From Newsgroup: rec.arts.comics.creative

Original message: https://lists.eyrie.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/racc@lists.eyrie.org/message/QAOOK3NCTT6G7ZY4LGVVLRNUK63WIL4E/
On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 4:52rC>PM Arthur Spitzer <arspitzer2@gmail.com> wrote: <snip>

Is it time for some Very Serious People with Very Thin
Watches?!! And is it time for The Ultimate Ninja to do
that whole office lifestyle?!!!!

Ohohoho~

"Stuck Together with God's Paperclip"

The origin of Puts-Paperclips-on-the-Ultimate-Nina's-Desk Lad!?

Five seconds later, I was walking down a corridor wondering where the Irishman
was. It's not really a sixth sense, more like an extension of one of the others.
You could say that I smell them, but you couldn't say it for very long.

I-- wha?

First Up: A reason, and a standing. A boss is out of the question, and he'll never believe a fellow worker would get lost, so I decided to impersonate a random hireling.
Next: Clothes. Jeans and an Achtung Baby T-Shirt ought to do, and shouldn't be
that hard to make.

Hmhm, I see

"Sign here. And how do I get out?"
"You don't. Where are you ... Oh yeah, you're one of those Trenchcoat people aren't you? I'm supposed to lock you up."

Dangit. X3

This, just beneath my finger, is the button that will summon
some Serious People with Very Thin Watches."
"Oh no! Not the Serious People with Very Thin Watches!"
"Stop pissing about."
"Sorry. Well, what do you want in return for not hitting that button?"
"Out. I want you to get me out of here, and keep me out of here. Can you do that?"
"Sure." (Oh no.)

Hell yeah

"Piss off. Any way, my parents decided that a job as a secretary was the
only respectable profession for me, and when I finished High school, paid
for a four year course in Secretarism."
"How do you find a four year course in Secretarisctics?"
"Look in California. I graduated top of my class, got incredibly drunk
the day my results came out, and woke up here the next day. Two men came around shortly after I woke up and showed me some paperwork with my name on it to the effect that I had agreed to work here for a million years without pay. I haven't had a drink since."

Damn, fucked up D:

"What about on your way home?"
"You remember that room you found me in?"
"Yeah."
"See that hammock in the corner?"
"Oh, Jesus."
"Yeah.

Yeah that's what I thought x.x

A Bureaucrat stepped into the corridor in front of us, holding a loop of
red tape. With a practiced movement, he took hold of the end of the tape,
and threw the spool to the left of us. A flick of the wrist, and the spool curved around where I was a second before. I ran straight for the door, not looking back to where Mary was.

DANG. D:

In the real world, as opposed to the strange place that the NTB was trapped in, the effect would, if the observer possessed the right equipment, be absorbing and fascinating to watch. The office, free now of any constraints,
risen at last to it`s full power, spread it`s web of influence throughout the networks of the world, and slowly began to mould the globe...

Oh shit D:

Malcolm Barnstable is a bureaucrat; he has always been a
bureaucrat; he will always be a bureaucrat. He delights in paperwork, in ordering his office and his department, in making things run smoothly; efficiency is the key to life`s troubles, he has often mused. He has never noticed that what he takes for efficiency is merely the efficient ordering of pieces of paper and office furniture, never the actualities of the real world.
In reality, Malcolm is more of an obstructor than an organiser, but he would never understand this; a paper world is, to him, so much more beautiful than a
world of solid matter.

I mean. There *is* a level on which I totally get this.

He ignores the people that pass him by,
sparing only a disgusted glance at a tramp who rises, blinking in the sun, from
a bench; such a creature, so void of order, would have no place in Malcolm`s perfect world.

But wow, no D:

Malcolm walks from Broadgate to the gothic council offices and
looks at them with distaste; too much elaborate stone, too many spires, not enough concrete and straight lines, too many gargoyles and statuettes.

Also fuck u Brutalist >:/ >:/ >:/

At last he reaches the final item, a largish parcel which has been
delivered by a firm called "UNIVERSAL OFFICE SUPPLIES". Strange, thinks Malcolm, I haven`t heard of them. He opens the parcel, and within are all his dreams; an ethereal authoritative voice speaks to him of cold order and organised lives, and reveals he is to be one of the Seven Directors on the Board of Humanity... Malcolm cries with joy as the office makes him it`s own.

Oh that's *wonderfully* disturbing. And kinky.

For most other people, it was the worst of times. Governments started insiduously voting themselves new powers of control over people`s lives. One of the first things to happen was the sudden introduction of compulsory ID cards in Britain, to be carried at all times with a thousand pound fine if caught without one. Student demos were instigated and used by a multitude of right-wingers as an excuse for clamping down on students and other raffish undesirables. Sales of the Daily Mail began to soar.

hahahahhaaaaaaaa
There was a song that

grew in popularity in subways and underground stations, haunting the air and chiming the changes that the world was headed for. An unemployed singer
now sings it in the Tottenham Court Road station, below a part of London where once were a multitude of comic shops, now closed down due to lack of interest in fantasy:

Wait, how fast is this happening again X>

The Ultimate Ninja, scourge of evil and leader of the Legion of Net.Heroes, seemed to be having a particularly bad day, as far as the rest of the LNH could observe. He`d cleared out a storeroom and turned it into, of all
things, an office. This was when various LNHers started to worry.

X3

"Who does he think he is? Maxwell Lord?" exclaimed Cheesecake-Eater Lad.

Heeheehee

It was, indeed, an office. The Ninja had made himself an office.
There were filing cabinets, an obsessively neat desk, shurikens and katanas hung on the wall like ornaments rather than the bloodstained weapons of mass destruction Occultism Kid knew them to be, and a nifty terminal running a spreadsheet package on the desk.

You know, the interesting thing is, he's going to continue having an
office from here. X>

"Nothing`s come over me! Why, I`m just trying to introduce a little more management structure into this organisation. Which reminds me, I really ought to appoint some sub-leaders and work out some office space for them as well..."

...okay well I *did* do that but...

"He`s gone mad."
"Well, let`s be honest, he wasn`t exactly on the straight and narrow before," replied Pliable Lad

heeheeheehee
.

"Turned into a bureaucrat? What`s wrong with that?" asked Lurking Girl.
"What`s WRONG? God, we`ll be up to our capes in paperwork before we know it! That`s what`s wrong!"
"Well, I don`t get it. I mean, I`ve just been made a deputy executive sub-leader. With my own office. What`s so terribly wrong with that?" replied Lurking Girl. Pliable Lad continued.
"Yeah, we get all sorts of perks. Bonuses..."
"Pension schemes..."
"Yearly holiday allowances..."
"Tax breaks..."
Occultism Kid fled. They`d all gone mad.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN...

The swirls of red tape spread around the world. Freedom began to be a thing of the past, and no one cared and no one mourned. It was just progress.

This is such a Gen X thing to say.
Drew "frickin' mass media mergers" Nilium
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