It hit her square in the nose. It didn’t hurt—it pinged like a video game collision, and a tiny floating appeared above her head.

The Plushie Uprising

Lena dodged a flying LEGO brick (not technically a toy, but the game seemed to have expanded its definition). She grabbed her phone. The screen was now the game’s main battleground, showing her avatar—a pixel version of her teenage self—surrounded by toy soldiers.

The screen flickered. Her living room lights surged bright, then died. In the darkness, her son’s pile of stuffed animals began to glow with a soft, pixelated blue light—the exact shade of old Facebook’s interface.

And somewhere, deep in Facebook’s servers, a rubber chicken counted down to zero.

She jabbed .