bury things. but just bc the town itself isn't paying attention doesn't mean that some rando online is going to know more, no matter how much they think they will. there's like an entitlement to details of a murder, an I Must Be The Hero, The Savior, bc i'm on a fucking reddit thread about it

now i have zero (0) idea of how medical science and forensics work, but i have to assume there have been some advancements in the field between 1989/1990 and 2010/2011. the town still rushes the funeral, but would albert have been able to find anything else sooner? what is it he would have found to point to leland sooner? oh........dna testing, maybe? would he be able to find out about leland right away? there's more of a sense of urgency, maybe less of a slowness between events, even more of a shattering horror. maybe leland goes missing in an attempt to cover things up. hmmmmmm.

final note -- cooper gets called mulder as a nickname bc the x files happened as a show in this universe.

[the-clawtake]

“Stravag!” Jehan swore, slamming his fist against the console as an error message flashed up on the screen. Taking a deep breath, then exhaling slowly, he pulled the diagnostic unit towards him, and started to type on the keyboard again. His Trinary had got lucky, after the fight. Two of the Blakist pilots had not made it as far as their ‘mechs. While a wholy inadequate substitute for his own Kodiak under the best circumstances, the Toyama he was presently attempting to jailbreak at least had a functional cockpit. His Kodiak not so much.

“Uh... Star Colonel?” The portable comm at his belt crackled with static as the transmission came through. He reached down and hit transmit,

“Aff?” he responded, focused on trying to bypass the Blakist security. He had no desire to have his brains fried when he started up the ‘mech. He keyed in another string of code. Tapped enter. Error.

“You... you might want to hurry it up there. We have contacts, north. A lot of contacts.”

He growled softly, tapping out a different string, then toggled his comm.

“How many contacts, Warrior. And how far out.” Really, that should have been the first thing the warrior had passed along. He finished the string of code, tapped enter.

“Looks like a full Level III. Maybe more. They are still a couple of kilometers out, coming in slow.”

“Aff. Keep me posted.” He turned his attention back to the diagnostic unit, where a green “Access Granted” was flashing. Breathing a sigh of relief he unplugged the unit, slotted it behind the command chair, and reached for the coolant vest and neurohelmet connections. Thank Kerensky those connectors were pretty much universal. A quick scan of the console and he found the ignition.

“Reactor. Online. Sensors. Online. Weapons. Online. All Systems. Nominal.” the familiar start-up litany was reassuring, even in the unfamiliar cockpit. Now to find the comms, and the sensor map, and key into the Star network, and... He did not have time. Even the slowest battlemechs would cover that distance before he could get everything figured out. An entire Level III?

He hit his portable comm again.

“Star Commander Rauda. You have command. Defensive positions.”

“Aff.” was the immediate response, and he went back to trying to figure out the cockpit. He did not have time for this. There. There was the sensor screen. The first contacts were showing up on it, and showing up as friendlies. Which given that he had not touched the IFF settings was a bad sign. He was already, effectively, down two Stars. This was not looking good.

Ah! There was the comms settings. He adjusted the frequency to 117.69 – Hopefully, Star Captain Tseng was on their way. All he had to do was hold out until then. He listened as Rauda passed out positioning orders – They had decades fighting alongside each other, knew each other better than anyone and her troop dispositions were exactly what he’d have ordered – while he continued to work out the control scheme,

All he had to do was hold.

@is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not

[hellofromthehallowoods]

Your loyal host is getting ready to DM some Dungeons and Dragons as a DM for hire, and you're invited!

These campaign rosters have filled up pretty fast, but there are still seats available for Out of the Abyss, a Tuesday evenings D&D 5E campaign following our party's dramatic escape through the phosphorescent caverns and mushroomy horrors of the endless Underdark.

Our first session is May 28th! Feel free to scope out all the details on Startplaying.games.

[thanook]

hey did you know for <$50 you can purchase a nintendo DSi online and softmod it so unbelievably easily and play any game on the dsi for free?

yeah and on the 3ds its for free lmao

seriously the ds series is ungodly easy to jailbreak just look it up

[carlpotatoman]

I can't fucking delete Google from my phone. Why can't I delete Google from my phone? I fucking paid money for this shit, I don't care that you make the operating system, I don't want your shitty search engine with all this fucking AI. I want to have the right to defile and deface, BECAUSE I PAID FUCKING MONEY FOR THIS SHITTY BRICK!

