The four heroes were surrounded by the dread Denton Aces as the masses came to the crack in the sky. The cuortier saw them first, standing off like flashing knives against a hungry darkness.
Marian held up a pulsing ball and a whistle, preparing for a hail Mary. The Arm was charging her blaster. A few trickles of glowing blood dripped from her arm. Maybe she could overload them with enough power. Maybe she didn't believe it, but she was going to do it anyway.
Faust was preparing the last of those few bombs they had brought. They thought of those great last stands in the world outside the digital, at the Paris commune, the Spanish Republicans against the fascist Franco, the barricades of Ankh-Morpork on the glorious Fifth of May, the Battle for Seatlle, glorious fights for justice.
They then thought about how they all died or were crushed in the end. They thought no more of that and readied a bomb.
The populace looked at horror, their heroes surrounded. If those with the power to help, those fighting in ways they never could, couldn't fight back, how could they resist, the tides of violence, the guns of CLEAR? Could they? Could they?
A cruel mocking laughter came from the skies. It was Maiden Heaven, on her pulpit, laughing shockingly well for someone with a large chunk of their right side blown off.
"You ssee! CLEAR is inevitable! Violence for violence is the rule of beasts, and we are all beasts upon CLEAR's web!" She waved her hand, like Moses behind a black sea. The others parted. Only the courtier remained.
Heaven looked down, annoyed. She would deal with this one after the rest. She continued with her speech
"Go home! Remember this day! The day you were reborn in truth, into a CLEAR life! To be independent is to be subverted, is to be consumed, is to be killed! To be CLEAR is to be-"Â
She didn't get a chance to finish that sentence. Her pulpit was blasted, on the side where she wasn't bleeding pixels. And it began to fall down, down, down as the courtier looked up.Â
Great wings beat against the thing. A voice, at once like a child and like a dragon "Sorry I'm late. Did I miss anything?"
"No, you are right about on time." Kolorbarr said. The Dragon soared downward. Shards of the dome dropped through glassy towers as he lowered himself.Â
The light from his eyes were like server contacts, and the winds from whipped from his wings like a zeitgeist. The heroes and the crowd braced themselves. The beasts. the Aces, dumbly stepped forwards into the wind, seeing the great savior as just another enemy.
His name was Birdhouse. He remembered this, as the fires of memory burst from his great jaws. The name was a memoir, he was a house, a place that had seen many cycles. From not simply the dawn of this net, but others before, in this world and others.
He remembered the darkness. The many deaths before, the communities gone dark, the connections lost, the lives lost. As above, so below. At once the darkness was pierced by light and howling, as the Denton Aces began to melt under its weight.
Maybe this time it would be different. Maybe this time they'd win. The Aces melted too quickly to explode as the first of their number did. In its place there was light, in pillars.Â
But, even if they died, as they had died before, and may die again, they could at least save somebody. And the fight continues ever on. And the pillars of light pierced the dome like swords into the howling darkness..
...Birdhouse looked around. There were currently craters where the Aces formerly were. His friends looked... not in the best shape, all messed up if you wanted to put it bluntly. The coward Maiden Heaven was currently engaged in "tactical retreat," IE getting the hell out of dodge. And the populace, the courtier included, were confused.
The dragon awkwardly gave a wave of their shining claws. The courtier gave an awkward wave back, a few others in the audience did as well. "...Hi ...I'm the ship here to pick you up. Apologies for the entrance, it's the best I can do." He laid down, with his mouth open. The audience looked a bit more concerned.
:"Don't worry, it's safe, I've done it a bunch of times!" Kolorbarr piped in, omitting the times she'd had to get in from the outside because they'd forgotten the time of departure. Nobody moved. And then, a few of them did. The courtier included, at the front. Maybe they could get out of here. Maybe they could, somehow, be free again.
Until...
-----------------------
CLIFFHANGER! It seems wrapped up, what trouble could meet us, it seems all wrapped up.
Also, shoutout to my friend The Hungry Reader, who donated some pics of his Trypticon figure to make the head of Birdhouse. Birdhouse also takes some inspiration from the book he co-wrote with another friend, Glumdrop, Joy Traveller!
It's about a lot of things, the end of the world, the tragedy of one singular family, artificial life and how it can go wrong, online friendships, and the strange anomalous game console that brings us all into it. It's also free, extremely good, and saying more would spoil it, so go read it!
Tho, the resemblance is lose, at least in terms of backstory, but I will say it's there, and I will note that this iteration of Birdhouse may relate to one specific thing in our world: Cybersyn. Look it up, if you don't know.
The name is actually based on a song by the reader's favorite band, They Might Be Giants, more specifically Birdhouse In Your Soul! Which, is both a riff on their role as a transport, and also as a riff on the idea of that birdhouse as a refuge from The Horrors, the place where you keep those lights the world's snuffed out, a thing looking more and more appealing these days.
Since I can't think of as many digital rights orgs to mention, I'll give a couple of shoutouts. Techdirt's a great website for keeping up with these fights and the various bullshit politicos are trying to pull against the open net, and if you want to help out with the current unmitigated horrors in Palestine, because these horrors are generally all connected, Operation Olive Branch is an amazing org working to help people here.
