Conferencepod.com Private Chatroom #8024430
Herocious: Is everybody in here? Can we get a roll call?
TheFastestFood: In the house.
DroneCrone: Present.
Telephony: Here.
AmericanFlare: Here
BottleRocketeer: Here
Herocious: So we’re just missing Advocate? Is she here?
(User Advocate has joined the chatroom)
Advocate: Hey guys, sorry I’m late. Blubbles was swimming funny again.
Herocious: It’s fine, just pay more attention next time. I hereby call this meeting of the new Justice Backers to order! Does anyone have any news they want to start with?
TheFastestFood: We’re done with news people. I’ve got what we’ve been waiting for: a MISSION.
BottleRocketeer: DUDE!!! No way. You’re yanking us.
The FastestFood: I’m yanking you into action if that’s what you mean. We’ve been sitting on our asses for like five months. If we want people to call us the Justice Backers we have to BACK JUSTICE.
DroneCrone: Watch the language. We should leave the swearing to the bad guys.
TheFastestFood: This is too FUCKING exciting not to swear.
Advocate: What’s the mission?
TheFastestFood: The Justice Backers theme park is opening in exactly one month. Just as I predicted when those lousy sellouts announced it, some shit people have got some shit ideas about it. You’ve heard of the Livefeed Thieves?
Telephony: Those are the guys who steal important things just because they can… Then they stream whatever it is sitting on a pedestal 24/7 to mock the police for not finding it. Right?
TheFastestFood: That’s right. Those punks have set their sights on one of the exhibits at Sellout Fortress.
Herocious: It’s called Justice Isle, okay TFF? They’re the inspiration for this whole group so if you don’t like them I don’t know why you’re here.
TheFastestFood: You’re so wrong it’s making my eyes bleed. THEIR inspiration was the inspiration for us. Their VALUES. Sellout Fortress is the work of scumbag-traitor-shit-pastry Alpha Dog. He owns all the naming and merchandising stuff now that they’re retired and decriminalized. Yeah I’m inspired by what they did… not by what they’ve BEEN DOING, which is NOTHING.
Advocate: They saved the world and half its environments from the Lichen; isn’t that enough? Don’t they deserve a little rest and a few royalties?
TheFastestFood: The person fighting for the little guy doesn’t get ROYALTIES. They get shat on by the rich and authority-bloated.
BottleRocketeer: What? You’re saying we’re only doing it right if all the important people hate us?
Telephony: They’re not saying that…
TheFastestFood: YES I AM. Don’t speak for me Phony.
DroneCrone: What do the Livefeed Thieves want to steal?
TheFastestFood: the flame sling.
Herocious: That makes sense I guess. They are pretty internet-y.
Advocate: They have the real flame sling at Justice Isle? That doesn’t seem like a good idea…
AmericanFlare: Thas a dumb plan XP who cares about the fs anymore??? It proly doesnt even work nemore u know? Cuz the internet updates and stuff
TheFastestFood: Whether or not it works it is getting stolen and we’re the ones to stop it.
Telephony: Shouldn’t we just tell the Justice Backers or their security people or whoever about the threat?
TheFastestFood: No, because they’ll just put it on display again. It SHOULDN’T be on display. We’re going to steal it ourselves and destroy it.
Herocious: Okay stop. That’s destruction of property and it’s illegal.
TheFastestFood: If we do anything ever it’s going to be illegal. What’s the big deal? The Justice Backers kept illegal shit in their bases all the time: giant robot hands, trading cards covered in people’s secrets, other SHIT. We’re not even going to do that. We’re just going to smash it.
Herocious: There’s no way Cocoa Solid would approve this. We’re not taking the mission.
TheFastestFood: Wrong again bitch-socks. I laid it out like laundry for Cocoa and they said it was perfect for us. They agreed to fund the whole thing. There’s a boat waiting with our names on it and its course is already set for Sellout Fortress. We leave Friday at 6:00 PM Pacific time.
Herocious: Slow it down. #1: Did you just call me bitch-socks? #2: I’m not going anywhere. You guys made me moderator for our meetings and all this stuff is supposed to be run by me first.
