Scene #8652: Smelling the Syrup

Owner	Pose
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Streaming is an iceberg that travels quite deep into the waters of Multiversal media. A whole slice of any given connected world is available, exposing all manner of people, perspectives, culture and art. Some sites are even established for the express purpose of bringing in Multiversal viewers, and (arguably) the hottest one of those right now is JumpTV, or just 'Jump' for short. It is a niche, but a growing one--some of the more popular channels bring in tens of thousands of viewers on the regular, earning creators a living paid with subscriptions and donations. "Gridphreak" is not one of those users. He is a virtual unknown. His stream, live for perhaps 20 minutes, titled "Vibing and botnets," is in the low thirties for viewership. No more than two subscriber icons are in the chat at any given half-minute. Tech house music plays softly in the background, a minimalist drum and bass groove thrumming as a man furrows his brow at his monitor. Screen space is divided into quadrants--a window of the streamer's live facecam on the bottom right, a chat feed above it in the top right, and some sort of notepad with color-organzied lines of code occupying the left half of the screen. The channel and the stream would be completely irrelevant, but for whose face it is on the screen: Elineve "Phreak" Smith, known Rubi-Kan agitator and member of the Watch. The grey skin, the pointed ears, the golden eyes, the upswept black hair--even the dress sense and, as is about to be seen, the accent. (M) Doorbot: Be sure to join Phreak's community server for stream notifications, sharing clips and more! lomalco23: why are you doing this again Golden eyes twitch--quickly, eagerly--to the side, as keystrokes pause and lines of code halt on the stream. A little spark of irritation, and--"Are you tabbed out to porn or something? Listen--because fuck Genm, that's why. Fuck Genm, and fuck Kuroto Dan. Fuck him with a big rubber cock, and then break it off and slap that stupid smile off his face with it, too." A stream of several emotes pops in--mostly 'LOL,' with a few others following the same pattern of amusement. Another quick glance at the chat and he nods. "Even if you're cool with the copy protection and the IP bullshit, when's the last good game they put out? 'Mighty Action X'--" Phreak shakes his head, bouncing in his chair and pointing at the monitor. "That's complete fuckin' cope, lomalco. X is a mobile game that bullshitted its way onto a handheld. No way. No way you're telling me you had fun with that." psychicumpire: ChatCel threeslashchump: ChatCel CopePak eggsalad: ChatCel As a little round of Jump's icon, Hop, edited to have a visible dent in their head (and a few of this altered caricature apparently tending to their injury with medkits labeled COPE), Phreak nods. "'ChatCel.' Yeah, no fuckin' kidding, guys." In this little stream of 30 some odd terrarium subjects, all bullying each other (and the streamer), the right or wrong type of person could do a lot of damage. "Anyway--I'm doing a public service here, alright? Worst case senario, Genm actually manages to kill a few wild geese. And then what, huh? A few knockoff merch sweatshops and art stealing fucks get got? Good riddance."
Petra Soroka	silke02n1: huh Of course Petra would be someone who browses through niche multiversal streaming sites to the point of wandering across small accounts. Even in the infinite multiversal internet, with millions of worlds' worth of content to browse, there's only so many places that an untethered drifter with a predeliction for violence will end up, and when that's narrowed down further to only include toxic, debilitatingly-online gamers, it seems inevitable that something like this would happen. Not that Petra exactly... recognizes Phreak at first. She remembers the name, because she'd thought it was funny once upon a time, but actually placing where she knows him from takes a minute. Even remembering that he's from the Watch takes a moment. Fucking... I feel like I should remember someone in the Watch who was like this. Most of them were losers in some way, but this feels like a guy I can bully. Petra watches chat scroll across her screen for a minute, direly fascinated and drawn in by the toxicity. These unmoderated streaming sites did turn up gems sometimes. Oh, wait, this is Bercilak's support twink. I totally remember him now. It's deeply offensive that she recognizes the name Genm without a problem. silke02n1: lmao silke02n1: real cool move silke02n1: bet having a 10% more bots doing the same thing a billion others are is really gonna show him Pushing buttons is second nature to Petra, and she's chatting before she even thinks twice about it. A year or two ago, the fact that this kind of posting could end up with a body count wouldn't even register in her mind, but she's been with Phreak on missions that ended in deaths. She knows what kind of stuff the Watch gets up to, and it's incredibly fucking funny that it's being livestreamed to her right now. Should she be hostile to the Watch now? Thinking about the broad political implications of her actions is still beyond her, so she doesn't. Instead, she just lounges in her dog bed with her new laptop and Posts. silke02n1: fucking lol at you ranting about the ceo tho silke02n1: yeah man i'm sure he'll be personally mad about your posts silke02n1: got real 'Don't Fuck With Us Gamers' energy
