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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 6/29: Interactive: "Switching Husbands" 6/29: Public: "Switching Husbands"
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| The second pair of Elite 8 polls are now up: [Polls completed and deleted] Jelena Petrovic vs. Kim Walsh Football player (TBD) vs. Chorale guy (TBD) |
| This week I have a number of people to thank for tips and more: Easy, Argamis SilverComet, HayateZero. And a gargantuan bouquet of thanks to the anonymous benefactor who sent me a "heart" emoji and a years' extension on my Upgraded Membership at WdC. If you weren't anonymous you would have just bought yourself ~40 chapters' worth of a commission! Thank you so much! |
| We are now on to the Elite 8 portion of the month's polls: [Polls completed and deleted.] * Chelsea Cooper vs. Kelsey Blankenship * Orchestra guy (TBD) vs. Lester "The Molester" Pozniak At the moment the [Boys' Sweet 16 (#8) Poll] is tied, so I have left that poll open. I will check back periodically. When I find a tie-breaking vote has been cast, I will close it. EDIT: Tie-breaker cast. Poll now closed. |
| [Polls completed and deleted]. * Andrea Varnsworth vs. Band girl (TBD) * Steve Patterson vs. Band guy (TBD) Those are the last polls of the Sweet 16, running through Saturday, Feb. 16. On Sunday we'll start the Elite Eight polling, to narrow the first set of 8 winners in each division down to 4. Edit: The girls' poll is now closed, but the boys' poll is currently a tie and I am leaving it open until the tie is broken: [Tie-breaker cast; poll completed and deleted] |
| The seventh in the series of Sweet 16 polls is now up: [Polls completed and deleted]. That would be: * Cindy Vredenburg vs. Amanda Ferguson * Charles Hartlein vs. Carson Ioeger |
| Again, I'm something like 2 weeks late on giving thanks for gift points. So in this fortnightly post I thank Tal and Easy for their kindness and generosity. Meanwhile, there are two new polls in the Sweet 16 competition: [Polls completed and deleted]. |
| So far I've been publishing "School for Demons" on a MWF schedule, but now I've accelerated to an every-other-day schedule. That's to get all the chapters published by the time February ends. It's 22 chapter long, and on an alternating day schedule it will end on February 28, in time for me to resume regular publication of my own stuff on March 1. |
| New poll in the Sweet 16 competition: [Poll completed and deleted]: * Fatima Zahedi vs. Catherine Muskov * Justin Roth vs. To-Be-Determined Soccer Player Poll will run Saturday, Feb. 9, thru Sunday, Feb. 10. |
| So, Round 2 of the Sweet 16 is done. Round 3 commences: [Polls completed and deleted]. The poll to choose a second storyline to continue is also completed, with "The Copyist" by a devastating margin, both in the free vote and in the GP vote. I have been distracted with other things so I've not thought a lot about where to continue in "The Copyist." I will have a look. If none of the potential storylines grabs me exclusively and hard, I might put up another poll to let you guys pick for me. |
| Round 2 of the Sweet 16 BoM Character Poll runs today through tomorrow (Feb 3 and 4). The contestants are Kelsey Blankenship vs. Sienna Goldman in the girls' division, and Dane Matthias and Lester "The Molester" Pozniak in the boys'. [Polls now closed and deleted.] Round 1 was interesting to watch as it unfolded. In the girls' division it looked for awhile like Chelsea Cooper was going to lose badly to un unnamed "orchestra girl" (!), while Gordon Black spent most of the contest comfortably ahead of an unnamed "orchestra guy." But Chelsea pulled it off in the end, while Gordon fell to an anonymous fiddle player. Standings will be updated throughout February here: "Poll Madness" .Just so you understand the structure here, the winners of Round 2 will go on to battle the winners of Round 1 when the competition narrows to the Elite Eight. [Concurrently running polls completed and deleted.] |
| There's a new poll below—"Poll Results Plus New Reader Poll [2/1 - 2/4]" —but all during the month of February I will be running a "Sweet Sixteen" competition in the BoM Universe. Yes, it should be run during March, but the schedule didn't work out. I'm not going to tell you what it is for. Maybe it's a popularity contest (but probably not). Maybe it's to find a partner for Will in an upcoming branch, or maybe a victim. I'm not going to say. But you get to pick two of them—male and female. I've already got the brackets set up and the contestants chosen (see below, which is the best I can do at constructing a "bracket"). Two polls will be posted at a time, one for the boys and one for the girls, and each poll will run for two days. Including subsequent rounds, this will take up the month of February. The brackets and current standings are below: Sweet Sixteen -> Final Four Girls' Division Chelsea Cooper Orchestra girl (TBD) ---> Chelsea