TheFastestFood: Moderator doesn’t mean leader BITCH-SOCKS! Herocious is out. Who’s in?
AmericanFlare: Have practis on Fri so cant. Also not going to jail. This is 2 much. Bye forever.
(User AmericanFlare has left the chatroom)
Herocious: OMG did Flare just quit? Like that?
Advocate: I’m glad actually, aren’t you H? They seemed like twelve years old and they kept making up new powers, so they probably don’t even have any. What was it this week? The ability to control the mind of whoever they made out with?
TheFastestFood: The question stands and it stands TALL. Who the FUCK is in?
DroneCrone: I’m not participating. These chats used to be lovely until certain people showed up.
(User DroneCrone has left the chatroom)
Herocious: I’m timing you out TFF; everything is falling apart because of you.
Herocious: Wait, it’s not letting me. What’s wrong with my settings?
TheFastestFood: Do not adjust your sets. I went ahead and made myself a mod too.
Herocious: Nobody said you could do that! What is your problem???
TheFastestFood: My problem is that all of you said you wanted to be Justice Backers. It’s time to actually BE instead of wandering around like half-bolted cows grazing on the emotions of what it might be like to actually be heroes. This is it: the moment we become the fucked-up radicals everybody talks about. WHO REALLY MEANT THE THINGS THEY SAID?
(User BottleRocketeer has left the chatroom)
(User Herocious has left the chatroom)
Advocate: …We’re not going to hurt anybody, right TFF?
TheFastestFood: We’ll go in before they do. The park isn’t open yet and nobody’s scheduled to work. The island will be deserted. In, out, official heroic vigilantes.
Advocate: I’m in. I need to get some crowdfunding going so I can get everybody fed and wormed.
TheFastestFood: You’re beautiful. Phony?
Telephony: Yes. I’m almost a senior and I’m done being a loser. It’s time to put these powers to work. Wow. Already nervous.
TheFastestFood: Nerves tell you you’re alive. We’ll pull it off. I’ll send you both directions in the next few hours. Meet me at the dock with everything you need for this sort of mission. The new Jutice Backers are hatching right now BABAY!
(User TheFastestFood has left the chatroom)
(User Telephony has left the chatroom)
(User Telephony has joined the chatroom)
Telephony: Hey Advocate? Are you still here?
Advocate: Yeah. I don’t have a lot of time…
Telephony: I get it. You don’t want to talk to me. Nobody does. The only reason I’m still here is because Herocious wanted to be fair.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Adovcate: That’s not true. Do you remember what I told you last time?
Telephony: Confident and polite. If I’m confident and polite people won’t hate me so much. I don’t know how to be less needy. Listen to me. I’m doing it now. I need you. Once you get off I’ll be alone.
Advocate: You know we’re just platonic right?
Telephony: I know, but smiling me doesn’t want to admit it. He never wants to admit anything. He’s off eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich already, backstroking in shallow giddiness.
Advocate: He really doesn’t know you’re talking to me?
Telephony: No. This is how it works. He wants this, wants you, but he’ll never say it.
Advocate: Maybe that’s for the best. I’m not interested in Telephony as anything other than a friend… How does he feel about the mission?
Telephony: He thinks it’s his chance to prove himself. Not just to you. This is the first time he’s thought about anything other than you in like a week.
Advocate: He thinks about me that much?
Telephony: Yes. He romanticizes your powers. He has this fantasy where he finds an injured bird, usually a golden finch, and brings it to you for treatment. In this fantasy he turns to leave and the bird, which he thought had been permanently muted by its injury, whistles to him. You’re holding the bird and your eyes go wide. You translate for it and say ‘she’s thanking you for saving her’. Then you gently put the bird down, go to him, and thank him for his decency with a passionate kiss. Then the two of you make love against your bedroom door. Do you have an ironic Diamond Car poster on your door? That’s what he imagines.
Advocate: Oh my god. Oh my god. I haven’t even done that with anybody… against anything.
Advocate: Oh shit. I can’t believe I just told you that. Does that mean Telephony knows I’m a… you know?