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
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Bored. Bored bored bored bored. That is what The Arm was,waiting outside the walls of the city.Â
She hadn't had the stomach for the trash-tubes that Marian did, and everyone else was on other jobs, so here she was, stuck waiting on the hills of the information superhighway while the city sat under its "protective" dome like a gleaming diamond abcess.
"I don't think it's going to work this time," the Arm said to her contact through the package. She was playing a game of Super Mario War on it against her contact to occupy her time until the big ka-boom.
"Howcome?" the contact asked. His voice was a two-tone thing at once, sounding like a young boy and a rumbling dragon layered atop each other. "You trust me, and I presume you trust you, and Marian's good at what she does.."
"Firstly kid," the Arm interrupted "I don't trust me. Never have, never will. Second, Faust always fumbles the bag on jobs like these."Â
The line fell silent for a moment. The Arm narrowly missed a jump on her forehead as her contact leapt past her... to find a 1-up.Â
"Firstly," the voice said, "They're the ones who do the least-fun most-important parts of it, and they've only failed twenty-five percent of the time." The contact's Mario landed on the head of The Arm's "Secondly, you call me Kid every time you're a doomer about these things, I'm older than you by a wide margin."
"I know, I know" she said. A shit-eating grin spread on her eye as she leapt on her opponent's head. It was a trade. "That's why I'm here, ain't I? Plan's still on, I'm still here, I just think it helps to be realistic."
"You mean cynical."
"The fact you think there's a difference is why I keep with ya." she retorted. She made a jump, now her contact was one down. But the plan was still on. Marian distracts them, Faust sets them up the bomb, when a hole's blown in the dome, she; the Arm picks off the elites they do send, then her contact brings in the cavalry to usher out the folks Faust n Marian get on the bus (also her contact) and hopefully the ol' lady doesn't have to get involved too much. She's been through enough as it is.
Waiting here, it was a bit like the old times, her waiting alone for a fight against overwhelming odds. But, it was never a willing fight. In lightless times, one believes that hope rides alone.
 But hope dies alone too. But maybe, just maybe, she could believe for a moment they could win. With a little help from her friends...
...Game, set and match. The game between her and her contact was over. But who won didn't matter. Because the real game was just afoot, with a slash of claws, and a baleful, howling, cackle...
-----------------------------
It's another character! She's named after Here Comes The Arm from The Protomen; and the aesthetic; themes and implied backstory kinda flow from there. Not that much to say, at least not before tomorrow's entry...
Today's org is, well, it's a couple of people actually. Namely, NSFW Journalist Ana Valens and NSFW artist Dieselbrain are right at the forefront of this fight against payment processor tyranny and the whole age-verification fight that motivated this, So if you wanna keep abreast of the issues and learn what to do, they're probably your best shot. Tho, given their other areas, probably not at work, but still.
Also, as per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator… Â
There was a roar first. Not of the living, no. But it was not of the dead, simply a roar those not truly alive. Amongst the pits, one great pit yawned from the earth like a wound, right underneath Birdhouse's feet.
Immediately Birdhouse jumped back, wings flapping. Something big was coming. Something terrible.
Out of the rift clawed humanoid figures. Exquisite corpses of glistening wireframe. Marian peppered them with magnetballs. No good. Still they came.
The Arm let out one great blast from her cannon through the swathe. She'd still been charging it the whole time. It never could have ended that easily. It never did. Glowing ichor seeped from it as she let the great gout of telluric fire through the horde. Still they came, in greater numbers.Â
A light like darkness turned into the sun came from the pit. Still the horde came. Birdhouse got to his footing and began to breathe his beam. He knew what was coming. What was always coming. As did Kolorbarr Faust. He simply prepared his bombs. He knew it wouldn't be enough. They knew they had to try anyway.
And with that, a thing calling itself a god came from the pit.
Like a spear through the world's side, it emerged. Like the light of a wormwood star it shone, flames like the fires of Moloch. Through the crowd of civillians, spines of light impaled, seemingly at random, nails through the hands of the world.Â
The courtier looked around into the crowd. Some members began to panic. Some began to fish for whatever items they had, defiant in the face of death. Neither factor determined whether they were spared. It did not notice her. Why would a god care which hands were broken, in its sacrifice.
The thing opened its great eye like the moon turned to blood, red tears dripping like the life of a dying sky, and it spoke but a single word.
NO.
It could speak more. It had in the past. But why did it need to. It had said all it needed to say to these... children. These narcissists without gratitude, who spoke of freedom when what they wanted was a state of violence.Â
There is no freedom, a lie told by those who wish to destroy or control without limits, only domination in chaos or domination in order. And it knew the rabble had made its choice. And it must be corrected.
The bombs were thrown at the eye. And they simply... did not activate. They simply fell to earth, inert. Magnetballs and arm-blasts were fired and consumed into the greater light. Birdhouse tried to right themselves, but the digital corpses swarmed it like ants.Â
Flames like nooses whipped from the arms towards the heroes. They tried to doge, but they did not run. And so there was no pity given.Â
The string wrapping around The Arm was first. There was a vision in her mind. A city of nothing. No villains to fight. No heroes to join. Nobody to save. Just death. And the sun setting forever, and the stars winking one by one. And her alone, unable to save anyone.
