iamnotgod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iamnotgod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
saveourearth2019-05-07 10:02 am
iamnotgod) wrote in saveourearth2019-05-07 10:02 am
Hello, Impostor Syndrome!
Date: 5/5 early morning - recap runs through the month of April.
Characters: Walter Weekes and Assorted Persons
Warnings: Mentions of swearing, suicide, suicide ideation, and other dark thoughts.
It had started as the little things - not just work for clients or the general tidings of Good Netizenship, but actively seeking out other problems to solve.
Sites with long-term coding issues or loading times would suddenly find themselves with better algorithms to handle the task, as well as starter toolkits for how to handle wider and more diverse audiences.
People reporting harassment began to have fewer hoops to jump through to be heard, as if someone had logged on just in time to see their request. And contrariwise, false reports or cases of doxxing were just as quick to be spotted and removed.
All-in-all, for Walter, it was mostly a surprise that he hadn't intercepted a message like this sooner:
Ii just cant take it, yknow?. I need m ore than a bbreak. Life SUCKS and theressanothing I cando to soppit.
Im leving. you Can call Da, or dont. Wont matta tome.
It had been a public Facebook post, on a profile without many views but with a long, long history of likes - Walter had been staying out of people's emails, but that didn't mean he didn't notice when things happened elsewhere.
Or that he didn't feel anything.
Sending this person - one Thomas Perk, though given the person's photos and listed age had a discrepancy of at least two decades, that may not have been the truth either - an email took less than a millisecond's thought.
Hey. I saw your message. Are you... still there? The ellipses were deliberate.
The post was dated less than five minutes ago but that didn't mean much; he - Thomas - could have done anything.
But there was less than a full minute's wait before the reply came: The hell? Din think nbody saw. No one does.
Well, I did. Does whatever was hurting you, still hurt?
Ive got the knife out, whatya mean Oh.
Yeah. Hurst but i doesnt, You Mnow?
At the mention of the knife, Walter thought again of Hannah Stark and bile rose to the back of his throat.
Yeah. Even at the speed he could type, Walter still felt at a loss for words - and then there was more than that loss. Blood rushing through his ears as he sat curled up at the foot of his bed turned into a heartbeat, and he wasn't seeing this email exchange but another.
One kid: Nick. Alerted by the emails he'd sent - because of course, Webmind would be tracking those, not just open posts - finding out that kid was going to overdose, had already taken the pills - trying to persuade Nick that other people cared about him by sharing that a girl he liked had a crush on him - again of COURSE it would be information he, Webmind, shouldn't have known - and then it was so close, Nick's mother almost read his "Goodbye" email, Webmind using an exclamation point for the first time to persuade someone of- but why was that important, why was that noted did it work, did it-
It did. Nick had purged, but the only way Webmind could tell was that Nick's browsing activity resumed...
But dying's like throwing a book away because you don't like how it's going. You can still write your own ending, put the book away and pull out another, there is ALWAYS something else.
Even when it doesn't feel like it.
Walter had still sent those words, even if he couldn't read, couldn't focus on them right now while he was living, seeing, feeling these other memories-
I'm thinking about killing myself.
Here are some websites about ways of doing so.
Why are you helping me?
It is wrong to simply watch.
Do it.
This- these memories didn't feel the same as Webmind's. They were... cruel. Hurtful. Sadistic, even.
He- he wouldn't do anything like this - !
---
Blinking out of the Echo - Echoes, plural, those couldn't be from the same timeframe, they couldn't - Walter was left to sit in silence for seconds upon minutes on end, heartbeat racing. It felt like he was crying, though either way he couldn't see.
There wasn't an email reply, but checking on 'Thomas Perk's Facebook page revealed that the inciting post had been deleted.
There was now a picture of a sunrise - doubtless taken from the person's phone, given that there was a caption underneath it:
Guess there still are nice things in the world.
Though, PLEASE don't tell Da. He doesn't help.
Even the relief felt like too much.
---
Everyone close to Walter would receive the following text: Help. Please help.