You know why I buy Android phones, Google? Because it is substantially easier with Android to not get absorbed into an ecosystem that makes it difficult to use anything else.

I use Android because I could decide one day that I am bored and use my Android phone to jailbreak a 3DS. I can go online and download a .apk for your shitty video sharing platform, but without abhorrent monetization, and with dislikes returned, or I could download an .apk for an app which has been long since removed from the app store.

You are the supplier, I am the consumer, and you stop supplying when I stop consuming.

I do not want to consume your search engine, so you shouldn't be forcibly supplying it. I shouldn't have to connect my phone to a PC so I can use the thing i own in the ways which I want.

Where is our right to deface and defile? Where is our right to own what we buy? Where is the right to repair?

[fatehbaz]

Presently, [...] [a] scholar doing [...] expansive work on the relationship between disability and incarceration is Liat Ben-Moshe. Ben-Moshe has produced two books on the subject within the past ten years: Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada (2014), and Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition (2020).

Disability Incarcerated is an edited collection that surveys the various iterations and sites of historical carcerality vis-à-vis disabled people: asylums, mental hospitals, state institutions, migrant detention centers, prisons, nursing homes, segregated schools and workshops. It is an accessible overview [...]. Decarcerating Disability, in contrast, is singularly authored by Ben-Moshe; it is an interesting attempt at utilizing the experience of disability incarceration and decarceration [...] in order to impart lessons and considerations of relevance to the present-day abolition movement.

---

Ben-Moshe’s Decarcerating Disability is unique in its explicit positioning within the framework of prison studies and the abolitionist movement [...]. Ben-Moshe also writes about the importance of centering “fugitive/maroon abolitionist knowledges” in advancing critical analyses of carcerality. [...] [S]ubjugated knowledges are “blocks of historical knowledges” that have been subsumed by “formal systematization”; that is, “ways of knowing” that have been dismissed, disqualified, or shunned by the hegemonic arbiters of reason.

In this schema, power “is not a centralized external force controlled by a limited few,” writes Ben-Moshe, “but is inside us, making us operate in particular ways, often by benevolent means, that is, ‘for our own good,’ [...].

Foregoing criticisms notwithstanding, Decarcerating Disability is a useful and welcome text insofar as it actively engages with the process of “letting go of hegemonic knowledge (of crime, of corrections and the dangerous few, for example).” 

---

On a practical level, Ben-Moshe articulates responses to many of the common questions that abolitionists face, including: what to do about interpersonal or community safety; are non-carceral solutions practicable; why are certain people and behaviors criminalized; and, in the words of Angela Davis, what kind of “social landscape” would non-carcerality necessitate and entail. [...]

Since reaching a high-point in the late 2000s, the overall rate of [formal prison] incarceration has been [technically] declining [in some places] [...]. This, however, should be kept in perspective - the United States still remains the world’s leader in youth criminalization, with nearly 700,000 youth arrested annually (almost 10 percent of whom are arrested in schools) and over 43,000 youth incarcerated on a given day. [...] [T]he lessons of the previous example of decarceration counsel caution and vigilance. Ben-Moshe argues that deinstitutionalization with regard to physical space [has been achieved in some places] [...] ; but insofar as deinstitutionalization was not accompanied by a widespread rejection of the paradigm and logic of coercive, carceral “solutions” to disability writ large, institutional and carceral regimes of marginalization have cropped up and even expanded [...]:

Today those who were discharged or never institutionalized are still under the surveillance of the . . . state, but it has furthered its reach - adhering to strict drug regimens, living in semi-institutions (group homes, halfway houses), and subjected to a variety of outpatient commitment laws and policies.

---

All text above by: Keith Rosenthal. “Jailbreak of Disability.” Rampant Magazine. 30 August 2021. Published online at: rampantmag dot com/2021/08/jailbreak-of-disability/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[forthedancingandthethriving]

*at some point during the Vacation Arc, after the Abyss's jailbreak but before the actual battle in Nintendo World Online*

The Escape Squad: *spying on the good guys so the rest of the Abyss's army can attack at the optimal moment*

Spamton: *spots Diane* HOCHI MAMA! *nudges the nearest person, who happens to be Andrew, and points at her* Get a load-a [Hot Single MILFs in your area!] Really makes your [organic cucumbers $4.99/lb] go [Wahoo!] amiright?