For Kolorbarr, it was nothing but heat. Not fire, simply heat, the heat of death. The heat of a server working itself an inch above death, nothing more, nothing less. They were a part of the process, but they could not create. They had to keep working, keep working but with nothing to do, just maintanance. All their works rotted in the background. Was this it? Was this how it would be forever?
Marian could not be swayed by the darkness, no visions of a personal hell or working the dark satanic mills came to her. But there was a numbness creeping in. Legs that could not leap, arms that could not grab. Eyes that could not see, even as she frantically looked for something, anything in the thing's grasp she could take to stop it.
And it could not trap Birdhouse. Even as the un-alive swarmed him, he struggled through, crushing them between joints as he could, rushing forward even as tendrils of flame tried to hold him, jaws open to bite down upon this thing, this thing calling itself lord of the world.
And that Lord of the World looked upon him.Â
There were many things it disliked, found disdainful. A smaller number of these it hated. An even smaller number it loathed. And yet, one of those things it loathed was right upon it. Tendrils of fire lashed around the jaws. blood spewing from them as it grabbed on, both sides, to prevent this mind from speaking.Â
And yet, this thing calling itself a god, CHANNEL CLEAR, said one word:Â
WHY
Birdhouse did not answer. He did not attempt to answer. He had said all that needed to be said. Perhaps all that would be said, even as he bit down. Even as the ichor sparked from his jaws as they were pulled apart.Â
The courtier saw this. Saw the heroes near death. Saw the triumph of a thing not of feath, but of un-life, of anti-life, of the chains of fire and fire of chains, and the did the one thing she could do.
She ran.
Forward.
Too fast for the corpses, too fast for any distracted chains of fire, faster than the eyes of God, faster than the speed of hope.
And as she ran, she leapt, up the ramp of digital un-life, up the aether of the digital world, up to the fading lights of nodes like stars above.
And let out one single punch, from hell, like lightning.
And the thing calling itself a god began to bleed.
-----------------------------------
SO, here's our big bad! Shoutout to Rango2001, who's Pile of Dead Bodies prop for DAZ was crucial in making the digital un-alive, which I retextured with wireframes and did several renders of to make the pile for it to emerge out of.
The design, of course, is heavily inspired by the Shinichi Shimomura 02 from Kirby along with those cross-shaped blasts from that one Evangelion angel, tho I hope it feels unique regardless.
The personal philosophy of CHANNEL CLEAR, what snippets I gave of it, was actually based on theideas of David Golumbia, in particular his shitty book "Cyberlibertarianism," where he basically treats internet freedom activism as a right-libertarian plot to undermine the rule of law.
Reading it, it becomes clear he treats anarchism and the broader left-libertarian idea sphere it's a part of as interchangable with right-libertarianism, with a very Hobbseyan view of power perversely welded to viewing the state as the only legitimate form of democratic action, and he fucking hates online communities...
...As did the person who reccomended that dogshit book to me on the DSA forums; because they view online communities as a tarpit, I see you you dipshit, you owe my working class creative online friends money in the eyes of god. But I digress..
I also based that fucker on Yasha Levine, who has similar opinions combined with the idea that the internet is inherently an instrument of control due to its millitary roots (This guy clearly has never heard of "the street finds its uses for things") and also published a hit piece against the EFF in the Baffler accusing them of being a tech industry op, which I'm still fucking angry about.
Levine is, unlike Golumbia, sadly not dead. He's also apparently (tho I've heard some quibbling about it) a fucking Nazbol, which like, oh gee, there's a surprise.
And, since this is a part about an ultuimate villain, I'll post less an org and more something to watch out for. Specifically, the bills BLOCK BEARD and FADPA. They're just in their beginning stages in Congress, but they're more or less the new SOPA/PIPA, the return of an old foe.
So, the tiem to prepare is now, because if we get caught off-guard well; it'll be yet another FOSTA-SESTA, and we all know where that lead...
...Also, for the record, the name isn't after a song, but rather a radio conglomerate, Clear Channel. They're now known as I Heart Radio, but back in the day they bought up a bunch of local stations, gutted and enshittified them, and crucially pushed them heavily to censor shit; with what happened to the Dixie Chicks being a big example.
I'd thought of the name ages ago, felt it was good for a CQ-verse villain, but hadn't gotten the chance to use it yet. But now I have. Tho, again I wonder, where is CQ? What could have happened to her?
The mind wonders...
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
The courtier had left the place of employment with the package as swiftly as she could, which was somehow more and less swiftly than she would have liked.Â
She hadn't always been like that. She used to like waiting as the message processed, there were so many things to do there, messages from both the net and the world above, the creators, and so many little things to do.
In all fairness, the messages were still there. Programs begging for help as their nodes were deleted one by one. Humans rallying cries for donations, as they could barely afford the things to keep them alive. Rallying cries for doomed efforts to save yet another server from being turned into a virtual police state. Humans begging for aidÂ
There had been darkness there, but never like this. Most packages that could help, however small, were taken by the regime. Either for destruction or for repurposing. Ugh.Â
Repurposing was once a source of joy of theirs, clipping, sampling, leaving that original no worse for wear. But she kept her head down now to avoid the goddamn posters, hanging on the empty spaces where remixes and manips once lived.
