[b]Everyone:[/b]

The [i]Anthropozine [/i]group chat has been going off. The entire thing’s set up on an open-source app called [i]Enigma[/i]. It uses solid end-to-end encryption, has the option to scrub metadata out of uploaded files, and requires a password every time the app opens, with automatic logouts after two minutes of inactivity. The [i]Anthropozine [/i]also uses its own local version of the app, hosted on its internal servers, for another layer of protection. 

Using Chattr’s more useful for the casual and the day to day. Enigma only gets used when things have gotten real. Either way; Some of these people you know in meatspace, have real names for. Others are just their handles.

Here’s the situation; 

[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]fuck
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]need to do a crowdfunding
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]Persephone punched out a police commissioner and needed a heli evac
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]worth, tbh
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]footage is live already, if you got any questions. heres the highlight clip. 
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b][file attached]
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]had this on loop for ten minutes now. incredible form.

That would be your fearless leader, York. And that would be footage of Elodie. 

[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Oh my goodness!
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Are you okay??

AKA PromiscouslyFickle, PF is a regular at 3V’s place, usually bringing her choice in partners for the week. Primary school teacher, cancer survivor, creator of a free app that teaches sign language. She doesn’t write in quality or quantity, but she's the personification of warm hugs, fluffy sweaters, and hot chocolate. Vital. 

[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]just speaking for myself, yeah
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]just can’t do expenses for a bit
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Fuck
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]I, uh
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] I had something ready to go on the flog-blast scene coming out of Ares
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] But that seems kind of lame now

NumbToNothing, aka Eli. He/She/They, eternally saving up to turn themselves into a jackalope. Internet poisoned, they’re not terminally online in the way York is; Eli’s a centipede hiding in rotten stumps, deep in the sub-sub-cultures. It makes them a good scene reporter.

[b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] What the hell is flog-blast
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b][file attached]
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]This sounds like someone did BDSM to a drumkit while a brass section watched
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]I mean
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]All the instruments have to be played with fet gear in some way, or be fet gear, or whatever
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] so yeah kind of?
[b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] Huh. What? Why?
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Metacommentary on how all previous anti-consumerist genres got corporatized and stripped of their, like, core messages, so it’s about making anti-corporate elements intrinsic to the work. Like, look at hauntology
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]even though you had like, Mark Fisher being behind the k-punk pseudonym that brought James Ferraro into the mainstream, and Ferraro [i]was[/i] hauntology at the time.
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Mark Fisher literally wrote the book on how capitalism chews up counter culture like hauntology and spits it out but still couldn't do shit about it
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]hauntology evolved into hypnogogic pop and vaporwave
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] and then vaporwave stopped being done as a criticism of the endless recycling of pop culture nostalgia and vaporwave mixes started being used as unironic movie trailer scores whenever they did reboots
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]So, flog-blast is trying to do that to symphonic post-ska but tbh I don’t think it’s going to work 
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]it didn’t work for hip-hop or punk or emo
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]and it really didn’t fucking work for gangsta which was way edgier
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]so I’m getting in while the idea’s still pure 
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Wow what the hell
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Absolutely still post that I’m super into this
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]i’m like three deep into a playlist since I read ‘someone did BDSM to a drumkit’, yeah this is peak hummer
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]just because bigger stuff is happening doesn’t mean the other stuff stops being worth it, yeah?
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]send it through anyway. even if it’s just so I can read it.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Me too!! 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]You’re a good bean.
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]:heart:

No matter the subject matter, the origin of the group, writers are writers. Group chats tend to go certain ways.

[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]back on topic though
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Just watched more of the stream now
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Someone’s got to go deeper on this right
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]“Cops bad”, sure, nothing new, but this feels different, you know?
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Bigger, maybe. 

Nobody’s met Junta personally. He does longform research pieces and keeps weird hours. He’s been a great colleague for November, though, actually - If you drop a huge block of files and data on a desk and say there’s a story worth telling in it, Junta’s the one who’ll find the story and do the writing. If an investigator is a composer, he’s their instrumentalist translating it for an audience.

Still. It means he’s not going to volunteer himself. Not his skillset, not his department. 

[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]i know but i honestly have no clue where we’d start 
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]lowkey hoping the gammons sue so we can find something in discovery
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]highkey expecting that risk is what stops them from trying
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]no complaints 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Do you know who we could ask?
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Maybe?
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]me? 
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]no. 
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]if anyone has any ideas, now would be the time to say it, or i’m fridging this. obviously there’s a story here but if we don’t have an angle of approach it’s not worth the heat. 
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]i’m so sorry
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Can’t we just ask some cops?
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Wait you tried that
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Hmm.
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]look we have a bigger priority
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]getting Persephone through this
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]November, you free? 
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]could really use our surveillance specialist on this one
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]if either of you need anything you know where to ask
[b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]just as long as it ain’t funds because we don’t got any
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Ha. 

