It's the most wonderful time of the year! With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you, “Be of good cheer!” Except you aren't listening to them, because you've always hated the Christmas season. Well, you always hated everything, but there was something about the brightly saturated light displays, the insidious carols in constant rotation the moment Halloween ended, and the saccharinely sweet spirit that characterized the holiday season that really got under your skin.
Wait a minute… Who are you, anyways?
Your name is Michael J. Arseman, but most everyone in the neighborhood calls you “The Jackass,” and for good reason. From the moment you made your less-than-stellar introduction to the people of the Suburban Hills subdivision ten years ago, all of your neighbors have been vilifying you left and right. You hated it at first, but after a while you decided, “Fuck it. If these jackholes wanna hate me so much, I'll give them a reason to hate me!” And you did.
You always went out of your way to be mean, and the Christmas season — a season dedicated to spreading love and joy — was always when you were at your most insufferable.
Hello, and welcome to The Jerkass Chronicles! It's just the same as any other play-by-post Choose Your Own Adventure Game, except you're encouraged to be as much of a douchebag as possible! You have been given the chance to control a man who hates most everything in the world, so you better take it!
Now, the key word in the title is Lawful Evil. Arseman may be mean, but he's not straight up evil. You'll come to find over the course of the game that Mike has a well-developed (albeit pretty funky) moral code, and there's a set of boundaries he refuses to cross under any circumstances. I can't reveal all of them to you right now, but here are the ones that have been uncovered thus far:
- NO Bigotry. Racism, misogyny, queerphobia, ableism and the like are strictly off limits for obvious reasons.
- There's not much stopping you from committing acts of physical violence, but Michael outright refuses to beat up on children (under 18), the elderly (65 and older), and the physically disabled.
- Don't get too sexual. Mike loves a good dirty joke from time to time, but even suggesting the idea of sex crimes is off limits for reasons that should be obvious.
- Try to avoid deliberately hurting Tommy Baker's feelings.
- Eden Hawthorne is, like, your only friend. DO NOT jeopardize your relationship with her.
- The Grand Misgendering, a notorious Walmart microaggression, is old hat and shall never be discussed, ESPECIALLY around Eden Hawthorne.
- The following are Last Resort problem solving methods, only meant to be used when ABSOLUTELY no other options are available:
- Engaging in Karen/Daren behavior
- Blackmailing people
- Minimum wage employees already go through enough bullshit on a daily. Exercise caution when bothering them, and try not to add too much onto their load. Upper and middle managers, on the other hand...
- Don't break character when talking about online music reviewer Ryan Graham. Your hatred of him is played up for the bit, but it's a bit that's too funny to pass up.
- Some of these moral stipulations can be relaxed in scenarios where you can't directly see who it is you're interacting with (i.e. over the internet, etc.).
- If you can help it, try to be in bed by 9:30 PM.
- Given the choice to personally antagonize billionaires, take it without hesitation.
- If you aren't prepared to buy it, then don't bother breaking it.
- Any line longer than a quarter of a mile for an event that you don't already have a ticket for is a line you are NOT standing in.
Now, with that out of the way...
You sit alone, in your desolate room. No light. No music. Just a lingering sense of dread and your thoughts on how you could ruin Christmas this year. The lights are off, but a sliver of light shines in through your window, illuminating the room. In your small bedroom, there is your bed (which you are currently sitting on, a nightstand with three drawers and a lamp on top next to it, and a desk with a drawer in it, on top of which your trusty laptop sits. Your closet is built into the wall. There are no decorations in your room because decor sparks joy, and if there's one thing you loved, it was feeling miserable.
[input command]
Edited by Pogakure on Jul 22nd 2025 at 11:50:22 AM
> Shove those fangirls out of the way and tell them that Sabrina Marie's cover of "Last Christmas" is barely more listenable than the original.
Don't forget to add the last two MS's to the OP.
Edited by TroperNo9001 on Jun 28th 2025 at 1:27:31 AM
"YOU ARE KAIND. MERSIFULL. AND, MOAST OF ALL... YOU DOAN'T KNOW HOW TO CLAIMB."> Shove those fangirls out of the way and tell them that Sabrina Marie's cover of "Last Christmas" is barely more listenable than the original.
Try as you might to yell into the abyss, you didn't get a response back. You repeated yourself, but to no avail; it was like the crowd got louder as you did.
