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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."Student Bodies: Transfer Students" : Reboot of "Student Bodies."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/Contests None The Latest 6/30: Interactive: "Golems Three-ish" 6/30: Public: "Golems Three-ish"
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| So, tomorrow is June 1. According to my plan for the year, that's a month for writing in the interactives. But where? Let's take a poll!: [Poll completed and deleted.] I spent the last month publishing in five different areas of BoM, most of them in answer to polls, so I'm drawing the candidates from there. You've got a choice of sophomores, basketball players, Sydney McGlynn, and cheerleaders acting in bizarre ways to pick from. I'm going to run two kinds of polls, a free poll and a GP poll, so that we capture numbers but also intensity. We've done this before and the usual rules apply—but if you need a refresher, they're spelled out in the Free Poll. After that will be follow-up polls in the "Plot Plinko" style to narrow things down until we reach a point where new chapters have to be written. That may take a week or more. In the meantime, I'll be amusing myself by writing something of my own choice, and amusing you (I hope!) with the results of a commission: four chapters in "Student Bodies" followed by five in "Book of Masks." The first one starts here: "The Many Faces of You" Background: David has possessed the bodies of the Garner siblings, but has decided that will be only the start of the fun. |
| I told you some of these end-of-the-month storylines were going to be short, and "Manhandling Mendoza, Part 2" caps the shortest of them. Tomorrow I start on the storyline that will take us through the end of the month. It's a follow-up to the last choice that you guys made in a poll: "Coveting a Coven" . In that story, Will hasn't told Sydney that he's being persecuted, but he still wants badly to get out of his old life. They've been talking over the possible substitutions that they can make, and you guys voted for them to make the "Brotherhood of Baphomet" into more of a coven by populating it with girls from the various sports teams. Tomorrow we'll find out which squad Will wants to target first. Reminder: Starting this Friday I will be running a new series of 24-hour polls to determine which storyline to continue. |
| We're entering the last week of May. This is a heads up that on May 31 I will begin running a series of polls to determine which storyline I should continue. Each poll will be open for 24 hours only, so be sure to check back daily during the first few days of June if you want to participate in a vote. Meanwhile, today's chapter pauses the sequels to "Ambush from an Unexpected Quarter," describing what happens when Will lets Caleb pursue his interest in Sydeny. Tomorrow we jump forward along an alternate timeline to "The End of One Road" , where Sydney and Will are the couple. They have advanced quite far in the book, and are planning to replace a bunch of their schoolmates with duplicates, and to use those duplicates to make a ten-person cult. Meanwhile, Will has discovered that going out with Sydney has brought a different price: Caleb and Keith have ruptured their friendship with him, and he's getting attention from bullies that he doesn't want attention from. He's told this to Sydney, and they're laying plans to do something about it. |
| Various things were going on yesterday early so that I didn't have a chance to publish, and by the time I did have time it was so late that I figured I'd just skip the day and give you a two-fer next chance I got. So today brings two chapters. They're in two different storylines too. "Mugged by Magic" brings the last storyline to a rest while "A Girl Who Likes Mischief" returns us to Sydney McGlynn. She got introduced as a possible love interest for Caleb, and you guys originally wanted to see Will step back and let that develop. I had other plans, but I did publish the chapter—"Ambush from an Unexpected Quarter" —where Will let her chase Caleb. But it's not going to go for very long before we switch up again. I'm now publishing storylines that via poll you asked me to continue, and I kept them short because I'd like to give you a chance later on (maybe; depends on if we come back to them) to vote on really major decisions. |
| I was a little late getting today's entries posted, but to make up for it (?) there's three of them. They all open the same way, then diverge. I don't have any immediate plans for two of them, but I wanted to get directions for them all firmly set. |
| So, today's chapters—"A Triangular Seduction" (public) + "A Triangular Seduction" (interactive)—bring the most bit to a suspension. Tomorrow will bring something new. A couple of months ago, I ran some polls about storylines to continue. For the rest of May I will be publishing the chapters I wrote in answer to those polls. First up will be a sequel storyline to "The Devils One Has to Deal With" . There's not much background, for It's very early days: Will hasn't even cracked open the Libra, and only knows that he wants to share the book with a friend if he's going to experiment with it. |
| Today's chapters—"The Cradle Snatcher" (public) + "The Cradle Snatcher" (interactive)—mark the end of one storyline for now. Yeah, it was a transitional sort of thing, and I am kind of dropping it only after it's got interesting. Ain't suspense a wonderful thing? Tomorrow I leap over to a more distant part of the story: "Newbie Orientation" , where I will be making a third sequel branch. The background:After getting rid of the book, Will has gotten reacquainted with it by falling in with the YouTubers who got ahold of it. Even that was by accident, though: They stole the bodies of some cheerleaders and have been trying to make Will popular by giving him a makeover and increasing his visibility. But he's learned what is going on and has joined the same conspiracy that is trying to make him popular. Currently the plan is to get him a popular girlfriend, and they are trying to figure out the best way of doing that ... |
| So I missed last week's entry in this series, which I regret, for I've some thanks to give to Ann Man, dingo, and Easy for some large tips and some kind words shared privately. So: Thank you, and it's entirely my pleasure! |
| Okay, missing yesterday? That wasn't my fault. We had weather around here and it's like the internet pipes got wet and shorted out. For 24 hours I had only intermittent internet connectivity—a few seconds here and there—and not enough to try fighting through to do an update. But there's a new chapter up now. |
