Buttons

[chaotic neutral observer]

No one likes to think they can be manipulated.  Yet here I am; I have buttons, they can be pushed, and if you push them, everybody loses.  I can be acquaintances--maybe even friends--with someone for years, but if they push a button... we're done.

He said that companies would be within their rights to break people's fingers for copyright infringement.  It's not the worst thing I've ever heard of, but it hit a button.

I expressed dismay/disgust, drew the obvious parallel with the practice of cutting the hands off thieves, and he didn't back down.  He wasn't joking.

Now, I'm something of an armchair tough-guy, myself.  I believe in grand destruction.  I believe in disproportionate response.  Your dog poops on my lawn, I sprinkle birdseed on your car.  You slap my face, I punch you in the neck.

But breaking someone's fingers for copying a fucking video game isn't funny.  It's petty, barbaric, fascistic, corporate.  It's the kind of attitude that reminds me of my father, may he rot in hell.

And that's one of my buttons.


I was a member of a certain video game forum/discord server for years, now I'm not.  The clincher...some time after I soft-flounced, I got a DM telling me I should return, and resume my place.  So I naturally cut off all remaining avenues of communication, without so much as a good-bye.

My place is where I am, not where I've been.

[altered]

I'm sorta like this too. And honestly? People like you and me...

They should be grateful you didn't burn their community to the ground. Longstanding member, you'd probably know all the right buttons to press to cause flamewars that would bring out the worst of everyone. You could probably set that place into a tailspin sufficient to fling half of them into legal trouble. Remember how Dipshit McGee said some weird shit about your kid that one time? And it's off to the races. And talking that way, ehh, I'd say they'd deserve it, really. Every single rotten one of them.

Burning them all down: that's what I'd do. Hell, it's what I've /done/, at least a couple times. They should be grateful you're willing to just let them stew in each other's miserable company instead. It's big of you, really.



That's not to say it doesn't suck to lose a community like that. Just ... It reminds me of me, and the one "bad" part of myself that, honestly, I have no intentions of excising. Talionic impulse is a real bear to deal with, and I like it that way. Very much.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

[chaotic neutral observer]

...

Yow.

Framed and formatted like that...it hits different.  I almost don't recognize my own words.

Ship it.