You tried to wade through the crowd toward the general direction of the Hallmark store, gauging the types of people in the audience. Not a single person you could recognize in the crowd here. You didn't really know any die-hard Sabrina Marie stans. Then again, you never got on too well with normies generally.
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:10 PM
- Current Goals:
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Edited by Pogakure on Jul 10th 2025 at 2:09:07 PM
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Make your way to Hallmark by shoving more people out of the way without apologizing.
You push through the surprisingly hefty crowd, tossing around squealing girls and their begrudged dads, and you're pretty sure you made a teenager trip over her own feet at one point. Finally, you were out.
Undeterred, you continued your trek to Hallmark, passing by stores horking typical mall staples: Women's Shoes, Sportswear, Nerd Merch, Alternative Fashion, Mattresses, the occasional pop-up kiosk for the latest online consumerist fad...
You felt your stomach contract in on itself as it let out a low, hollow grumble. You really haven't eaten anything since that breakfast burrito this morning, huh?
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:15 PM
- Current Goals:
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Eat lunch.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Edited by Pogakure on Jul 10th 2025 at 2:08:55 PM
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Check out some nerd merch while planning your route to the food court.
Of the places that catered to nerds visiting the Hamilton Mall, Nerd Haven was certainly the largest. Tons of foreign imports, mostly from Japan, lined the storefront's walls — and it wasn't just the latest fads, either; from old classics to hot-off-the-presses seasonal pieces and a fair few legendary sleeper hits, Nerd Haven had at least a few pieces of whatever merch was made for it. That's how they managed to capture the geeky hearts of so many.
Even though you could feel your stomach still growling, you couldn't help but indulge in a bit more window shopping. Nerd Haven's window display was one of the ways it stood out amongst its pop culture novelty store contemporaries like Hot Topic or FYE; it was fucking massive, for one. Headless mannequins wearing Christmas-themed video game t-shirts stood behind elaborate figures of anime girls in Santa dresses and cosplay prop paperweights propped against their boxes so that customers knew what to look for going in. At the center of Nerd Haven's seasonal display, adorned in a wreath of candy canes, was the one piece of merchandise that never left the window: a life-sized, period accurate samurai sword. For the past ten years, no matter how often the displays out in front of Nerd Haven rotated with the season, no matter how much inflation racked the economy, that stainless steel katana always remained at the center of the window, always with the same $5000 dollar price tag attached to the bottom of its high pedestal. You have never seen a single person even consider buying the katana. Fuck it, ten years later, you highly doubt that the katana is even still for sale; its legacy as a window piece precedes it too far.
As you pass up Nerd Haven, you reach a fork in your path. To your left was the Food Court, where you could hopefully buy something to quell your hunger. To the right was more stores, eventually leading to the Hallmark where all the Christmas shit was, where you wanted to be. Heading back in the opposite direction, there's the Spencer's Gifts you passed up on the way here. You were contemplating possibly getting yourself an Ugly Christmas Sweater, weren't you? Spencer's prided themselves on being pretty damn vulgar; they definitely would have something up your alley.
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:30 PM
- Current Goals:
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Eat lunch.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Have lunch at the food court, because you can’t make good shopping decisions while hungry.
The Hamilton Mall food court was today, like any other good day, filled with consumers looking to fill their stomachs and refresh their palates after doing what they do best (consuming, if that weren't obvious). The selections were typical of your average middle-Americana food court; You had your Taco Bell, your A&W, your Subway, your Panda Express, and a fair amount of other smaller chain and/or specialty shops if you were looking for something a bit more, shall we say... unique?
The weather at this time of year was — as one of your online friends described it — very "Soup-coded." There was a Zoup in the food court here, if that's what you're craving; problem is, a bunch of other people who are also craving soup have begun to form a decent line at the counter. Do you dive in headfirst before the line gets unbearably long, wait for it to die down, or look for food elsewhere?
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:30 PM
- Current Goals:
- Eat lunch.
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Better line up now so you can hassle those who got there first!
You file in to the Zoup line, joining a small group of sweatered individuals similarly craving that warm liquid bliss. There were a lot of possibilities when it came to soup: So many things you could pair a good cup with — a clean cut sandwich, a bowl of mac and cheese, some oyster crackers, maybe you could shell out for a bread bowl if you were feeling a bit out there.
One thing is for certain, though: The soups at Zoup were on a constant rotation; no two daily menus were exactly the same, but more often than not, you could rely on the Creamy Chicken Pot Pie being on the docket at this specific Zoup location almost every day (no doubt one of the employees has a favorite, too). If your favorite soup wasn't in the rotation today, something was gonna get kicked.