Andrew, distinctly unimpressed: ...I'm married, Spamton.

Spamton: ...Fair. *looks over at everyone else* You guys get what I'm sayin' though, right?

Francis and Nermal: *exclusively attracted to anime girls and other Harmonian cats respectively* ...ehhhh... *waves their hands in a so-so gesture*

Lady Rose: *very visibly considering it, but not about to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him*

Marianne, 9-year-old from 1914: Eeeewwww.

Spamton: ...tough crowd.

Abyss, having overheard the whole exchange on the communications line: *facepalms if it currently has the appropriate anatomy to do so* Why did I make them the scouting party?

(honestly he's (debatably)lucky Marianne even understood what he said at all)

(...wait. does this make him the Bob of the group?)

I find it so funny that, twice now, Diana has been seen as ridiculously hot. And twice now, there has been confusion about the people who pointed it out.

(Also Spamton being the Bob of the group... fear-)

[mysticmellowlove]

I didn’t love Bowen before but now that I knows he some pathetic little short dicked dude it’s even worse now like wow…. I want a guy that’s 6’3 now he won’t ever get a chance

That's just too bad isn't it because he'd never let you go :)

Bowen isn't above kidnapping his darling and trying to reform them in his own likeness. He does live in the city to be closer to uni but he can always buy a nice house in the countryside and do his schooling online.

Since he basically has your schedule memorised he'll mess around with your workday and make it so you have to stay later than usual. Then all he'd do is wait at your locker, just out of sight so he could get the jump on you and make you pass out.

Waking up the next morning won't be pleasant, he knows that. Besides you'd be angry at your sudden capture, or maybe even sad? So he'll give you some space. Inside the room is a bed, dresser, a desk with a computer and a small bar fridge.

Now your first instinct would be to go to the computer but he had a friend of his get in contact with someone who can jailbreak computers and such.

(cue to somewhere in the distance, a whole different country away; "Please I promise I'll be good, I promise I won't try anything, I just want to be good!")

There really isn't anything on the computer that can help you. There's a news site and the basic word applications but that's it. On further inspection, the news site seemed to be permanently frozen on a date from a couple of weeks ago. There's one email address saved under the really subtle name 'Bowen'

Really you should've already known he would pull something like this silly! When you're ready to accept this future just email him! Until then he'll continue delivering food and drink through a small dumbwaiter!

He really has planned this ahead after all!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What the fediverse (does/n't) solve

No matter how benevolent a dictatorship is, it’s still a dictatorship, and subject to the dictator’s whims. We must demand that the owners and leaders of tech platforms be fair and good — but we must also be prepared for them to fail at this, sometimes catastrophically.

That is, even if you trust Tim Cook to decide what apps you are and aren’t allowed to install — including whether you are allowed to install apps that block Apple’s own extensive, nonconsensual, continuous commercial surveillance of its customers — you should also be prepared for Cook to get hit by a bus and replaced by some alt-right dingleberry.

What happens next is a matter of technology and law. It’s a matter of whether you have to give up your media and your apps and your data to escape the no-longer-benevolent dictatorship. It depends on whether the technology is designed to let you move those things, and whether the law protects you from tech companies, or whether it protects tech companies from *you, by criminalizing jailbreaking, reverse engineering, scraping, etc.

As thorny as this is, it’s even harder when we’re talking about social media, because it’s social. Sociability adds a new and pernicious switching cost, when we hold each other hostage because we can’t agree on when/whether to go, and if we do, where to go next. When the management of your community goes septic, it can be hard to leave, because you have to leave behind the people who matter to you if you do.

We’ve all been there: do you quit your writers’ circle because one guy is being a jerk? Do you stop going to a con because the concom tolerates a predator? Do you stop going to family Thanksgiving because your racist Facebook uncle keeps trying to pick a fight with you? Do you accompany your friends to dinner at a restaurant whose owners are major donors to politicians who want to deport you?