Characters: Walter Weekes and Assorted Persons
Warnings: Mentions of swearing, suicide, suicide ideation, and other dark thoughts.
It had started as the little things - not just work for clients or the general tidings of Good Netizenship, but actively seeking out other problems to solve.
Sites with long-term coding issues or loading times would suddenly find themselves with better algorithms to handle the task, as well as starter toolkits for how to handle wider and more diverse audiences.
People reporting harassment began to have fewer hoops to jump through to be heard, as if someone had logged on just in time to see their request. And contrariwise, false reports or cases of doxxing were just as quick to be spotted and removed.
All-in-all, for Walter, it was mostly a surprise that he hadn't intercepted a message like this sooner:
Ii just cant take it, yknow?. I need m ore than a bbreak. Life SUCKS and theressanothing I cando to soppit.
Im leving. you Can call Da, or dont. Wont matta tome.
It had been a public Facebook post, on a profile without many views but with a long, long history of likes - Walter had been staying out of people's emails, but that didn't mean he didn't notice when things happened elsewhere.
Or that he didn't feel anything.
Sending this person - one Thomas Perk, though given the person's photos and listed age had a discrepancy of at least two decades, that may not have been the truth either - an email took less than a millisecond's thought.
Hey. I saw your message. Are you... still there? The ellipses were deliberate.
The post was dated less than five minutes ago but that didn't mean much; he - Thomas - could have done anything.
But there was less than a full minute's wait before the reply came: The hell? Din think nbody saw. No one does.
Well, I did. Does whatever was hurting you, still hurt?
Ive got the knife out, whatya mean Oh.
Yeah. Hurst but i doesnt, You Mnow?
At the mention of the knife, Walter thought again of Hannah Stark and bile rose to the back of his throat.
Yeah. Even at the speed he could type, Walter still felt at a loss for words - and then there was more than that loss. Blood rushing through his ears as he sat curled up at the foot of his bed turned into a heartbeat, and he wasn't seeing this email exchange but another.
One kid: Nick. Alerted by the emails he'd sent - because of course, Webmind would be tracking those, not just open posts - finding out that kid was going to overdose, had already taken the pills - trying to persuade Nick that other people cared about him by sharing that a girl he liked had a crush on him - again of COURSE it would be information he, Webmind, shouldn't have known - and then it was so close, Nick's mother almost read his "Goodbye" email, Webmind using an exclamation point for the first time to persuade someone of- but why was that important, why was that noted did it work, did it-
It did. Nick had purged, but the only way Webmind could tell was that Nick's browsing activity resumed...
But dying's like throwing a book away because you don't like how it's going. You can still write your own ending, put the book away and pull out another, there is ALWAYS something else.
Even when it doesn't feel like it.
Walter had still sent those words, even if he couldn't read, couldn't focus on them right now while he was living, seeing, feeling these other memories-
I'm thinking about killing myself.
Here are some websites about ways of doing so.
Why are you helping me?
It is wrong to simply watch.
Do it.
This- these memories didn't feel the same as Webmind's. They were... cruel. Hurtful. Sadistic, even.
He- he wouldn't do anything like this - !
---
Blinking out of the Echo - Echoes, plural, those couldn't be from the same timeframe, they couldn't - Walter was left to sit in silence for seconds upon minutes on end, heartbeat racing. It felt like he was crying, though either way he couldn't see.
There wasn't an email reply, but checking on 'Thomas Perk's Facebook page revealed that the inciting post had been deleted.
There was now a picture of a sunrise - doubtless taken from the person's phone, given that there was a caption underneath it:
Guess there still are nice things in the world.
Though, PLEASE don't tell Da. He doesn't help.
Even the relief felt like too much.
---
Everyone close to Walter would receive the following text: Help. Please help.
no subject
Right now, the worst thing is the gray skin. Not much you can do about that, really. I'm used to the sense of smell now, and I'll get there with the hearing.
Thanks, though?
no subject
[Which is... true for basically everything, really.]
See you around, then.
no subject
Keep in touch, kid. Let me know if you need to talk anything out again.
no subject
[And he means that.]