The line steadily inched forward, doomscrolling patrons clearing the way for people picking up to-go orders. None of these guys seemed particularly interesting enough to be worth hassling. As people got their soup and you got closer to the actual counter, you were able to catch a glimpse of the day's soup rotation: Roasted Tomato, Broccoli Cheddar, Loaded Baked Potato, Hot Mexican Chili, Lobster Bisque, Cream of Mushroom...
They don't have your soup.
Inhale... Fuck.
You were too far in this goddamn line to give up this spot, but what's the point of even standing in this line if you couldn't even get the fucking soup you wanted!?!? But man, your stomach was killing you, too! You're going to have to improvise.
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:45 PM
- Current Goals:
- Eat lunch.
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[is the soup, uh... souping?]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Cream of Mushroom, because it at least has cream.
> Second option Roasted Tomato. Because the Tomato would have been able to take a Jerkass Roasting.
The line kept moving, and soon you found yourself standing close enough to the soup pots for long enough to see how much soup is actually in each one. There was a decent amount of cream of mushroom, but the roasted tomato was next to empty.
"Making more tomato soup?" you muse to yourself out loud in the general direction of the young lady working the counter.
"Yeah. It'll be ready in 30 minutes," she replied. "Can I help you?"
You dramatically lean in towards the menu posted up on the screens above you, squinting up at text you could clearly see with ease, exaggeratedly furrowing your brow and rubbing your chin inquisitively. "Yeah, can I get uhhhhh...... bowl of cream of mushroom — let's actually make that a bread bowl — and, uhhhhh....."
The lady at the counter looks at you disenchantedly. She's been through this routine before. "Would you like anything to drink, sir?"
"Yeah. Uhhhhhhhhhh......"
You made sure to exaggerate the gesture for the delight of the handful of people waiting in line behind you. You couldn't get the soup you want, and you liked to take the subtle approach to making it everyone else's problem. After what had to be fifteen seconds of looking up at the menu like it was written in a foreign language, you finally responded. "Pepsi."
"Your order will be ready in a bit." She sighed, ringing you up for your lunch and handing you a receipt with a number on it: Order 948. You could never tell just how long "a bit" is supposed to be; Could be ten seconds. Could be half an hour. But you were gonna have to find somewhere to sit sooner or later; your legs were killing you. You decided on a table close enough to Zoup that you could hear your order being called out when it was ready. Whenever that was. As for right now, you know of a couple of ways you could fill the time...
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:53 PM
- Current Goals:
- Eat lunch.
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
I know that my update schedule has always been sporadic, but do prepare for it to become even more sporadic now that I'm a full-time college student.
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> See how the comment section of your snarky comment about Ryan Graham’s latest Top 10 Worst… video is going.
The reply section of your comment has reached that all-powerful state between violent argument and attempted diffusion: The Lull. A silence, but not a deadly one; not one of countless digital footprints eroded by the sea of time. It's a silence born of bated breath — of internet users polishing their strawmen from the sidelines, readying their cannons in anticipation of a humble soldier leaving the trenches and marching directly into the battlefield of opinions to say something, anything. That soldier could be you.
When last you left the onslaught of carnage in the wake of your insightful comment, two major opinions were split among the audience, two major sides emerged from the battlefield: One believes that a work of art can't be considered bad if it's classified as a "joke." The other believes that no amount of comedic intent can excuse a bad piece of art.
What you say here can change the fate of this discussion forever. It can either inject the argument with new life — or condemn it to death. Choose your next words carefully.
[Very carefully.]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat>Search for a well written but inane theory that the artist was mind controlled by studio executives or aliens to bring utter lunacy to the comment section.
Okay, interesting approach. The conspiracy angle should throw people off. Something this outlandish has a chance to garner lots of attention, but it also runs the risk of being so absurd that, at best, gets ignored in favor of the greater conversation, or at worst, completely kills it entirely.
You begin to type something that could imply that Vicarious himself wanted to ragebait people into paying attention to his music.
You sheeple don't realize you've fallen right into his trap by giving a shit about this album! To the point, but it lacks a certain punch...
The studio execs are probably laughing on their fancy chairs knowing that their plan to inject the woke mind virus into All I Want to fool people into thinking that it's progressive actually worked. Maybe a bit too insipid...