This collective action problem makes calamity of so long life. At the outer extreme, you have the families who stay put even as their governments slide into tyranny, risking imprisonment or even death, because they can’t bear to be parted from one another, and they all have different views of how bad the situation really is:

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/12/the-oppermanns-book-holocaust-nazi-fascism/672505/

The corporate person is a selfish narcissist, a paperclip-maximizing artificial lifeform forever questing after its own advantage. It is an abuser. Like all abusers, it is keenly attuned to any social dynamic that it can use to manipulate its victims, and so social media is highly prized by these immortal colony-organisms.

You can visit all manner of abuses upon a social network and it will remain intact, glued together by the interpersonal bonds of its constituent members. Like a kidnapper who takes your family hostage, abusers weaponize our love of one another and use it to make us do things that are contrary to our own interests.

In “Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media,” Cat Valente is characteristically brilliant about this subject. It is one of the best essays you’ll read this month:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

Valente is on the leading edge of creators who were born digital — whose social life was always online, and whose writing career grew out of that social life. In 2009, she posted her debut novel, “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making” to the web for free. Two years, and many awards, later, Macmillan brought it out in hardcover:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/10/valentes-girl-who-circumnavigated-fairyland-sweet-fairytale-shot-through-with-salty-tears-magic/

“Stop Talking to Each Other” is a memoir wrapped around a trenchant, take-no-prisoners critique of all the robber-barons who’ve made us prisoners to one another and fashioned whips out of our own affection for one another and the small pleasures we give each other.

It begins with Valente’s girlhood in the early 1990s, where Prodigy formed a lifeline for her lonely, isolated existence. Valente — a precocious writer — made penpals with other Prodigy users, including older adults who assumed they were talking to a young adult. These relationships expanded her world, uplifting and enriching her.

Then, one day, she spotted a story about Prodigy in her dad’s newspaper: “PRODIGY SAYS: STOP TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND START BUYING THINGS.” The headline floored her. Even if Valente wanted to buy the weird grab-bag of crap for sale at Prodigy in 1991, she was a 12 year old and had no way to send internet money to Prodigy. Also, she had no money of any sort.

For her, the revelation that the owners of Prodigy would take away “this one solitary place where I felt like I mattered” if she “didn’t figure out how to buy things from the screen” was shocking and frightening. It was also true. Prodigy went away, and took with it all those human connections a young Cat Valente relied on.

This set the pattern for every online community that followed: “Stop talking to each other and start buying things. Stop providing content for free and start paying us for the privilege. Stop shining sunlight on horrors and start advocating for more of them. Stop making communities and start weaponizing misinformation to benefit your betters.”

Or, more trenchantly: “Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control. Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed.”

Valente traces this pathology through multiple successive generations of online community, lingering on Livejournal, whose large community of Russian dissidents attracted Russian state-affiliated investors who scooped up the community and then began turning the screws on it, transforming it into a surveillance and control system for terrorizing the mutual hostages of the Russian opposition.

Valente and her friends on the service were collateral damage in the deliberate enshittification of LJ, band the Russian dissidents had it worse than they did, but it was still a painful experience. LJ was home to innumerable creators who “grew audiences through connections and meta-connections you already trusted.”

Most importantly, the poisoning of LJ formed a template, for how to “[take] apart a minor but culturally influential community and develop techniques to do it again, more efficiently, more quickly, with less attention.”

It’s a template that has been perfected by the alt-right, by the Sad Puppies and the Gamergaters and their successor movements. These trolls aren’t motivated by the same profit-seeking sociopathy of the corporate person, but they are symbiotic with it.

Valente lays out the corporate community’s lifecycle:

Be excited about the internet, make a website!

Discover that users are uninterested in your storefront, add social features.

Add loss-leaders to “let users make their own reasons to use the site” (chat, blogs, messaging, etc), and moderate them “to make non-monster humans feel safe expressing themselves and feel nice about site.”

The site works, and people “[use] free tools to connect with each other and learn and not be lonely and maybe even make a name for themselves sometimes.”

The owners demand that users “stop talking and start buying things.”

Users grow disillusioned with a site whose sociability is an afterthought to the revenue-generation that is supposed to extract all surplus value from the community they themselves created.