Cooper Kelsey Blankenship ---> Kelsey Blankenship ---> Kelsey Blankenship Sienna Goldman Jelena Petrovic Anita Nuevo ---> Jelena Petrovich ---> Kim Walsh Kim Walsh ---> Kim Walsh Jenny Ashton Fatima Zahedi Catherine Muskov ---> Fatima Zahedi Stephanie Wyatt ---> Stephanie Wyatt ---> Fatima Zahedi Chorale girl (TBD) Cindy Vredenburg Amanda Ferguson ---> Amanda Ferguson ---> Andrea Varnsworth Andrea Varnsworth ---> Andrea Varnsworth Band girl (TBD) Boys' Division Gordon Black Orchestra guy (TBD) ---> Orchestra guy (TBD) Dane Matthias ---> Lester "The Molester" Pozniak Lester "The Molester" Wozniak ---> Orchestra guy (TBD) David Kirkham Football player (TBD) ---> Football player (TBD) Seth Javits ---> Chorale guy (TBD) ---> Chorale guy (TBD) Chorale guy (TBD) Justin Roth Soccer player (TBD) ---> Soccer player (TBD) Gary Chen ---> Wrestler (TBD) ---> Soccer player (TBD) Wrestler (TBD) Charles Hartlein Carson Ioeger ---> Charles Hartlein ---> Band guy (TBD) Steve Patterson ---> Band guy (TBD) Band guy (TBD) Final Four -> Championship Girls' Division Kelsey Blankenship Kim Walsh --> Kim Walsh Fatima Zahedi ---> Andrea Varnsworth---> Andrea Varnsworth Andrea Varnsworth Boys' Division Orchestra guy (TBD) Chorale guy (TBD) ---> Chorale guy (TBD) Soccer player (TBD) --->}Band guy (TBD) ---> Band guy (TBD) Band guy (TBD) |
| So, yesterday concluded a four-day poll on continuing a BoM storyline. The winning entry was "Student Bodies" by a decisive margin. (In addition to the margin in the Free Vote poll, someone dropped major GPs on it.) It took an early enough lead that I've actually been working on it and have chapters already written. GP dividends will shortly be distributed to those who voted for the the losing choices. My goal is to compose ~15 chapters in "Student Bodies," then compose ~15 chapters in another storyline. Together, that should keep my free time occupied through February. So I've put up a new poll to choose that second storyline. "The Copyist" returns (it was a more than respectable second-place shower in the first poll) with some new alternates. The usual rules apply: GPs voted for the winning choice will be divided among those that vote for the losing choices, proportionate to the number of GPs they voted for the losing choices. Second-round Polls "Invalid Item" "Invalid Item" |
| Yesterday I said that I had 31 chapters composed to run during March when I resume publishing. It's a complete storyline, by which I mean it has a definite beginning and runs until it reaches a narrative-changing climax. And although I could spend February adding to it, I think I'd rather work on some other storylines. So let's have a poll! Standard rules: 1. [Poll closed and deleted]: Click on your preferred choice or choices (you're allowed to cast GP votes for more than one), then send a number of GPs through the tip form at the bottom of the chapter that pops up. 2. [Poll closed and deleted]: Here you can cast a single vote. Each vote will be worth one half of the average number of GPs cast in the GP poll, unless no votes are cast in the GP poll, in which case each vote will be worth 1. The winning choice will be the one that garners the most GPs + Weighted Free Votes. GPs cast for the winning choice will be forfeit. (They are paying for the commission.) GPs cast for losing choices will be returned to those who cast them, along with a share of the GPs cast for the winning choice, proportionate to the share of GPs cast for the losing choices. Example: Choice A gets one vote of 9K dropped on it. Choice B gets one vote of 2K and one vote of 1K. The person who voted for Choice A gets nothing back. The voters for Choice B get back 8K (2K plus 2/3 of 9K) and 4K (1K plus 1/3 of 9K). Voting closes on Friday, February 1. |
| I've taken a break from BoM since January 1 to concentrate on non-BoM projects during my scheduled writing hours. But I can't write for more than 90 minutes on it without becoming exhausted with my WIP, so I've been giving the extra spare hours over to BoM work. It's not my focus, but it is coming. In this way I have accumulated 31 new chapters. I mention all this so you'll be assured that, when March 1 rolls around and I start publishing BoM chapters again, I will be able to fill the month while turning my attention back to BoM composition. |
| Ouch! It's been three weeks since I've offered my thanks for GP contributions. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I've never settled on a particular day of the week to make them. Anyway, my thanks this, er, period of weeks go to Easy, Manga360, and Achillesredux for the points they've sent me. I'm also grateful to those who have contributed posts to the "BoM/TWS Message Forum" . I've had some great conversations via email, and I'm still glad to have those, but it's also nice to have a place for those readers who've talked to me to talk to each other. |