Telephony: Technically he does, but he’s not on speaking terms with me so you’re in the clear. At least for now. He’ll only realize it if he surmounts his emotional issues. And that isn’t happening any time soon. He’s too busy thinking about making love to you.
Advocate: Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. You and your… host? Should probably get some rest. We’ve got a mission to prepare for. I’ll see you there.
Telephony: I would say something like ‘I’ll be the twinkle in his eye’, but really there will be no visible indication of me. He can’t wait to meet you officially.
Advocate: Soon there will be visible indications of all of us. We’ll be all over the web. Everything’s going to get better. I know it.
(User Advocate has left the chatroom)
(User Telephony has left the chat room)
Advocate’s Mission Statement (Backing Needed)
Advocatebackers.com
(Trigger warning: discussions of cruel and violent abuse as well as suicide)
Hello all. I am writing this post because I need your help. You were probably drawn in by my use of the tag ‘Justice Backer’. I do, honestly, want to be one. I’m aware there hasn’t been an official Justice Backers team in several years, but I think it’s time that changed.
People started hating heroes like the original Backers when Act-of-Goddess used her powers to cut the world’s exploitive industries off from many of Earth’s natural resources. Her storms stand to this day, keeping oil drillers and lumber cutters from rainforests, coral reeves, and wetlands. The world is still divided on whether or not it was worth it to protect everyone from the monstrous Lichen.
Obviously I think they did the right thing. If you don’t, well then there’s no point in you being here. For those of you who have kept reading, I need what the heroes of two decades ago needed before I can start: money. I’ll take it in any form: online donations, E-change, points from various retail websites… just like the Backers used to.
I know I need to earn your trust first. I would like to be doing this post as a video rather than writing it up, but that’s how strapped I am for resources. This computer is eleven years old. Its webcam is just a little bit of cracked glass, a tiny section of a larger crack that also affects the screen. Sometimes I have to scroll just to make sure a word is actually the one I thought I read.
Rest assured one of the first things I will do is get a new camera so you can see me, the earnestness in my face, and my animals. Since this is the first post on my new site, I’ll summarize everything for new readers. My real name is a secret. My hero name, the one I hope you’ll share on all your social media, is Advocate.
I think I was born with my powers, but I didn’t have occasion to use them until I was twelve. I was at a friend’s house… at least I thought he was a friend. We were playing a board game in his room, Beach Detective Cape Cod edition, when he said he wanted to go grab us some snacks. While he was gone I noticed the plastic tank on his dresser. It was like a little marsh inside, with plush yellow-green moss, a plastic rock full of water, and several crickets with waving antennae hiding wherever they could. In the center sat a yellow horned frog.
I’ve always loved animals, and I’ve always treated them with love and respect. Like everybody else, I assumed they couldn’t talk. There are two ways I can explain what I’m trying to say. One is the rational way where I say that animals can’t really ‘talk’ in the strictest sense, but my brain can interpret their emotions in a way that sounds like words to me.
The other way is to get all figurative, ninth grade book report style. Animals can talk; they just have nothing to say most of the time because they live in a default state of happiness. An animal, depending on the species and its personality, likes being an animal. They like running around, playing with leaves and twigs, sleeping, and looking for food. They fear danger, but that fear doesn’t consume their minds.
The only time they have anything to say is when they encounter something they don’t understand. An animal’s words are their version of our cries of pain. It’s the question ‘why?’ in ten thousand shapes and volumes. They only speak when they’re asking for help.
Simply put: I can communicate with animals, but only ones that have been abused. That horned frog was the first one I talked to. His eyes and his quivering throat told me a story that broke my heart. His name was Cheeseball. The boy who I thought was my friend liked to hold Cheeseball by the back, with his delicate stomach exposed, and hold a lighter to it. He liked to watch Cheeseball’s eyes retract into his head and his little legs kick. He liked to hear him peep in pain.
My ‘friend’ must have been very confused when he came back with a couple of granola bars and pouches of Righteous Raz-Cherry juice, since tears were streaming down my face. I muttered something about having to go home and ran past him. Cheeseball was in my pocket. He must have assumed the frog had escaped, because he never asked me about it. Perhaps he was interested in me but stopped caring when he saw someone he perceived to be too emotional.
