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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/Contests None The Latest 4/23: Interactive: "Blood on the Mound" 4/23: Public: "Blood on the Mound"
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| The previous poll was closed early in a landslide. This one I wasn't sure who the winner would be until the very end, and it was a wild ride all the way. From the start, "Jenna" and "Other girl" vied for first place in the Free Poll, with Jenna usually retaining a small but steady lead, and "Nathan" far in the rear. In the GP poll, though, "Jenna" got no love until late in the day, when some nervous Nellies started dropping GPs to secure her Free Vote lead. Instead, "Other girl" got GP love, enough to tread on "Jenna's" heels even when "Jenna" had her widest lead in the Free Vote, and sneaking past when "Other girl" was right behind. But it was "Nathan" that got the big GP votes, and before the contest was half-run, those GPs not only put "Nathan" in the lead, they gave him more than 50% of the adjusted tally. And he held that lead for about 8 hours, before voters for "Other girl" came swinging in with big GP votes to try pushing her past Jenna. In fact, they were already ahead of "Jenna" by that point, but the late votes did push "Other girl" past "Nathan," and obliterated "Jenna." Yet even then, enough late GPs for "Nathan" might have squeaked him to a win. As it was, the final, adjusted tally was: * Other girl: 46.9% * Nathan: 33.3% * Jenna: 19.8% * * * And so I hedged on the chapter. Today's chapter doesn't advance the story, and I've revised "Substitute Hitter" to end it with a "Continue" and moved its choices to the end of today's: * Interactive: "Blood on the Mound" * Public: "Blood on the Mound" There will be no poll today, as I will write a chapter for tomorrow following the "Other girls" choice. Then we'll see what comes next. * * * Two incidental notes for "Anonymous" readers. First of all, a huge thanks to the Anonymous reader who yesterday renewed my Upgraded Membership. It means a lot, less for the membership fee than for the tremendous vote of confidence that it represents. Second, to those who voted GPs Anonymously in the poll. I am uncertain how to handle them. I cannot refund your GPs, or send you a dividend, as per the rules of the polls. At the same time, I do not want to distribute them to other readers as part of a dividend, as that might discourage people from voting anonymously (and perhaps from voting) in the first place, if they think their GPs are just going to rival voters. Yet neither do I want to keep them for myself, as these polls are NOT a "fundraising" device. I think for now I will use bookkeeping to sequester the GPs that are voted anonymously in a poll, and use them some time as a donation to a good WdC cause. |
| I will be taking "The Book of Masks" interactive, and one volume of the Archives edition, private for a couple of hours this Saturday to do a little housekeeping on them. I'm giving readers advance notice now so that if they check in and find it inaccessible they will not wonder what's going on. With luck, the interactive should be offline for no more than three hours, and the Archive volume for no more than four hours. |
| So the last poll wound up being the blow-out that I expected the previous one to be, enough that it was mathematically dubious that anything could catch up to the leading choice. So I'm ending it a day early. Final adjusted tally: * Become one of the possible softball girls: 83.3% * Become a possible boyfriend to one: 8.3% * Pick Luke Martins: 8.3% The chosen sequel: * Interactive: "Substitute Hitter" * Public: "Substitute Hitter" New poll: "BoM Poll: "Substitute Hitter"" |
| I was certain that "Wait for something better to come along" would win the last poll in a blowout (hence the title of the blog entry where I announced it), and it did win pretty decisively. But "Become Aaron" made a very respectable showing. It even got GPs. But not nearly enough. Final, adjusted tally: * Wait for something better: 70.9% * Become Aaron: 29.1% My lack of surprise is reflected in the fact that I have the requested chapter ready to go: * Interactive: "Rain Delay" * Public: "Rain Delay" Next poll, closing on Tuesday at noon: "BoM Poll: "Rain Delay"" |
