network, backdated to March 06

[musicdied]

Who: Yelena Belova
Username: jelica
Warnings: mention of the following: supernaturally induced fatigue and hypersomnia, parasites, fungal infection, compulsion, obsession, insect infestation, manipulation, bullying/harassment


I've been looking into our friend LovelyRen.

A little bit of background, if you are new and haven't had a chance to catch up on the history yet. Anyone who has been here since October, you can skip down to here. You won't miss anything.

Ren Morimoto was an internet celebrity under the name LovelyRen. She was supposed to have died in mid-November of a parasitic infection she contracted last spring. In December, she attacked ADI with a phone game that made everyone who played it obsessed, and spread a sort of fungal infection that brought out the worst in the infected. She introduced herself shortly afterward, and gathered a bunch of followers in a warehouse to feed to her magically controlled bugs. She was trying to get the attention of someone who had decided it was a good idea to try to show the world that magic exists.

We think she's dead now, but that has not been confirmed.

Before that, in October, we were visited by a girl named Ava who used music to put people into a sleep it was very difficult to wake from, and trap us together in recurring nightmares of dying. Before she left, she stole the phone of one of ADI's employees to send a message on the network:

"Mr. S was right. This was fun! I'll have to come back next year to play with you. - Ava, the Lullaby Girl

P.S. Sorry for stealing your phone, horsegirl67. But I wanted to say, hi. C:"

-

Several of Ren's sponsors when she was alive were personal tech companies that promoted app development, and jailbreaking and enhancement of phones. This wouldn't be very remarkable, except that when I did a little digging, many of them are connected to shell companies.

The most notable one is "Halloween 2.0", chaired by Ava Song, who does not exist as an actual living human being with any kind of digital footprint.

All of them signed on as sponsors about a year before Ren's first apparent death. At almost exactly the same time, she started to be targeted by a concentrated harassment campaign. She's not just some woman who made some very bad choices, and then was recruited by a bigger monster. Someone wanted very badly to get their hooks into her and wear her down until she was willing to agree to be something's magical slave.

Comments

text; un: manji

[canofmanji]

[Most of the information flies a little over Manji's head. Technology will likely never be his strong suit. Although there is one thing that catches his attention.]

what kind of bugs?

[musicdied]

Biting and stinging ones. Mosquitos, wasps, centipedes. Those kinds of things.

[canofmanji]

not worms? and what happened if someone got bit by a bug?

cw: insect infestation, parasites, death, compulsion

[musicdied]

No worms that I saw, except for the one in the game.

People who were bitten were enthralled. It didn't seem to last long, but they were manic, and trying to expose others. I don't know if it dulled the pain, or just made them not care.

That was the lucky ones. Some of the victims who were trapped in the warehouse were eaten. Or infested.

un: timjdrake cw mentions of bugs, deaths, manipulation

[ployboy]

[Firstly, why are so many people against boring, safe usernames around these parts? It's not like ADI made it a secret that the only available network is their's. It's not like they don't have people's secrets on file.

But that's a stray thought, here and gone. There's some bristling on his end as he reads the judgement passed: Ren is only some woman who made some very bad choices, who was willing to agree to be something's magical slave.

It... hits a little close to home. That's not even mentioning the sensation of spiderwebs in his head, the nauseating pause he has to take because. Well. Reasons. Bodies flashing through his thoughts. Anyway. (Tim has to scratch at his scalp and tell himself to not tear into it.)]

What we need to know is what effect resurrection has on the mind.

[In any universe, exhibit A: Jason Todd. Pit madness. Rage. Murder. (And boy, doesn't Tim know a thing or two about murder.) A mission. And then... there's Ra's al Ghul.]

Death and rebirth are what tie all of this together.

[musicdied]

I don't think it's the resurrection that's the problem.

Assuming there was actually a resurrection. Altered perception and manipulation are also a common theme.

[aelwyn_aberration]

If it helps, resurrection has little to no effect on the mind in my world.

But it does seem to be a connecting factor in what turns people into avatars.

[aelwyn_aberration]

This is very good work.

If what connects Ava and Ren are tech companies, and Ren managed to reach us through the network, then that raises some very interesting questions about how safe this network is at all.

[musicdied]

Not just the tech companies. I think there's a good chance Ren used the phone Ava stole to access this network in the first place. It's possible that was the actual reason she came here, to find a way to punch through ADI's security, and the nightmares were just a way to distract us and amuse herself.

Which is a long-winded way of saying "not safe at all". If I didn't think the information I found was left there with the intention of us turning it up, I would have hesitated to post it here.

[She did hesitate to post it, she'd just come down on the side of believing that disseminating it widely and quickly was more useful than going by word of mouth.]

[aelwyn_aberration]

I think even using the network it's best if we work in numbers. I think, regardless of their intentions with us, it's probably against their interests to just kill us all.

It does feel a bit like we're just being strung along through various different clues, though. They left Khalil alive, and they had to have known there's no way he wasn't going to talk given how easy he is to push around, Ava announced herself when there was really no reason to do that, the list really just goes on.

[musicdied]

You can't use the dead. At least not easily enough to make it an efficient plan.

[Because if you could, they would have faced an army of zombies by now. That's just the kind of bullshit Gloucester would be into.]

I just don't like to show too many cards.

The question is, are they leaving clues just because they're arrogant enough to think toying with us is another fun little torment, or are they trying to lead us toward something?

un: freakscene

[cacophonish]

that's really sad...
poor ren

[musicdied]

It is.

And it will happen again. They seem very good at driving people to desperation.

[cacophonish]

so... be on the lookout for desperate people?

[ asks the avatar in the making. ]

[musicdied]

Desperate, trapped, despairing.

I know, it is an unhelpfully broad category.

[aelwyn_aberration]

Don't feel too bad for her, Calhoun. She made your most detested mobile app, remember.

[cacophonish]

oh yeah
fuck her

[ ...SIGH ]

i guess she really must have been struggling with dark shit to make a game that stupid and awful

[aelwyn_aberration]

Probably.

Evil people are still people, at the end of the day. We all have a whole list of reasons why we are the way we are. At some point I guess it just stops mattering.

text; un: mkblackwood

[lowficharm]

I don't know if she required any breaking down. She really seemed to like what she was doing. She seemed happy to be able to be mean to people.

[musicdied]

Maybe she was at the end, and that tendency could have been why she was targeted. Something to hone into a weapon. But it seems very unlikely that the timing was a coincidence.

[lowficharm]

I can get that, too. It's not hard to make the choice of something that will save you when there's no good option.

I feel kind of bad for what I said to her then. So many of these people are just... unlucky. It's not fair.

[musicdied]

I don't think there's any reality where life is fair. The people who suffer most are rarely the ones who deserve it.

All we can do to fix this is focus on finding the people who created Ren before they can ruin too many more lives.

text; un thearchivist

[the_archivist]

Love bombing.

After the harrassment campaign, I mean. Is there any evidence of people supposedly 'helping' during the harrassment? People suddenly spamming her with support and love? Something which might make her feel like they were the only people she could turn to or rely on, no matter how unhealthy the relationship might be?

[It definitely sounds like something the corruption might be involved in. All those tech companies though... that's concerning.]

[musicdied]

Not that I saw, or at least nothing concentrated. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen in private, or somewhere it wasn't recorded.

[the_archivist]

It's worth considering and looking out for.

Even outside the realms of the supernatural, it's a common way of controlling someone or easing them into a cult.