Thumbs Up - Black emoji - 👍🏿 Meaning, History and Uses

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Captain Stelgart held tightly to the 'oh shit bars' on the side of her command couch, the lights flickering on the bridge as her 'little' frigate took a small section of the nCv cannons fired by the Harvester that was breaking orbit from around the gas giant. Sure, it was only a 'fraction' of the guns in that salvo, but when the array firing that salvo was measured in the tens of miles rather than by the barrel, the concept of 'only a fraction' became largely moot.
"No damage! Cycling out projectors in section 9-G! Hull integrity is still nominal," her DCC officer called out.
It was worth it as the little frigate and its brigade mates came out of the maelstrom of hellfire, still tightly interlocked in formation, guns still hot.
"TARGET LOCK!" Guns called out.
Stelgart heard Rear Admiral (Lower Decks) call it out and gave her own input.
"OPEN FIRE!" she yelled.
The frigate shuddered as the fireplan was activated. The massive C+ cannons fired, rotated barrels, loaded a ground-car sized slug, and fired again, each of the six guns spitting out a C+ round every fifteen seconds. The inverted tachyon particle beams ripped out, transferring almost instantly across the hundreds of kilometers to impact almost before the C+ shells. The frigate flushed its missile pods, the pod itself turning into a C+ slug, and dumped more out. The creation engines ran overtime, producing a shell every second and a missile pod every five seconds, the heat rising rapidly.
The Harvester being targeted took hits from the entire brigade across the engines. The C+ shells hit inside the shields, detonating inside the engine spaces, which were not protected by the armobattlescreen/armor technolaminate like the hull.
Over a third of the engines went out or exploded. The rear battlescreen failed, lightning bolts the size of trains ripping across the hull of the Harvester, tearing huge canyons in the armor.
"Fireplan updating!" Guns called out. "Decoys out!"
Stelgart felt the ship slide to the side as it warped space around it, the 'little' frigate's mass sliding into the warped gravity well it was projecting to move rapidly. The entire brigade moved like a flock of birds, each one's engines supplementing the engines of the others, allowing them to move quickly and smoothly through space.
The Harvester's return shots whipped through space where the brigade had been, hitting nothing but echoes of the ships that were a hundred kilometers away. The decoys that survived spun up to full power and 'fired' off. Dozens, hundreds of ship profiles and energy signals scattered from the target area, completely obscuring the small flotilla of two dozen 'light attack' ships as they changed targets to the undamaged engines and maneuvered for a better shot.
"HELLCORE CHARGING!" Guns called out.
General No'Drak heard the call, preceded by "STATUS CHANGE" from the ground-side tactical analysis teams.
Ge'ermo'o turned around, his hooves thumping on the variable hardness flooring. He looked down at the large hologram of the planet. The thirty or so icons representing the more massive Precursor machines were starting to flash, alerting those who were reading the map that they had changed their activities and demanded attention.
"Precursor ships are engaging engines and starting to lift off," someone else called out.
Only the lemurs of Terra could break a machine's will to fight, Ge'ermo'o thought. Two hours ago that realization would have filled him with horror.
Now, it was just one more shock and horror piled upon everything he had witnessed.
White filled a holotank as Third Armor gutted another Precursor ship, turning the superstructure into fuel for the fusion hellfire the consumed it. The feed cleared and the recon drones and sats focused on how the battlesteel of the Precursor machine was burning like anthracite coal exposed to plasma.
You murdered and terrorized your way across the Rim Systems and now that someone can hit back you scurry away like insects. I hope the Terrans destroy every one of you butchers and that you feel every moment of it, Ge'ermo'o thought, completely unaware of the irony of a Lanaktallan thinking such things.
The floor rumbled slightly even though the blast was nearly a hundred miles away.
Die, Ge'ermo'o thought, his tendrils curling with anger. Don't say goodbye, just die, Precursor trash.
An aide touched General No'Drak's arm. The big insectoid shifted, pulling Ge'ermo'o's attention from the holotanks.
"Sir, 108th MI has a data pull request from Sergeant Casey," the aide said.
It took Ge'ermo'o a moment to remember who Sergeant Casey was, and his eyes went to the holotank that was tracking the subterranean progress of the massive Precursor mining machine.
"Tell me," No'Drak sighed, pulling out another cigarette. He was highly stressed. The weapons being used shredded atmospheric gases, blew holes in the planet's magnetic field, and shattered the ozone layer. The weapons were "Total War" option weapons.
You usually didn't use them on a planet you planned on having anyone live on before an Elven Court or Genesis Device could be used.
They'd been used on Unified Council military targets prior, the Mar-gite before that.
Now they were being used to show the Precursors that the Terrans still had the ability to hurt them.
"MI reports Casey filed a data pull request for an older creation engine template," the aide said, combing her whiskers with one slightly trembling hand. "It's a problem."
"What's the problem?" General No'Drak asked. Part of him wanted to snap at his aide, ask her why she was bringing a request from a Senior NCO to him instead of gong to his Company Commander.
A glance at the holotank showing the progress of the Precursor mining machine heading toward the mountains along a path miles below the surface reminded him that he wasn't dealing with some Private asking to use the latrine.
"The request was very specific, but not something in our decrypted and active template data archives," the aide said. "Current network and mainframe usage rates mean it could take a couple of hours for even one of the BOLO's to find the correct files in their archives since it's going be a low priority file."
"Anyone else who might have something like it?" General No'Drak asked.
"There is someone in-system we can ask, but..." the aide went silent for a long moment.
"Spit it out. Who?" No'Drak lit his cigarette as another Precursor machine was gutted, the city sized bulk falling a half mile into the ocean, still burning.
"The Crusade of Wrath likely has the template loaded in systems that they can datamine a lot faster," the aide said.
Ge'ermo'o opened his mouth to ask the question, but General No'Drak beat him to it.
"What is he asking for?" the big Treana'ad asked, putting away his pack.
The aide consulted her dataslate. "A set of Second Terran/Mantid War creation engine templates for, and I quote, 'M-428e9 High Frequency Phasic Scrambler' and 'High Frequency Phasic Disruption Munitions in the multi-spectrum range'. Both sets are real old, we're talking archive databanks old."
"How would he know of such things?" Ge'ermo'o asked.
"Aside from being like nine hundred years old? It's a pretty big piece of history for our people," General No'Drak mused. "He's probably seen it referenced in manuals and documentaries and history works."
"Sir, should I contact the Crusade of Wrath?" the aide asked.
Smokey No nodded. "Get me Joan Mentissa," he said, exhaling smoke around his feet.
Ge'ermo'o stared at the holotank as another Precursor made it to orbit, its hull burning, only to run face first into the ships of the Crusade of Wrath, which began pounding it with their guns even as it tried to get clear of the gravity well to safely make a helljump.
The holotank in front of him wavered then cleared, to show an archaically designed ship's bridge, all black metal with dark green, blue, and red markings. No hologram projectors there, only bulky looking flat screens. The crews at the stations ranged from female Terrans in heavy armor to rough looking, almost skeletal appearing full conversion cyborgs. The well lit bridge still seemed to give off the aura of being dimly lit, shadowed, and hidden due to some dark purpose.
"General," the Joan said, nodding. "How may the Dark Crusade of Light assist you?"
"We believe there may be justification to deploy ancient technology only you would be in possession of," General No'Drak said carefully. "Technology that we require the creation engine templates for."
"What type of technology?" the Terran woman asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. "The Crusade possesses many forgotten and forbidden technologies. Be wary with what you ask, General."
"High frequency phasic interrupter technology," No'Drak said. "We have reason to believe there is a statistically insignificant but still valid change of encountering Precursor War Era Mantid technology," No'Drak said.
She turned, her mouth blurring slightly as the audio cut out. After a moment she nodded and turned back to General No'Drak.
"We have such technology templates," the Joan stated. "We shall transmit Terran Imperium Era templates as well as Combined Military Authority templates to your people."
The lights on the deck of the ship flashed around the Joan and she turned away.
"I have a battle to fight, General, and the enemies of life to destroy. May you seek honor," she said.
The channel closed.
Ge'ermo'o swallowed around the lump in both his long and short throats.
"What is the technology do?"
Casey looked up at Vuxten, his armored breathing mask making him look strange to Vuxten's eyes.
"Sorry, what, sir?" he asked, turning his attention from the holographic wireframe projected by Addox's hand to Vuxten.
"What does the tech do? Even my greenie isn't sure," Vuxten said.
Casey tapped the hologram as if it was a physical thing. "It's old tech. There's civilian versions, but those are the size of small spaceships, designed to cover entire cities in an interlocking field, we need smaller ones, ones that can handle the punishment of combat."
"OK, but what does it do?" Vuxten asked.
"It's a high frequency phasic disruptor," Casey said. Before Vuxten could comment that he had heard that but it didn't explain what it did, Casey pointed at a small scaffolding walkway. "We've got overwhelming evidence that this is a Mantid machine, and I doubt it's from Premik-8. That means our greenies run the risk of being hit by ruling or warrior caste psychic attacks."
Vuxten nodded even as 471 flashed icons of disgust.
"These were designed just prior to the Second Mantid War," Casey said. He finished tapping icons and wrapped the object he was modifying in the hologram in a casing. "They won't do much more than make our little green buddies itch, maybe a light headache, but it completely disrupts psychic control signals from upper caste."
The nano-forge attached to Casey's heavy loading/work chassis began to hiss, the untold trillions of nanites contained inside building the template Casey had modified.
"These are Imperium make. I used the Combine circuitry, the Imperium disruptors, and wrapped it in warsteel, which can hold and disrupt psychic energies," Casey said. He grabbed the small cylinder as it exited the creation engine, waved it a second to cool it down, and moved over to Addox. "We attach one of these to each armor, we crank the detection up, and if there is any type of upper caste Mantids running around, they can't force our little buddies to do anything."
--i die free-- 840 transmitted. Icons from every other greenie flashed in agreement.
Vuxten watched as Casey used a fusion torch to attach two different types of cylinders to Addox's armor. One was round with a flat side, the other was a hexagon. Both had green lights down the side.
--ouchie-- 471 transmitted to Vuxten.
"You OK, buddy?" Vuxten asked on the private channel.
--tingly achey-- 471 replied. --taste like copper vapor--
"It's going to be thick when they cut in if our buddies get hit," Casey said, moving to Vuxten. "From here on out, our battle buddies need to stay in the shells, especially if we end up deploying the munitions."
Vuxten nodded, looking at the grenade on his harness that Casey had handed out. It had the Confederate logo of a hand crushing a planet on it, but it seemed older, somehow malevolent, just sitting there.
"Try not to shoot random robots you see. Most of them will be extremely task oriented," Addox said. "More than likely they won't even be able to process your existence beyond being some kind of obstacle to move around."
Everyone nodded as Vuxten felt a slight twinge in his head, a couple of inches behind between his eyes.
"Right now, they're set to stealth," Casey said, moving to the next person in line. "The Crusade was nice enough to give us the specs and they had a stealth mode in the templates they handed off, just needed a little tweaking to work with our systems."
Vuxten closed his eyes for a second as a mention of the Crusade made the taste of Gen-0 stimgum rise up in his mouth and the scar around his cyberear ached for a long moment.
He could remember the fear and rage of the Imperium/Crusade/Combine troops landing on Telkan in the middle of an all out assault by the Dwellerspawn creatures and plants upon a shelter that had undergone an emergency surfacing.
"Your vitals just spiked, Lieutenant, are you all right?" Addox asked.
Vuxten swallowed. "I'm all right. Just reminded me of something."
"Second Telkan War?" Addox asked.
"Yeah," Vuxten said.
"You were there when the Imperium troops made their landing, right?" Addox said.
--no shit-- 471 said privately.
"You could say that," Vuxten replied.
I AM ENTIRELY FORMED OF WRATH! echoed in his mind, along with the memory of a huge Terran wading into the Dwellerspawn.
Vuxten waited, consciously taking control of his breathing to keep it steady and reciting the mantras he had been taught. A couple of times his datalink tossed up memes, but they were all pretty bad, pretty basic ones, which told him he was either out of range of the main psyops system or it was overloaded.
One got through that made him laugh, even though it obviously wasn't meant for him, which made it even funnier.
A heavy tank with markings of Bravo Company, 6-28 Armored Battalion had obviously driven into a large ditch and broken its tracks, tried to back up, slid sideways and left its tracks bunched up before somehow having the cupola jump its track and having then gotten stuck on its side. A green mantid was in the foreground with a commo headset on saying "Have you tried turning it off and on?"
"What?" Private First Class Sultrek asked, making Vuxten aware he'd laughed over the platoon leader channel.
"Fighting must be easing up on the surface," Vuxten said. He passed around the meme and everyone laughed.
Vuxten saw Casey shake his head. "Not gonna work, they're gonna need to release the IP and acquire a new one."
--try running a network ping-- 884 offered.
--diagnostics on my board says your tank is fine please clear channel-- 737 informed the tank in the picture.
--must be a factory defect-- 013 decided.
Another meme popped in, obviously from 3rd Armor Divisions Morale section and Vuxten burst out laughing as Casey attached another set of disruptors.
This one was of a Precursor with "ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE" written on its hull, staring with wide eyes at another Precursor that was completely engulfed in the white fire of an uncontrolled fusion reaction. The one with wide eyes slowly went transparent as it slid off the side of the picture. The caption read "When see your boy get roasted by another squad and realize you're next."
"It's an older meme, but it checks out," Casey chuckled.
"I've never seen it," Pvt Renklant said.
Addox shook his head. "That's a genuine Pre-Diasporia meme right there, boys."
The link cut out and Vuxten could see "No Connection" on the BATTACNET icon.
Addox filled the time while Casey attached the parts onto the armor telling a series of profane jokes that made the tip of Vuxten's ear heat up with embarrassment. It was over two dozen jokes that involved a greased up Rigellian body building midget and a pair of confused cat boys. Vuxten knew it was supposed to be jokes but they were so shocking he couldn't even laugh.
Ranklant snickered though.
"All right, done," Casey said, straightening up. His frame hissed as pressure relieved in the heavy pistons that provided strength enhancement.
"Everyone ready?" Vuxten asked, more to Casey than to anyone else.
Icons flashed ready as Casey nodded.
"Lead the way, Sergeant," Second Lieutenant Plunex said.
"All right, let's move out," Sergeant Addox ordered. "Casey, take the rear."
There was silence on the channels as the platoon moved through the larger maintenance tunnels, following the maps made by the recon drones. The drones had found what looked like engines as well as massive fusion plants that provided power but both of those possible targets had been set aside by the very obvious target.
In the heart of the machine was a huge egg shaped area that the doors were closed, the vents did not access, and there was no access outside of what appeared to be airlocks designed for Mantids.
Big Mantids.
It took nearly two hours to navigate the large area before they reached the heavy airlock door. When they got there Addox ordered it cut open but Casey shook his head.
"What?" Vuxten asked.
"Need a greenie to check this seal. It's got some pebbling, looks age related. Might give us an idea of the last time this door was used," Casey said.