The owners get angry, insult users, blanket the site with ads, fire moderators, stoke controversy that creates “engagement” for the ads. They sell user data. They purge marginalized community that advertisers don’t like. They raise capital, put the community features behind a paywall, and focus so hard on extraction that they miss the oncoming trends.

“Everyone is mad.”

“Sell the people you brought together on purpose to large corporation, trash billionaire, or despotic government entity who hates that the site’s community used those connective tools to do a revolution.”

The people who “invested their time, heart, labor, love, businesses and relationships” are scattered to the winds. Corporate shareholders don’t care.

Years later, the true story of how the site disintegrated under commercial pressures comes out. No one cares.

The people who cashed out by smashing the community that created their asset are now wealthy, and they spend that wealth on “weird right-wing shit…because right-wing shit says no taxes and new money hates taxes.”

This pattern recurs on innumerable platforms. Valente’s partial list includes “Prodigy, Geocities, collegeclub.com, MySpace, Friendster, Livejournal, Tumblr,” and, of course, Twitter.

Twitter, though, is different. First, it is the largest and most structurally important platform to be enshittified. Second, because it was enshittified so much more quickly than the smaller platforms that preceded it.

But third, and most importantly, because Twitter’s enshittification is not solely about profit. Whereas the normal course of a platform’s decline involves a symbiosis between corporate extraction and trollish cruelty, the enshittification of Twitter is being driven by an owner who is both a sociopathic helmsan for a corporate extraction machine and a malignant, vicious narcissist.

Valente describes Musk’s non-commercial imperatives: “the yawning, salivating need to control and hurt. To express power not by what you can give, but by what you can take away…[the] viral solipsism that cannot bear the presence of anything other than its own undifferentiated self, propagating not by convincing or seduction or debate, but by the eradication of any other option.”

Not every platform has been degraded this way. Valente singles out Diaryland, whose owner, Andrew, has never sold out his community of millions of users, not in all the years since he created it in 1999, when he was a Canadian kid who “just like[d] making little things.” Andrew charges you $2/month to keep the lights on.

https://diaryland.com/

Valente is right to lionize Diaryland and Andrew. In fact, she’s right about everything in this essay. Or, nearly everything. “Almost,” because at the end, she says, “the minute the jackals arrive is the same minute we put down the first new chairs in the next oasis.”

That’s where I think she goes wrong. Or at least, is incomplete. Because the story of the web’s early diversity and its focus on its users and their communities isn’t just about a natural cycle whereby our communities became commodities to be tormented to ruination and sold off for parts.

The early web’s strength was in its interoperability. The early web wasn’t just a successor to Prodigy, AOL and other walled gardens — it was a fundamental transformation. The early web was made up of thousands of small firms, hobbyists, and user groups that all used the same standard protocols, which let them set up their own little corners of the internet — but also connected those communities through semi-permeable membranes that joined everything, but not in every way.

The early web let anything link to anything, but not always, which meant that you could leave a community but still keep tabs on it (say, by subscribing to the RSS feeds of the people who stayed behind), but it also meant that individuals and communities could also shield themselves from bad actors.

The right of exit and the freedom of reach (the principle that anyone can talk to anyone who wants to talk to them) are both key to technological self-determination. They are both imperfect and incomplete, but together, they are stronger, and form a powerful check on both greed and cruelty-based predation:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Small wonder that, from the beginning, the internet has been a fight between those who want to build a commons and those who wish to enclose it. Remember when we were all angry that the web was disappearing into Flash, the unlinkable proprietary blobs that you couldn’t ad-block or mute or even pause unless they gave you permission?

Remember when Microsoft tried, over and over again, to enclose the internet, first as a dial-up service, then as a series of garbage Windows-based Flash-alikes. Remember Blackbird?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(online_platform)

But standard protocols exert powerful network effects on corporations. When everyone is adhering to a standard, when everything can talk to everything else, then it’s hard to lure users into a walled garden. Microsoft coerced users into it by striking bargains with buyers at large companies to force its products on all their employees, and then by breaking compatibility with rival products, which made it hard for those employees to use another vendor’s products in their personal lives. Not being able to access your company email or edit your company documents on your personal device is a powerful incentive to use the same product your company uses.

Apple, meanwhile, seduced users into its walled garden, promising that it would keep them safe and that everything would just work, and then using its power over those customers to gouge them on dongles and parts and repair and apps.