There were a few on the side of the building, messages on repurposing as the original sin, the sin empoweing the regime. She thought it didn't matter that much with the noose around their throats, why else would they let them keep it up. But god she could see why they hated it now, with the much larger billboard of the regime hanging over the building, showing one of their shining warriors heroically eviscerating an unarmed civillian.
She would have vomited if she could. As it is, she kept her head down, and started running to bring that package...
...Only to be stopped by a the sound of an explosion. Followed by the explosion of an explosion. And someone else running  very fast in the other direction. More specifically, a funny little program looking nothing more like a two-tone witch, running right in her direction.
The two-toned mage was then promptly followed by a horde of Electroshocks, She waved her hand behind her as she ran. A purple, crackling sphere whizzed out there with a pulsing whistle like a wind through a haunted castle. When it hit the lead Electroshock, the thing exploded, the fallen frame barely hitting the ground before its compatriots trampled over it to follow the witch.
Who was headed in the same direction as the courtier. Shit, fuck. The courtier knew when these sorts of things happened the electroshocks liked to disperse and bust heads for anyone who stuck around. She also knew that if she; a courtier running very fast with an unknown package, retreated she'd probably get it even worse. So she decided to follow the witch. She seemed to know what she was doing.
More violet magnet-balls whizzed out of witch-program's hands  slightly curving in a way the Electroshocks' blasts didn't. From corner to corner the courtier and the witch ran, snaking as the balls miet their mark and the electroshocks left only fractures in the surrounding towers. The witch looked at the courtier and smiled; as much as a thing with only eyes could. She smiled back, as a thing with only one eye could
The alleyways lit up with the sound of footfalls, as the energy whipped through the air like fieworks. , and for the first time in a long time, the courtier had felt truly alive.Â
She felt that strong and hard enough that she almost didn't notice the ongoing cliff, the result of construction abandoned for the regime's De-construction. until it was too late to turn away. The witch saw it too as they ran closer. She held out her hand.Â
The courtier grabbed it as the Electroshocks sped towards them as they reached that barrier...Â
...Only for the witch to leap back up, like a rocket to heaven, backflipping above the mob as they ran forth into the abyss. The Courtier, not such an accomplished leaper, was very accomplished at holding onto precious things in precarious circumstances. So she held on, despite the ragdolling as she landed.
She picked herself up with the (thankfully undamaged) package and looked at the witch. The courtier said "..It's a bit weird to ask, but, what is your name?"
"Sister Marian!" She chimed in, in a sweet chirpy voice. She was taking athread out of the jagged edges of the clfif. That particular brigade of Electroshocks wouldn't be  crawling out of there for a while.
"You... know you can't take them all on, right?" the courtier said. She'd delivered some things to their halls, seen the massed armies. What had fallen down the pit wasn't even a fraction of their numbers. The thought ate away at that hope she'd gotten back. It always did.
"I know that silly!" Marian took the thread she'd found, and fanned it out into something like a fist of green vector-graphics straw, "That's what my friends are for!" She looked into the sky. "ohmygosh, you're almost late for your package! And I gotta be off too! Got some important importances to attend to!"
And with that, Marian pulled out a glowing purple handle from those bristles, hopped on, and sped into the other direction. The courtier looked around. She knew this location. It was just a few blocks away from her location. The street finds its uses for things, it seems...
-------------------------------
SO, another day, another Eternal September. And yes, I am being cagey about the main civvie character's name, for reasons that might be satisfying, but are probably clever only to myself.Â
If you're not familiar with how the setting generally works, the digital world isn't quite a one-tp-one representation of our net. It's more like a magical reality that's at once its own thing taking the shape of our net, but also a metaphysical "shadow" of it from another; more mystic "angle" of our reality. Think a mix of the Darkworlds from Deltarune and the Digital World from Digimon and you've got the right idea.
The character Sister Marian is named after this song, and modeled after Mario for obvious reasons, in a way I'm proud of.Â
More specifically, since Mario was visually designed specifically to be readable as a sprite, I designed her for 3d in that same way. The two-toned look shows off the 3d in a way you wouldn't with most pixel art, the dress means not having to model legs, the hat is simple in a way that allows for a lot of flexibility to show movement, and the eyes; face-void and hands being billboarded sprites means less polygons but with a lot of expression!
I imagine her abilities as being able to repurpose bits and pieces she finds on the fly into "power ups," tho it can often be very particular in which what works, in addition to her notable magnet-ball ability. I imagine her being a big admirer of CQ, given the relative similar abilities.Â
Which, speaking of which, I wonder where she is in this hellish new state of the net. After all, she wouldn't go down that easy...
My org of the day is Fight for the Future. They've been doing amazing work since SOPA/PIPA and are currently working to fight shitty age verification bills and, unfortunately, lost a major sponsor thanks to their tireless work against KOSA, which is basically our version of the shitty age verficatiion bill that passed Britain, and if you know anything about that, you know why we gotta fight it tooth and nail, along with shit like the SCREEN Act and the myriad of age verification bills FftF has been fighting. So if you can send a bit their way, please do.