--will do-- 471 said.
"My buddy says he'll do it," Vuxten said. He half expected someone to object because he was the ranking officer and was grateful when nobody said anything.
471 popped the armored housing, climbing out and jumping over to Casey's frame, hanging off of it for a second.
"Visual only, don't touch it," Casey said.
--not tell you how to be ape-- 471 shot back.
Casey just chuckled.
After a moment 471 moved back into the shell, sliding his bladearm into the computing node built in. He ran the tensile strength and other factors.
--356 years approx-- 471 let Vuxten know, feeling a glow of pleasure in figuring it out. His fellow Mantids stuck their tongues out at him via emoji for getting the be the one who did the work.
"It's been awhile," Addox mused. "Hopefully there isn't a surprise on the other side of the door," he looked at Lieutenant Plunex. "Orders, sir?"
"Open the door," Plunex said, managing to keep himself from looking to Lieutenant Vuxten for guidance.
"Casey, handle the door," Addox said.
"Roger that," Casey said. He worked for a few moments to get the control panel off, examining it. "No power. Probably controlled from inside," he mused. He pulled wire out of the creation engine, ran it from his frame to the door, and toggled the power.
The door slowly ground opened, moving more smoothly by the time it was halfway open.
"We're going to have to divide up to go through that airlock unless you want me to cut open the far door and risk this thing's systems going full breach alert," Casey said.
"We'll move through by three man groups," Addox said. He looked a Plunex. "First three, sir?"
Plunex felt the sweat break out under his fur. "Uh," he started.
Vuxten stepped forward. "Casey, me, and Private Renklant," he said.
Plunex felt relief even though the idea of putting a superior officer in danger bothered him slightly.
Casey handed the wires to Plunex and walked in, pulling the panel off the door and starting to work on jumping the power leads. Vuxten waited for Renklant to move through then moved through himself. When saw Renklant reach down to take his weapon off of safe Vuxten reached out and put his hand on the weapon.
"Not yet," Vuxten said over the point to point link. "Go in ready, but not hair trigger. Move to the right."
Renklant nodded, swallowing, as Casey stepped back, the wiring bypass ready.
"Close the outer door," Vuxten ordered. He closed his eyes as the massive door hissed shut, taking a deep breath and centering himself. When he opened it Casey stood by the door, staring at Vuxten, simply waiting.
"Open the door," Vuxten ordered. He felt loose but ready to move in any direction, not on edge but ready to react with his weapon at any second.
The door slid open and Casey stepped in, taking a step straight into the room beyond and Vuxten knew it was to clear the firing arc for the big minigun the human was packing. Vuxten went left, rifle in his hands, thumb on the fire selector.
The entire sphere was open. Work stations covering the walls and a massive computer core suspended in the middle of the room with what looked like some kind of horseshoe shaped command console wrapped around it. Heavy cabling was festooned everywhere, over consoles, across chairs, in mid-air as it moved from point to point.
"Negative movement," Casey ground out. Vuxten noted how the human's voice had suddenly changed. "Not much power in here with the exception of our big friend in the center," he turned and Vuxten could see the cold amber glow in Casey's eyes was fading. "I'm pretty sure we bring everyone through."
Vuxten radioed back and waited as the lock cycled to bring the rest of the platoon through in threes, with Addox coming in last. During the time spent bringing everyone in Casey moved around slowly, walking on the catwalks, careful to never brush any of the wiring. A couple times Vuxten saw him duck or step carefully over nothing and changed his visor.
Laser commo in the high IR range.
Using that data Vuxten started tagging up places for everyone to sit down in such a way that they'd be covered by at least three other members close by. Each time one of the Telkan Marines came through the airlock he guided them over to sit down.
"Sir," Casey's voice broke in. Vuxten looked up and saw that Casey was standing on the middle platform, one hand holding one of the heavy cables that held the platform up.
"Yes, Sergeant?" Vuxten asked, noting that Casey had linked in Addox and Plunex to the conversation.
"I've seen tech like this. It's old Mantid tech for sure, but I'm pretty sure this is what's affectionately referred to as 'after market modifications' by the mechanics," he said. "Computer's Mantid make, systems are Mantid make, machine's Mantid make," he swung slightly and faced Vuxten. "Circumstantial evidence suggests that this thing might possibly have a chance of being built by Mantid."
"You don't say," Addox drawled. "Smartass."
"How's Glory?" Casey suddenly asked.
"Fine. She said for you to quit screwing around and hurry up," Lieutenant Plunex said. "I left a squad with her, she'll be fine."
"Oh," Casey said. He swung a couple of times back and forth and launched himself through the air, landing on the catwalk with a clang.
The pose, the way he seemed to hang there, reminded Vuxten of the Imperium of Rage Marines.
"We have commo outside?" Plunex asked.
"I've got slow commo, text and data only. Having to go full error correction on it," Casey said.
"File a sit-rep, let Command know we're still alive," Plunex said. He looked around. "Where do you think it's going?"
"Somewhere terrible, I'm sure," Vuxten said softly.
The last time I was underground, it didn't work out too well for anyone involved, he thought to himself, staring at the computer arrays on the central platform.
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The results are in for Match 5. The winner is…
The Masters of Funky Action, with a score of 72 to Suburban Regalia‘s 64!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Masters of Funky Action	19-10	At 6.5 votes to 3.5, MFA took the lead early on and held onto it.
Quality	Suburban Regalia	20-21	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	23-23	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10

“Nngh… Gheh…” Lemon Demon couldn’t move much without hurting himself, and was beginning to black out as it was; Bert’s creations had been fended through, the pair had been separated, and he’d wound up tangled and chained up and unable to break free without some great risk to his own safety. Regardless, though, even slipping out of consciousness and feeling it, he kept up high spirits.
“Guess I’m beat… Guess this is some kinda karma. I always made phone cords so they get all tangled up on purpose… Whole design of the things was my idea.” He snickered a bit, turning his head as much as he could. “Okay, wanna help me down, Bert?”
The old troublemaker only heard silence back as his eyes shut.
“…Bert?”
Perseus Drakos and Casey Williams, standing at the bottom of the stairwell by the entrance to the basement room from which their opponents had come, were quiet, the older of the two putting a hand on the younger’s shoulder.
“Hey, Percy… Are you doing alright?”
“…why wouldn’t I be? We won… We beat a monster who killed tens of thousands. Got revenge for Rudolf…” Perseus answered, tone so even she couldn’t tell if he was forcing it or not, turning around and walking quickly towards the door, shrugging her hand away. “C’mon, we need to help those people still. They might still be alive.”
“…” Casey turned to watch him move, and didn’t let herself turn back towards the coffin of glass, which had been stuck with blade after blade and begun dripping something copper-scented all over the floor.
Whether he was being honest or not, Perseus was right. This mattered more.
The pair stepped into the trashed laboratory, unsurprised yet at once deeply concerned as they saw the bloodied forms of the University Board members laying there, large gashes in their heads, barely moving, at either side of some off-white mess in a pile of broken glass on the ground.
“They… They’re alive, for now, but… I don’t think they’ll last like this.” Casey expressed, trembling with her finger on the pulse of the restaurant’s owner. “We… Were we too late? Even fighting as fast as we could, were we too late?!”
“No, there…” Perseus’ voice cracked slightly. “There has to be something we can-” He paused, then, the Stranger guiding his attention to the ‘weapon’ on the ground.
Something the size of a ping-pong ball had begun to emerge from it.
There’s only a few hours left, meanwhile, to vote in the round’s first boss match, wherein a returning T3 character faces an ant-controlling boy and a shocking Kamen Rider!
Scenario:
Downtown Los Fortuna, The Capital Islets - Near City Hall
Council Chairperson Raymond Delwyn Shimizu was in about as good a mood as he could be, given the troubling circumstances. The city and everyone in it was in danger, and one of his closest allies here was currently on a dangerous mission to take down the entire leadership of the city’s most prominent crime rings, and still, petty bullshit, feuds and backroom deals and councilmen in people’s pockets continued to stand in the way of his efforts.
Nonetheless, he could not wear a worried face before the smiles and trust of the people he’d come to represent, let alone as he read over a speech that he’d slaved over just for today, for the latest anniversary of the city’s founding. It was a miracle of his legislative work that the islets had managed to be in enough of a state of repair to house any event at all, let alone as beloved as this one.
“That Andrew Tiffany fellow unveiled our city’s new flag at one of these foundational celebrations, couple years back.” A short, goggle-wearing guy with a red aviator cap spoke to Ray, and he regarded him unsuspiciously, as in spite of his comparable costume to certain ghosts around the city, the mayor of the town, unlike them, had a very large, prominent handlebar moustache covering up half of his face. “My first foundational celebration in office, that was… The mayor before me had just resigned after his jaywalking ring was exposed to the public by a clout-chasing whistleblower.”
Ray nodded, agreeing that such a thing, of course, was deeply scandalous, wholly deserving of a replacement by Mayor Rockin Red Robin. “I can tell you’ve inherited a lot of pressure… Especially needing to hunt down the Red Flying Man. I didn’t know you were the type to take action like that…”
“Of course, of course!” Mayor Red waved his hand, then, “in general, I think I must take my post more seriously, I’ve realized, especially having lost a brace of kinsmen myself to the tragedies of late. Tell you what, even… Add an addendum to your speech, that I’ve agreed to plan to get one of those ‘squads’ you want together, after this is done. I don’t flout my clout enough!”
“You… You mean that?” Would it be that easy? Would Ray have yet another of his campaign promises, the hardest he’d fought futilely for, officially realized?
“Certainly! So long as no abrupt scandals derail my entire political career, I should be very comfortably in a place to do so! No ulterior motives whatsoever! Only benevolence in this alliance!”
“Any last-minute setup you need done, Mr. Chairman? Mayor Red?”
The pair, then, looked to a tall teenaged temp they’d hired to help arrange for things, who wore a big beanie cap all the way down over his eyes… Thorburn, he’d said he was, and Ray, humoring the eccentric, accepted that for the sake of being a nice guy.
“Not that I know of…” He answered, looking around, then to the giant screens affixed to the outer walls of City Hall; climbing as well as he could, this volunteer had gotten them all installed easily. “Thanks, though. You’ve been as much help as half a dozen men or more… Uh. Maybe see if Golden Week needs anything?”
“Sure, yeah… That sounds fine. I’ll definitely do that.” Thorburn walked away, then, turning back a moment to conclude, “this commemoration… It’s going to be one to remember. Looking forward to the main event.”
“…” Ray wasn’t sure what to make of that, but before he could ask, the volunteer was gone. “Uh… Looks like it’s about time to get started. Wish me luck.”
As Ray stepped up, then, turning the mic on, he cleared his throat, earning the attention of the murmuring crowds as either hand rested on either side of the podium.
“Good afternoon, Los Fortuna. I am… Deeply humbled, that we have managed to get the former Capital Island in enough of a state of repair to host this event here once more, and would like to start with thanks to the relief and repair workers still spending hours on the islets every day.” He paused to allow the crowd to applaud, then opened his mouth again. “These first months as your council chairman have been-”
Royalty free music began to blare overtop itself in a discordant overlap, drowning out the interrupted words of the beginnings of Ray’s speech as the screens which had been displaying him to the crowd, suddenly, began to display static, then a form framed in silhouette.
“Hello, to everyone tuning in online and in-person,” the figure said, voice distorted and lowered several octaves digitally, “it’s your favorite and least favorite web personality, your best and your worst friend, here to steal the show!”
Several bumps began to emerge from the ground beneath Ray and other councillors waiting to speak, prompting them to tactically retreat from the gradually forming horned, mechanical-looking orbs with glowing green eyes which had begun to overtake the area.
“What the hell is going on..?”
Ray winced on his bad leg, then, before a much larger variant of the same, brighter in color, grabbed and tossed him into the soft grass. Amazingly, he landed harmlessly.
“Forget about all those corrupt jerks, just here to talk about themselves, alright? Talking about them is why I’M here.”
A Small House Just East of the Capital Islets, the Evening Before
Ever since she had suddenly awoken in Los Fortuna, Evelyn Ensanar had never once set foot outside of her home.
It had been…
Hell, how long had it been? Days had become weeks had become months, all within these walls and roof, and that would turn into lord knew how long. Wild. It's insane how big numbers can get.
Something tapped against the window.
It was a nice neighborhood they’d wound up in, her mother had optimistically said. The neighbors were friendly, and had a girl her age, and the school district was one of the better you could find in the urban area. She could start high school on a fresh note, with ‘good’ friends, and not just sit in front of a bunch of screens in a shuttered room, making more and more of an Evelyn-shaped impression in that ergonomic lounge chair she’d spent so much time in.
Yeah, mom.
Something tapped against the window.
Even as the island just West literally collapsed into pieces by some Stand Users’ hands, as the ground beneath her quaked, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to go outside, and by some hand of fate, the place wasn’t destroyed; the security she’d installed over the months worked like a charm at keeping it floodproof, earthquake-proof, and most importantly, the lights plugged in and wi-fi working. That oh-so-nice high school was leveled and underwater without Evelyn even having bothered to google it.
Now the city was doomed to fall or whatever, everyone was gonna die if nothing was done, and while many others sprung into action, the fourteen year-old was as stagnant as the air in the room littered with posters of aliens and spaceships and electronics and their wirings strewn about the floor, waiting for their turn to be dusted off and tested out again.
Something tapped against the window.
It was a nice welcoming room, a welcoming room, if a bit dark. But hey, wasn’t that why electronics electronics were there, to lighten things up? Evelyn tried to part the messy blue bangs out of her eye, but it fell back into place immediately as she turned to chug another can of Forbidden Dew, jiggling her neon wireless mouse to put her screensaver to rest, revealing her cluttered desktop.
She wondered why she’d ever tried to live any other way in the first place. School was hell, and like hell, the gates were shut; people no matter how different or similar to her would forget her anyway. Even then, she’d tried time and time again to make the impossible work. God… I was so cringe back then. She was so miserable.
Something tapped against the window.
She looked towards the shuttered windows again, at the last vestiges of twilight fading through. It was funny, no, fucking hilarious, how that window had once shown nothing but city lights, but now, things were dim and half-sunk even when it was open. In the end, no matter how hard you try, everything leads to ‘Nothing’ in the end…
For Evelyn, however, it hadn’t been that way for a while. She’d broken past the boundaries that once corralled her, found a way in which she could be a part of a society she wanted, a pillar of it, never to be forgotten. To my viewers, to my fans, I’m an icon, someone admirable… Someone I can be my true self for, a world where I don’t have to fear any kind of fall. I’m a famous, popular creator to them! I am someone who matters… I need to act like that, don’t I? But… with everything going on… The end literally months away… I really need to snap out of this rut. I need to stay *me.***
CRASH!
A big, heavy rock flew through Evelyn’s window, something rubber-banded to it, and though she jumped in place and cursed under her breath, it was with a breathy sort of laugh while quickly assessing that it was absolutely not a bomb or something else. Just a ‘prank.’ She looked out to see who could be responsible, but felt like she’d only noticed a sort of glimmer in her eye, before turning towards the object in question.
