16. Art, Story, and Emotional Hierarchy
Ongoing Newsletter for THE PHANTOM PLEASURE
← Previous Newsletter (15. Paintings and Process)
← Previous Episode (0.2 Applications)
Hi! Sorry for the prolonged silence, I’ve been quietly working on multiple projects at once, plus some commissioned work obligations that I needed to wrap up. I’m completely locked into the 404EVER world now, and will share some new episode panels with you next weekend! But I do have some things to share right now.
I just started a new instagram for my illustrations and comic work, since it’s so different from my usual collage-style aphorisms. You can find my new account at phantom.pleasure on Instagram. It’s a humble beginning over there, but I will be uploading regularly, so please spread the word if you feel like it!
And thank you to my paid Substack subscribers. This is the primary way to support my full range of work, and I want to say thank you at every chance I get; as you make it possible for me to keep working. We’ve all heard this a billion times from a billion creators on a billion platforms, so at the risk of sounding disposably trite; I truly thank you for believing in the art I create.
This was really fun to draw. I can’t really describe much of the process, it’s just a simple pen and ink/ink wash illustration without a bunch of layers to worry about. Even when I added the colors later, I kept it casual.
Unlike the rest of GEO-CITY ONE, people in the GOGG REPUBLIC (An elitist breakaway civilization hidden behind the accessible areas of the city) spawn with EM-PASSES embedded in their foreheads. Supposedly, the entire GOGG society revolves around these tiny, mechanical beads.
Each GOGG Citizen is auto-generated with randomized stats just like the users in common GC-1 Levels. However, they have a set of GOGG-only traits like Pro-Social Response, Charisma, Community Guideline Enforcement, Guilt, Compassion; and so on. This group of traits is known as ‘EM’. When a citizen spawns, the EM-PASS is embedded into the brain, mostly into the basolateral complex of the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (yet suspiciously ignoring the R supramarginal gyrus entirely).
The social status of a GOGG citizen is based on their EM score. It dictates where one can live, what their job class will be, and the quality of items they can buy and sell. To do anything in the GOGG REPUBLIC, citizens have to scan their EM-PASS to prove the level of EM they feel for their society.
Users with a high EM Rating are a protected class, and receive adoration that can border on worship. The prevailing thought in GOGG society is that users with high EM are terribly burdened by their unimaginable compassion for the less fortunate, and should therefore be publicly celebrated and catered to by the less fortunate. Because EM-PASS scores are not fixed, citizens are careful to exhibit the correct level of EM towards their betters or inferiors, or risk losing points.
Halo Lan’s actual EM rating is impossible to determine, because she somehow hacked her EM-PASS to give her a level 99 max score. She might have had help doing it, or used her high INT/MANIP stat to figure it out. Either way, this subterfuge allowed Halo to become an elusive celebrity in the GOGG REPUBLIC. However, her unnatural degree of popularity was eventually noticed by the young powerbroker Colin Atari, who is currently blackmailing her into working for him on a secret mission.
And for a counter example, we have someone like Suze-An:
Suze-An is a GOGG Citizen with an extremely rare mixture of character traits that would have ordinarily guaranteed a high-status position in society. However, this combination of traits also imbued her with an irregular level of curiosity, and a terrible sense that this GC-1 world is a trap; a prison.
With relentless determination and will, Suze-An embarked on her quest to escape, accompanied by her lover; the only person willing to go to the absolute limit with her. Suze-An carved out both of their EM-PASSES and facial GOGG branding so there could be no going back to the numbing comforts of society; forcing them ever downward into the mysteries embedded deep in the firmware of Geo-City One. (Later, historians would come up with the designation, ‘NET EXPLORER’, to explain Suze-An’s Job Class to modern readers.)
With her partner on the brink of death, Suze-An discovered the AEON FORUM, becoming the first person or user to ever breach the site. There, she established contact with 6 Life Support Stasis chambers (Number 7 was strangely empty, so Suze-An used it to repair her lover), waking the 6 remaining ancients from thousands of years of black slumber. Thus, a strange kind of communion began between Suze-An and the ancient citizens from the earliest version of the city.
Of course, these strange figures have their own conflicting ambitions and unique abilities, a chaos which Suze-An must navigate to survive the new layer of reality. Whether or not Suze-An considers this situation as the true world, or just a temporary stage of her ultimate escape plan, is a question that remains…
Much love to you all, and I’ll be back soon with some proper panels and pages.