Also, as per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
There was indeed a ka-boom. Not the one they intended, reaching towards the store-houses and works of CLEAR. But it did blow a much bigger hole in the dome than anticipated, so you win some, you lose some, Faust thought.Â
They summoned a portal. Gotta get close enough to evacuate people. As they jumped into the vortex, they thought. They had a few gadgets on them, but he was a sitting duck outside of his portals, so he'd have to work carefully with the others.
They wished they could have brought some of their big guns to the fore, but with the tubes, you gotta travel light. It's not a dump truck after all. It's a series of tubes.Â
"Holy shit," The Arm thought "the old cobol somehow managed to do it and to fuck it up at the same time. I'll be..."Â
Shit. The bomb was her cue, she's gotta get there! She scrambled off the hill downwards.
The battling was fierce between Maiden Heaven and Marian. Marian was a bout to redirect one of Heaven's bolts back at her turbocharged when the bomb shook the ceiling.Â
"The fnord was that?!" Heaven responded, both wishihg she was able to swear, and hoping the question would distract from her reaching for the switch for the big cannon that had fallen, pointed right at Marian's head.
"My signal ya big doofus!" she said, looking around for a spare pipe. Heaven was still shuffling around. Where was that damnable switch?!
Found it! The pipe that is. Marian found the pipe. But the danged sphere she was holding in her non-off-hand. She tossed it idly at Heaven. Heaven rolled backwards and...
...Click.
So there was that switch.Â
Heaven started scrambling out of the way as Marian warped the pipe into a whistle, the midi-winds swirling her off as the cannon began to glow.
KER-CHOW!
At this moment, more than any other time, Maiden Heaven wished she was able to swear.
Meanwhile the civillians looked on at the hole in awe. The thing that replaced the sky had been wounded, and replaced with freedom, for the first time in a long time.Â
For the first moments, nobody moved. What if the Electroshocks attacked? What if one of Clear's general came for them. The moment of fire was held in ice for one moment, until a green courier stepped forward.
"C'mon, let's go!" she yelled "You wanna die here forever, or you wanna live out there today?" She started running towards the hole. The rest followed, more and more taking her lead as she went. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
Unlike, of course, The Arm, as she got there. Turing knows what CLEAR had prepared for a moment like this. And as if to answer, tunnels beneath the city groaned and shifted as she reached the broken barrier. Creaking wounds yawned from the digital earth as shaking limbs were vomited from a great pit in the earth.
A thing of scrap code and repurposed digital corpses, the Denton Ace. Not a machine of war, for war implies a challenge. It was a machine of death.
A feral howl released from its gun-barrel head as the first blast rocketed towards The Arm. The arm retorted in kind, firing of volley after volley, half-charged, full-charged.Â
Yet, there was no damage. Not a scratch, The blasts were consumed, and the beam kept upon its course towards her. Even as it recharged, It seemed to be getting stronger yet. And the color seemed to be shifting to that of her own beam...
Oh no.
"Heads up!" Sister Marian came from the top, leaping off the Midi stream and firing a volley of magnetic bolts at the creature, right before The Arm could warn her. And now the beam seemed to be a lovely shade of violet. Curving towards Marian.Â
She barely dodged the latest blast. "Hey, it's a power absorber, why didn't ya warn me!" Marian said to The Arm. The Arm said nothing. She was always one to tease at a time like this. They ran, bolts useless. Marian looking for anything around them that could help, The Arm charging her beam, looking through that shuddering mass for any sort of weak point. But nothing clicked, nothing hit, until...
A simple little bomb, a garish thing marked with an old-school emoticon, sailed in a curve through the aether, into the place between the neck and the center of its back. Click, click, click.Â
Boom. Overloading with energy, the thing did not so much explode as it imploded, code melting into slurry, light dripping like wax. And then it exploded. And Kolorbarr walked out near the hole.
"Well, it isn't killing a god, but I'd say killing a dragon is quite the acchievement, no?"
The Arm gave them a dirty look.
"Well, eh, I didn't mean our dragon, I meant it as a matter of speech, I-"
He was cut off by the sharp sounds of creaking earth. A cracking executeable for execution, as seven more tunnels emerged from the earth. And with them, seven more of the Denton Aces.
"...How many of those bombs do you have?" The Arm asked.
"Not enough." Faust responded...
-----------------------------------
...CLIFFHANGER! It's neat I was able to do a chapter that was more giving a focus on the characters I'd introduced, and this format is pretty fun!Â
BTW, how y'all liking them? Any favorites? Tel me in the Comments!
Also, for the record, the Denton Aces are named after the songs Denton and You're Looking at an Ace from Shock Treatment, both fitting with the theme of the Electroshocks and the general conformity vibe of the CLEAR faction. Tho, huh, I wonder who leads it. That's gonna be an interesting answer...
...Also, not quite sure what to put for the anticensorship org today, given this is on a bit of shorter notice, so for this one, why don't you give me the ones you find most notable in the comments! I'll add them to my next post/posts!
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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"If you do not let us do this, we are going to die here!" The little creature said in the hall to the moderators on their pedestals. Their voice wavered a little, sounding like a strange combination of Peter Lorre and Eddie Deezen that averaged out to vaguely Polish.
