You wouldn't expect adding terminally online streamer culture and "live chat commentary" to anything to lead somewhere good, but but AltF4: Saviour, Savant, Asshole is not only the most engaging SAO fic I've read in years, it's also almost-literally fell on the floor laughing funny, and my computer station is built around one of those deep-cushion armchairs that want to grab on and keep cuddling. Maybe the other kind of "terminally online" forms some kind of interference pattern?
Anyway, the MC is a game streamer who hacked the Nervegear to get picture in picture webcam and in-game video streams for day zero clout, only to become the world's peephole into the death game. (Kayaba basically kicked back, fluffed his afro, and said "I'll allow it," when he noticed, because he's got actually logically consistent motivations here too, rather than just "LOL A god ami !" with a side of psychopathy.) "Alt+F4" (the MC) is as promised a savant (see also hacking the nervegear and forcing it to rollback to beta specs) saviour (he becomes a respawn point for anyone in his party or with certain other conditions, same "I'll allow it" meme image here) and, indeed, a sarcastic, gamer-culture asshole, but he's also rea;;y quick to catch on to the glitches and abusable hacsks he finds, and hammer them into a paln with the outline of being, well, exactly that, a glitch-exploiting terminally online trash talking gamer asshole, but which is actually the best means he can figure out to keep as many of the players alive as possible while managing his own independence and stress. That this happens to end up also making him very rich and influential both in-game and out is nice, but at least to my reading honestly secondary in his reasoning.
Honestly though, you can just read it for the shadenfreude and twitch chat reactions. Don't try to do it while drinking, at work, or when other people are trying to sleep, though, 'cause you are very likely to have problems
SB link: 15 threadmarks, 121k words
Anyway, the MC is a game streamer who hacked the Nervegear to get picture in picture webcam and in-game video streams for day zero clout, only to become the world's peephole into the death game. (Kayaba basically kicked back, fluffed his afro, and said "I'll allow it," when he noticed, because he's got actually logically consistent motivations here too, rather than just "LOL A god ami !" with a side of psychopathy.) "Alt+F4" (the MC) is as promised a savant (see also hacking the nervegear and forcing it to rollback to beta specs) saviour (he becomes a respawn point for anyone in his party or with certain other conditions, same "I'll allow it" meme image here) and, indeed, a sarcastic, gamer-culture asshole, but he's also rea;;y quick to catch on to the glitches and abusable hacsks he finds, and hammer them into a paln with the outline of being, well, exactly that, a glitch-exploiting terminally online trash talking gamer asshole, but which is actually the best means he can figure out to keep as many of the players alive as possible while managing his own independence and stress. That this happens to end up also making him very rich and influential both in-game and out is nice, but at least to my reading honestly secondary in his reasoning.
Honestly though, you can just read it for the shadenfreude and twitch chat reactions. Don't try to do it while drinking, at work, or when other people are trying to sleep, though, 'cause you are very likely to have problems
SB link: 15 threadmarks, 121k words
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‎noli esse culus
‎noli esse culus