Rubber banded to the rock was a bulky-looking manila folder, bearing the logo of that, uh… Church of Syrinx, she thought it was called? She didn’t pay much attention to them. Looked stolen, especially as she turned the rock over and saw a message painted onto it in neon.
NOT YOUR ENEMY, JUST SOMEONE WHO WANTS THINGS TO MOVE FORWARD
TALK AFTER STREAM. ONE REQUEST IN EXCHANGE FOR THIS
And then, it was signed with an emoji… One which made Evelyn chuckle to see.
How the hell did this guy fit that all onto one side of a rock? Well, whoever it was knew where she lived, so she supposed humoring this, talking to this stone age weirdo, was her best bet…
And no reason not to open up the folder in the meantime, looking its contents over. It was a collection of documents all stamped and labeled ‘CITY HALL.’
“‘Councilman Golden Week, Downtown District…’” She tilted her head, pulling more of the contents out. “‘Died months ago, replaced by another Stand User?’ ‘Ties to violent anarchist organizations?’” That made her chuckle, grin. “Based.”
From there, then, she thumbed over the contents, speed-reading every entry. Affairs, insider trading dirt, terrorism complicency… There was a veritable goldmine of blackmail material that had just literally been thrown through her window, all on the ‘good’ people at City Hall.
“There was that thing out there tomorrow, right?” She spoke to herself, looking out the destroyed window towards the sunken, half-rebuilt islets.
Already, an idea was starting to form. Evelyn would make her mark on history yet again. But she couldn’t get ahead of herself, of course. She had a stream to get underway, and someone to thank later. Her recording software was up and running, and for the audience, a figure in an astronaut helmet appeared onscreen, a text-to-speech voice accompanying speech bubbles emerging by the avatar’s side.

good evening fans and haters and five yr olds
it me
looks like we finally hit 100k subs. just happened 2day dont say otherwise. U alllllllllll know what that means right
tomorrow, (REAL) face reveal stream. i have some thing xtra special planned for it just u wait and see
all day tomorrow after noon. tell ur friends. it will b some thing new 4 me, and it, i promise, will be
epic

In high spirits, eagerly awaiting what would come next and planning already in their mind, UltraNebula67 proceeded to have one of the best evening streams they felt they’d had in a long time.
Downtown Los Fortuna, the Next Morning - En Route to Capital Island
Espiritu was not a fan of crowds, or of events. It was all noise, and content, and people hoping to speak their platforms in ways which belied their intentions. In Los Fortuna, it would always mean that there were so many more people than anywhere else he’d been whose sins he would see carried upon their backs, thinking nothing of how they would have to some day answer for what clung to them so fearsomely.
This city is the dead… I am as well.
Much had been on the jaguar’s mind in recent days… That Worm, he had taken something which Espiritu had valued dearly, a remnant of the only thing to truly ever be like him which had been stolen from him. He had taken and threatened one of the few people in this world who had known how to find it, and now, horrible loss had come. Failure, for Espiritu, was certain. Death would come.
Yet he walked towards City Hall with discomfort in his every step.
A message had been written in neon on the side of the Estate early that morning, as he’d come back from attempting to exercise, to find some sign of where the man might have taken the memento known as Golden State.

TODAY AT CITY HALL
MEN WILL BE RUINED
WILL YOU LET THEM?

As he read over those words, Espiritu felt as if he was being watched, heard a rustling in the grassy forests of the island.
This wasn’t a warning, then. It was an ultimatum. Somebody was calling him out, meant to drag him in front of the city for whatever purpose was running through their mind… Over the well-being of people whose lives meant nothing to him, whose suffering he could not even begin to give a damn about if he wanted to.
He would make his way out there as soon as he could.
“Oh shit, hey, what’s up?”
Espiritu was distracted from his thoughts on the matter by the teenaged voice cutting in to question his presence. Sitting on a bench close to the epicenter of the speech, half-watching the council chairman speak to somebody or another and plan it out, was the strawberry blonde biker known as ‘Lou’ Reed, sitting and having Wrenn Aflight, disguised only with a big scarf over his face’s lower half, lean into her shoulder slightly.
They seemed to be doing well, regardless of the grudges clinging to their backs, and Espiritu needed more information.
“You… Hello, yes. I am here for an important reason. I’ve received a warning that ‘something’ would happen to ‘ruin’ the men here, if I did not appear. Have you found what you said you would?”
It was a matter unrelated to Espiritu’s presence here, and Lou shook her head. “I’m working on it… And hell, maybe we’re looking into the same thing. Mostly I’m here so Wedding March fanboys don’t start trashing the place and demanding they reinstall their guy just because he died and came back.” She smiled softly, then, adding, “I doubt they’ll try anything, but honestly… I’d almost like to see them try, just gimme the excuse, you know?”
“That does not sound like what I am looking into.” Espiritu continued speaking through his Stand, looking to the idol next. “A message was spray-painted onto the Estate, by somebody nimble. Do you know anything about where your ally is? If he knows anything about it?”
“You mean Bang?” Wrenn tilted his head. “Tell the truth, I haven’t talked to him much at all the past few days! He’s been running around doing this, that, this other thing, and I haven’t been able to keep track of it… If I thought it was important, I’d try, though!”
“You two are no help, then,” Espiritu remarked, not resenting it, but not wanting to stick around long if he didn’t need to, either. He liked one of the two people present here, and the other had similar amounts of grudges to himself, but he would not waste his time here.
He began to walk away, then, the companionship between the two meaning little to him.
“If something happens, let me know.”
Before he could investigate any further, however, robotic-looking things began to emerge from the ground, round, and bumpy, and charging people, pushing them yet not seeming to hurt them, and Espiritu ran and ran away, desperate even more now to find what was going on.
Horrible, discordant noises were blaring, and a new, shadowed face appeared on the screens which had been displaying Raymond Delwyn Shimizu’s speech.
“Hello, to everyone tuning in online and in-person,” the figure said, voice distorted and lowered several octaves digitally, “it’s your favorite and least favorite web personality, your best and your worst friend, here to steal the show!”
More people were thrown, yet none harmed.
“Forget about all those corrupt jerks, just here to talk about themselves, alright? Talking about them is why I’M here.”
“Are you alright, chairman?!” Mayor Red helped Ray up with surprising strength, dusting him off and looking things over.
“Yeah… Just surprised a bit. If these are Stand constructs, their power is surprisingly low. Virtually indestructible, though…”
“I’m here for multiple reasons, really… The first, of course, is to celebrate my own milestones as a creator and community head! That’s right! UltraNebula67 has broken the 100k subscriber milestone! I just needed to do something special for that, right?”
A chat sidebar appeared on the side of the silhouetted screens, showcasing the series of emojis representing the viewers’ joy at this, as well as many talking about a face reveal or asking what the hell was being played.
“Rather than using my avatar for this… I’m going to make a face reveal, and explain today’s stream, the greatest pranks I’ve pulled yet, as myself! Are you hype? Get hype! Okay! Alright! Hyper! More hype! Okay, just a little less hype… Little more! Okay!” Nebula’s shadowy hand held up a remote, and they began to count down, voice growing less and less distorted, “in five… four… three… two..!”
The lights in the room came on dramatically then, and all were able to see the iconic streamer’s face for the first time, grinning in a sure, confident way as their blue hair looked quite natural rested with bangs covering up one eye.
Though they didn’t know to call them Evelyn, the world could see the teenaged girl behind Nebula for the first time.
(art by crimsonRedscarlet!)
This… This problem is being caused by a child? Of course it is. Espiritu was unsurprised, even if he knew that he wasn’t exactly a boomer himself.
For a single, shy moment, Nebula’s hand waved, with a little “hey..!” in a lower voice than the previous grandstanding, before she gulped, nodded, and narrowed her visible eye, grinning and raising her voice again. “It’s great to finally show my face to the world, and I couldn’t have picked a better special stream to do it! See, not only have I, as you can see, had these ‘minions’ of mine take over the steps in front of City Hall, but I even have a reason to!” A lofty folder full of documents was pulled into Nebula’s hands, ushered in by a cascade of air horns. “Things to be said about everyone here, councillors and mayors and DAs, oh my! All leaked to me by a great new friend!”
“Just to let you know I’m not kidding, let’s start with a ‘freebie,’ to show this stuff means business! To the guy no longer in office, the man who claimed to be pro-safety and was murdered anyway, then came back when nobody asked him to, Wedding March!” Documentation of the former Council Chairman filled the screen, as well as photos of his middle-aged face, transactional records indicating exactly what Nebula was about to say.
“That necromancied old-timer had been blocking so many reforms for the city, all because he’d been taking tons of under-the-table payments from Ugo McBaise’s VALKYRIE to set up the table for a private police force basically replacing the already-pretty-garbo police! He was even starting to fund his reelection bid! Talk about CRINGE, am I right? Now, a lot of these aren’t quite that, we’ve got affairs, embarrassing secrets, old photos, all of it spicy, and I’ve saved some of the absolute nastiest for later!”
“Is she just… Leaking corruption stuff?” Wrenn tilted his head, his own Stand beginning to recall where a moment ago he’d been trying to fight. “That sounds fine actually! I think she’s just doing this to get into the drama sphere, but people should be punished for that kinda stuff!”
“Honestly… Nobody’s been hurt yet, just shoved around.” Lou, too, stood down, slightly, a little amused, if anything. “Fuck it, sure. I’m along for the ride… What’s the endgame with all these gaming enemy robot things?”
“I’ve watched her streams before…” Wrenn admitted. “I thought her Stand ability was clicking on stuff and making it stop.”
“Now, I know what some of you longterm fans are thinking… ‘I thought their Stand ability was clicking on stuff and making it stop!’” Nebula threw her head back, laughing and waving a mouse around. “That’s just something this mouse can do, I’ll have you know! My Stand isn’t just defined by a weird new way to play ‘cookie clicker!’ No, no, by now you’ve noticed all those enemies from Iconic Video Game roaming around, just bumping into or throwing guys in their way… This, and how it created my usual avatar, are my REAL ability!”
“That’s right, this is a Stand reveal, too!” Pogchamps resembling Nebula’s avatar filled the chatbar, and Nebula revealed a pair of VR glasses-looking things, flipping them over her head. “This… Is ‘Wind of Fjords!’ I can connect to any alternate reality through this, any medium, and within a few hours, raise up anything from it I want! Though if I can’t control it myself, it has a mind of my own… I’m not controlling those bullying baddies down there, even if I did queue them up last night, for the record! But they aren’t the only thing I’ve summoned up, either.”
She was making this into a game. Espiritu was more and more appalled.
“See, much as I love the info in here… I’m not a drama channel. I’m a gamer at heart, someone who loves to play games, to really get involved with the community instead of just talking at people! So I’ve decided, since you know I’m not bluffing, whether or not all of this stuff gets leaked, is going to DEPEND now on a ‘game.’”
The mayor looked deeply concerned, there, and Raymond stood up a bit, looking to aides. “Find where they’re streaming from… I want to have a chat with this kid.”
A cheap-looking 3D model of a videogame card key spun around on the centralmost screen, the other two occupied by the 2D sprites which nonetheless successfully rotated and existed in 3D space. “That bad boy is what I call the ‘data key…’ It’s a device I made up and wrote a whole short story about, and you know what its power is? Its power is that if someone is holding onto it after I start a five minute countdown, they get to decide if the leak goes through and the whole online gets these notes or not! And right here, right now… It’s IN someone’s possession, at that very site! You’ll be able to identify them by a little triangle rotating above their head. And it has this weird little glitch where it just leaks everything automatically if more than two people are fighting for it at one-”
“I’ll explain from here.” Another voice chimed in, audible on the stream; this one was definitely masculine.
The crowd murmured and looked around, only for someone - the volunteer, Thorburn, in his big beanie cap - to rush out into the middle of the enemies in his waiter-looking outfit, then dramatically toss his disguise away, revealing shockingly to the world the distinctive hair and sleeveless outfit of Bang “Boogie” Bronson.
A triangular shape was rotating above his head, and a microphone was in his hand, which he spoke into, then, gazing out into the crowd as the streaming screen split to focus on both his face and Evelyn’s.
“You came here… I know you did. So why haven’t you come out yet?”
Everyone was silent, then. Almost everyone was confused, but one member of the crowd knew exactly who was being addressed.
“You have about five minutes now… You know that, don’t you? If you don’t steal this from me… We’re going to put things out that ruin basically everyone in city hall. And sure, most deserve that, but… It doesn’t make a g-goddamn difference to me, win or lose, whatever happens. What matters is that *you fight for it, tooth and nail.”***
…
…
Bang hung his head, shutting his eyes. “I see… So in the end, you can’t do it. Y-you talk big about taking control, but you’re hopeless… You don’t think it’s worth it at all.”

PRESUMPTUOUS!

A TTS device, different from Nebula’s usual, rang through the arena quite loudly, everyone confused and murmuring about who to send in, if they should bother at all, until the source came through; it was a fucked up-looking jaguar with a cell phone, the latter of which speaking words in tandem with his Stand emoting them.
“These people, these councillors… They mean nothing to me, and I do not want them in charge of me. Most could not care less. They will be weighed by what they have done for a long, long time.” Espiritu stepped closer, then, more and more of a disgusted look in his eye. “What you, and this… GAMER, have done, it is not justice. It is not even a test… You are acting solely to disrupt, solely for yourselves, and feeling important. It’s despicable, with what we’re on the verge of. With what is going to kill us in here.”
“WHOA! AN ENTIRE JAGUAR HAS STEPPED INTO THE RING, CHAT! BANG “BOOGIE” BRONSON IS GONNA BE FIGHTING A JAGUAR FOR THIS!” Nebula sounded genuinely excited, trying not to let the terrible and apt words get to her. This was going to be amazing.
“Espiritu…” Bang couldn’t help but smile, bouncing back and forth on his heels and tilting his head. “If you think so, th-then put a stop to it. I want to see you try… I want you to put everything you’ve got into this.”
“This is a waste of time. Nobody else is even bothering to join in, it is so much a waste of time.” Espiritu concluded, preparing a stance to make a movement. “Five minutes… You won’t last that against me.”
Bang bounced a spray paint can in his hand. “That’s the spirit.”
Nebula, then, made sure several airhorns blared at once, calling out…
“OPEN THE GAME!”
Location: Downtown, in front of City Hall. The area here is 75 by 85 meters with each tile being 5 by 5 meters. Espiritu starts on the left center and Bang is on the right center as represented by their respective character tokens.
The yellow tiles are cobblestone walkways, with the darker yellow tiles being the sidewalk that borders the road represented by grey tiles. On the road, there are parked cars represented by the purple rectangles, naturally these cars are locked.
The green dotted rectangles are designated greenery zones and each have shrubs and small thin trees inside them. They also each have a lamppost as represented by the yellow “X” marked circles, each lamppost is 5 meters tall.