Oh, yes. This is perfect. It's irreverent, it's attention grabbing; it doesn't explicitly say anything about the people caught up in the argument, but the way it's worded is gross enough to make anyone reading it feel ashamed of themselves. It doesn't continue any of the discussion's current threads, so you can't gauge who will react and how. But you can let the comment marinate for a while, giving chaos a chance to unfold while you find another way to waste time until your soup is ready.
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 2:53 PM
- Current Goals:
- Eat lunch.
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Await a response from Louisa Rosenthal.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat> Check if Louisa fell for your email scam.
You log in to your burner HCPA email and open Google Forms, opening what you had called the Public Amenities Forum to see if your mark had taken the bait.
Responses: 1.
Holy shit, it worked!
You scrolled past all of the questions about public water fountains and county parks and splash pads and whatever; that was all filler bullshit, anyways. You were here for the real meat and potatoes: The Final Section, where you required the user to submit the usernames of two of their social media accounts (perhaps even a third, if they were feeling especially generous) and their passwords if they wanted to actually submit their responses to the Google Form. A move that any normal social media user would immediately clock as sus. Louisa Rosenthal was not a normal social media user. She'd sent her login details for her Twitter and her Facebook. A double whammy for social scrutiny among online moms!
In our modern age, where the average internet user's hypervigilance to scams brings them to run to the hills the moment they're forced to confront their digital footprint, finding someone technologically illiterate enough to uncritically give not just one, but two social media account usernames and their passwords to an email address they'd never even heard of before was like searching for a diamond in the rough. A match made in scam heaven, you'd say.
You contemplated what you'd do with all this power. Just think of all the possibilities! Posting awful tweets! Making insufferable re-tweets! Liking horrible Facebook reels! Lowballing people on Marketplace with no intent of actually buying their shitty secondhand chain smoker chaise lounges!
The thought of all the people you could confuse, all the lives you could inconvenience, all the mom groups you could infiltrate, filled you with a new sense of vigor as you picked up your cream of mushroom bread bowl. As you chow down on your well-deserved warmth, let's find something on YouTube to watch while you're at it; maybe some sportsball highlights?
With your soup digested and your morale restored, you dump the soggy ciabatta underbelly of your bread bowl in the trash, discard your tray, and head out into the greater Hamilton Mall. Onward, to find Christmas shit!
- Current Time: Sunday, December 19th, 3:23 PM
- Current Goals:
- Buy some Christmas decor for your house.
- Emerge from a flame war victorious.
- Make a personal enemy of Impressionist Technologies CEO Brad Bedford.
- Get an ugly Christmas sweater.
- Use Louisa Rosenthal's social medias to be a public nuisance.
- Current Inventory: Phone, Wallet, Credit Card, Pen, Wireless Earbuds
- Loose Change: $2.00
[input command]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat

> Go through the crowd and shove the people out of the way... assuming there aren't any fatasses you couldn't even budge.
God, this crowd went deeper than you thought. Time to investigate.
What you initially thought was one colossal crowd turns out to be two separate, just massive crowds: The first one was the line for Santa, which — fuck that.
Moral Stipulation Added: Any line longer than a quarter mile for an event that you don't already have a ticket for is a line you are not standing in.
But what about the other crowd? One half of this population super-cluster was full of screaming kids and their burnt-out parents — that checks out for the Santa photo-ops. But the other half were screaming teenage girls and college age women and simping guys (some of whom were probably trying to pick up chicks based on a common interest); people who were told that Santa wasn't real a loooooooooong time ago. So what was their deal?
Well, the center of the Hamilton Mall was a large seating area that they'd occasionally clear out to make room for exclusive events. This weekend's exclusive event? A meet and greet with Sabrina Marie, the latest Pop Sensation! Come to think of it, you might've seen some people on Twitter hyping this up in passing...
Sabrina Marie was... nice enough of an artist, you suppose. Digestible pop music — nothing you were a fan of, but nothing that made you wanna get up and turn the radio off, like... eugh, Vicarious. The amount of people who desired her carnally definitely made more sense, too: She was conventionally attractive, and unlike Vicarious looked like she could withstand a slight breeze without snapping in half like a twig.
Though you couldn't see Sabrina from where you stood in the crowd pushing people around, enough fans were wearing merch with her face on it and screaming her name that you could tell that they expected her to actually show up.
[input command]
Don't you ever fix your lips to say that, bruh. I'm sitting right here and I got my daughter in the backseat