That’s where it’s at. 3V, nobody expects you to be logged in for a while, but feel free to join in with your monstrously high ping. 

[b]November:[/b]

The only problem is getting your Headpattr score above the critical threshold to pull this off. This isn’t a big problem, you’re currently hitting 9.4/10. But you need a 9.7. The app weights more recent scores more highly, rather than aggregating your entire work history, which means a few weeks worth of work - and luck - would be enough to get you there naturally.

You’ve held a 9.7 before, but it only takes one particularly bad job to nuke it. That’s leaving too much to chance. This will be a heist for a big score in a literal sense.

There are ways to do this. Doing it legitimately means real jobs with real pay. Fake jobs means fake pay - and the app taking a cut of your transactions. In the middle, a dozen methodologies all different shades of gray. Who is given this task, and what does that look like?

Besides that, of course, there are your two colleagues, comrades, and potentially co-conspirators. 3V is checking her mail, and Persephone needs someone running counter-surveillance. 

Those are three areas to divide your attention - how do you delegate yourself to them? 

[b]3V:[/b]

Let’s talk the problem with sales. 

The problem with Moore’s law is that its outputs were linear and its inputs were exponential. Every time computers doubled in power, the amount of scientists and engineers squared. The promise of infinite growth hit the bounds of finite resources. Technology still marches on, but hardware doesn’t obsolete at the rate it used to. Only worth looking through if you need to replace something broken, or stolen. 

And as a store owner, it’s bad for business to wait for sales on games you’re interested in. Sure, it [i]can [/i]help to round out product, but everything in your inbox right now? Either you already have, or it was never worth getting. 

Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. 

Here’s one. You’re about to delete it as spam that made it through your filter, but it’s got the Verified badge on it. [b]Proverbs 26:18.[/b] One of the biggest prank channels running right now. 

One of the worst people to have sent an email with [color=#ff0000]“We are so sorry”[/color] as the subject header. 

[i]Bird,[/i]

[i]Huge fans of your work. Did this out of nothing but love and respect. We thought you’d been out of the scene for a while, so you must be pretty lonely. And we know dating sucks. So how about we set up a MatchMaker profile for you and take all the hard work out of it, we thought. Play as you for a bit, and then let you know when we found your perfect match.[/i]

[i]You know, like, Catfishing For Good![/i]

[i]We got about halfway through before realizing this was pretty fucked up. This got way too real way too quick. We are [/i]

[b][i]So[/i][/b]

[i]Sorry[/i]

[i]We didn’t delete the account. We’re throwing you the login details to do with it what you want, and we’re changing the account’s listed email to yours after triple checking we got it right. Once you change the password, there’s no way for us or anyone else to get back in. [/i]

[i]Let us know if there’s anything we can do to make it up to you. Name a target, whatever, it’s done. [/i]

[b][i]The whole team at Proverbs 26:18[/i][/b]

There’s a reason “May you live in interesting times” is a curse.

[b]Persephone:[/b]

Mattie shows up at the crack of dawn with a chilled fruit salad in the passenger seat of the rented car. Sweet melon, strawberries, pitted cherries, and a gros michel banana on the side. Is this what Sasha actually likes, or just what Mattie thinks Sasha should like?

Homemade fruit salads like this tells one of two stories. Either it’s a curated list of what the kid likes most, or it’s a compromise of picking around what they refuse to eat just trying to make them eat healthy. You know Mattie well enough to know it could be either. You don’t know Sasha well enough to know which it is.

Sasha hates being made to wake up this early. She hates being made to go. But this was the bloodless agreement she participated in - leave before the firestorm shows up and NBN can make her part of the story, throw [i]her[/i] school assignments into the mix. 

And why not? If it’s in the service of proving you’re a bad mother, then it’s in their interest to prove she’s a bad kid. NBN’s clearly not above trying it. 

Sasha’s half-asleep when she squeezes you in a tight hug, and mumbles out a “Love you” before getting escorted out by your ex. Matilda’s expression and posture radiate pity at you. Pity in the way she looks at you, pity in the way she keeps her arms loose across her chest during the exchange. Pity for the circumstances, for the situation, but more than anything else, for the fact that you had to do this to yourself, that this is just who you are and what you do.

She means it with kindness. She means well. 

When you look out the window at the car as it leaves, Sasha’s face is pressed against the passenger side glass, her forehead squished and her eyes closed. Her mother has to put her seatbelt on for her. 

You got even less sleep than she did, though. 

Check the group chat when you’re able, respond when you’re willing. There’s no question that everyone in it would do anything they can for you right now. The real question is what [i]can[/i] they do for you? 

[b]Meta: [/b]
At this point 3V’s moving into asynchronous posting.