At the top center is the City Hall Building, in the center of it is a podium and the lined part of it is the stairs leading up to the upper foundation represented by the main grey rectangle. The upper foundation is 3 meters tall. The columns supporting the front of the building are 5 meters tall, and while the entrance to city hall is visibly represented by the rounded rectangle, it is not enterable for this match.
There are several entities here created by Nebula’s Stand Ability and they come in two varieties. They are represented by the 12 red square faces and the 6 blue square faces and will be gone over in more detail below. Both types of entities are vaguely humanoid creatures and it’s pretty clear that they must be from some type of video game.
Goal: Be the one with the Data Key at the end of 5 minutes!
Additional Information:
The Data Key is not a physical entity, it is a program that attaches itself to a host. While inside a host a holographic triangle icon will appear above the host’s head. Outside of a host it looks like a floating pixel art key in a .25 diameter translucent bubble. While floating, the key will float slowly towards the center of the map, one meter off the ground at a slow walking pace. It is also not physically tangible to walls and objects, but will bind itself to the player that touches it.
In order to knock the Data Key out of a host, they must be attacked by one of Nebula’s entities mentioned above, more detail below on specifics. But if a person with the Data Key is attacked by another person directly, say with a punch or anything really that causes pain or injury, the Data Key will transfer itself to the attacker.
At the start of the match Bang will be the one with the Data Key.
The Red Entities are known as Chargers and as their name implies they will run at you and knock the Data Key out of you on impact if you have it. They have C Power, C Speed, and A Durability. Their charge is very much like a football tackle and meant to knock the target over. They have a 30 meter aggro range from their starting position and will detect and go after players in that range. They will prioritize whoever’s closer. If they are 30 meters away from their starting position or there is no target in aggro range, they will make their way back to the starting position until they aggro on something within range again.
The Blue Entities are known as Chucks and as their name implies they will grab and throw whatever they get their hands on at full power. If you have the Data Key on you, it will get left behind where the Chuck is as you get tossed. They have A Power, C Speed, and A Durability. They have the same aggro principles and detection as the Red Entities and when a player is in grab range, they will initiate a two handed grab and toss on whatevewhoever they manage to catch. They also seem to have impeccable aim and will always throw things to the farthest away greenery area. Except the two on the road, those two will throw you towards the roof of City Hall that is visible on the map.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Masters of Funky Action	Bang “Boogie” Bronson	“Face forward, don't attack me! It's not gonna hit, anyway!” You are not worried about these things at all, in fact you can make use of these things too. Use Nebula’s Stand Entities here to your advantage!
Black Hill Estate	Espiritu del Alocatlal	“Great misfortune is on its way here.” Well since these things will be getting in both your ways, maybe they could be useful to you. Use Nebula’s Stand Entities here to your advantage!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
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Disclaimer: Its not my story, its a friend's. I dont condone it either, so please don't shoot the messenger. I make no claims of nobility in her actions, nor do I defend them.
So this takes place when I was 16, wide-eyed, full of wonder and (much to a lot of judges displeasures) unable to be tried as an adult. I had myself a big brother we'll call Elio. And like many big brothers at the time, he was coming to terms with his flowering sexuality (among other things that went shooting up from otherwise flat surfaces whenever Robin appeared onscreen in Batman Forever). He did his best to keep it a secret, plastering playboy centerfolds over his Ariana Grande posters, and stoically sitting through the game with my dad during superbowl parties (albeit through gritted teeth probably wishing he could watch a Britney Spears music video instead). But much like a Nintendo switch under the tree on Christmas Eve you can't keep something this major under wraps for long where nosy kids are involved. The nosy kid in this case being me.
Like many twinks who came before him upon discovering an alternative lifestyle from the rigid confines of toxic heterosexual masculinity, Elio took it upon himself to explore his feminine side with all the zeal and passion of a prophet with a message. (Mount Hira in this scenario being a nightclub bathroom while the Angel Jibril was a 6'6 YMCA trainer who spelled his name Johnni with an i). Ironically this eagerness to play up the girly shtick was how he came to succumb to the worst sin you can commit as a brother- stealing your sister's clothes. (A message to all the gay men reading this. Her wardrobe is not your experimental laboratory, and you ain't Dr. Frankenstein).
Now in my defense if Elio had the decency to just ask me to borrow my stuff, under the guise of shopping for some made up girlfriend with the same shoe size/colors/height as myself, I'd have happily obliged. Heck, if he had just offered himself up as a sacrificial lamb modeling for my startup "clothing line" (sixteen year old me considered herself a fashionista with a penchant for designing outfits and recycling her wardrobe to bring them to life) id have been all to eager to be his guide into the world of women's fashion. But the two-faced bastard opted to sneak into my closet and try on my stuff without permission. He thought he was being slick putting them back when he was done, but I was a petite womens zero and he was a mens medium. Now had he simply owned up to being incompatible with my measurements and admitted his crime to me the first time, I might have restrained from the retribution I'd go onto unleash. But instead he continued to indulge in his deluded fantasy that we were the same size and for weeks, I'd try on my clothes only to find them grotesquely stretched out of shape, with no explanation. I tried hiding my clothes in parts of the closet i didn't think the thief would check, only for him to find them. I began sleeping with my favorite clothes like a stuffed animal, but even my embrace couldn't protect them from being warped beyond wearability. I started hiding my junior prom dress under the bed. At one point I was lowkey starting to consider the possibility that I was beginning to shrink. And had I not come home early from a cancelled SAT prep session one afternoon (my tutor got wind of a family emergency halfway through), this story might have otherwise ended with me in a straight jacked begging some burned out shrink to save me before I went microscopic. But fate had other plans. I made a beeline for my room to find sounds coming from behind the door. Upon realizing that I was bearing witness to the dastardly clothing deformer, I hid in the bathroom in the corridor and peeked through a crack in the door for the culprit to leave my room. Imagine my shock when I discovered it was Elio. To my horror, I watched him go under my bed to place something there and upon his departure my worst fears were confirmed- he had tried on my beloved prom dress! (Earlier in the week I had bragged to him about the lengths I had gone to hide it from the "closet ghost" thinking it would go through one ear and out the other with him, and just wanting an excuse to flex on how smart I was to take extra precautions). I storm in, demanding to know why he was wearing my clothes. He condescendingly tells me that he looks better in them than I do.
I was heartbroken to find that the zipper had broken and the fit was horribly mangled! I went down in tears begging for my mom to tell me it could be salvaged, only for her to tell me what I prayed she wouldnt). She wasn't particularly sympathetic, thinking i had done the damage myself, and refused to buy me another one. I demanded that Elio pay me back for the dress so I could buy another but he gave me less than half of what it cost. He refused to believe that it cost more than what I said it did, and unfortunately, my mom didn't have the receipt to prove it on account of being a bit scatterbrained when It comes to keeping track of payments. When I threatened to tell her that he was the one who ruined the dress, he laughed and said they'd never believe me. In spite of my rage and fury sending me into a frenzy of hysterics, I still knew he was right (the two faced bastard deserved an Oscar for his straight facade and even if he was prancing around in a rainbow unitard singing born this way by Lady Gaga, my folks were the type who would deny his gayness right up until the moment they came home to find him getting jackhammered on the kitchen table by a Puerto Rican bodybuilder). I realized that if I wanted to get even, I needed my own plan or action. And that was to hit him where it hurt. But where exactly is the weak spot on your brother when his standard boy ones have long since gone numb from an overuse of fleshlights, and his rectal cavity as a storage unit? The answers lay in his phone.
After several weeks of casually walking behind the couch every time Elio whipped out his phone on it, I finally figured out his phone pin. He always locked his room, but thanks to some youtube tutorials on how to pick a basic door lock with a Bobby pin, that problem quickly resolved itself. Every time Elio went to shower, I'd sneak in and hack his phone, giving myself a fifteen minute crash course on all things valued by ur typical bottom. It turns out he fancied himself the next biggest thing in the drag scene. He was using my outfits to cement his status as "the rising star of the social media drag scene". I thought about deleting his account but I didn't want him suspecting me of it and tattling to my folks. Besides, he could always just create a new one and start over again.
He liked drag race, Kpop and iced coffee, but i couldn't exactly ruin his chances of getting on the show, and in the digital age, he had no cds to smash or switch out. Of course there was always the option of spiking his coffee with something nasty but I wanted him to feel the pain I did. And that pain simply wasn't comparable to a wasted $5.99 plus tax. I was about to concede defeat after about 2 weeks of trying to find something, when I discovered he downloaded grindr.
After my initial revulsion to the app (no not because of I was a homophobe. But because his profile and was full of his nudes) Regardless of what he was into, I didn't find my brothers ding dong appealing. I doubt any sister does). Elio wasn't really into hookups, but apparently he did like sending nudes to whoever asked for them. Its important to note that he always blurred or blacked out his face for privacy, and he appeared to color in the background of all his pictures with the image editing on his phone post production, and he always kept his location on "Never". I suddenly understood why he had taken to hogging the bathroom for up to 20 minutes over the weekend. I just assumed that he was just paying the price for going to Chipotle every Friday with friends but now I knew. He was basically trying to find the best angles for his customers. And just like that I finally had a plan.
What I did next was not something Im proud of but I was bitter, hurting, and desperate for payback. Not making excuses just telling it like it is. I downloaded grindr onto my own phone, and created a fake account. I used some stock photo of a six pack for my profile and punched in a bunch of fake info including a spoof GPS location (shoutout to the internet for walking me through the process!). I knew it would really make a difference to my brother. He didn't really seem to care who was getting his naughty pics so much as how "cute" he looked in them. The boy fancied himself a bit of a male model and I guess he decided grindr was the best place to get a feel for the industry.
Anyways, over the course of several weeks I became one of his regulars, routinely asking him for pics (all of which I promptly deleted upon receiving). I messaged him so frequently and stroked his ego the way I knew he liked it to be stroked (I had gone through enough of the chats backed up on his phone to know what kind of compliments made him more likely to keep sending stuff instead of just getting bored and blocking someone after the second or third time he sent them pics, before moving on to someone else). I boiled what made him tick down to a science and it wasnt long before I had him eating out of the palm of my hand). Eventually I had earned a spot in his heart as one of his "exclusives". At my suggestion, we'd start having "sessions" where we'd schedule times for him to "flood my basement", sending me caches of pics he'd taken over the course of the week while I would live chat my reaction as to the effect they had on me. It was gross and I always felt nauseous afterwards, but I wasn't going to let squeamish scruples stand between my revenge. Not after how far I'd come.
The next phase of my plan involved my search on pornhub for a pornstar who sounded similar to my dad, with a nice loud "battle cry" (do you guys see where this is going? If you want to back out now, no one will blame you) who was typically paired up with pillow princesses with considerably softer Eventually after several fruitless searches ending with me crying in a fetal position asking myself how much longer I could keep this up, and if it was worth it followed by the world's most twisted pep talk about how "I was a fighter who could do it" (basically think that scene from Joker where Arthur puts on his clown makeup crying and you've got something of an allegory for my struggle), I finally found a guy who sounded similar enough to my dad. I downloaded several videos featuring him roughhousing with some anorexic twenty somethings onto my laptop, strung them together with some crude online video editing app, converted it to audio, and separated my leading man's climactic hollers from the soft whimpers. I saved the file on my computer under the codename "Brand new Take on Oedipus".
Last but not least, I approach my dad under the guise of needing his help for a school project, while my brother is off with his friends. I tell him I'm acting out a one woman play for my drama midterm and I need him to be the voice of my protagonist's off screen father. I ask him to recite a series of lines for me to record on my phone, all the while encouraging him to "say them naturally". These lines include but aren't limited to "I told you not to disturb me. What is it?" "Is everything alright?", "now isn't a good time to talk", and most importantly "I finished my work so I think I'll head out to join the rest of the family at the movie theatre. See you later". I move the audio files onto my laptop and eagerly anticipate approaching the turning point of my master plan.
One Saturday morning, I had arranged for a "session" in which my folks would be out of the house and I'd be with them. Or so Elio thought. You see, my mom, dad, and younger brother were all going to the park near my house on a typical family outing. We'd go to the park, then take a walk around the local lake, and maybe catch a movie if we felt like it. We usually go around 4-5 ish and come back at night. I know that today will be a movie day because my baby brother has been nagging my folks to go see some kids movie for a while (which he learned was out this weekend courtesy of yours truly ;) Before I left the house, I made sure my bedroom door was wide open (important for later). While at the park, I asked to play on my dads phone, citing a low battery on mine to explain why I couldn't use it. Then I sent Elio a text telling him that "dad" had just recieved a call from his boss telling him he had some extra work he needed to finish. "I" was going to be in my office across the hall from his room, and could not under any circumstance be disturbed as I had a lot of stuff to do and very little time to finish it before the deadline. I waited to make sure he had read the text and sent me a thumbs up emoji in response before I told my folks that I wanted to head back home on account of me getting an early visit from the "lady in red". Not one to stand between a lass and her time of the month, my dad let me go home.
Feeling like a ninja, I returned to the house, all the while sending Elio my reactions to what we'll call his "cute little peach" (we had technically already started the "session" fifteen minutes ago). I crept into the house, snuck into my room on tiptoes. Thanks to my open door, I didn't have to worry about Elio hearing the creak of it from inside his room (they were next to each other), praying he didn't come out for any reason in time to find me, I retrieved my laptop and the Bluetooth speaker I used to listen to music in the shower, and tiptoed into my dads office, now making sure to close the door and lock it with enough force for him to hear from inside his room where I knew he was sending me the pics. I then send Elio a text apologizing for "being stuck doing something stupid. But now you've got my undivided attention baby". Now its time for the grand finale (in more ways than one). First I connect my currently muted laptop to my Bluetooth speaker (which I've put at maximum volume in advance). Then, I open the Oedipus file and start to run it, while I text more and more raunchy and unhinged reactions to the incoming pictures. Just as we're approaching the end of the video containing the loudest yell (I saved the best for last), I text Elio that he's "making me cum so hard like the little slut he is" just in time to turn up the volume to the loudest setting on my laptop, riiiight before the tarzan like whoop of passion I know is around the corner.
The scream played loudly enough to break the sound barrier. Calling it merely loud was the understatement of the century. It was enough so for me to have to cover my own ears despite putting on earplugs in advance. I wouldn't have been surprised if the neighbors heard. I wouldn't be surprised if people in Siberia heard. But one thing was certain. There was no way my brother didn't. I shut off the Oedipus file, lower the volume, and keep my finger on the recordings of my dads voice.
