From Newsgroup: rec.arts.comics.creative

Original post: https://lists.eyrie.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/racc@lists.eyrie.org/message/D64S3TWFAAUFKKR5BQU42CT5Y6E2J5JD/
On Sun, Feb 2, 2025 at 3:58rC>PM Arthur Spitzer <arspitzer2@gmail.com> wrote:

This series has been hijacked by The NTB. (No. Not the
Naughty Teenage Babes! The Other One!! The Less Fun
One!!!)

HECK YEAH. :D Wrath of the Administrator time!

And we've reached the LNH's first spinoff Imprint:
The Net.Trenchcoat Brigrade, which began a bit like
the LNH with a bunch of people on Rec.arts.comics.misc
doing there own add-on cascade type story.

Woo! :D

Also -- the NTB was inspired by a line in Neil Gaiman's
miniseries The Books of Magic with John Constantine saying,
"Just what the world's been waiting for. The Charge of the
Trenchcoat Brigade." So, most of characters in this are
some type of parody of various mystical Vertigo characters
(And some are just completely lifted -- Don't tell DC.)

In particular, a lot of Vertigo and Vertigo-adjacent characters of the
era were heavily influenced by Constantine himself, and their unifying character design element was "wearing a trenchcoat".

Good, eh? Anyway, you can go and read it now, if you like. You don`t
have to read this introduction, which also includes a few words from Kit, who started the whole thing off, an episode guide, the roster and a short tale by Hob Gadling. But if you`d like to, well, go on, then.

Oh I'm *gonna*

To paraphrase Acton Lord, "Free time corrupts, and too much free time corrupts the grade point average absolutely."

Heeheehee

When the idea for Wrath of the Administrator popped into my head late one
Sunday night, I thought "Wow, now we have something to do with all these folks."

Awwww cute

Unfortunately, my life chose that opportunity to explode. Fortunately, so
did the NTB.
When I had to remove myself from continuity, as it were, I was afraid, perhaps egotistically so, that the story would flop and that would be the end of the NTB. Now, thirty some odd chapters later, it comes to a close.

Awwww cute! :D

We now take a break from the current story arc for a one-shot.
This story may change my Origin (tm) somewhat, but c'est la vie.

So it goes!

"Then how come I'm not dead? How come I'm still
young?"
"Look," he pointed out to me, "a hundred years ago you
argued that immortality without side effects was possible.
I simply allowed you to see if you were correct or not." He
folded his hands under his nose. "Death will not touch you,
Hob Gadling, unless you truly desire it."

Ahhhh, so this is just straight-up self-insert Sandman fanfic. X>

"Same as before. Writing my scientific romances. But
it's all changed these past years."
"How so?"
"Well, things went well with Wells and Smith, but when
'1984' got published people started taking the form so
seriously. I'm just glad 'Hitchhiker's' made things fun
again. The sixties were just awful."

This skips entirely over the "Golden Age" and i'm cool with that

"It will get worse and more frequent, you know."
That got to me. "What do you know about my condition?"
He composed his thoughts briefly. "Immortality means
constant regeneration of the cells, Hob. That means a
greater chance of...mistakes."
"Mistakes? You mean..."
"The term they refer to it these days is cancer, I
believe."

Huh. I'm not sure fairy-tale immortality with "death will not touch
you" meshes quite this easily with worrying about cellular
regeneration. X>;

"Well, I hung around the NTB a while ago, and I learned
a few things about the mystic side of the world, and there
were some descriptions of an immortal being who embodied all
that was cynical in the universe." I looked at him
directly. "You are Doubt, of the Endless aren't you."

Ahhhhh, yes, The Eighth Endless. ...*man* all this Sandman stuff hits differently now. @-@

"I wondered what an immortal being would want with a
guy like me, and I think-" I had to look away from him as I
said these words, "I think you're tired of being cynical. I
think you're looking for someone to just hang out with, and
be yourself."

I like that tho. n.n

"Look," I said following him as he walked down to the
hotel lobby, "I'll be at WorldCon in 2093. I'll be waiting
for you." He was making his way out of the hotel. He
hadn't looked back. "You'll enjoy yourself, really."

That's some optimism, to believe WorldCon will still exist in a
hundred years. X>

He stopped a moment, and looked back. "Not!" And with
that he was gone.

IT'S THE 90S XD

He may
have put on a hard face, but as he was walking away, I
noticed, in his back pocket, a copy of the latest Pratchett
novel.

Awwwww

It was one of those days in alt.cynosure, sweet, cynical
alt.cynosure. Where the Internet meets.

Articles were posted along the streets with no semblance of
order; Tuesday followed Wednesday followed August 28, 1989,
twice. Time, a relative concept at best in this city, huddled in
an alleyway amongst fallen net.gods. It whispered in their ears,
spinning tales of threads and articles long expired. Pausing,
Time glanced sullenly over its shoulder at the latest arrivals
off the Telnet Shuttle.

This is a shameless pastiche (I believe of the First Comics series
Grimjack) but it's quite a well-done one.

My name's Stew, but out on the streets I'm known as
GrimSloth. Why? How the hell should I know? It's not my true
name.

I'd guess it's because you answer to it o3o

People looking for me can usually find me at
my place, Munden's Bar. But then, no one comes looking for me
much these days. Not since what happened to that little peanut
fellow with the hat and monocle. Gruesome affair. For all I know,
he died cursing my name. Still, I was pretty hungry at the time.

Wow. X>

When a flame war brews outside your door, there's
usually three options. You could pick a side and start swinging.
Or you could wait for the Netiquette Cops to arrive. I was
in no mood for the former, and I had no love for the latter.

Hell yeah

A person logs into a guest.bot account, for a nominal
fee. They are then free to travel across the net in that .bot
account, leaving their own account safely behind. If anything
happens to the .bot, the user is kicked back to their own
account.

One's user account being equivalent to one's life is really common in
these early stories; it reflects how hard it was to get one in the
early 90s, and how easy it was to be cut off from everything.

"Mr. Slut?" it asked in a crackling voice.
"Sloth."

Wow. X> Just, insulting out of the gate, huh

Burak Racey. I'd heard that name before, but I couldn't
quite place it. Burak Racey . . . Yeah, I remembered him
alright. The last time I'd seen him was in the .Sig Wars,
roasting that peanut fellow.

Hmmmm, "Burak Racey" seems like it should be a reference to

something, but I don't know what...

There, just barely visible in brown on brown, was a familiar
sigil. The Logo. The Imprint. The Letterhead of the Universal Office.
Some idiot must have stumbled across it, and now the whole thing was
starting all over again.

DUN DUN DUNNNN...

Next Week: More NTB Fun with Wrath of The Administrator Part Two!!

Drew "going all the way thru it" Nilium
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