Flora lay on a stone in the brook that led from the Pool Pike to the sea.
"Let's go over my mail, Aidan." The swim had relaxed her. Now, she was ready for some work.
"12 836 VirDias, mostly from the sales of the Stehaufmaennchen,
3 042 VirDos, sales from partner shops,
321 VirDos, sales from direct prints,
23 612 VirDos, royalties from registered materials and templates
183 827 Credits, sales from partner shops."
"Nice! The royalties rose quite a bit. But weren't the sales from the partner shops much higher before?"
"Yes, Milady. We had a large order of the plastic Parkesine94X2, which bolstered the royalties. The reason for the reduced shop income will become clear if you read the next letters."
Flora shrugged but was bewildered by Aidan's vague remark.
>>>
Dear Flowing Flowers,
Regretfully, we have technical difficulties in processing our income for the last days.
We are very sorry that it will take some time to remit our payment to you, and we hope that you understand we are experiencing some difficult accounting problems.
Sincerely,
Racketfun
<<<
"Oh, so there is a widespread technical problem?" Flora asked.
*Beep Beep*
"Hmm." Flora opened the next letter.
>>>
Dear Flowing Flowers,
We have concluded, following our investigation, that your ethical values and conduct are not compatible with our company's principles.
We have removed all your products from our shop and don't wish to continue our business relationship.
Sincerely PirouetteFreaks
<<<
"What?" Flora gaped at the letter.
"Ricky's Runners have sent a similar letter to the first one, but then retracted it and said they solved their technical difficulties, ServAndTurf and FunAthletics to the second, Milady. More shops didn't transfer their payments but wrote no notice."
"What?" Flora repeated, stunned.
Aito transmitted a link: "#CancelFlowingFlowers"
"What?" Flora said. "Why has everything have to repeat itself every 30 years? The political correctness of the nineties was not fun, the cancel culture of 2020 even more so and now… what do they call it now?"
"I don't know, Milady. Should I research it?"
"No, your processing power is too precious. Let's read the reason for my cancelation."
>>>
The user Flowing Flowers is just a week in the Cetviwos. However, she arrived with a splash, a splash of disgustingness. She sells Nazi paraphernalia, displays open homophobia, misogyny, and ageism, creates scam items like the Stehaufmaennchen and even torture equipment.
We, as a community, are better than that! We can't allow a pest plant like Flowing Flowers to thrive in our garden. We, the users of the Cetviwos, condemn racism, sexism, and homophobia. Buycott Flowing Flowers! Cancel Flowing Flowers!
<<<
Flora clicked on the link "Nazi paraphernalia" and found an article named "The Rise of Nazi Ideology in the Cetviwos". It depicted growing groups of Neo-Nazis and the sales of Nazi-related products like swasticas, SA uniforms, and WWII paraphernalia. As an example of the latter, the article listed her Heinkel World War II Bomber skateboard skin.
Disbelieving, Flora shook her head and clicked on the next link, "Homophobia". The link led to a page complaining about people appropriating the rainbow symbol. The author argued that it only should be used to symbolize peace and gay rights, and any other use diminished the power of the message. They put down Flora's Rainbow Intensity-Meter as an example.
"Oh, my goodness! Am I a horrible person? Burned Toast and stale jam, I thought nothing of it. I used the bomber because it looks cool. I like colors, so of course, I love rainbows, and the rainbow is a great tool to visualize scales. I'm no Nazi! And I support gay rights! One of my best friends is Bi. Oh no, now I sound homophobic even to my own ears. What have I done?" Flora sent Eddie the link to the #cancelflowingflowers article. She tried to write something else into the message, but everything sounded pathetic like "Am I horrible?" "Please tell me I'm nice!". So, she deleted it and just sent the link.
"I think you are very nice, Milady."
"Thank you, Aidan," Flora said, but disregarded his opinion. She had chosen the character traits Loyal and Respectful for him. Of course, he only thought the best of her. 'Did I select them because I subconsciously knew that only this way someone would respect me?'
Flora clicked the next link, "Misogyny and Ageism". The article was about a rising trend to dismiss elderly females and ridicule their issues. Depressingly, Flora agreed with most of the points in it. Examples were a blind granny on a scooter and her Granny's Knickers Stained Edition skateboard.
"Wait!" Flora paused and crossed her arms. "The articles are structured very similarly. They all are halfway reasonable, and then they list exceedingly absurd examples. That smells funny. Aito, check the authors and whether they are connected."
"Two more, I can do this." Flora selected the Stehaufmaennchen Link. It contained a video of a small woman who demonstrated she couldn't play the game because she couldn't kick the upper part of the column. The Stehaufmaennchen included a game mode that circumvented the issue, but she didn't mention that. She concluded that the Stehaufmaennchen was a scam that excused its failure with the inability of the users. She also told that Lana promoted it and that she and Flora were in the same clan and accused Lana of being a sell-out. The video ended with her praising a competing product, the TumblerBuddy, and an appeal to the viewers to write to CentralTank that they should replace the products in their shop.