Both companies — like all corporations — are ferocious rent-seekers, but both eventually capitulated to the internet — bundling TCP and, eventually, browsers with their OSes. They never quit trying to enclose the web, via proprietary browser extensions and dirty tricks (Microsoft) or mobile lock-in and dirty tricks (Apple). But for many years, the web was a truly open platform.

The enclosure of online communities can’t be understood without also understanding the policy choices that led to the enclosure of tech more broadly. The decision to stop enforcing antitrust law (especially GWB’s decision not to appeal in the Microsoft antitrust case) let the underlying platforms grow without limits, by buying any serious rival, or by starving it out of existence by selling competing products below cost, cross-subidizing them with rents extracted from their other monopoly lines.

These same policies let a few new corporate enclosers enter the arena, like Google, which is virtually incapable of making a successful product in-house, but which was able to buy others’ successes and cement its web dominance: mobile, video, server management, ad-tech, etc.

These firms provide the substrate for community abusers: apps, operating systems and browser “standards” that can’t be legally reverse-engineered, and lobbying that strengthens and expands those “Felony Contempt of Business Model” policies:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

Without these laws and technologies, corporations wouldn’t be able to block freedom of exit and freedom of reach. These laws and technologies let these corporations demand that the state obliterate anyone who gives users the tools to set their own terms for the communities they built.

These are the laws and technologies that transform network effects from a tool for openness — where even the largest, most vicious corporations must seek to pervert, rather than ignore, standards — into a tool for enclosure, where we are all under mounting pressure to move inside a walled garden.

This digital feudalism is cloaked in the language of care and safety. The owners of these walled gardens insist that they are benevolent patriarchs who have built fortresses to defend us from external threats, but inevitably they are revealed as warlords who have built prisons to keep us from escaping from them:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Which brings me to the Fediverse. The Fediverse’s foundation is a standard called ActivityPub, which was designed by weirdos who wanted to make a durably open, interoperable substrate that could support nearly any application. This was something that large corporations were both uninterested in building and which they arrogantly dismissed as a pipe dream. This means that Activitypub is actually as good as its architects could make it, free from boobytraps laid by scheming monopolists.

The best-known Fediverse application is Mastodon, which has experienced explosive growth from people who found Musk’s twin imperatives to cruelty and extraction sufficiently alarming that they have taken their leave of Twitter and the people they cared about there. This is not an easy decision, and Musk is bent on making it harder by sabotaging ex-Twitter users’ ability to find one another elsewhere. He wants the experience of leaving Twitter to be like the final scene of Fiddler On the Roof, where the villagers of Anatevka are torn from one another forever:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

With Mastodon’s newfound fame comes new scrutiny, and a renewed debate over the benefits and drawbacks of decentralized, federated systems. For example, there’s an ongoing discussion about the role of quote-tweeting, which Mastodon’s core devs have eschewed as conducive to antisocial dunks, but which some parts of Black Twitter describe as key to a healthy discourse:

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/12/21/Mastodon-Ethics

But quote tweeting wasn’t initially a part of Twitter. Instead, users kludged it, pasting in text and URLs for others’ tweets to make it work. Eventually, Twitter saw the utility of quote-tweeting and adopted it, making it an official feature.

There is a possibility that Mastodon’s core devs will do the same, adding quote-tweet to the core codebase for Mastodon. But if they don’t, the story isn’t over. Because Mastodon is free software, and because it is built on an open standard, anyone can add this feature to their Mastodon instance. You can do this yourself, or you can hire someone else to do it for you.

Now, not everyone has money or coding skills — but also, not everyone has the social clout to convince a monolithic, for-profit corporation to re-engineer its services to better suit their needs. And while there is a lot of overlap between “people who can code,” and “people who can afford to pay coders” and “people whom a tech company listens to,” these are not the same population.

In other words: Twitter is a place where you get quote-tweeting if the corporation decides you need it, and Mastodon is a place where you get quote-tweeting if the core devs decide you need it, or if you have the skills or resources to add it yourself.

What’s more, if Mastodon’s core devs decide to take away a feature you like, you and your friends can stand up your own Mastodon server that retains that feature. This is harder than using someone else’s server — but it’s way, way easier than convincing Twitter it was wrong to take away the thing you loved.