They took out a loosely organized text file, approximately "break a window" in thickness, one of his more brief treatises. "I have the evidence, clear in text, I have a plan, but we need access to the tubes and we need to evacuate n-"
"WE HAVE HEARD YOUR ASSERTIONS." the highest of the moderators shouted. He paused for a moment. His glasses had been displaced from the shouting. His green cloak moved up to push them back onto the face of his slender metallic face-skull.
"Ahem. As I was saying," the skull-faced moderator said "we have heard your assertions Mx. Faust and decline. The risks from damaging our infrastructure are far too great to endorse your... plan" The veil over his disgust in the word "plan" was as thick as burlap, and just as obvious.Â
Another moderator, with the head of a billboarded corgi PNG, chimed in, "When this... unpleasantness ends, the infrastructure must still be there for us to return to normality. We cannot in good conscience-"
Faust sputtered. "If we do not do this there won't be anyone left within this infrastructure to-"
"THE INFRASTRUCTURE IS THE PRIORITY!" The head moderator shouted "IF WE WERE TO SACRIFICE IT TO LIVE, THEN WE WOULD DIE!"
Faust yelled back, "WHO ARE Â YOU TO MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR THE REST OF THE PROGRAMS HERE, WHAT CHOICE DID THEY MAKE FOR YOU TO SACRIFICE THEM!"
The head moderator seethed, his face grew white hot... only to cool down in a smug, constrained tranquility. "We are elected officials, chosen by the people for exactly these matters. But then, what are you? I don't see anyone waving your ballots about here."
There was laughter, smug and haughty, within the halls. They'd heard it many times before. "Have a good day Mx. Faust," the head moderator said, "and do avoid the door on the way out." Â And the lights turned out and they were gone. And they were alone.
Alone. They were now in a structure adjacent to but very much not a public bathroom. Why did they think they'd even be able to convince the council. He'd seen so few guards, so few means of scrutiny in the place, he should have realized: The reason they weren't there is that CLEAR did not need them.
They looked at themselves in the sorter-mirror. Look at them. Pathetic. Despite all their research, all their nerd shit, they couldn't even save anybody. Maybe the people who said they weren't worth anything were right. Maybe this was inevitable.Â
Maybe, as some had whispered, as haunted their fears in the downcycles it might be good for the people outside of the digital world if they lost, the stars winking out one by one. Maybe their fight for freedom was worthles, just like them. Just like them. Maybe even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter, it would die with their failure right here righ-
"Hey, you okay?" Kolorbarr paused from their self pity and looked to the side. it was a courtier in green, with a package. This was perhaps a rhetorical question, because Kolorbarr did not, in fact, look okay, frayed, fizzling, resolution flickering.
Then, something unusual happened. She hugged Kolorbarr, tight and hard. "I don't know what it is  you're dealing with, but it seems like a lot. I... think we're all dealing with a lot right now. And I know I always wished I had someone by me when I felt like this. So I'm gonna stay with you until you can..."
They hugged the courtier back. Sometimes you don't know how alone you aren't until a stranger cares about you. There was a moment, stretched taut between despair and  and solidarity. Then they awkwardly let go.Â
The courtier looked around and remembered her package, "Oh, yeah, I think this was for you!" Faust looked at the package. Not a bomb, but the second half of the code he had for it. Easier to smuggle in this way.Â
They took it and looked around at the not-bathroom. Thinking. While they couldn't get access to the pipes via the official channels, or for the full plan, but maybe one very big version of the most important kaboom...
...Aha! They took the package and shook the courtier's hand. "Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me." They began to tear out the walls and start working at the pipes.Â
"If I may offer a bit of advice," Faust said, narrowly dodging a blast of data as they started tugging, "It is difficult to kill a god, but one must strive!" Another blast of data came out of the pipes as they tinkered, throwing them for a loop, "Now, I think you should be off, you don't want to miss the fireworks!"
The courtier paused and then swiftly left. They seemed to know what they were doing...
--------------------------------
Another day, another character! And this one is actually... well, pretty heavily based on myself. As in, I even literally used photos of my hands to make his. I think I could unpack that, but as of now, I would rather not.
The voice I mentioned was a weird confluence. I mentioned Eddie Deezen, who you might know as the voice of Mandark as well as the person with the most stereotypical nasally nerd-voice ever, specifically because the character's inspired by me, and my voice, well... there's a reason I was so good at voicing Berdly when my friends were playing Deltarune Chapter 2 on a stream.
The Peter Lorre bit was because, well, they look exactly like the sort of character you'd voice with a Peter Lorre impression, and the Polish bit was because I realized the combination of those two voices would sound very specifically like a friend of mine from Poland.
Said friend, @general-bugbear on here, also introduced me to a quote that I based something Kolorbarr said on, so that's a bonus!
The song they're named after is actually two, namely COLORBARS from the vocaloid artist Ghost, which as their engineer/systems-understander skillset but their awkward sad sack-y weirdo personality if you know the backstory of that song, and Faust from Phantom of the Paradise, which might imply their backstory...
...Well, there's also a third thing, but that's a surprise for another day.