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Simply put, Petra is right. Phreak is someone she could bully. Easily, as it turns out. He only has double digit viewers--so he absolutely saw the first post. She can see it, in the way his golden eyes flick towards the chat, the slight tense of his body, the definitive -clack- of his mechanical keyboard, the uptick in speed on instructions as they're entered into his little database. It's the second three that get him. "silke02n1--hey, what's up--'yeah man I'm sure he'll be personally mad about your posts." Phreak's eye twitches. "Yes, actually, he fucking will," the hacker spits back. Driven by the toxic urge to be Right, to Win, he continues. "You wanna know why? Because he's still pissed off about the last thing I did to him." threeslashchump: Lore? eggsalad: LORE lmaojuice: @threeslashchump Yeah as of a week or two ago lol "'That was Kamen Rider Genm, not Kuroto Dan--' It's the same fucking guy, dude." Phreak pantomimes crying and puts on an insulting, weepy tone. "'Oh, I'm just a whimsical ~auteur~ chipping in to save lives, but some ~terrible~ guy I have ~nothing~ to do with stole my Rider System!'" Phreak scoffs. "Bullshit." "'Citation needed'-I'M GETTING TO THE GODDAMN CITATION, JERKOFF!" Phreak's neck has a visible vein in the side of it when he yells, and his angry gesticulating shakes his camera stand, creating an inadvertend shakycam effect. Another round of 'LOL' emotes. "Look. A friend of mine had beef with this Genm guy. And she tells me about him, and she says he's a perfectionist and a control freak--so I make a bootleg Rider System for her. I'm thinking, 'what's the guy gonna do? call the cops on me? he stole what he's using anyway.' So we have A) Me, B) my friend, C) Genm. Chat." ... "If that's the case, how the -fuck- does Dan find out about any of it to send his goddamn Concord goons after me?" The comment, the original one, about the lack of impact still stings. Petra can practically see it, stewing in his head. "No. There's no way. Kamen Rider Genm is Kuroto Fucking Dan. And when he tries to shut one of these places down, when I go for round two, on my terms, you guys are gonna see it. When I belt that goddamn giamoke out, you're gonna see it. Right here." She's managed to egg him on from stirring up a hornet's nest to fighting the hornets, with just a few keystrokes. Chat is loving it, apparently, now measurably more lively than when Petra had come in-- eggsalad: LMAO I NEED THAT (FIRST MESSAGE)staindsultan: based? xxsawconxx: do it bitch lomalco23: cope stream next week LOL psychicumpire: I'd watch it tbh
Petra Soroka	Petra can't help snickering at Phreak's reactions. It's simple dopamine to see the effects of keystrokes on a silly little guy on screen, especially when he acts like someone who Petra would shove in a locker. That makes Petra pause, tapping the side of her foot against the floor as she stretches out in the bed. She could actually go shove him in a locker at some point. She could even do it while Phreak's streaming at some point. silke02n1: 'auteur' lol silke02n1: he basically makes shovelware silke02n1: tbh genm should be worried about being connected to the guy who put out bbs not the other way around But on the other hand... this is so funny. Pushing him around in real life would be fun, but poking at him online is practically effortless and gives almost as much return. Radioactive hostility as a baseline is a natural state for Petra to fall into, and she had been looking for streamers to watch, after all. silke02n1: PhreakMald silke02n1: hasn't written a line in 5 minutes silke02n1: too busy talking about kamen rider conspiracy theories about a video game ceo Petra vaguely remembers that Phreak is talking about. It was Hibiki, right? Hibiki had that major fucking issue with Genm, so that's probably right. Petra's eyes slide off the screen to the transteam gun sitting on her desk (the desk being given to her by another Kamen Rider). She literally has Kuroto Dan's phone number-- not that the thought of taking a side in this mess is something she's considering, but exactly the fact that she doesn't have to. No one's even seen her transformed into Sting Silver yet, she has total anonymity. And as anyone on social media knows, anonymity is intoxicating. silke02n1: i'm convinced tho silke02n1: nerds seething to like 10 people in chat are pretty much the most reliable source of news She actually is kind of convinced, if only because she doesn't have enough context for Genm to think anything to the contrary. She's met him as a Pokemon more times than she's talked to him for real. silke02n1: LOL silke02n1: ass beat on live silke02n1: no fucking shot silke02n1: you fucking got me silke02n1: no way i'm missing that silke02n1 Has Just Subscribed!