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

[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?

[aelwyn_aberration]

Yeah, regardless of how badass the dead were in life, utilizing them after death is like sending a small group of hamsters to a dog fight.

My guess would be the latter. They're probably relying on us to assume the former but... I don't believe the evidence is fabricated either. They want us to find them for whatever reason. I've been on their end of things before, and I did similar to ensure the plan got as far as I wanted it to but never reached the endgame.

I said a few months ago that this all feels very Web to me. But so far none of our enemies have fit into neat categories, they've always been a tangled mix.

[musicdied]

That's the danger of facing off against people instead of archetypes. People are always messy.

I can't help wondering if they were hoping to turn Khalil. The whole thing seems almost like a twisted recruitment pitch. Complete with ADI playing the role of common enemy.

[aelwyn_aberration]

Some people I've talked to have said it doesn't make sense for an Avatar's intentions to differ from their entities but the idea that they're all just one mold of apocalypse fetishizing fanatics strikes me as infinitely more stupid, frankly.

Maybe. I'm not sure how useful Khalil would be as an avatar. I won't be surprised if at some point they try to recruit us though, honestly. A lot of us came already marked by an entity, and while ADI has taken the age old approach of telling us nicely to simply not do powers as they're bad with a capital B, it's never that easy, and it's a frankly hopelessly fucking naive way of thinking.

[musicdied]

That's the sort of stupid that's going to get people killed.

He may not have been the most effective, but he could have been a very good distraction. And less effort than the blizzard.

And I agree. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they already have, with some of the people who've disappeared. They definitely seem to be trying to push someone into snapping and going rogue.

[aelwyn_aberration]

It certainly is. Here's hoping we're not in the crossfire, hm?

You think ADI is intentionally pushing us to a breaking point? Or FYRE?

[That's pretty much Aelwyn's theory too. But she'd like to clarify first.]

[musicdied]

FYRE, definitely.

ADI? I wouldn't rule it out. But deliberately or not, I think they have definitely created some of their own monsters.

[aelwyn_aberration]

Agreed. They have a similar love of playing with fire.

ADI is perhaps the most incompetent monster hunting organization that I have ever beheld in my life.