| Today's chapter—"The Complicated Love Life of Lindsay Cho" (public) + "The Complicated Love Life of Lindsay Cho" (interactive)—is the last for now in that branch. Tomorrow I will shift over to a parallel branch with a sequel to "The Taming of a Shrew" . It's the same area as we've been reading: Will and Caleb working with the sophomores, with Will trying to find a new identity. In this one he has decided to replace Lindsay with a golem, but he still has to find a new face for himself. Oh, and the choices at the end of today's chapters might look familiar. Didn't they show up as the choices at the end of yesterday's chapter? Yeah, most of them were there. But I moved three of them to the end of today's chapter, where I think they make more sense. |
| I'm sorry, guys. I will start setting a timer or something to remind me that I have to publish. The trouble is that Minecraft has come out with major updates lately, and I'm totally distracting myself with that. |
| I've got some people to thank for GPs; some of them dropped some major coin on me: *Achillesredux * Kenny * Easy * Tal Thanks, guys! |
| Yeah, I missed posting yesterday. It was Easter, there was stuff going on, I got distracted, and it was late before I remembered I needed to post something. So I held off a day. And I've skipped over to a closely related branch. It's still Will and Caleb dealing with the sophomores, and Will is still trying to find a new identity. In this branch he's settled on becoming Lindsay Cho, who is one of the sophomores. She's the least friendly of the bunch, though, and Will has been worried that she'll catch on to the fact that her friends have started playing around with the masks. So he figures the best way to keep her from finding out is by becoming her. As "Leaving as Lindsay" (public) + "Leaving as Lindsay" (interactive) opens, he is waking in Dane Matthias's bedroom after getting Lindsay's memories, but he still has to change his body ... |
| Did yesterday's main entry get lost in the flood of ticky-tacky add-ons? Here it is again: "Chez Colson" (public) + "Chez Colson" (interactive). And here is today's chapter: "The Party Boy" (public) + "The Party Boy" (interactive). And there were some more little chapters that I overlooked yesterday. They've been added too. |
| Did yesterday's main entry get lost in the flood of ticky-tacky add-ons? Here it is again: "Chez Colson" (public) + "Chez Colson" (interactive). And here is today's chapter: "The Party Boy" (public) + "The Party Boy" (interactive). And there were some more little chapters that I overlooked yesterday. They've been added too. |
| Yesterday brought the last poll in the story of Will and Sydney, but it doesn't bring the last chapter. I will be continuing from the spot where left off, but I have to write something first. Meanwhile ... First, the storyline I launched yesterday continues with "Chez Colson" (public) + "Chez Colson" (interactive). Second, I will be posting [EDIT: "have finished posting"] a large number of alternate choices following on "Body Swapping as a Solution" , each one wending down to the point where the action can resume.** There's no plot development in any of these chapters—they either just repeat material you've already seen, or they just further winnow the choices—but I wanted to get all of them onto the record.If you are interested in continuing any of the storylines I've set up, go ahead. (That's the reason I have posted all these branching nodes.) But you should probably contact me before you do. Most of them are wide open and not intended to lead anywhere specific, but there are a few where I mean for certain ... replacements ... to be made. ** I won't be posting those chapters in the Archives, though; only in the interactive. These chapters will be showing up in the Archives only if or when the branches they establish get continued. |
| Okay, so as promised yesterday, there are actually two new chapters from me today. One of them is very short and does nothing except set up another round of choices in the last storyline, and it's only there to set up a poll: "Invalid Item" . Like yesterday's poll, not all the interactive choices are included. Here is the actual chapter: "A Team Play" (public) + "A Team Play" (interactive)Meanwhile, as promised, here is the start of another storyline: "Anyone for Tennis?" (public) + "Anyone for Tennis?" (interactive). Background: Will needs a new identity, but at the same time he is wondering about how Gordon Black—who unwillingly has been thrust into the form and life of "Will Prescott"—is handling things. So he has decided to take over the life of someone that Gordon/Will has started hanging out with.Oh, and yes, yesterday's poll only ran for 19 hours because I was late getting it up. But the winning choice was beating the other two-to-one, and that wasn't going to turn around in five hours. |
| And to no one's great surprise, the "coven" option won yesterday's poll. Here's today's chapter: "Coveting a Coven" (public) + "Coveting a Coven" (interactive) and the associated poll: [Poll completed and deleted].Now, here's the thing about the poll: It only includes two of the four options that appear at the end of the chapter. That's for a couple of reasons. First, the two choices you have to vote between will lead to a further winnowing of options; the other two choices would dump directly into new action. Second, I am polling for a storyline to write, and the choices I am offering are leading to characters that I've already decided I want to use. Meanwhile, we are past the point where I've composed any additional story, so there can't be any more "wrong choices." We purely in a winnowing phase now. That's going to be boring—today's chapter already repeats material that you've seen elsewhere—and the upcoming chapters are going to be very short. So starting tomorrow I am going to move into another section of the story to publish new chapters so that you'll get some genuinely new material. But I will continue to publish short chapters and polls in this section until we reach point where the action can resume. |
| So, yesterday's chapter—"The End of One Road" —turns out to have been a wrong turn, the first since the beginning of the present storyline. Don't worry, I'll work on the branch that you chose. But today we back up one and take the path that you avoided: "Body Swapping as a Solution" (public) + "Body Swapping as a Solution" (interactive). Here's the associated poll: [Completed and deleted] Yes, this is the start of a long series of choices. I'll have more to say about it all tomorrow. |
| So, yesterday's poll result was a runaway. Let's see how things go when there are four to choose from: [Poll completed and deleted] Oh, yeah, spoilers. You should read today's chapters first: "The End of One Road" (public) + "The End of One Road" (chapter). |
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