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Petra's comment about Genm's other work not only gets several positive reactions from other chatters (a +2 and an LOL), but from Phreak himself. "'Genm should be worried about being connected to the guy who made BBS--' haha!" His laugh is so rarely heard (especially outside the stream) that it might take Petra by surprise. It is a little infectious, like the kind of laughing you do when you've gotten away with something others are Unaware of. "Yeah, right? Bang Bang Shooting. What a piece of shit." Even if he pretends not to see it, the Fixer does get back to writing instructions for his bots. It's pretty simple stuff--as one might expect, for what's essentially going to be disposable cannon fodder shotgunned onto social media platforms. The next comment--the one about nerds malding to 10 people--is something he sees too. Chat is livelier with silke02n1 here, but it's still only like 30 people. Petra can see how the '10 people' comment affects him. How badly he wants to comment on it, like he did her remark about the futility of his efforts. She can see, across just one or two seconds, the way he shifts in his chair, knowing that he's still tempted by the smell of the bait despite seeing the barb of the hook. His overlays, his emotes, his socials--this is something that he's started relatively recently, by the look of things, but a lot of effort has been put into it. "Hey, silke, thanks for the sub--is that a first-time? Fuck yeah it is. Guys, let's get some round fucks dancing in the chat, please!" eggsalad: RollerRat RRatDumpy RollerRat staindsultan: RollerRat TinaVibe RollerRat TinaVibe xxsawconxx: RollerRat "lomalco, thank you for gifting a sub to 'greytwinkcope'. Great. No that's good. Good bit. Anyway--" Phreak is working now on what the bots will post, and how often. 'I want this on a shirt!' 'I would love to have one of these!' 'This looks great. I'd buy it!' And other knockoffbot-magnets, plus pictures (sourced from search engines and pre-existing albums) for their posts. "If I get my ass beat, and that's a big if, my little..." He gestures vaguely with his free hand, before returning to typing. "I'll come out of it looking better than he would. I--STOP POSTING THE GODDAMN COPEPAKS!" Again, the mald-induced shakycam. Now there are CopePaks being applied to PhreakMald emotes--little animated images of Phreak shouting, complete with camera shake and the vein in his neck. "Look, this guy is fucked, okay? Even if I lose there's no fucking way I look worse than him." Phreak pauses for emphasis. "Like when I said 'control freak,' I didn't mean like your mother, chat. Guys--he was talking about being God. Okay? He's fucked. And you're gonna see that. When, not 'if,' I beat his ass."
Petra Soroka	Caught up in the emotion of the stream, Petra snorts at Phreak's malding, derisively half-laughing like she's slipped into a relapsed online identity, indulging in toxicity with one step removed from herself. Struck by a weird feeling, she falls silent, propping her head up on her fist while watching the little grey twink on screen ramble. Her eyes roam over all of the earnestly crafted stream elements, biting her celery snack, before she puts a label on the feeling. She feels strangely... guilty? Not for Phreak, obviously, who gives a shit about what happens to that guy. It'd be absolutely hilarious to see him try to scrape his dignity back together after getting his ass kicked and still insisting that he's right. She feels guilty for involving 'Silke' in Elite business this way. She wouldn't ever say she considers her online persona to be a different person than herself-- that's shizo shit, obviously-- but hearing Phreak, a Watch agent, who she's met in real life, say 'Silke' out loud strikes her with sudden discomfort. It feels like 'Silke' is younger than 'Petra' is, and needs to be sheltered away from the violence and chaos of being an Elite, relegated to posting and playing games. She chews on that feeling for a bit, typing one-handed while lounging, until the reason for it pops up in the top corner of the JumpTV window. silke02n1: PhreakMald CopePak silke02n1: already covering your ass lol silke02n1: 'even if i lose, i totally won, believe me guys' \| @valerieragnarok is now online. \| ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Petra exhales heavily, staring up at the corner of the screen until the friend notification goes away. She remembers Phreak better now, other than his interactions with Sterling-- that is sort of a different person from me, but that's like, normal, that's on purpose-- he was one of the people involved in bombing Remee's house. Petra holds on to that feeling of anxiety, with Val indirectly placed adjacent to a psychotic terrorist nerd, and considering it further makes her irritated instead of upset. She actually belongs here, doing the reckless, dangerous things, inciting violence between losers and gloating over it, and these stupid feelings of guilt are totally vestigial. silke02n1: right lol silke02n1: sell enough tshirts and maybe he'll be so mad that your skinny ass can just push him over Petra makes a small noise of exertion and hops up to her feet, pacing across the small apartment. She's got to get involved, now. She's technically a Kamen Rider, it might get Hibiki involved-- it might bother Tachibana-- and besides, it's just a good feeling to be a big fish in a small pond sometimes. Knowing that her involvement, on and offline, will dramatically affect the well-being of this tiny streaming community is just fun, with the power to toy around with them. She grabs the transteam gun off her desk, then drops back down to sit in her bed and pulls the laptop close. silke02n1: he sounds totally deranged honestly silke02n1: actually a solid plan if you're right silke02n1: so let's see what happens lol