The perils of running your own Mastodon server have also become a hot topic of debate. To hear the critics warn of it, anyone who runs a server that’s open to the public is painting a huge target on their back and will shortly be buried under civil litigation and angry phone-calls from the FBI.

This is: Just. Not. True. The US actually has pretty good laws limiting intermediary liability (that is, the responsibility you bear for what your users do). You know all that stuff about how CDA230 is “a giveaway to Big Tech?” That’s only true if the internet consists solely of Big Tech companies. However, if you decide to spend $5/month hosting a Mastodon instance for you and your community, that same law protects you.

Indeed, while running a server that’s open to the public does involve some risk, most of that risk can be contained by engaging in a relatively small, relatively easy set of legal compliance practices, which EFF’s Corynne McSherry lays out in this very easy-to-grasp explainer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user-generated-content-and-fediverse-legal-primer

Finally, there’s the ongoing debate over whether Mastodon can (and should) replace Twitter. This week on the Canadaland Short Cuts podcast, Jesse Brown neatly summarized (and supported, alas) the incorrect idea that using Mastodon was no different from using Gab or Parler or Post.

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/843-god-save-the-tweets/

This is very, very wrong. The thing is, even if you like and trust the people who run Gab or Parler or Post, you face exactly the same risk you face with Twitter or Facebook: that the leadership will change, or have a change of heart, and begin to enshittify your community there. When they do, your only remedy will be the one that Valente describes, to scatter to the winds and try and reform your community somewhere else.

But that’s not true of the Fediverse. On Mastodon, you can export all your followers, and all the people who follow you, with two clicks. Then you can create an account on another server and again, with just two clicks, you can import those follows and followers and be back up and running, your community intact, without being under the thumb of the server manager who decided to sell your community down the river (you can also export the posts you made).

https://codingitwrong.com/2022/10/10/migrating-a-mastodon-account.html

Now, it’s also true that a particularly vindictive Mastodon server owner could summarily kick you off the server without giving you a chance to export your data. Doing so would arguably run afoul of the GDPR and state laws like the CCPA.

Strengthening these privacy laws would actually improve user rights — unlike abolishing CDA 230, which would simultaneously make the corporate owners of big services more trigger-happy when it comes to censoring content from marginalized groups, and make it all but impossible for those groups to safely run their own servers to decamp to when this happens.

Letting people set up their own communities, responsible to one another, is the tonic for Valente’s despair that the cycle of corporate predation and enshittification is eternal, and that people who care for one another and their communities are doomed to be evicted again and again and again and again.

And *federating these communities — creating semi-permeable membranes between them, blocking the servers for people who would destroy you, welcoming messages from the like-minded, and taking intermediate steps for uneasy allies — answers Brown’s concern that Twitter is the only way we can have “one big conversation.”

This “one conversation” point is part of Brown’s category error in conflating federated media with standalone alternatives to Twitter like Post. Federated media is one big conversation, but smeared out, without the weak signal amplification of algorithms that substitute the speech of the people you’ve asked to hear from with people who’ve paid to intrude on your conversation, or whom the algorithm has decided to insert in it.

Federation is an attractive compromise for people like Valente, who are justly angry at and exhausted by the endless cycle of “entrepreneurs” building value off of a community’s labor and then extracting that value and leaving the community as a dried-out husk.

It’s also a promising development for antitrust advocates like me, who are suspicious of corporate power overall. But federation should also please small-government libertarian types. Even if you think the only job of the state is to enforce contracts, you still need a state that is large and powerful enough to actually fulfill that role. The state can’t hold a corporation to its promises if it is dwarfed by that corporation — the bigger the companies, the bigger the state has to be to keep them honest.

The stakes are high. As Valente writes, the digital communities that flourished online, only to be eradicated by cruelty and extraction, were wonderful oases of care and passion. As she says, “Love things. Love people. Love the small and the weird and the new.”

“Be each other’s pen pals. Talk. Share. Welcome. Care. And just keep moving. Stay nimble. Maybe we have to roll the internet back a little and go back to blogs and decentralized groups and techy fiddling and real-life conventions and idealists with servers in their closets.”