At first nothing happens. All is silent not unlike the universe before the big bang. The mounting tension would have been enough to send me into a heart attack had I implemented this scheme in my 50s. It takes every ounce of my will not to scream from the suspense. The agony is pure torture. I feel paralyzed in anticipation but I force myself to turn my attention to the grindr chat... I will myself to repeatedly punch in questions asking why Elio stopped sending pics all of a sudden, while keeping my ears alert for any hint of a noise from beyond the door. Time crawls to a standstill. Then.... just when I begin to wonder if the lack of results stems from me losing my grip on reality from the stress of waiting.... I hear the creak of a door turning on its hinges. The sound is faint enough to make me question its existence. By now I'm almost painfully adjusted to the waiting period. Enough to the point where part of me almost wants to deny hearing it out of fear of whether or not I'll react subtley enough not to blow my cover if its real.... but it can't possibly have been real... and then I hear something else. Footsteos across the room.. Its soft, timid and hesitant, but very much present.... knock knock knock. I take a deep breath and prepare to play one of the tapes. The following conversation ensues: Elio- Elio on the other side of the door Dad- Dad's prerecorded voice
Elio: Dad... are you in there? Dad: I told you not to disturb me. What is it? Elio: ... How long have you been in there? Dad: I've been in here for a while. Elio: I um... I heard a scream. Is everything ok? Dad: Oh yeah... I screamed because I dropped something on my foot. (I specifically encouraged my dad to say this line like he was hiding something). I'm ok now though. Don't worry about me. Elio:.... Ok... if you say so... Dad: I love you Elio: Yeah me too I guess?
I hear Elio go back into his room and within seconds I hear a notification for the grindr chat. He apologizes for the delay and like the putty in my hands I know he is, says exactly what I was banking on him to. Elio: You're not gonna believe this but my dad is in the next room and I heard him screaming at the same time you told me you were cumming lol.
And now commences what I believe the French refer to as the pies de resistance. I leave him on read and tiptoe downstairs with my apparatus while he waits for a response. Quiet. As. A. Mouse. Then I set up my laptop and speaker for one last audio blast. I put on my shoes and chill out for a few minutes watching his texts get more and more hysterical, begging me to respond with "lol thats so wierd" and to assure him it was all a coincidence. A merciful sister would have realized that avenging her dress shouldn't come at the cost of her brothers peace of mind, and come clean about the prank. I sent the following text to him. "Elio we are never going to speak of this. Not to your mom, not to your siblings, not to me. If you attempt to bring it up, you will no longer be allowed to stay in this house. We are going to put this incident behind us and go about as if nothing happened. I want you to delete your account on this website and every single picture that you posted on it. If you know what's good for you, never go back on the app again while living under my roof"
Then I blocked him before the final phase of my plan. From downstairs, I blast up both volume settings and fire up the last line I asked my dad to record; "I finished my work so I think I'll head out to join the rest of the family at the movie theatre. See you later". This time I hear Elio respond "Wait, what?" From upstairs, I can hear him coming down. Now its time to kick it into high gear. I shove my laptop and speaker under into a cabinet under the sink, jam my feet into my shoes, and sneak out through the back door and hide behind the shed.
After a few hours, my folks appear in the driveway and I rush out to welcome them back and come inside, as though I was with them the whole time. His relationship with my dad was never quite the same afterwards and many a night for years to come i overheard father bemoan his nonexistent relationship with his little slugger. Elio ended up moving out less than a year after the prom dress incident. He finally came out via a Facebook post a week after settling in to his new apartment. He blocked my parents on every social media platform and went completely NC. Any attempts on my dads part to reignite their father son bond was met with cold apathy and indifference when Elio wasn't flat out refusing to talk to him. For years the only time they ever met in person was at extended family get togethers. I felt a bit bad for my dad but it worked out in the end. Elios determination to distance himself from my dad resulted in him growing closer to me as a result. I think he didn't want to risk losing his other kids the way he did his oldest.
In all honesty, I'd have been happy to let Elio fester in guilt and shame for the rest of his life (we were never really close growing up and the prom dress incident was nothing more than the tiniest of tips on the largest of icebergs). But over the years our relationship slowly mended and perhaps it could have evolved into something that roughly resembled a healthy sibling relationship had he not tried to take over my wedding planning and revealed his own plans to get a free engagement ceremony/coming out party by hijacking my reception with a proposal to his then boyfriend. I tried to reason with him but his unyielding stubbornness forced me to pull the uno reverse card I hoped I'd never have to use. I sent him a text revealing that all this time dad had no idea he was gay, and that I was the one talking to him on grindr. I concluded my message with a warning if he showed up, I'd have security escort him out and afterwards I'd tell the whole family that he sexted his sister in high school and I had the nudes to prove it (I never kept any but he didn't know that) . He might have been able to reveal i was a liar had he not deleted his old grindr from back then. I then blocked him on all platforms before he had a chance to reply. He didn't come to the wedding, I never saw him again, and my quality of life greatly improved as a result of his absence in it.
TLDR: my closeted brother secretly starts wearing my clothes in order to boost his presence as a social media drag personality. He ruins my prom dress as a result and refuses to pay me back for it when confronted. I catfish him on grindr and trick him into believing he was sending nudes to my dad. His relationship with my family falls apart after I threaten him to never speak of what happened. I let him boil alive for years with what he thinks is his scandalous little secret, until i get engaged, and he tries to take over my wedding and use it to propose to his boyfriend. I reveal to him that I was the one pretending to be our dad all those years ago then threaten to show his boyfriend and the rest of my family all the nudes he sent me and accuse him of being an incestuous perv if he comes to the ceremony, before I block him

Hey guys, this will be quite a big post. I feel like I need an outlet on everything that has happened and hope to find some positives from it.
Background:
My wife and I have been married for 4 years and together for a total of 10 years. We both met through our professions and fell in love. From both accounts, we've had an incredible time together with very few arguments (I would say less than 5-6 in that whole time).
Both my wife are both super active and took a huge interest in this together which built our relationship to being really strong.
3 years ago, our daughter was born and we bought our first place. Things couldn't have looked any better. My wife took a year off work and spoke to me about loving being a mother and considering having a second (which was a total no go before, she only wanted one). My wife and I decided she would go back to work part time to spend more time at home with my daughter. She was happy with this.
My wife continued to go to work part time but she was unsettled at her workplace and believed she had so much more to offer than the position she was in.
Around a year ago, my wife applied for a very senior role at a new company. I encouraged her to look outside and go for it. My wife is very intelligent but didn't have the full credentials for this job she was applying for on paper. I told her if she can get an interview, that's all she will need to shine.
She ended up getting an interview and subsequently won the job. Her package basically doubled what she was on however, she would now be working 5 days a week instead of 4 days one week and 3 days the following week (part time hours). As a condition of that 5 day a week job, one of those days must incorporate Saturdays.
My wife and I went from being off 3-4 days a week together to 1 day a week. I work 10 hour days 4 days a week. We both discussed this at the time and thought we could get through it as it involved a substantial increase in salary and I would stay where I was to look after our daughter more.
During the first 3 months of her new job, a member of the team decided to leave, leaving her in charge of basically two roles. Her job became super busy and she was constantly working back an hour or so a night and was shifting through work emails when she got home. I supported her where I could but I could tell she was busy. During this time I was having a really emotionally draining time at my work and I came home a few times to try to vent to her about it. I could tell she had other things on her mind and she would basically just shrug me off. I felt deeply hurt with this and I would effectively just stone wall any further conversations regarding my feelings and thought I would just keep them to myself (worst possible thing you can do).
My wife approached me in February and said that she is frustrated that I wasn't helping around the house as much as she is working a lot. She had a fair point and I understood her. I asked her if she still loved me during that conversation and she said yes, of course. I thought this was just a conversation you have when you are a bit angry at work and push it off onto your husband. I began helping with cooking for a few weeks but fell back into not helping as much. I still looked after my daughter, cleaned the house etc (shes always said I am an excellent father) but I just got slack again and stopped cooking.
I ended up buying myself a new computer and getting into video games at night because I felt like that was an escape from reality for me. My wife use to ask me to come to bed and I would say I don't feel like it and I want to stay up. This lasted for a few months before it stopped. Knowing now, that was a huge sign of disconnect.
In early September, I noticed my wife was super distant. I would talk about future plans or trips and she would say don't book it as she doesn't feel like going. I thought that was a bit strange but didn't think too much into it. Sex leading up to the week before D-Day was drying up and she would always make an excuse not to have it. I remember a few days before D-Day we had sex and it felt so uncomfortable - like she didn't want to be there. I knew something was up.
A few days later we were in the kitchen and I could definitely see something was wrong. I asked her if she was okay and she just said yes, fine. I kept probing and she looked at me and said "I'm not happy anymore, I don't love you". It was at that stage that my whole world I had built with her just shattered. I cried uncontrollably and we went for a drive. I was in a state of total shock. How can it feel so good and then a week before D-Day it doesn't feel right and she says this? I just didn't understand.
My wife and I spoke in the car (away from our daughter) for a few hours and she was quite cold about it. She said that she feels like we have grown apart, we are distant and it feels like we are room mates. She stated that she doesn't think I'm emotionally intelligent enough. She blamed my playing of the computer to be the main reason. I tried to understand her point of view on everything she said and I definitely could see that it could feel the way it does. I pleaded for her to see a Therapist and she agreed, reluctantly. She stated she wanted to make it work for our daughter. I was happy with this as at least it's something.
I sat back and had a huge self reflection on myself and thought this isn't the person who I am and it's definitely not the person I want to be. Having heard my wife say she doesn't love me anymore was the most painful experience of my life. I cherished my wife and my daughter more than anything on this planet.
For the next 6 weeks, I began my growth as a man and really stepped up. I was cooking nearly every day, keeping the house spotless, completely stopped all social media as I knew this was just pointless scrolling through other people's lives and began reading a book a day, everything you can imagine on mindfulness, gratitude, love, marriage and everything in between. I began to really see how a marriage needs work all the time and being present in the moment is something I wasn't doing for 4-5 months. I understood how you can become comfortable and complacent in your marriage and forget about date nights and time together is so important. I began to actively listen to my wife and I was beginning to read her better than I have ever before. I was falling further in love with her during this process, even though she wasn't giving me much back. I noticed it was strange that she wouldn't give me any appreciation for anything I do the majority of the time. I wasn't expecting it, but I thought it was weird she wasn't giving anything. It felt like I was going around in circles and I tried even harder to get any recognition I could. She would constantly tell me it feels like I'm smothering her with everything I'm doing. I turned it back a few notches but noticed she would get distant even more so I started doing more things again to help.
I wrote her a love letter and left it on the kitchen counter so she saw it when I was at work. It was really nice with some touching information about how we met etc and It was something I don't usually do but really wanted to. I received a text from her a few hours later that read "I received your letter. Thank you. x". I couldn't believe how cold and callous that was. It was like a reply you give to a work colleague, not your husband and best friend of 9 and a half years.
My wife and I began seeing a counsellor, both together and individually. My counsellor of 30 years was shocked with the progress I was making in such a short period of time and really saw how much I was growing as a man. My wife also saw it but didn't really note it.
During the 6 week period I noticed my wife was becoming obsessive with her phone. It would be face down where ever she goes and she would take it with her anywhere in the house. I began to get really suspicious as I knew this wasn't her at all. One day I observed a message from her boss come through on WhatsApp while she was showing me a video on the phone. My wife must have messaged him and said "I'll give you a call later" and he replied with a "thumbs up" emoji. She flicked the message away really quickly which I thought was odd. About 15 mins later I was standing near her and observed her WhatsApp recent contact conversations and didn't see her boss's name on there. She must have deleted it.
I began adding things up more and more. I would notice my wife and I really connecting for a few days while we were at home and then she would go for a run with her boss after work and she would come back being really distant and cold. She put it down to good days and bad days, but I knew something was off.
One day she was going to have a shower and I saw her plug her phone on charge and turn her phone off while she was in the shower. Once she got out of the shower, she picked up her phone and said "Oh my phone must have automatically turned off". I knew she was lying. I confronted her in the kitchen of our house about this and she went completely white, like she saw a ghost. She sat stunned for a few seconds and said "I turned it off as I didn't want you to see the messages to my best friend about us". This best friend I knew that she was close to. I don't know why, but my gut was telling me her facial expressions didn't add up to the crime, but I asked her flat out if she's having an affair and she completely denied it.
Two days before D-Day, my wife invited me to a black tie work dinner which included some really high profile people. She told me she wanted me to see her work and to see what its all about. I have been asking for an invite to one of these events for a long time and finally got one. I was excited. My wife told me that we shouldn't be physical at the event as its a black tie and was inappropriate. I chalked this up as not wanted to look unprofessional and as we were having problems, I understood her predicament.
A day before D-Day, my wife and I attended the black tie dinner. I was seated on a table with most of her collogues who she introduced to me. I noticed her boss was seated on another table and I found it strange that she didn't introduce me as they go for runs together once a week and she talks about him infrequently at home.
Whilst the presentations were on, I noticed my wife was constantly looking over her shoulder trying to make eye contact with her boss. It was persistent and reminded me of what I did when I first met my wife, it's that first part of the love process which you are infatuated with each other. I looked at her boss out the corner of my eye and noticed him doing the same thing. When he made eye contact with her, he made eye contact with me and looked away really fast. My wife would then look at me and ask if my dinner was okay. I knew this was a sign of guilt and something was going on. I continued with the night, not wanting to spoil it in front of her colleagues. At the conclusion of the dinner on the way home, I put it on my wife that something wasn't right with her boss. She didn't deny anything emphatically straight away which made me even more sure. She just said I'm seeing things. I went home and explained I think shes having an emotional affair or more with her boss. She said that she enjoyed his company and that she likes and cares for him but tried to play dumb and say whats an emotional affair? I knew my wife was intelligent and she knew what that was. We finished the night talking.
D-Day - Next day she went to work. When she was about to finish work, she messaged me saying she's going to go have a few drinks after work with her work colleagues (she had began doing this a lot in the last 6 months which is totally out of character). My daughter was constantly saying "Mummy not coming home" or "Mummy at work". She was noticing it and she wasn't even three yet. Anyway, my wife said she was going to have a drink or two and then come home quickly. I said sure, go ahead.
My wife ended up coming home 4 hours later and told me she had a good time before hitting the showers. I asked her who she was out with and she told me about 3-4 colleagues and her boss. I thought that was so strange she would go out with him in a group setting after I just told her what I suspected. Whilst she was in the shower, I checked her phone. I noticed that there was no conversation with her boss however she had a message she had written to her boss that she hadn't sent yet which read "I love you too. I just know you're not in a great spot".
My whole world just collapsed. My wife was telling her boss she loved him. I just couldn't believe it. The last 6 weeks since she told me she doesn't love me I was doing so much stuff right and she was just luring me on, knowing she is falling in love with someone else. I always thought everything I was doing was falling on defs ears, which was so surprising as she said if I made these changes in February when had the discussion that she would be more in love with me now.
I confronted her about it and she was just expression less. The first thing she could say was "Why are you going through my phone?". I was so stunned I just didn't know how to comprehend my feelings. I was pacing up and down the house and firing questions at her left, right and center. My wife told me it was an emotional connection only and was happening for around 3 months. My wife knew if the relationship came out she would lose her job at work as it's a massive conflict of interest but she continued anyway.
I told her to get out that night and she left for her friends. I was still trying to process everything. How could she do this to me? How can you do this to anyone? We've had 9 beautiful years without any troubles and you do this? I'm at home minding your daughter while you progress your career and you just shit on me? I was struggling big time.