Flora clicked on the description of the TumblerBuddy. It was basically the Stehaufmaennchen with a different color scheme and only the easy mode available. She shrugged. "I bet I'll get royalties for that. It should count as modification, not as an original design."
"You do, Milady, but only 2 VirPens."
"That's 2/100 VirDos, right? So about two credits… oh well." Flora sighed. "The next one should be good, Torture Equipment."
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
This time it wasn't an article but a forum post about a user who complained that he was tortured in a training-coffin.
Flora leaned back and let the water of the brook wash over her.
"Do you know Tucholsky, Aito?"
*beep beep*
"Buy his collected works. He was a satirist and author. He said, 'Everything is right also the opposite.' So maybe I'm a homophobic, misogynic, ageist, scamming, torturing Nazi and also the opposite. I should make this my slogan… perhaps it’s a bit too long."
"There are more business-related emails with important content and Mia MyMio's questions, Milady."
"Engineering questions! Exactly the right thing to raise my mood." Flora plunged into Mia's issues with gusto. The problems were particular, and Flora honored it by answering them succinctly. They were the kind of questions teachers loved and showed that Mia's technology skills were quite advanced for a layperson.
"Good job, dear," Flora whispered as she sent the answers. Then she took a deep breath and opened the next letter.
>>>
Hello Flora,
I hope you are fine.
There is something peculiar going on. First, Huffgrin received some letters complaining about your online conduct with the demand to take you off our platform (senders in the appendix).
Of course, we didn't act on it. Some acti-vices started a campaign to boycott us, but our sales are still strong.
Then came an offer for a big exclusive deal from HeavensChosen with the condition that we'll take your products out of our assortment. We declined.
That was followed by a bribe (10k VirDos) to delay your payments by one week by someone named Jonathan Inthewater. We declined again.
I talked in our sports equipment chat about it and heard from a few colleagues that they received similar offers.
Yeah, well, that sucks.
Cheers, Ali Hawks
<<<
"Most interesting." Flora purred. "Let's make this Jonathan pay for the pleasure of crossing me."
>>>
Hello Ali,
Thank you very much for the information. Take the offer for the delay.
Write in your chat that everyone should take it and give me a cut XD
Convince a few more of your friends to sell my products at least for a week and give them the contact details of Jonathan Inthewater. Let's spread his wealth^^
Best wishes, Flora
<<<
"Any news about your analysis of the connections?" Flora asked Aito.
The AI signaled she needed more time.
"Include this Jonathan Inthewater and the other names Ali provided to us, please."
"*beep*" Aito said with the intonation of "of course, that goes without saying."
Flora read the next mail.
>>>
Greetings Flowing Flowers,
We at OppressingOpulence are huge fans of your work. Your "If you have nothing to brag about, you can still show off this Toaster" is a gem of our assortment.
We received several requests to cancel our business relationship, to our delight, from people we despise. Therefore we wish to strengthen our contacts.
Our shop specializes in the strange, the mystic, the excessive, the occult, the
painful, the weird, and the undesirables.
Please, come to us with any remotely suitable product. We will give you premium conditions.
[Information about the kind of contracts]
Best wishes, Fredrick Fortune, CEO of OppressingOpulence
<<<
"Lose some, gain some." Flora wrily smiled as she inspected the shop. Her eyebrows rose when she saw their turnover. OpressingOpulence was a big-time player like Huffgrin. They registered several million sales per week. The main categories were "Satan our Savior", "Which Witch", "Goth-Chic", "From Steam to Cyber-Punk", "Pleasure and Pain" (Sex toys, BDSM), "Content for Classy Classes" (stuff for Necromancers, Mind Controllers, Witches, Satanists, Death Mages, Demonologists) and "Opulence and Oddities".
"I can work with that." Flora grinned, her head filled with new ideas. "Let's look at the Curse, Blood and Death Affinity rune-schemes."
There were only four rune-schemes for curses in her books, but to Flora's glee, they had desirable secondary affinities. Laden Limbs lamed legs and arms and could be countered with Magical Body Control. Curse of Rot and Decay drained health and stamina and made the victim smelly, countered by Death resistance. Endless Sneezing and Wheezing was an Ailment curse, and Blood Rush a curse using Blood affinity. The description of the latter was cryptic, and Flora had to test it out to understand its effect.
She made a disc from the sand and inscribed the runes. It took 100 mana to power it up, a ridiculous amount compared to damaging rune-schemes, but the standard for cursing schemes.
You are immune to the effects of the rune-scheme because you have disabled adult content.
"Oh, dear." Flora enabled the option.
Cursed: 1 x Blood Rush: - 2 OV Magical Macro-Control, - 2 OV Magical Micro-Control. Remaining time: 5 min.