When he stood in front of me with that food in its shiny wrappers like he was just a regular little boy and everything was the way it should be, I wasn’t feeling sorrow. It was rage. I’d never wanted to strike someone so much in my life. I wanted to hold a lighter to his nipples until they looked like the dark end of a banana. I wanted to smash his teeth so far back into his head that he couldn’t even grasp the concept of a smile anymore.
I didn’t; I just got Cheeseball out of there. That rage, because I didn’t let it out right there, has been building in me ever since, becoming a core part of my identity. I have to feel it, because the animals don’t. They’re too good for it; they feel only fear, panic, isolation, and guilt as a result of what we subject them to. I have to feel this rage on their behalf.
Just like the Justice Backers, I am already technically a criminal. I steal every creature that speaks to me in order to protect them. Obviously I will be keeping my place of residence a part of my secret identity, but I can tell you that right now there are seventeen animals in my care: ten dogs, three cats, two birds, a squirrel, and a red-eared slider (that’s a turtle for all the people who didn’t grow up with their chubby little faces pressed against the plastic at pet shops like I did).
There is no peace for me in my home, because the animals speak. They ask me why and I have no answers to give them. In a sense, it is a thankless job. On days where everything goes right, where I can make them all forget what’s been done to them, my reward is silence. A night where they all think like animals. I need more of those nights and there is only one way to get them. I have to strike fear into the hearts of animal abusers everywhere. That rage that’s been growing in my heart like a twisted thorny tree for more than ten years, since I held back that one punch, must be unleashed as vigilantism. It’s the only way to quiet the pain.
You’re probably wondering how my power translates into something that helps me fight crime. The answer is teamwork. The communication with my animals is a two-way street, so much so that I can issue directives to them that they will mostly follow. It’s not mind control; they’re my friends. I can have one of my birds scout out an area for me, I can have a dog sniff something out or protect me from an enemy, and I have one cat who likes nothing more than jumping on people’s faces and trying to claw their lips off.
I know you will all want proof of my abilities before you donate. Don’t worry. I’ve got my first official mission coming up, with two other aspiring backers assisting, and I’ll have a body cam so you guys can see what we’re capable of. Until then I thought I could entertain you with one of the internet’s favorite things: an unboxing!
Yes, I know video is pretty crucial to the unboxing formula, but right now I have a package of goodies and no camera, so we’ll have to make do with my linguistic skills. It’s a box of chocolates. If you’ve read your way around the prehero community you know ‘box of chocolates’ can have some very different connotations when it comes to us. This box is in fact purple. It has their seal of approval. It was concocted and arranged for me personally, by them. How do I know Cocoa Solid well enough to get a custom box from them? Good question.
First the quick bio for the people who are green around here. Cocoa Solid is… well they defy definition. They’ve been around the web for years now, touting the benefits of the special chocolates they cook up. I’m using the pronoun they because Cocoa Solid always appears in their videos with heavy strange make-up and a voice modulator. There’s no telling what they identify as, if anything at all.
They are a vigilante chocolatier: all the best wannabe heroes use their creations to moderate their emotions in battle. They don’t put hard drugs in the chocolates; it’s just stuff like caffeine and a few other slight upper/downer type things. Cocoa is sort of the team leader for our upcoming mission, though they’re not a hero per se. Cocoa is providing us with some financial assistance and free chocolates so we don’t lose our nerves or focus during the mission. I met Cocoa by chance, trawling Backer fan sites, and we really hit it off. We’ve never met in person, but I don’t think Cocoa likes to meet anybody in person. They’re like forty, so maybe they’ve done all the meeting they want to do.
Unboxing time! Use your imaginations boys and girls. I’m cutting the ribbon. I’m slowly lifting the top off. Wow. The smell hits you right away. It’s all so rich: sea salt, cocoa, cream, peanut butter, coconut… This box has ten chocolates for me and they’re all labeled and come with little descriptions of when I should use them.