The org I wanna bring up today is the Stop Internet Censorship Discord server, basically a server dedicated to co-ordinating grassroots efforts to fight the various waves of shit trying to censor the net. A lot of folks there are just younger folks and a bit impulsive, but hey, if you have activism experience oyu could help quite a bit, and if not, you can still pitch in or at least keep up on the news!
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
"HELLO, SIS." The houndlike figure shouted stood on the vectored cliffs over The Arm. The words felt gouged into the air, scratched in by shuddering claws.
Before another word could be spoken, she lunged at The Arm from above, energy claws extended. The Arm let out a blast of energy her way, forcing her to dodge, swifly and elegantly moving into a roll across the ground. She stood in a three-point stance, staring death into the Arm's eyes.
"You." The Arm said, spite dripping from her voice. "So, how's it going throwing away EVERYTHING WE FUCKING STOOD FOR."
"MUCH BETTER THAN A FIGHT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO WIN SIS!" The Hound extended her arm. The Arm tensed her body.
WHAM! A claw sprang out from the other arm of The Hound on a chain of bruised light, headed right towards the Arm. The arm dodged to the side and let out her cannon. A shotgun-blast of energy hit right into the cable of the Hound's claw, causing her to flinch with pain as it rezzed out.
"AH, GOING FOR A WEAK SPOT. YOU ALWAYS WERE CLEVER. BUT ISO AM I!" She reached out another claw to hit The Arm. The Arm rolled away again but got hit. Just a scratch, but even a scratch from that claw was more like a gouge, bleeding energy.Â
Only a digi-flesh wound. Thank god it wasn't the cannon arm. She pretended it was though, holding it limply with her other bleeding arm as she charged up a blast. "So, why are you here?"
"THEY BROUGHT ME HERE TO DEAL WITH POTENTIAL PROBLEMS. YOU ALWAYS WERE GOOD AT BEING A PROBLEM, SIS"
"Better to die for what you believe than live to comply" The glow of her cannon was hidden against the ground. The green particles like sweat dripped from her scratched-arm onto the floor.
"I WAS SMART ENOUGH TO LEARN THAT'S THE ONLY CHOICE YOU HAVE IN THIS WORLD.." She brought out her claws from both arms. Glistening red particles dripped from them, as if salivating. "SHAME YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO LEARN THAT."Â
"...If it's the only choice, it ain't no choice at all." The Arm said. She whipped up her arm, the bright glow drowing the Hound's red light. In the split second, The Hound realized what she was doing, too late for her to dodge.
The arm released the blast. A massive wave-motion beam crackled through the cyberscape, right through The Hound. The Arm stood up and rolled to the side. The hound had a huge chunk of her body eliminated by the cannon, pixels drifting on the wind.Â
Nothing CLEAR couldn't fix. Fascists were always good to their hounds.
The hound gave a death glare with her one remaining eye. She howled, "THIS ISN'T OVER." and vanished in a burst of light. The arm gave a wry, sad smile. It never was.
Her comm crackled on "Holy fucking Schwartz, you alright?! I got cut off, you need backup?"
The arm caught herself for a moment, re-rezzing with a wry smile." Nah, just a whipped dog. I'm gonna need a bit in medbay after this. Also, you owe me another match, best two out of three."
She gave a sad, low laugh... and then she remembered, "And also I'm gonna need Faust with the fucking bomb, where the fuck is he?!"
So, yet again, a more direct followup to yesterday's story! The namesake of our villain is actually another Protomen song, The Hounds, fitting for a villain like that. Tho, god wrt the old CQ-verse stuff, I actually do have another villain named after this song. Maybe a connection? IDK.
And yes, I did base her "compliance is the only choice we have" idea on Jason Pargin, because fuuuuuuck that guy. The cynicism of compliance really is a slow poison, isn't it?Â
The org I wanna bring up today is the ACLU, AKA The American Civil Liberties Union. Who, while they've done some... things in the past for the sake of consistency, in general they have a good track record in regards to these issues of speech, and they probably should given they've been doing this for a fucking century!
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
[A floating polygonal figure with an eclipse-like hole for a head floats into a techno-nightmare pulpit A loud discordant music begins to play. sounding like an old-time televangelist's theme with Something Else. A smile appears in the floating figure's head and begins to speak.]
MH- Friends, I have heard there is a cclimate of fear in this server upon the hill! And you are right, right to be afraid! Every node in the sky is a vector of death, every cconnection brings upon a new horror! Roving gang-stalkers, discourse by puriteens and those too-wide-awake, ppornography of anthrophagous anthromorphs!
MH- Tthey say there is death, but I say furtherI I say there is life, far too much of it! Life is danger, life is fear, life is death! What is the solution my friends? We must return! Do you not remember the days of three channels? Few hhave ever forgotten! Things were harmonious then! Return to the cchannelÂ
[A crude Poser model of an old television set, the kind with the knobs]
MH-But wwhat if we could go further? If there wwere only three channels, then why can we not have one! Oone channel! One truth! And that truth we give you, CLEAR!
[The television begins to bleed. Then, all at once, it breaks open to reveal a simple rounded cube with a screen resembling an Aple product. There are no controls on it whatsoever]
[Animations begins to play upon the screen. A skull is being dipped into liquid metal. A brain is being placed into a jar, which is then filled with liquid soap.]