| I decided that, because it was a poll that led us here, I might as well let polls write the story. So here is the first chapter of the "softball" branch: * Interactive: "A Hard, Fast Pitch" * Public: "A Hard, Fast Pitch" And here's the poll on where to go next: "BoM Poll: "A Hard, Fast Pitch"" . |
| So it turned out that the contest only got the minimal number of entrants. If even one more person had applied, then one lucky person would have won all the GPs contributed by the others. Minimum takings: 70,000 GPs. As it is, the entrants get the chapters, and they also get to keep their GPs. I have started writing the "Softball" branch, but I've got less than one chapter written, and I still have characters to figure out. So I don't anticipate publishing anything before Saturday, and probably not until Monday. |
| Wow! Talk about a wild battle! Although there were two clear favorites almost from the start, the Free Vote in the poll was spread much more evenly than I would have expected, so that although the Cheerleaders established an early lead (which they never lost), they were never so far ahead that the Softball squad couldn't come from behind to take it; and the Softball squad was never so far ahead of the others that an alternate runner-up couldn't have emerged. The battle on the invisible GP front was even bloodier, with three of the choices getting some very large donations. (That never happens!) There too the Cheerleaders established an early but very comfortable lead. But there was a lot more intensity of feeling for the Softball team, which gradually chipped away at the Cheerleaders' GP lead, overtaking it during the second day of voting, and then building a pile big enough to overcome the Cheerleader's overall lead. And so in the end it seems to have been the complacency of the Cheerleader supporters that cost them the victory. The Cheerleaders had a good Free Vote lead, and their GP supporters had dropped a lot of coin on them; and so it probably appeared to those supporters that no other choice would be able to overcome the leader. But the intensity of the Softball support—and its breadth; many more turned out to give GPs to them than to the Cheerleaders—won them the day, so that they pulled off a narrow but significant upset: * Softball: 44.5% * Cheerleaders: 37.5% * Basketball: 9.1% * Soccer: 5.1% * Volleyball: 3.8% I have the feeling the readers might be looking for fresh meat after all this time, and that's why the Softball squad attracted so much support, because of the five teams in the contest, they are the only true blank slate. But it also means that I'm going to need a couple of days to write anything, because I don't know anything about these girls. In the meantime, let's have a different sort of contest: [item deleted] |
| I'm not at all surprised that the "girl team" option won in the last poll. If anything, I'm surprised that it didn't win so big that I could shut it down early. After 24 hours, the winner in the poll that started this series—[deleted]—led so hugely that there was no mathematical possibility of the alternate winning it from behind. It would have taken a massive push—more massive than I've ever seen—this time to overcome the "girl team" lead, but it was within the realm of possibility, so I left the poll open for the full 48 hours. Anyway, here are the final, adjusted results: * Girls' team: 84.8% * Coed team: 8.7% * Boys' team: 6.5% New poll is up: [deleted] Again, only some Star Trek chapters today: "Double Double (16)" -> "Double Double (17)" . I might be taking the week off as I concentrate on other projects. I've got two pots boiling at the moment, and nothing in the BoM backlog. |
| No new chapter in Book of Masks today, so here's a continuation of that Star Trek fanfic: "Double Double (15)" . Tomorrow will also be a play-it-by-ear sort of day. The latest poll will be open for another 24 hours: [deleted] |
| We've had some pretty wild poll results here lately. The latest one was closer to the norm, though. Two choices were pretty closely matched in the Free Vote, and if the second-place choice came out ahead thanks to GPs, it was by a margin that could have been overturned by a little GP enthusiasm for the Free Vote frontrunner. Final, adjusted tally: * A sports team: 54.5% * The Christian school: 30.3% * A school club: 12.1% * Other ideas: 3.0% Next poll is now up: [deleted]. It closes on Monday, April 14, at noon. Meanwhile, the last chapter in the current branch is now up: * Interactive: "Breaking and Entering" * Public: "Breaking and Entering" * Commentary post: "Re: Commentary: "Switching Husbands"" I might or might not have something for tomorrow. You'll just have to check in to see. |