Blood rushed to Flora's nether regions, and her eyes widened.
"Oh, dear!" Hastily, Flora reactivated parental control, and the curse vanished. She giggled. "I'm such a prude."
Next, Flora took some wood from the forest and carved four poles and inscribed them. She modified the schemes that everybody could power them, and you didn't have to own or bind the artifact. Creating a five-pronged holder out of more wood and stone, she placed the poles on it like candles. A fifth pole in the middle spotted the name of the creation "Candelabra of Curses." Unfortunately, the artifact was only B-rated, but that was alright for a proof of concept.
The curse schemes were too expensive for the training boxes, so Flora looked at other Blood and Death schemes. Often, her thoughts drifted to her cancelation. Finally, she closed the windows.
"Let's face the music." Flora reopened the article listing her transgressions. "I'm pretty sure the cancelation articles are a conspiracy. They are too complementary and employ the same tactics: inflammatory titles and our items as a minor example−as if they were just created to have a cause for the cancelation. Nonetheless, there is some truth in them. The Third Reich used the bombers for an unjust war. I'm against vilifying everything that was produced or invented in this time, like Fanta, but a bomber was a war tool."
Flora researched the history of Heikel and found out that forced labor and KZ prisoners built the planes. "I didn't know that! The article was right; it is unacceptable to use the model."
Decisively, she told Aidan to delete the Heikel skin from all platforms and prohibit the printing of the blueprint. Additionally, she ordered him to donate all profits to a charity supporting human rights.
"Next, the rainbow skin." Flora looked at it with a critical eye, but couldn't find fault. "I highly suspect the boy from the hopping choir who bought it is gay or questioning. Maybe it's alright to have a little rainbow in one's life, to see if you like it or not. What do you think, Aidan?"
"I have no opinion, Milady. I inquired statistical data, and people of all genders, sexual orientations, skin colors, and different continents bought it. Only the age category shows a clear tendency towards younger people."
"And the rainbow is a symbol for peace. Who doesn't need peace? Sport is a peaceful competition, so the rainbow is uniquely suited for it. We let it stay." Flora continued to the article about ageism. Her Granny's Knickers - Stained Edition skateboard showed a daisy pattern with a bleached middle. "I did refer to incontinence in the design. Did you know that after menopause, it is widespread for a woman to develop bladder control issues? I didn't know that. My first thought was, oh no, please don't let me be pregnant again when I pissed myself the first time because I laughed too hard. Of course, I was ashamed, but over the next years, more and more of my friends started to make jokes about it, and then I googled it and found out it was pretty normal. Still, it's a taboo to speak about it with young people. Comedy is a way to break taboos, as is art. I didn't disparage incontinence in the design or made fun of people soiling themself. I depicted it as it is. When you are a granny, chances are good it will happen. Therefore the design is educational in an accessible way."
Flora first grinned then cackled. "I just can't hold it back. Wisdom and experience are flowing out of me."
*Beheheheheep*
"Ah, Aito is developing humor. Slipping-on-banana-skins jokes were the first step. Now you graduated to lavatorial humor. I'm proud of you!"
Aito made a beep sound resembling a fart.
"Excellent job, dear!" Flora flashed her a thumbs-up. "What do we have next? The Stehaufmännchen."
Flora reviewed the model in the Cetviwos-Shop and her blueprints. All of them incorporated the easy mode as well. Either the girl from the video couldn't read, had a faulty manual, or willfully misrepresented the product.
The last issue was the training-coffin. Flora had only published the first model. It featured just the tasers and the vibration plate. To torture somebody against their will, you had to modify the door that it wouldn't open from the inside or shackle them to the wall.
"If you pin down someone in a sauna or under a waterfall, it would be torture as well. That's not the fault of the sauna or waterfall but the fault of the captor." Flora said. "However, maybe I should hide the blueprint for a while so that nobody gets the idea for what I really use it. On the other hand, my enemies already know about it, so it might get more attention when I try to conceal it. Hmm… Let's do nothing."
Flora nodded, satisfied. "I feel much better. Do you think I should issue an apology or explanation?"
"Yes, Milady, at least, for the Heinkel Bomber."
*beep beep*
"If you make an error, you should apologize." Aidan insisted.
*farting beep*
"I created a monster." Flora joked. However, Aito fled. The connection between Flora and Aito grew thin. "I'm sorry, Aitoshuri. I was jesting. You aren't a monster. You are a great help and an invaluable assistant. Humor is complicated. Take your time, don't stress about it, and I will laugh a few weeks about your fart jokes. Okay, maybe only a few days, but I will let you communicate with Hub. He loves them. No, I won't do that, I'm a bad influence as it is, no reason to worsen the situation."
As Flora rambled, Aito reappeared slowly.
"Welcome back."
*farting beep*
Flora cackled.