Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 25th October 2026 - awful.systems
awful.systems
Just two weeks til’ Halloween now. Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no. If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high. > The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > > Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them. (Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Happy Halloween, fellow sneerers!)

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    The Internet’s emotional support smut is offline:

    We estimate that service restoration for #AO3 will take around 2 weeks but it could be up to 4 weeks. We are hopeful that we will be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state sooner. If that does happen, there may be times when the site has to be brought down temporarily until this is fully resolved. Please stay tuned for further info.

    • Mii@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      24 hours ago

      Holy shit, that’s a long downtime. Hoping everything will be fine. The internet would be a worse place without the Archive.

    • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      1 day ago

      An update at the same URL:

      Earlier today, we detected evidence of a security incident on AO3. We are still in the early stages of response to this security incident and determining its scope. AO3 will remain down while we continue investigating and addressing what has been found so far. However, we want to make some things clear:

      First, no AO3 data has been deleted. All your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are safe.

      Second, while we currently don’t believe that the user database was stolen, we are also unable to rule it out. The AO3 database contains account information that may include your username, email address, IP address, and a hashed version of your password.

      We use industry-standard techniques for storing passwords in a scrambled form that cannot easily be reversed. Even so, no hashing method can fully protect a weak or reused password from being cracked. As a precaution, we recommend that you change your passwords on any other sites where you use the same password as on AO3.

      AO3 does not collect real names, so none could be exposed. Additionally, our donor information is held in an entirely separate system and is never linked to AO3, so that data has also not been exposed.

      We will update everyone as our investigation continues; we may be unable to respond to individual inquiries from users. Please keep an eye on our official outlets for updates. Our next update will be posted when we have further information available.

      Our current expectation is that AO3 will be down for a minimum of two weeks; however, it could take up to four weeks. During that time, we may be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state, meaning that not all features will be available and/or the site may be read-only. If we are able to do that, please be aware that we might have to bring the site back down unexpectedly as part of our recovery efforts. We will keep you in the loop for any developments

    • robjwells@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Wonder how many of their users have transitioned to beating off to artisanal probabilistic LLM smut.

        • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          1 day ago

          Yeah, I’ve read a few stories in the past year or two that updated suspiciously rapidly and weren’t terribly well written. But overall the culture there is against AI generation.

          • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
            0·
            1 day ago

            Speaking in very general terms, the combination of wanting a community, writing out of abstruse passion and appreciating writing done out of abstruse passion make for an anti-AI blend. The balance of inevitable slop and hostility against inevitable slop tilts towards the latter.