| The Free Vote was much tighter this go around (as I was sure it would be) but the GP vote was a landslide, both in terms of number of people who sent GPs for one particular choice, and the number of GPs they voted. Final, adjusted results: * Group Activities: 64.3% * Coveting a Coven: 21.2% * Revenge Play: 10.4% * First Step of a Random Walk: 4.2% New poll (closes Saturday, April 12, at noon): [deleted] |
| There is no point in continuing yesterday's poll for another 24 hours. Even if someone contributed One. Billyun. Gift Points! to "Vengeance on an Ex-Friend" it wouldn't overcome the lead that "Body Swapping as a Solution" has in the Free and GP Polls. So here are the final results, for the record: Body Swapping: 86.5% Vengeance: 13.5% New poll is posted: [deleted] I doubt this one will feature the same kind of overwhelming lead, so I'm confident when I say I will leave it open the full 48-hour period, closing it on Thursday at noon ET. * * * * * Elsewhere, a five-chapter commissioned run starts today: * Interactive: "Stealing a Friend" * Public: "Stealing a Friend" Background: Will and Caleb, while messing around with the book, have accidentally turned Will's dad into a golem. Will briefly assumed his dad's identity, then he decided that he and Caleb need a place where they can work and study the book so as to find a way of reversing the spell they put on his dad. They wind up impersonating the Welches: Will as Shannon, who is a tutor at Westside; Caleb as Stephan, her university professor husband. Through luck and serendipity, they have managed to get past the torn page in the Libra, and have even managed to craft an anima band. Will's luck ran out at this point, and after slapping it onto the forehead of a WHS freshman named Oliver Kelly, he has donned it, and woken up convinced that he is Oliver, soul-swapped into Will Prescott's body. In the previous chapter Will/Oliver (Woliver?) has been wondering whether to commit Will's crime again, by putting one of his friends into the body of Caleb, so that he will have a friend to help him out of this crisis ... |
| I have accepted a commission to write a 5-chapter branch, but it will be tomorrow at the earliest before I can start publishing it, so there is no chapter for today, save for another entry in the Star Trek fanfic. In the meantime, let's start looking ahead for something more substantial to continue. The last few weeks have been occupied with stories of set-up: Will (with or without friends) coming to realize the possibilities implicit in the book. It's been awhile since we've had some good, old-fashioned body-theft. So let's bring Sydney back. That's the place in the story where the most possibilities have been laid out, ready for exploitation. We'll start with a poll giving a choice of two chapters: [deleted]. Between these two chapters, we can reach all the major possibilities that have been established. We can also choose between a specific target (Caleb) or reason our way through possible combinations. The poll will close on Wednesday. |
| I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to write a chapter for today, because the Free Vote results were neck and neck the whole time. But I took a chance on it, because all the GPs were voted for one of them, with the result that it won decisively in the end: * Go see Blackwell: 69.4% * Go see Williams: 30.6% So the new chapter is up: * Interactive: "An Interview with the Professor" * Public: "An Interview with the Professor" You don't get a poll, though. And I'm taking the weekend off again from publishing. But here's a commentary thread: "Commentary: "The Professor Has Visitors"" |
| Maybe readers wanted to see more of Cassie. Or maybe they were just scared to send Will out to meet the guy at Parsons Media. But the vote (including the GP vote) was overwhelmingly in favor of Will keeping his after-school date with Cassie: * Forget it, concentrate on Cassie: 73.1% * Go see the guy: 26.9% So here is today's chapter: * Interactive: "People Who Want to Talk to You" * Public: "People Who Want to Talk to You" And here is the poll for where things go next: [Poll completed and deleted] Those of who voted because they wanted more Cassie, you got her. Those who voted because they wanted Will to play it safe? Let's see you get out of this one! |
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