“Protect the vulnerable. Make little things. Wear electric blue eyeshadow. Take a picture of your breakfast. Overthink Twin Peaks. Get angry. Do revolutions. Find out what Buffy character you are. Don’t get cynical. Don’t lose joy. Be us. Because us is what keeps the light on when the night comes closing in.”

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Heisenberg Media (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Moses confronting the Pharaoh, demanding that he release the Hebrews. Pharaoh's face has been replaced with Elon Musk's. Moses holds a Twitter logo in his outstretched hand. Moses's head has been replaced with the head of Tusky, the Mastodon mascot. The faces embossed in the columns of Pharaoh's audience hall have been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The wall over Pharaoh's head has been replaced with a Matrix 'code waterfall' effect.]

[good-beanswrites]

We’re so far from the end of Milgram and yet. I am thinking about finale fix-it fics. because I already know Yamanaka isn’t going to shy away from killing characters and I'm pre-sad about it. I’ve expressed some other nice options here and here, but have another! Jailbreak >:3

(Just random silly thoughts I’ve been rotating in my head, don't take it too seriously) 

This is assuming Milgram is in a physical location with mostly realistic elements. (It’s a well-funded facility, but no magic or anything besides whatever’s going on with jackalope and the no violence ban.)

Trial three is coming to an end. Es knows it will end in death, but they know it'd be going against their duty to declare everyone innocent.

A mistake is made on the outside, and a chance opportunity arises: a temporary exit appears in the prison in Es’ room. 

They notice it at night, and make the split second decision to tell the others. They race to the cells, gathering everyone one and telling them to get out immediately. 

Most of them go willingly, though a few (Yuno, Fuuta, Kotoko) are suspicious of Es’ urgency. They manage to convince them that it’s not some twisted lie – Es knows how this will end and wants to give them a chance. 

As everyone’s filing out, it becomes clear Es isn’t going to step through. They say they can’t go – even though they’re taking steps to save the others, their duty remains to Milgram. They’ll stay and face whatever consequences arise as warden. 

Mikoto is like “fuck that shit, you’re just as much as a prisoner as us and you’re coming,” to the others’ agreement. “If they’re gonna punish you for helping us than we should make it look like it was all on us,” and he slings Es over his shoulder. They all take off into the unknown facility. 

The real fun part of the fic would be when they inevitable make it past guards/scientists, climb into a military-grade vehicle, and take off with authorities in hot pursuit. (I’m still deciding who’d be funniest as driver, though I’m leaning towards Kazui doing it because he feels responsible as oldest) Cue some classic comedy-drama bickering as they screech around the complex under fire. Fuuta trying to backseat drive. Mahiru in delirious giggles that she’s helping with a jailbreak, can you believe it? Her! Shidou shielding Amane as the vehicle bumps around/takes damage. Muu pointing out they’ve been going in circles. It’s revealed the driver doesn’t have their license. Es complaining that they shouldn’t be here but knowing it’s too late to get out. There’s much screaming and celebrating and panicking and tires squealing. 

One epic car chase later, they emerge in the surrounding woods, alone. They start making plans. I’m not sure who has the most geographical knowledge, but someone is able to piece together generally where they are. Mikoto knows a good deal about getting away with a crime, and starts walking them through how they’ll need to ditch this vehicle and where to hide for the time being. Kotoko has some connections, she can find out if Milgram is associated with the government or if they should go to the authorities about them. Muu’s parents are rich and from France, she’ll have them get everyone out of the country until things are figured out. 

They plan on reaching out to their families to let them know they’re alright. After some awkward silence from Es, Fuuta starts listing all the ways you can find someone online. He gets a bit embarrassed talking about the techniques (seeing as that’s how he ended up a killer,) but Es seems grateful for the help finding out who they are and if they have any family looking for them. 

As they drive, someone points out that these plans aren’t perfect. Milgram may be better equipped or more widespread than they know. There’s a high chance they’ll still be caught and potentially killed to keep quiet about the whole experiment. 

Shidou starts saying that a doctor’s job is to extend life so people can live as long and happy as possible, even when they know it won’t last. He points out that even if this isn’t a permanent escape, the extension of their lives and their happiness is still something meaningful. After all, if they’d just stayed in the prison to be executed, they would never have gotten this one last chance to see the sun.

Then they all watch the sun rise and it’s beautiful !!!!! The end