My emotions were running high but I knew I still loved her so much. I knew the person she became in the last 3-4 months was not the person who she was. My wife has never been a liar, deceitful or liked going out drinking after work. Her boss had taken advantage of her vulnerabilities and told her what she wanted to hear while she wasn't getting that emotion met at home.
For the next few days, I was devastated and hurt but I knew I wanted it to work, not only for my daughter, but for everything we had built together over 10 years. I also knew the person she turned her into wasn't the person she was.
I took my wedding band off and she noticed. I told her I took it off as you hurt me and it didn't feel like the ring meant anything right now. My wife was still wearing her rings and through guilt, took hers off the next day and put them in her bedside draw.
We talked a lot and she told me that she hated herself for doing what she did and felt disgusted she could tell someone she's only had an emotional connection with that she loved them. I told her everything he was telling you is infatuation and not love, he was telling you what you wanted to hear when you were missing it at home. She kept asking me if I understood how it got to this point and I would get really angry at it. I told her I understood how it can be a perfect storm of a number of things but I'll never justify what you did.
My wife and I didn't get much sleep in the next few days. I was at home looking after our daughter and she was sleeping on a friends couch.
4 days after D-Day and my wife came home and we had a long conversation. She was totally exhausted and looked like death. I told her to sleep in our bed tonight and I would sleep on the couch so she can get some sleep. She agreed. Before she went to bed my wife continued to apologies and said she needs to know in herself why she did what she did. I told her that people make mistakes, although I can't ever justify what you have done and my trust with you has been torn to shreds, people do make mistakes. We aren't perfect. My wife said she had stopped all text and phone conversation with her boss and is only seeing him at work on a professional level when she has too with other colleagues, so maybe twice a week for 10-15 mins.
My wife said she is still confused with her feelings and has felt overwhelmed the last 7 weeks. I told her that's because she has been emotionally connecting with her boss outside the marriage and then coming home and seeing her husband make huge improvements but not giving him any credit for it. I told her I can imagine how mentally draining that is. My wife explained to me that she was happy with our life before she had this affair but wondered if she was truly happy. She told me for once she put herself first and that's part of the reason she did this. I told her that she has always put others before herself since I've known her, and that she does this because thats what makes her happy. I said as soon as you put yourself first in front of everything else, look what has happened? You've lost all your core beliefs and morals and had an affair with someone. I told her that she is doing exactly what her mother did to her father 4 years earlier. During that time, she told me she couldn't believe what her mother did and that she never wants to be her mum...and here we are.
A few days later my wife came around before I got home and took our daughter out for dinner. I got home and I noticed her rings were not in the draw where they had been sitting for a few days and I thought she must have them on. She got home a bit later and I noticed her rings were on. When she wasn't around my daughter I told her it was nice she has her rings back on and she looked at me and smiled and said you don't have yours on. I took this as a good sign that the few days away was affecting her and she was starting to realize what she had done. I went out to play some squash and came back a few hours later. I hugged her and then looked her in the eyes and said "I love you", before I could say anything else she said "I love you, too". For the first time I felt it was genuine. Whenever I said this in the past she wouldn't reply or she would say "You know I care for you". This signified a positive step forward.
We sat down and I just listened to her. She told me she looked at a few places to stay for a bit longer to clear her head but was upset at how crap they were and that home was comfortable. My wife indicated she needed space for 3-4 weeks to evaluate everything that she has done without having everyone in her ear. My wife has always been a person that likes her own space to think and I could clearly see she was getting bombarded from our close family, myself and her friends. My wife said she needed time to see why her feelings for her boss were strong and if it was infatuation or was it something more. I agreed that time apart would be good. Even though I still love her so much, I wanted her to have a clear mind before we move forward with the marriage. I want her to realize that the grass isn't always greener on the other side and that what she had at home, a family, means more to her than an emotional affair with her boss.
Although we had some times at the beginning of the year that was difficult in our marriage, I have grown as a man and understand the role I played and learnt how much communication is key to everything, especially talking on a deeper level. I also understand that being present in the moment and grateful for what you have is a hugely important. Becoming complacent in your marriage or life is a killer and I realized that I never want to do that again.
The next day my wife organized an apartment to stay in for 4 weeks. We both agreed we would talk to each other throughout and our daughter would stay with her on a few occasions. My wife would come over a few nights a week for dinner and we would take our daughter out for family time together as well. I wanted to keep normality with my daughter as much as I can, and she did too.
Although I am devastated that my wife will be away for 4 weeks and I don't know what the future is going to hold, I know it's a process that must take its course as we were constantly talking about it at home and it was becoming overwhelming for both of us. I don't think we could have worked through this in a home environment without her evaluating the situation alone.
It feels so weird that I'm fighting for my wife after what she has put me through the last 7-8 weeks but I cling to hope that the week or so during that time we were connecting a lot (when the boss wasn't messaging her), I could see my old wife was back and everything felt normal
I guess I came to this sub to see if anyone had similar situations to me and what I can do to try and make it work? At the end of the day, she will make the final decision whether she believes the marriage for 9 years and what we built is worth another crack. I just feel ashamed that I don't feel more angry for what she has done, but I feel like I've grown so much to realize that it wasn't who she is.
Is there anything that I can do to help repair this situation - or do I need to let it take its course?

Cover
Book 3: Chapter 40 Book 3: Chapter 42
Are you new? You can start with the prologue of Book 1 here.
Do you want to start with Book 2? Here's Book 2's Prologue!
However, Book 1 and Book 2 are now Amazon exclusive, so only a short sample is on Reddit.
Do you want to start with Book 3? Here's Book 3's Prologue!
Also, I have a subreddit! I'm posting art and side projects there. Check it out!
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We got the all-clear sometime in the late afternoon. I had tired of playing with my new toy and grabbed a short nap, only to be awoken as a flurry of delayed notifications arrived on my phone all at once.
Most of them were what I would have expected. Yukiko sent a general test message to the group to see if communications had really been blacked out. Maiko said that club time was cancelled, but she would be there if anybody wanted to visit. Kiyo had texted me several times with protestations about her loneliness without me before giving up. Rose sent a report that her brother Albert was alive, though the H.M.S. Edinburgh had nearly been overrun.
“He’s back in the hospital,” she texted, adding a little eyerolling emoji.
“Again? I guess he really can’t stay out of there!” I typed back.
“How did you know about that?” asked Rose.
Blast it, she had confided that to me in my Nurse Kazushi disguise, hadn’t she? “You spend every morning telling me all the details of your family’s goings on. It’s come up.” For all I knew, it really had. I had a tendency to tune her out. She seemed to accept that account of things.
I sent Kiyo the requisite follow-up, telling her that I had missed her too. She surprised me by not responding immediately. I wondered if anything was the matter with her, and then I put two and two together. If you put Kiyo alone in her dorm room with no internet access, she was bound to be glued to her GoSato. I put her in the “to do” pile and inspected the other messages. I hadn’t realized just how much time I spent on SatoChat until I saw a whole day’s worth of texts arrive at the same time.
Two messages stood out, though. One was from Maggie, telling me that she was fine after the battle.
“Wait,” I typed back, “you’re in Sumatra?”
“In a League airport in Taiwan, on my way home,” she replied. “They needed all of the combat-worthy wizards they could get.”
I wasn’t the fastest typist in the world, but my thumbs flew furiously across my phone’s screen. “Why didn’t you tell me? We’re partners in this enterprise, damn it all!”
“Thank you for your concern, little Magpie,” she said. I could just imagine her detached little smirk. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“Don’t flatter yourself! What if you had died? Would the you-know-what have still gone out?” Maggie had long ago set up an automated program that would reveal that I wasn’t the real Soren Marlowe if she didn’t manually stop it every day. It’s why I hadn’t silenced her myself. Not assassinating a helpless Haru in his hospital bed was one thing, but Maggie had been a constant threat since I had arrived at the school.
“Hm, I suppose that is still there, isn’t it?” She replied with a shrugging picture. “That reminds me, I need to take care of that.”
What in the Dark Lord’s name… She hadn’t done her daily check in? I saw red. Before I knew what I was doing, I had already placed the call.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.
“Am I on speakerphone?”
“No, but why-”
“You listen here, you self-important witch!” I jabbed at the air with my finger, imagining her smug face before me. “I’ve put up with enough garbage from you! This constant threat ends today!”
She stammered for a moment for collecting herself. “Where do you-”
I cut her off again. “No, it’s my turn to talk, not yours! You’re going to get back here and you’re going to delete whatever you have cooked up to expose me, and you’re going to send me the proof that you did it!”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll go to the Headmaster right this minute and come clean! I’m sure they’d love to know what Holy Brother Ratte looked like, after his stunt this morning!”
I’d said it in the heat of the moment, but the hasty verbal shot hit home. I heard cloth brush her microphone as she dropped her phone and barely caught it.
“You wouldn’t,” she said after a moment’s delay.
I paced through my room, reveling in the shock in her voice. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re so damned careless that you could expose me by accident! Why wait for it to slip your mind? This way, I can see the Wizard Corps coming!”
There was a long silence. I worried she might call my bluff. I smirked as I glanced towards my new disguise wand’s place beneath my pile of “liberated” junk. Hell, it wasn’t nearly as much of a bluff as it had once been. I had a shot at escape, if I were truly desperate.
“I see. Where did this come from?”
“You can’t be surprised, with the way you’ve treated me! I’ve listened to your problems, kept your secrets, and even done your dirty work! I’ve earned some respect, and you’ll start by taking the damn knife away from my throat!”
“I suppose you have proven yourself…”
“Damn straight! Now, what will it be? I’m sure the Headmaster would be willing to pencil me in.”
“That was an oversight,” Maggie said. “One I should have corrected already. You’re right. We are partners, and I should act like it. You’re in private, right?”
“Yes, of course,” I said. “I wouldn’t be shouting about the Brotherhood if I weren’t.”
“Good,” she purred. “I always thought you were a pushover. I like this sudden confident streak.”
“Oh?” She’d teased me a few times, but unless my ears deceived me, that was real desire in her voice. If Kiyo could ignore me for her game, then I could flirt a little. I leaned back on my bed. “How much do you like it?”
“My plane is taking off soon, so I don’t have long. I’ll find another way to express myself. Later.”
I wondered what she meant by that. I didn’t have long to wait until my phone buzzed again. Maggie had dipped into a bathroom to snap a quick picture.
What a picture it was! She wore a black Wizard Corps field uniform with the blue trim of a support wizard. More accurately, she wore most of it. The front of her jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a frilly brassiere. I’m sure it wasn’t approved combat attire. Well, hang the Wizard Corps, it met my standards! Her lip was curled back in a come-hither grin. I’d caught glimpses of her before, but apparently my imagination was deficient. Maggie Edwards was a redheaded work of art, like a fine vase. Her porcelain-white skin was marred only by the scar All Heal had left on her stomach.
The text beneath gave me pause. “Who needs your little shadow?”
Well, that spoiled the forbidden joy of ogling a teacher. She just had to make me think of Kiyo, didn’t she? I told myself a devil didn’t care about fidelity, but I found myself thinking of Ms. Jones too much to enjoy myself. I sent Kiyo a message, but she didn’t reply again. I found that disturbing, but there was nothing to be done about it. I couldn’t exactly march into the girls’ living area to check in person. My stomach growled, and I decided I could go do something about that.
I did get the confirmation message from Maggie later that night, with a screenshot that a folder labeled “Faker” had been deleted. That was one less worry on my plate, which was fortunate, since by the time her follow up message arrived, the plate was rather full again.