One is called Valor on the Cross. It has a vanilla icing cross on top and the filling is blood red. The card with it says: It’s time to sacrifice. Imbibe the blood and realize yours can be imbibed as well. Take this when sacrifice is imminent; it will dull the pain yet shore up your devotion to the cause. I think it actually has a little blood in the filling, but just pig or cow blood or something. Generally I’m a vegetarian, but I make exceptions for chocolate boxes, especially considering these things can cost like a hundred dollars if you don’t know Cocoa personally.
There’s one shaped like a little skyscraper, complete with tiny sugar crystal windows. It’s called Soaring Ambition. The tag reads: An empty sky can be imposing, but you have the power to fill it. Take this to learn what it means to rub your skin off against the grindstone and feel none of it. Your long hours will be hours of success under its influence. Does she hire somebody to write these? They’re so good. I would read a whole book full of these things. They’re like fortune cookies on steroids. Come to think of it, the chocolates are like fortune cookies on steroids!
A couple more. You can’t ask me to resist. The Swelling Heart. Obviously it’s heart shaped. The tag says: It turns a flutter into a race. It turns a brush of the fingers into clasped hands. It turns a kiss into a ****. Ha! I guess this one is an aphrodisiac or something. Obviously I won’t be taking this one along on the mission. Cocoa probably sent that one as a joke; they know I’m not exactly the romancing type. There are some in here for battle so I’ll just bring those.
The last one I’ll talk about is The Flower that Doesn’t Close. You don’t need to know what this one’s tag says; I’m far more familiar with it than even its own instructions. I told you Cocoa Solid and I have been thick as hazelnut mousse for a while. These chocolates treat my depression. I have a standing order for one a week. I don’t know what’s in them, I don’t want to know, and I’ll delete any comments explaining it and ban the perpetrator. They help. That’s all I need to know.
This is the start of a relationship: Advocate and her audience. I want to begin things correctly, with honesty. The voices of all these creatures… I told you I had seventeen animals now, but I’ve had a lot more over the years. There was the chameleon with his tongue sliced in half. The rabbit who lived with Halloween masks duct taped all around her cage who never knew when the next shake was coming. The dachshund who’d been force fed shoe polish.
Their stories get to me. They worm their way into my heart like the heartworms they never got medicine for. As a direct result I have attempted suicide twice. Pills the first time. More pills the second time. I don’t need a lecture. It’s been three years since the last one and I’m not in that place anymore. One of my cats and one of my dogs were smart enough to see what I was doing. They asked me why I wanted to leave them. They thought it was their fault. You know, maybe my superpower is just surviving heartbreak from a hundred different angles because that’s what these things feel like. I’m a walking ASPCA commercial.
I take the chocolates now and I’m in a better place. I’m solid. That’s why Cocoa Solid has that in their name. Their stuff makes you solid. Fills the cracks with chocolate and a little something extra.
Okay, back to something a little more cheery. The mission. I can’t go into too much detail yet because I don’t want to tip off the people we’re trying to stop, so I can’t tell you who, where, or why. I also want you to have something to hang your hats on, so I’ll tell you it’s going to be covert. We’re not looking to start any fights yet, just do some quiet good that’s outside the white picket fence of the law.
We’re planning for the possibility of this taking up to three days, and I’ll be writing updates any chance I get. If all goes well I should be able to write one each night to accompany the footage. The written stuff will come first since I’ll need a calmer setting to do all the editing.
If all this sounds exciting I urge you to consider giving to my cause. Obviously I know it is now illegal to fund vigilantes, but I also know that you know more than a couple online tools for money transfer that have proven completely untraceable so far. Besides, if enough people give there’s no way they can arrest, fine, and prosecute everybody. We saw that not too long ago when they tried arresting Impala.
Just like the old Justice Backers I’ll be fighting for the little guy, but this time the guy is even littler. I’ll speak for those who can’t. I’ll bark, growl, and bite for those who can only whimper. I’m Advocate, I’m covered in claw marks, and I’m ready to bleed for you and your pets. I don’t bleed for myself anymore.