Life Hacks/Make it so she can be your wife

“I want...” you start up, but then suddenly you feel as though something snaps inside you before you answer. “You know what? Fuck it.” You say, “I guess I will go with something a bit wild. How about you make it so that me and this kid can get married?”

“Oooh!?” Loki responds with a surprised but deeply approving grin. “Well! That sounds like fun. Just how young is this child anyway?”

“Ahh… eight.”

“Marrying an 8 year old? Ok! Didn’t know you had it in ya! I’ll have that whipped right up for you so that everyone will approve of it.” Loki certainly seems to like this idea more than you would have expected, and he is practically humming as his fingers fly through the windows of the interface as he expertly tweaks one thing after another. “Ok, lowering age of marriage, age of consent within marriage. I assume you were just looking to have this be for you rather than to have it as a common thing in society, right? Or are you a bit more of a generous sharing type?”

“I… ahh...” Well, he’s got you there. You certainly would like to be able to have this 8 year old bride, but it would probably freak you out a bit if you started seeing kids married all around you all of a sudden.

“Well, I could probably make it so you are the only one who will ever do this, but that might bring some unwanted attention. Probably best to make it so it’s acceptable and approved of practice, but it’s not very common. Let’s see… requires the child’s approval only, but children are often discouraged from this. Of course, the culture will take no issue with you having a child bride. Actually, how about making it a bit of an accomplishment so that you will get a lot of approval for pulling it off.”

“Sure, that sounds good,” you agree.

“All right then, I think that about covers everything. Actually, it didn’t occur to me this might be something you would want access to. Guess that was a bit of a stupid oversight in hind-sight though. How about we fix it so you have access to just this function of the area control?”

“You can do that?” You ask.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “you would just have to be my subordinate in this area. Subordinates can control the location as well, but only the aspects of it that the owner of the area allows them to control. Manipulating laws and cultural norms is not the aspect that had the world destructive screw-ups potential, so it shouldn’t be a problem. At least, not unless you were thinking of moving somewhere else and claiming a different area, because being a subordinate locks you out of that. It counts against your number of claimable areas allowed.”

“Heh, yeah.. ok.” you grumble a bit as though to say “as if I would try that.” After all, Loki DID say he would give you this area after you “practiced” with the hack a bit. “I guess we’ll go with that.”

“Right, le’mme just send you the invite.” Just like with when he was sending you modules to download, a screen appears in front of you.

User: Loki has invited you to become his subordinate.

Subordinates receive partial permission to edit their claimed area according to the permissions the primary owner has set up.

WARNING: This will count against your number of areas claimed for this server. The current maximum claimable areas for this server is 1 Please consider carefully before accepting subordinate area control status.

Accept subordinate status for the area

Decline

You hit accept, and are quickly greeted by another window stating you are now a subordinate under Loki for control of the current area.

"Ok!" He says, "With that, you can edit the laws, society, and cultural norms of this area. You could even change the entire system of government to make it a monarchy or a theocracy if you wanted."

"Wait, how would that look to the outside world around us?" You ask.

"Oh! It is all memory controlled of course." Loki states in a surprisingly even-keeled tone. "If any lifies walk into the controlled area, they automatically think that the way it works here is the way it works everywhere, and that it has always been that way. And then once someone leaves the controlled area, they immediately forget everything about how things were inside and return to operating by the outside world's rules."

You are stunned for about half a second. It seems Loki really is quite the gracious teacher. You have not sensed the slightest air of exasperation as he answers your questions, no matter how obvious the answer would probably be to him, such as that last one that he could have easily presumed you ought to have been able to figure out on your own.

"So then, is there anything else?" He asks.

"Uhh... no, I think that was it." You tell him.

"Well then, if you have any other questions, just go ahead and pop back in. I've got some coding to do now, but after I'm finished I might want to look in on how you and your little... errr... wife? Husband? I don't think you ever said what their gender was now come to think of it."

"Well... that's complicated," you tell him. "You see, she is biologically a girl, but it seems she has been raised to actually literally believe she is a boy."

"Oh! Well, that sounds like quite the find. A naturally occurring case of gender confusion, huh? There are some players out there who would give an arm and a leg to have their way with someone like that."

"Really..." you respond in a somewhat flat and slightly suspicious tone.

"Oh yeah," he says, "there are some who tend to use their hacks to make a lifie gender confused in that way, but it is quite rare to find one who gets like this naturally. There is a whole fetish community that salivates over the concept. No wonder you want her for yourself. Well then, go have your fun. Your future spouse of indeterminate gender is waiting."

You attempt for a moment to read Loki's intent in these words, but for the best you can figure there is not a hint of jealousy or underhandedness on him. If anything, he seems to be genuinely happy for you. Feeling a bit bashful at the whole scenario, and a little awkward for your lack of ability to find some proper parting words, you just settle for a chuckle and an "Ok, yeah... see you... later..." as you slink out the door and back into the corridor with a sigh.

Well then! You guess you could call that a roaring success. Not only do you have what you came for, but as a bonus you now have the ability to modify the local culture as well.

What do you do now?

• Get back to reality and get your visit with Mary over with
• Check out your new area modification privileges

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