*************
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the world we live in. it's so... wonderous. mysterious. even magical. no... no no no.. not that world. i meant this one. the smartphone. each system and program app is it's own little planet of perfect. technology. all providing services so necessary, so crucial, so unbelievably profound. look who just sent me a text! addie mccallister? it must be a mistake. or a joke. or a scam! don't send her your social security number. she's right there! that's our user, alex. and, like every freshman in high school, his whole life, everything, revolves around his phone. and, because the pace of life gets, faster and faster... phones down in five. and attention spans get shorter and shorter... and... you're probably not even listening to me right now. who has the time to type out actual words? and that's where we come in. the most important invention in the history of communication! emo gees. that's my home! textopolis. here, each of us does one thing, and we have to nail it every time. christmas tree just has to stand there, all festive. merry christmas! it's still september, tim! and princesses... i am so pretty. they just gotta wear their crowns and keep their hair comb. we are so pretty. devil, poop, thumbs up, they just show up and they're good to go. but for the faces, the pressure is on. cryer always has to cry, even if he just won the lottery. hurray, i'm a millionaire! laugher's always laughing, even if he's just broken his arm. ahh!! ah! i can see the bone!! ah ah ah ah ah... and me, i'm a meh. so i gotta totally be over it all the time, you know? like meh, who cares. which is not as easy as it sounds. i gotta be mehhhhhhhhh i GOTTA! be! mehhhhhhhhh morning misses D, i see you have the little minis with ya! oh, they're so... cute! NYAH, SO ADORABLE, I CAN'T TAKE IT! I WILL NEVER GET THEM TO SLEEP! STICK TO YOUR ONE FACE, WEIRDO. OLE! OLE! OH NO! OH NO! it's hard to only act blasé. when, living in textopolis is.... just so exciting! hah low good simeans! those ah some shalp attach shays! yes, well we have business to attend to. whot kind off business? monkey business. ha ha ha ha, i sounded british. meh... Oh, that was really good.. meh ? meh ... meh ha ha... what the freak ya doing there, mate? practicing. today is my first day on the phone. oh, droit. i'm gonna be so.. meh. what are you going to do? blah! me and the boys are gonna throw ourselves on the barbie! woo! puh-zow! gooday, mate! hey, koh knee chee wah! sorry emote icons!! oh, I hate knocking over the elderly.. let me help, let me help... oh, my colon!!! ducks... hey, is that the time? HEY, my eyes are up here, pal! woo ooh hoo! woo hoo! right on time! and last week, Alex sent me next to THIS text! huh? huh? HA HA HA THAT ELEPHANT PISSED HIMSELF HA HA HA AH HAH HA HAH HAH UH HUH HUH why are YOU laughing, freak? ho ho ha ha ha! now, unlike me, my parents are total pros. gene, please tell me you weren't laughing just now. gene so help me i swear oh, he was, I remember. let's go see if you can get it right. i have some bad news, gene, and i'm afraid that you'll have the wrong reaction. ok, what's the wrong reaction? anything other than meh. come on! i don't want to be late! i'm not letting you go to work today. wait, WHAT? you're just not ready, son. come on!! working in a cube is an Emoji's whole purpose in life! everybody my age is working on the phone except for me! oh sweetie, that's not true. ow! YEAH! i'm going to work on the phone and I'm only ten! that's because I believe in you! should we wash our hands? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! we're number two! we're number two! see? i, i know i'm different, ok? but, i need to... i can be meh... i just... want to be a working emoji, you know, like... everybody else... and then... i would finally fit in, you know? ah, you fit in, honey. no I don't, mom. I never have. but I could change all that if you just let me! just give me a chance! but what if you get sent out on the phone, making the wrong face? no dad, i'll make the right face! look! maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah? you're so handsome when you make that face. i think he's ready, mel. meh. come on, dad. let me prove it to you. if you really think you're ready... YES! yes i am! i promise i won't let you down! wow! Congratulations, everyone! What an exciting day for all of you! oh, it's really her! oh, pizza! first day on the job, hi, hi! don't be nervous! i won't bite! hi, i'm smiler! ho ho ho ho ho... DON'T TOUCH ME! Hi! i mean.. hey.. as you know, i'm smiler, i'm the system supervisor here, because I was the original emoji. here's how it works. it's nothing fancy! wait a minute... it's really fancy! you each have your own cube on the emoji bar! if alex chooses you, should you be so lucky, your cube will light up! it's showtime! the scanner will scan you, and that scan will get sent right up to alex's text box. and let me tell you guys, there is nothing like getting scanned for the first time. a har, you're gonna love it. now over here is the favorites section, where you'll find all the most popular emo gees. and of course, you'll find my cube here. whoo. you are smooth. just doing my duty. ha ha ha! what did i say? come on, tell me you aren't just a little bit tempted? steven, for the last time, i don't want to buy a timeshare. come on, man, it's high five! you know me! i'm a favorite! Alex hasn't picked you in weeks. when he stops picking you, you're no longer a favorite. there's gotta be some sort of mistake, i mean, look at me, i'm an attractive, hand-giving high five! oh! fistbump! come on in! hey, ladies! FISTBUMP? he's a knucklehead! literally! look at him, I can look like that! ugh, ow, cramp.. big mistake.. oh... help me.. help up a hand.. oh... here you go... thanks mate... hey, little man, how about you create a distraction, and i'll just slip under the rope! uh, oh, is someone lost? smiler, hiya, just leaving. yeah, you know, just killing time before i go back to my cube in the far corner where Alex can't even See Me ANYMORE! you may not be a favorite anymore, but you will always have a place, in a cube! yeah, in the nosebleeds... uh, i'm standing right here? words hurt. the most important thing I can tell you is to just be yourself... basically, happy itself... i am always smiling... places, please! emo gees to your cubes! attention, we've got incoming! gotta be meh, gotta be meh. oh my gosh, my own cube! i can't believe it... oh, i could put a plant over here, and over here could go an inspirational calendar, okay, gotta be meh... look at our son get on there, i'm beaming... with pride! you don't think he'll actually get picked, do you? heiroglyphics. heiroglyphics was an ancient language of picture forms. does that remind anyone of anything. hello. a language of pictures... anyone? early heiroglyphics back in ancient... i gotta reply to addie's text! what should i write? nothing! nothing? words aren't cool. ok, be cool, be cool... alright, alex is not sure how he wants to play this... oh! i would really love it to be me! beam me up! beam me up! i need thumbs up on standby! oh yeah! thumbs up is going in! wait! alex is changing his mind! he's moving! ok, looks like it's gonna be meh... i'm so nervous, i could almost shrug. we are go for meh! initiating scan! okay, you can do this. ah! i can't do this! i can't do it! stop the scan! i can't, it's too late! oh! what's he doing? he's making the wrong face! good for him, little... wait, what? ugh. abort, abort! oh, shi... shut it down, shut it down! ah! what is that emoji? all the emo gees present, evacuate the cube! evacuate the cube! i gotta get out of here! i'm trying! oh, jeez. sorry, everybody. that is not what i meant to do! i kinda.. i kinda panicked.. are you even a meh at all? uh, who, me? like you are, is a malfunction! a malfunction? no, i can be meh, just give me one more chance? you know what would be really fun? a board meeting, where we can find out what to do with you! i just wanted to be useful, you know, fit in! now everybody's calling me a malfunction. i am a malfunction. even if you are a malfunction, gene, your mom and dad still love ya. i knew you weren't ready. let's get you out of here and take you home. one day, all of this will blow over, and everyone will almost forget about what you did. until then, you should probably stay locked up in the apartment. wait, you're gonna hide me away? you're embarrased of me. it's for your own safety. we're trying to protect you, son. gene, where are you going? i'm not going to run away from this. i'm an emoji, and, even though i'm not exactly sure which one... i've gotta have some sort of purpose here, i know it. gene, no! sweetie, please! so, how'd it go, gavel? hey, lightbulb, tell me what's going on in there. what... poop... what is it? tell me turd, tell me truth. what happened? i know it was an accident. we all have accidents you're so soft, poop. not too soft, i hope. i came up here to defend myself, but, uh, you seem pretty happy. so, good news? i'm always happy. oh, right, yeah, truth. but the only thing that could ever make me unhappy, is if one of our emo gees has made a mistake. which would cause alex to lose faith in the phone... and then, our whole gets wiped out! smiler, i devil pinky swear promise to you that i will never, ever make a mistake in the cube again. oh, we know you won't, gene. we know you won't! ha ha, you know, the first time you said it it sounded genuine, but then you repeated it, and, and then, now it's weird. we're setting you up! with our best anti virus bots! so they'll, like, uh, they'll just, they're gonna fix me? actually, delete you. but yes! wait, what? if you get deleted, you don't have to worry about department heads, or the future, or lying about being a malfunction! because you're deleted, right? right! good job! bots! no! stop, he's escaped! party time! oh, wait a minute... the air is better here! beer, tea... i'm coffee! sorry... ish... so ish e. my old cube! ugh, pinkeye. mike! my name's not mike... ah! there's AV bots coming! what, me? just because i'm in the wrong section? holy toledo! what do we do? quick! this way! let's go! don't tell anyone you're about to see this. they'll never find us down here. where are we? the basement? nope. welcome to the loser lounge, where the emo gees who never get used, hang out. go fish! fishcake with swirls sweep so you won't cry. sweep so you won't cry. sweep so you won't cry. i almost got deleted! me! high five! hey, what's up high five? they weren't trying to delete you, they were trying to delete me. you? what's so important about you that they'd send out an entire team of bots? they say... i'm a malfunction. gasp oh, you bringing malfunctions in here now, high five? for crying out loud, abandoned luggage, that had better not be my leftover chinese food... uh... what chinese food? huh ha! do you have any idea what it's like to be living large? hashtag blessed? the favorite of the favorites, and then demoted to this pit of despair? here, will you hit my callouses for me? at least you're a working emoji, that's all i ever wanted. well, if that's all it will take you to be satisfied, then just find a hacker and get reprogrammed. it's not that complicated. where would i find a hacker? in the piracy app, duh. ugh. and who took my clear nail polish? piracy app? to get there, i mean, i have to leave textopolis. so? i've done it. would you be a brother. one of the princess emo gees left the phone altogether, now she lives on the cloud... mmm... ooh, that is good. i'm sure the hacker that helped her do that could easily reprogram you. The name's jailbreak. jailbreak? that's great? reprogrammed. i just need to get reprogrammed, and then i can finally be the meh i was meh to be! help me find that hacker high five, will you? please? maybe this hacker can help you, too? like, rewrite some code? get you into the favorites sections? wait a minute! ow. i've been trying to use my charisma and sensitive entitlement to get me back on top when all I need is a hacker! today's your lucky day! let's roll! hey, can i come too? talk to the hand, bretheren. i thought i was... bye, felicia. ciao, fishcake with swirls. daddy's headed back to the VIPs where he belongs! wait, what about the bots? good point, good point. ow, ow ow, ow... hey... i shouldn't have picked the cactus. i shouldn't have picked it. you didn't even try to get the tree, it's baffling. let's go. high five? hello? high five! where are you? i'm right here! here we are! end of the text aisle. no way. come on, gene, it's perfectly safe! ah! gene, help me! high five! oh no, this is all my fault, high five, I... i'm just messing with you! it's just one of those rubber finger monster puppets from the eighties, i collected the whole set! alright, you coming? uh, what do i do? what do you mean? just take a step through the other side. this, is it. the next time i come back here, i'll be a real meh. high five? woah! are you finished? where, where are we? welcome... to the wallpaper! wow. this place is incredible! each app is a whole new world. ow, that's my face, get off my face, thank you. what is this place? WeChat! it's like a whole other world! oh, it is. what are they? they're bubble pups, they might be cute, but man, are they clean. bubble pups? they're stickers, gene, try to get with the program? this is so cool! wait, what's in that one! everybody's talking about themselves! how does he know so many people? none of these people know him, but they like him, and that's what matters in this life, popularity. uh, i, i think i'd rather just have a real friend. a real friend? how's that going to get you anywhere? what you need are fans! they give you complete and unrelenting support! as long as you're on top. poor gene, i blame myself. i blame you, too. i just wanted to be supported. you just wanted a vacation. you take that back, mel. bots, they haven't found gene by now. he must have skipped town. you mean the wallpaper? our boy's on the run. how about we find him ourselves? yeah, sure. tell those bots to follow those mehs. i'm sure they'll know about all those freaky deaky apps Gene would hide out in. i'm really good at making plans, you guys, right? here we are, the piracy app! this is where we'll find jailbreak. um, but this is, the dictionary app. that's just what alex wants his parents to think. this is called a skin. really? what could a teenage boy possibly want to hide from his parents? just try to keep up, this place can get a little rough. ahoy mateys, look who's back! high five! i'm a bit of a celebrity here, always welcome. ow! loser! come on, follow me. oh, great, emo gees! i thought the conversation just got dumber. ugh, internet trolls, just ignore them. eventually, they'll get a job, or a girlfriend, or some sort of purpose in life, and then they'll stop. virus, we'll just, we'll just walk over this way... hi! it's so great to see you again! do i know you? it's spam! just sign here and i can get you special discounts on vitamins and coupon offers that can save you up to 25 percent! 25 percent? nonono no no, don't get sucked in! back off, spam! it's the only way to do it. back off! thank you very much! you can illegally download our CD right here! hey, trojan horse, how are you? yeah, what'll it be had? i'll have a bottle of... hack, daniels, hmm? maybe with a plate of... cheese, and hackers, kapeesh? you try to buy a hacker, you can just ask, you know. oh, sorry, um, yes. we're looking for a hacker named jailbreak. oh, i know a guy who could hook you up. right over there. oh, yes. patable. no, not him. her! wait, he's a she? hey! jailbreak! mind if we join in? yes. that's the thing about the internet, is that you never know if someone's being ironic or sincere. i sincerely, unironically want you to go away. ha ha ha ha, so good... so here's the thing, my friend gene here has a little problem. well, see, i'm supposed to be a meh, but i don't really feel... yeah, yeah, and we thought that you could help... the princess, you know, off the phone... woah, hold up, that's not a meh face. bots, they're after me! how are you doing that? look, it's just something that i can do, can you help us? follow me. bots, delete my history! i need to wipe my entire hard drive! i made the most delicious cinnamon buns! maybe if there was something to uh, jog my memory? come on! move! hey trolls, wipe our mailbox wearing a tuxedo! hi, it's so great to see you again! this tunnel will get us out of here! move! get us out of here! move! did that cloud taste sweet to you? ow. ow. ow. help me. help, i'm stuck! sweet motherboard! where am i? candy crush! get me out of here! hey, cornface! try getting him out the top! already on it! hold tight, gene! woah! woah! this feels very off.. and smells. i mean, it smells delicious, but, i still don't like it! the game obviously thinks you're a candy, even though you're, weirdly misshapen, you know? what do i do? stay very still! don't worry, we've got your back! right, high five? hey, fingers! you wanna focus? for your information, i happen to have a sugar addiction, and it's a very, serious... hey, finger head, we have to get Gene out of the game without blowing him up! i don't want to blow up! we have to match up the candies so that Gene will drop to the bottom. and we can't match him with any yellows, or else... oh! don't do that, please don't do that. watch. got it? knock 3 in a row, don't blow gene up, got it. and, we have to be careful. yeah yeah yeah. careful! woo hoo! candy! yo! no no no! don't do yellow! do NOT do the yellow! i said careful! hey, addie! i... i was just wondering, if, you are... tasty. what? um... delicious. excuse me? sweet. hey addie! uh... hi nikki. see you later, alex sugar crush. ah! i'm so over this. Wireless Repair Service, how may I help you? i'd like to make an appointment. it's like this phone is playing games with me! woah! hey, what does this do? get me out of here! ooh... suck it in... stop it... stop it... ow ow ow... it's not working! well, there's one option left. we line you up with the yellows. but you said not to do that! special candies get transported to that jar. the game might think that you're a special candy. and... what if it doesn't think i'm a special candy? well... ah! jailbreak, hello? hello, jailbreak? uh, sorry. what if it doesn't think i'm a special candy? oh, i'm not too worried about it. alright, just do it. gene, gene! you're alive! you were trying to see if i had somehow turned into candy, weren't you? yes i was. and you have not! hey, looks like something popped up on alex's calender. ah, i'm sure it's nothing. uh, alex made an appointment at the phone store? calm down, everyone, calm down. don't worry, everything is fine. maybe alex just wants to buy some accessories. uh, his appointment is with techinical support. well, i'm sure we'll have plenty of time to figure this out. uh, his appointment is for tomorrow. then maybe it's just for some routine maintenance? uh, actually, it's to erase the phone. listen, gene, i'm about to become your knight in shining armor. you are? oh yeah. but first, we need to get uploaded to the cloud. that's where we'll find the source code to reprogram you. the... cloud? isn't that off the phone? ding dingding ding! you got it! mmhm, yeah, the cloud! off the phone! uh! we're in candy crush, oz, i know a shortcut to