MH-Â CLEAR is aaction without thought, yyour body does the talking, we do the rest! No longer will you suffer the burdens of freedom, the burden of openness! Close your mind and let us in!Â
[An animation of a low-poly 3d model walking into a heavenly gate is played. An animation is played of low-poly pigs at a slaughterhouse being crucified on an assembly line by other low-poly pigs. All of them are smiling.]
We are but tools in the hands of CLEAR. We do not think, for CLEAR will remove the need! We do not We do not fear, for CLEAR is always victor! We are not the finger that fires the trigger, for CLEAR is the one who kills!
[She manifests a minimalist, elegant "Liberator" pistol from the iar and shoots it into the TV. The TV bleeds before falling to the ground.]
Ooops, did I do tthat? No, CLEAR, did, and you can too!
[She poses while wild applause plays. The appalus is clearly pre-recorded
MH-Â CLEAR is Mental Hygene for the sake of purpose! No longer will your thoughts be muddied and your path winding. No longer will you harm the wrong kinds of people! CLEAR will tell you where to go, and CLEAR will tell you who to harm!
Why, we have one of them right here!Â
[Two Electroshocks drag in a program, low-poly. There is a Blender default cube over his head, which Maiden shatters.]
MH- Now, sinner, tell me your name!
The program looks right into the camera]
P-THE LOCATION WHERE THEY'RE HOLDING ME IS ADDRESS NUMBER-
[A sign reading Technical Difficulties is overlaid onto the image. A small animation of a Jesus fish devouring two Frutiger Aero dolphins plays while calm music is in the background. The calm music is punctuated by screaming]
[When the sign fades, the program is tied up, with a much smaller Blender Default Cube in his mouth]
MH- Excellent! Now we know exactly wwhere you go! Say it with me aaudience! IN! THE! PIT!
[A chant of "IN! THE! PIT! IN! THE! PIT!" plays. This is also obviously pre-recorded.]
[A pit opens up in the pulpit. The Electroshocks throw him in. He begins to scream as his body hovers over the pit and a bright white light begins to emit from its orifice.]
[His polygons one by one are stripped off as he is lowered. His wireframe is untangled and re-knotted. His polygons are replaced by something else. We do not see him compleated before he disappears from frame]
MH- And oh, look at the time, that's all folks! Same time, same channel, the only channel! Tune in or don't, we're coming either way! We're live every day, and if you don't want us, all the neighbors will be in on it too! They'll know! They'll know and they'll take you to see! They'll make you CLEAR, or my name isn't DRESDEN DOLL--
[The "Technical difficulties" sign shows up once again, for a much shorter duration.]
MH-Or my name isn't Maiden Heaven! Good hour folks! And may CLEAR come to a city near y-
[There is a sound of a wall creaking next to her]
MH -Huh, wait, what's that soun-
[A blue and red blur flashes through the air and into her face. The "TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
So, another day, another character! And I'm going with a villain-hero-villain pattern here, for reasons of pacing. As much as I don't like South Park's cultural impact, I gotta admit "But and Therefore" is in fact a good method of storytelling.Â
And this character, well, I did her design as a kitbash in DAZ and replaced her original head with a quick fix later because I didn't like how the one I made looked, but I think she turned out well.Â
I imagine her originally as a real Concerned About Bad Things On The Net-types who went Quisling after CLEAR took over, a bit like all those Democrats pushing the current shitty internet bills even in this current political moment, and also people like David Golumbia (Rest In Piss) and Yasha Levine who think internet freedom is just a psyop for libertarian plutocrats and the many net-killer laws would be Good Actually.
You know, assholes. And yes, we now have a name for the group taking over the net, CLEAR. This will be important later. Her characterization is based on Glorious Godfrey from Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics, and I read the entire run of the Forever People before writing her! I do stuff like that a lot!
And god, while this started as being about the internet censorship push, it really became applicable to a whole lot more current events in the US real quick. That's also why I took the Godfrey inspiration, given his speech in Issue 3 of the Forever People feels really, depressingly relevant.
The name is from a Queen song. for no other reason than it fit for a televangelist-type and because it's a song I like, but her real name was after the band Dresden Dolls, because it felt fitting for it to be the name of a band of a pseudo-progressive who was not-so-secretly a monster all along.
I was gonna have her "real name" Â be Dixie Belle, but I felt that didn't quite fit with where her character was going, so I'll probably use it later for a different character concept.
The org of the day is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who most people probably know so the rundown would be short, but they've been tirelessly working to fight back against most efforts to enshittify the internet, pushing tirelessly to fight back against these bad internet bills, and for real freedom by way of an expansion of the right to privacy.Â
Now, some people like the late David Golumbia thought that they were a libertarian psyop to undermine the Rule of Law. David Golumbia also thought the net should be closed off like other media in a way that would fuck over new-old-web-type small sites, that SOPA/PIPA were good ideas and that FOSTA-SESTA had no significant impacts on the experience of internet uses.Â
I, on the other hand, think that David Golumbia's grave is a gender-neutral toilet because of these things. There are all sorts of different opinions in this world...
Also, as per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…