| I find WdC a baffling and confusing place. That's my explanation for not knowing I could create a dedicated message forum here, and I'm sticking with it. Anyway: "BoM/TWS Message Forum" The tl;dr: I found someone online wishing there was a place to talk about BoM. So I decided to make one. The longer explanation is in a pinned post at the above-linked forum. |
| I really enjoy posting stuff, and not having something to post has been driving me nuts. So I went looking and found something I think will keep things semi-active here for next few weeks. "Invalid Item" (public) / "School for Demons, Chapter 1" . I'll be serializing it over the next few weeks, publishing chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This should take up the next six weeks, which will bring us close to the start of March. It was one-third-written when found it last week, and I'm finishing it up while giving my intended WIP a bit of a rest. It's not a BoM story, except by convention: There's a section of the interactive where Will finds a book full of stories and novels, and it's a story reprinted in that anthology. Some cautions: First, it's pretty close to being straight-up pornography, much more so than features in BoM itself. That's because it's inspired by a bit of hentai I found a long time ago, one of those rare pieces that actually had the rudiments of a story. I liked the idea of the story, but wound up dragging a lot of the rest of it with it as I adapted, rewrote, and expanded that idea. It just seemed the natural thing to do. Second caution: I know nothing about Japanese culture, nor do I have anything like a handle on its styles. But along with the pron came dragging a kind of narrative and conversational voice. I am not trying to mimic anything, and my ignorance of anything to do with Japan is woeful. But as the pron came, so too did a kind of voice. Maybe it should be read as an extremely incompetent translation/adaptation of something genuine. Third caution: It features some of the nastiest characters I have ever conceived. It may be hard to stomach simply because the characters are so horrible. It's a work of satire, and not in the pleasant SNL "ha ha, we're having fun making fun of silly people" kind of way. No, this is satire in the classical sense of "caricature something already despicable in the grossest, most hateful way you can." |
| So I said I'd pop in here occasionally during the hiatus, just to keep my hand in. I don't have any new chapters to share, but contra my original intention I actually have kept writing BoM chapters, though at a very slow pace. I've a spare hour early most mornings where I can do some writing, and since BoM doesn't take a lot planning out or brainstorming, I've been doing some BoM stuff during that hour. End of the day, when there's a big block of time, is when I've been doing the other stuff, and because the two writing times are so firmly segregated, I'm able to do two projects at once. But as I say, it's slow going, so I've only written seven more BoM chapters. But I like what's coming out, and I'm pretty sure I'll have something worth publishing on March 1 when I return here. |
| The name "Fredric Brown" probably doesn't mean much to you guys. He was a pulp writer in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, across a number of genres: crime-mystery, horror and science fiction. He is probably best known for writing the short story that was adapted into the Star Trek (original series) episode "Arena." ** I recently read an anthology of his short stories and his novel "The Mind Thing." He's quite good, especially when he's being blackly humorous, which is quite often. He also wrote lots of short-shorts, which makes it easy to consume a lot of his stuff in a short sitting. Anyway, I mention him here because I have the strong impression he had a possession fetish. At any rate, it's a motif that shows up more often than would seem otherwise likely. IIRC, around six of the short stories in The Fredric Brown Megapack featured possession, and the novel The Mind Thing is about a body-hopping space alien trying to arrange an invasion of Earth. If possession fiction is your thing, this is someone you should check out. Though fair warning should be given (as I know the audience for this kind of thing): there's no TG action (it's usually aliens doing the possessing) and animals feature as the hosts. ** I gather there's a vexed story about this claim. According to what I've seen on line, the writer of the Star Trek episode had never read Brown's story, and it was only after other members of the writing staff pointed out the similarities that the decision was made to credit Brown as the adapted author. This is probably one of those situations where it's best not to inquire too deeply into the actual facts. Suffice it to say that ST's "Arena" is so much like ST's "Arena" that an "adapted from" claim is entirely plausible. |
| This week I get to thank smitch, Kenny, Achillesredux, and Easy for some GPs. You make me blush! |
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