just dance, which is right next to dropbox, where we can get uploaded to the cloud. mmhm, of course, just go dive into the dropbox and vroom! hold up, here's the stinker. before they let us into the cloud, we have to get past this... firewall. the firewall uses face identification. it's really annoying, because i've already tried to get through. guessed wrong once, and now i'm locked out for life. locked out for life? you're thinking, because i can make different faces, the firewall will think i'm different emo gees! yeah, i wanted to say it, because it was my idea. you know, women are always coming up with stuff that men are taking credit for. you know what, well, let's hit the road. high five, you coming? i'm coming! why do i always think i'm going to come around on black licorice? ah! oh! my precious... move it! sudden death, here we come! let's try this one... you tube? wow, what an original treat, and i don't even need a remote. that guy is so expressive. he reminds me of gene. yes, something's really wrong here. our son is a malfunction, and you should have never let him go into that cube. don't blame me for that now, i am hopping mad at you. see? mary, i think we're being followed, but don't overreact. uh oh. i told you not to overreact. what are you doing now? i could be in there for hours. hey, where are you going. i think we should go our seperate ways, mel. i thought i knew the meh that i married, but maybe i don't. but, mary? this tunnel will help us avoid the bots. thanks for helping us. it's really, really nice of you. NPD, dude. you're helping me! move along, move it, why so slow? high five, stop, why are you getting so close? back off. i can't stop now, i'm having a sugar rush! i'm going to go around you. if i stop moving, my heart's going to explode! coming through, jailbreak! watch out! hey! watch it, knuckle butt! i can't feel my face! ha ha! jailbreak, you said back there that i'm... helping you. i've been trying to get past that firewall for months! ha ha ha ha ha, come on, come on, the faster we go, the faster I can become a favorite! ah ha ha ha ha ha! woo hoo! look at me i just want to bounce out of here, get off the phone, and live on the cloud! hee hee! ow! what just happened! you know, you don't like it here? there are so many rules here! what is up with that? the cloud's supposed to be amazing, it's full of dreams too... oh, sugar crash. i can't hold on anymore. catch me, gene, catch me! and you can be whoever you want! thanks. we're free! come on! oh, oh my gosh, my hands are sweating. you know what, come to think of it, i don't really remember there ever being a hacker emoji. oh, um, you know, you're taking too much of my brain space, let's try to keep the chit chat to a minimum. ooh, someone likes you. what are you talking about? this just like when peace sign gave me just one finger, i knew she was in love with me. let's go! ugh, i'm never eating another piece of candy ever again... high-five, don't do it! don't you do it! it's already been in there once. don't do it. wow. move it! are my fingers getting fat? i'll tell you what, this bandage wasn't so tight before. okay, we get through this app, and dropbox is right on the other side. we just need to keep it super DL in here. and no matter what, we can't, turn it, on. OMG this turned it on! what? i'm a hand, it's a big red button! woah. no no no no! what's happening! welcome to just dance! follow my moves and you get to move forward! do the wrong moves and you get an X! three strikes and you're out! out? what does she mean by out? digital death. thanks to you, fingers, now we're going to have to dance our way out. which is alright with me, because I can shake it like michael. or michael's glove, anyway. Are you ready to daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnccccccee? this is bad, gene, i can't dance, i got no groove! come on, everybody can dance! not me, okay? i'm really stiff... see? you don't... understand? okay, no no. stop, stop. you have to stop. i see now what you are saying? just follow her moves. ready to dance in three! this i can't do! two! dude! just shut up and... dance! i'm just doing it! hee hee! shamon! jailbreak! i got you! look, just do the music, express yourself! dance? yeah, you got it! now throw some sauce on that dance burrito! woo hoo! i'm doing it! i'm finally nailing this dance! you got it! hee hee! oh ho ho! great job! now you're moving on to free dance! impress us with your moves to move forward! more dancing? you're killing it, gene! nice! take it gene! you can break it! wait a minute! i've never seen that dance before! what's it called? the emoji... bob? i love it! you do! everybody! do the emojiiiiiiiiiii bob! ha ha ha! woo! oh! princess! woah! you're the princess emoji! you never got off the phone! new player! who? oh no! we gotta go! no worry, they're robots, they can't dance! downloading thought protocol... can't dance, he says. heh. hey alex, you gonna dance for us? alex, that's extra homework for you. yeah, alex's getting wicked, ha ha ha... alex must be deleting the app! watch out! we gotta get out of here! come on! hoo! this song is my jam! high five! come on! let's go! hurry! gene! i got you! gene! gene... hey, wait a minute, where's high five? alex trashed the app.. and high five right along with it. wait, what? wait, trashed? high five is in the trash? he wanted to dance... but, i knew it was a bad idea... i'm so sorry... we gotta get him out of there. gene, dropbox is right here, we have to get to the cloud! and the trash is on the other side of the phone! we don't know how many other bots are out there! i'm sorry! no, wait! i can't go without high five. i don't care how far away it is. gene... that's my friend down there. i'm not going to just let him get deleted. what, what is it? i've always just thought, you've got to look out for number one... but what good is it to be number one, if there aren't any other numbers? wow, okay. i'm sorry, this is, this is my malfunction, i just, i can't be meh about anything, this is why i'm going to be reprogrammed. well, actually, it's kinda cool. wait, really? no, i think i know a shortcut. we can take the music streams in spotify. let's go give that big hand a hand. come on! now it's trashed the just dance app, and our bots are offline, and it's giving me a real headache... i am so angry! i really need to stay happy. can we please lighten the mood? no one can resist la fiesta! ole! not that happy. ow! we've only got four hours before alex's phone appointment. if they find a malfunction on the phone, we are all going to be wiped! she said wiped! aim higher, steven. i didn't want to have to do this, but it is fun to press buttons. the illegal upgrade! now that makes me happy! ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! i just want to dance.. dance... argh! quiet, you saucy gypsy. ugh, where am i? hi! it's so great to see you again! you're in the trash, fingers for brains! get away from me, troll! hi! it's so great to see you again! i've got to get out of here. you can't! and at the end of the day, the trash gets emptied, and we're all going to die! oh no, no, no! this is the last face you will ever see! this is spotify? yep, every one of those streams is a different song. is it safe? are you sure that this is a good idea? that's the point of the wave, dude! can we at least pick a... a colorless stream? okay buzzkill... alex, a bunch of people are hitting the promenade, and i think addie might be there, too... that's perfect! i have an appointment down there, anyway! i've got to get this phone fixed! hey, bubble butt! yeah. ah, much better. so, i gotta ask, is it true that when a princess whistles, birds fly down from the skies.. hello, stereotype, that is a complete and total myth! i'm sorry. did you realize that in the first emoji set, a woman can either be a princess, or a bride? that's why I need to get to the cloud, where you can be whatever you want to be! get ready! whale song coming! wait, wait, whale what? whale song! from alex's biology DVD! woah! wow! woah! ha ha ha ha. you're not going to see that sitting around in a cube. funny, you went out of the cube, and I went in. gene, that means you can't be yourself. what's the point? you know, i think you're pretty cool just the way you are. we're, we're going to need this. nobody knows, the touchscreen dramascene. nobody knows my screenshot... trash? me? i used to be somebody. here i am, in an old email Alex never sent. addie, blah blah blah blah blergh... and then there's me! high five! right there! doing my job! FYI, nobody cares about you. just leave me, troll, and let me die! in this dump alone! let me look for the world's smallest violin in here, so that you can play it! is that the hand angel of mercy? has she finally come for me? give me your hand! i mean, give me yourself! take my hand, angel! i'm ready to take my place amongst the other great hands of the past. it's me, gene! gene? the one and only. gene! i got him! take me with you! high five! let go of me! you'd leave me down here? you were wrong, troll, people do care about me! and i'm not upset, troll! do you see how not upset I am? gene! you came back for me! you saved me... it wasn't just me, jailbreak helped, too. she's a hugger. give her a squeeze. oh, nonono no. not really, nothing great. i'm not feeling your feelings, relieve me! you filthy trolls, I inhaled your stench, and I was once one of you, so I feel your pain. so now, go. be free! smooth sailing from here. huh ha ha! ugh. gene! gene... gene? are you insta gramming? oh, where is my gene... oh, mary, you've really done it this time. no, you haven't. mel? what are you doing in alex's trip to france album? i was looking for you. none of this is your fault, mary. it's mine. what do you mean? is that a tear on your cheek? it's my fault gene is the way he is. i have other expressions, too. i think they've just been buried away. but with gene going missing, and thinking i might have lost you, too... oh, mel, why didn't you tell me? i didn't know myself. right now, i'm so overwhelmed with passionate feelings for you. mary, my love for you burns with the intensity of a red hot flame. oh, i like it. let's go find our son. together. we'll always have paris, mary. so you're a princess. so you have a little tiara, very fancy. is it true when a princess whistles, birds fly that's what i said! no, guys, that's a stupid myth! what awkward virgin haven are you living in? go read an e-book! educate yourself! uh, jailbreak? what the? what is that? smiley must have upgraded her bots! let's get out of here before it... hi, do you remember me, it's smiler! i'm coming to you live from the amphitheater, why don't you come back to textopolis and we can talk through our differences, okay? my friend here will escort you, alright, i'm gonna see you soon, buddy, bye now! we're actually going to delete them in front of everyone. psst, it's still on. it's still on? oh! jiminy, attack the frauds! seperate! take a look! jailbreak! gene! this way! it's still onto me! over here! let's go! we have to make it to dropbox! yes! no! go low! woah! don't worry, it can't get in. it's illegal malware, and this app is secure. come on. welcome to dropbox! you are about to leave the phone. remain seated, please! permanecer sentados por favor! might want to hang on! why do they call it dropbox, anyway? oh, this is why! i see why now! i'd better not see that candy corn again! we made it! you guys, chill. we still have to get past... that. oh... shaw. welcome to the firewall, how may I help you? alright, here goes! what should I do? sit in the corner, and don't say a word. keep those soft fingers to yourself. yes, your majesty, princess of nightmares! now gene, step onto the password icon, and i'll feed you the passwords. okay. okay. ten, eleven, two thousand and two. ten, eleven, two thousand and two. ow. cough. access denied. okay, try a different expression. is it going to blast me every time i messed up? yeah, kind of. what do you mean kind of? ready? welcome to the firewall. his favorite food. chimichangas! chimichangas? ow. access denied. huh. this might take a while. oh boy. krav maga! krav maga. major lazer! major lazer. what did i do now? ow. skate, or die! access denied. denied. denied. denied. i don't get it! we've tried all of the important things in alex's life! his favorite pet, his sport, his favorite grandma... i'm sorry, gene. i let us all down. now, if I had to come up with a password, I'd probably use the name of a girl I like. i've been all over the phone! he's never mentioned a girl. yes he has! hi. when I was in the trash, I read a very interesting email, but, i'm just a dunce, in the corner, forbidden to speak... what email? sorry, what? what email? uh, took it out, at school, he was declaring his feelings of love for her, i guess instead of sending it he tossed it in the trash. high five, this is very important. what is her name? her name, yes! excellent question. it... was... tina. karen. marge. lint, lindsay. ack, allison. sarah, or, lupita. i want to say lupita, but that doesn't feel right, now i'm saying it out loud. ugh.. gotta find that email, i think i can access the trash. i got it! addie! yes! yes, that's it, addie! i knew i'd get there! dear addie, you and I, we are like diamonds in the sky. you're a shooting star I see. a vision, ecstacy. shining bright like a diamond. he used a high-five, see? guess now we know why he trashed it. ooh, shade. guys, should we try this? addie! access granted. oh snap. this place, is, amazing. wow, i can't believe it. woah. one little emoji could sure get lost in a place like this. i... i guess we should, make you, a meh before that bot comes back home. oh, oh, so we're gonna do that now. we had a deal, right? yeah, okay. right. i, uh, guess i'll start hacking. ha! we did it, gene! all our dreams are coming true! i'll be alex's favorite again, and you'll be a real meh! ha ha, yeah! do the hand dance. do the hand dance. and pinky. pop it with the pinky. pop it with the pinky. yeah, but this all seems kinda super fast now, doesn't it? i didn't expect to be having these feelings right now. well, maybe you should go and express them while you still can. so, uh, i've been thinking, um, ever since we. jailbreak, you're the coolest, most interesting emoji i've ever met. and, after all the adventures that we've had, i'm just not sure that i want all of that to go away. because, my feelings, right now, are, like, huge. i just think that they could be enough for me to want to stay the way that I am. if it means that i could stay here, with you, like, forever. forever and ever. and ever. maybe longer than that, even? like in the fairy tales. uh... wait, wuh, what is that? gene, if this is about you deciding not to be meh, then, i am all about that. i like you just the way you are, but i had a plan. right. i'm not just some princess, gene, waiting for my prince. i mean, uh, what you said was beautiful, but, gene... ha ha ha! you're all... meh! the source code worked! turns out I didn't need it. for the first time in life, meh is all I feel. oh! gene! i have an appointment. i'm a little early. no prob. i can take you right now. jailbreak! ah! don't do that! that freaking huge bot has got gene back inside the phone! what? he left being more meh than the meh-est meh face i've seen! what did you say to him? it's what I didn't say. we gotta go get him. how are we going to get there in time before he gets deleted? ugh.. i can't believe i'm doing this. you tell anyone you saw this and I'll crack more than those knuckles. woah. birds do like princesses! it's not a myth! it's not a myth at all! what happened with becoming a favorite? because i'd rather have one real friend. let's go get him. i can't wait to see that emoji's face! look at that expression! is that for realizing that you've put all of textopolis at risk? causing Alex to question our reliability? hmm? hey, now that's going too far, even for me! if we could delete this malfunction, before he gets dissapointed, Alex will realize there's nothing wrong with the phone. and any last words? meh. well, it's too late for that. delete him! wait! you delete gene, you'll have to delete me, too. what? i have the same malfunction gene has. dad? oh gosh, i don't know what to do! yes i do! BOTS! sorry misses meh. wow. i did not see that one coming. smiler, I think you might be making too much stink out of all this. oh really? how about you're next? i was wrong, gene. i should have believed in you all along. oh, what a touching daddy son reunion moment! it reminds me of the time I deleted you both! oh wait! that's this time! delete the two malfunctions! How's that for an entroof gasp oh, great. I can't reach! oh no! what did you do to my beautiful monst Ow my tooth! hand, button! jailbreak? oh, gene... you really are a meh... what happened to looking out for number one? being number one doesn't matter if there aren't any other numbers. alex's appointment! he's deleting the phone! nononono no no no no! show me alex. are you sure you want to delete everything? do it! red alert! alex, no! game over. fellas, i'm afraid this is the last call. dude, addie's here. you should go over. every time I try, i screwed up! i don't even know how to tell her how I feel! if we help alex connect to addie, maybe he won't delete us. i might be able to bypass the wipe and get a text through to him. but we'll only have time to send one. maybe I should go! he has love in his eyes. send me! alex looks nervous, too! he's more shy than nervous! stop! it's gene. he's all of those things! emo gees should only be one thing! oh, really? gasp the princess! linda? not now, mom! gene, you got this. that's not me anymore. but I have to try. it's starting! no! it's ending! almost in? working on it! mom? dad? no.. i'm in! last time I was in this cube I screwed everything up. gene, why do you think I came back? it's because of you. me. it's all inside of you, gene. just try to bring it back. and do you. high five! i don't want to wave goodbye! it's now or never, gene! jailbreak, now! woah! she got this emoji! no way! hey, i got your text! that's one super cool emoji! i know, right? a lot of feelings in one! i get it! i like that you're one of those guys who actually expresses feelings! yeah, that's me! so, do you think you cou yes, i'd love to go to the dance with you. we made it! oh, i could have lost you, peter pinky finger... oh, you wretchy ring finger, even you, tiberius thumb... change your mind? yeah, maybe it's weird, but i'm going to hold onto it. gene, you did it! you saved us all! oh, mel... gee hee eene! gee hee hee heene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! gene! and us! and high five! and high five! and high five! and high five! hey, what happened, gene? slap me some skin! and a little orange for the pinky! hey high five! save a little hand for later! unless you know the hamburger! back on top of the hand pile! you're not on the list! wait, what? what's going on? ha! from now on, everyone is welcome! wait, what is all this? it's for you, gene! everybody! the emoji bob! this is so jazzy... go eggplant! go eggplant! go eggplant! we are out of Alex's pocket, emo gees! this is not a butt dial! to your cubes! are we up and running? roger that. good, because we got incoming! looks like it's gonna be gene. hey gene, ready to try out your new cube? in 3, 2...