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	silke02n1: 'even if i lose, i totally won, believe me guys' psychicumpire: @silke02n1 that's our boy lmao silke02n1: right lol silke02n1: sell enough tshirts and maybe he'll be so mad that your skinny ass can just push him over threeslashchump: most normal Game & Software Dev streamer tbh silke02n1: he sounds totally deranged honestly silke02n1: actually a solid plan if you're right silke02n1: so let's see what happens lol "Listen," says Phreak, as he finishes entering instructions into the database, saves the file and closes it. "You guys can call it cope as much as you want, but it's content." lomalco23: double digit viewer streamer has opinions on content HopThink "I blew your dad last night," Phreak responds, to a little handful of HopPride and PhreakGasm emotes, plus a LOL emote from the offending chatter. "I'm serious, though--silke was shitposting, but they're actually right. I do win if I lose. You know why? Becuase if I do lose, you guys are gonne be back in here to shit on me for it. And you can all sit in here and jerk off about it, because you guys fucking hate when I succeed." Petra can tell that this is quickly becoming about something other than Kuroto Dan, if it wasn't already. She can tell by the look in his eyes, the way he doesn't even look at his empty desktop or resume his plan. 'You guys' might not even mean his chat. "Any time I succeed, it's never because I--" His index jabs with animated anger into his chest-- "won--it's always because the other guy phoned it in or fell off, or didn't know what he was doing, or what the fuck ever. You think I'm fucking stupid?! You think I don't know cope when I see it?" Phreak's voice rises, and he slips further into airing this grievance that's not even necessarily with his chat. Indeed, the chat window is a slow but steady scroll of HopSweat (JumpTV's mascot looking nervously around), 5G (a cropped picture of an old man in a tin foil hat) and other such expressions of confusion. "I get rock fucking hard when I read cope like that. I get STIFF, thinking of that dipshit Kukuru bringing him my bootleg, him opening it up and finding out that I aped his shit without even needing one of his Drivers. I hope that shit made him burst a blood vessel--that a bozo like me ripped off the work of 'God' so easy." Phreak pauses, remembers himself, and adds, in a more conversational volume and tone, "But nothing gets me harder than people paying to watch me lose and getting disappointed. Nothing makes me fucking cream like knowing some of you keep coming back here hoping to see me 'put in my place.' So yeah. Thanks for the three months, lomalco. Jerkoff." He looks like he wants to take a steadying breath, here--but seems hesitant to do so for the acknowledgment that he was actually mad. "Alright," he opts instead, "Instructions are done, bots are ready to go. Now we need to find the warehouses they use for pre-shipment. These guys usually outsource making the shit to factories across the country, but the warehouses--" (FIRST MESSAGE)bishinkiwi: why do you need to know where that is?
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"'bishinkiwi.' Thanks for the follow, bud--if I know Genm, and I do, the first thing he'd gonna do is try to swing his corporate dick around and go after these guys that way. Right?" Phreak pauses, for emphasis. "These guys don't give a shit about that. They either work out of someplace that makes it really hard to go after somebody legally, or they set up so that actually doing it is a wild goose chase that costs more money than it's worth.--'what does that have to do with Dan.' Seriously?" Phreak rolls his eyes. "Dan's never gonna accept that, when he can just armor up, smash it all to shit, and blame it on that terrible, terrible thief." His contempt for Dan is palpable, in the way he puts on a mock affectation of weepiness in his voice. He pauses for a second, formulating another insult. "You know, at least when I lose--fuck it. I'm not gonna--no." The next hour or so involves a lot of meticulous navigation around geoblockers, creating fake orders, and other social-engineering type tricks that aren't the flashy 'hacking the mainframe' type of work. After tricking a confused middle manager into installing ransomware 30 minutes later (a chatter amusedly notes that it's 3AM in the manager's timezone), Phreak has both a list of warehouse locations Dan will find, and root access to their security systems for quick response. "There." The botnet is set loose on Multiversal media. New accounts are made, dummy posts, and on variable timers, thousands of posts about Genm Corp, specifically tailored to attract counterfeit-shilling bots. The first wave will ensure a sufficient amount of time for the counterfeiters to make their cheap swill--and the second will then imitate concerned, loyal Genm customers, ensuring that Dan finds out about it sooner or later. lomalco23: Clap psychicumpire: Clap threeslashchump: HUH Clap "Now, who's ready for some Gorilla World 3?"