A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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 12/24: Interactive: "A Mother's Memories" 12/24: Public: "A Mother's Memories" |
Today's chapter— * Interactive: "Who Are Those Masked Men?" * Public: "Who Are Those Masked Men?" —brings the current branch to climax and a cliffhanger. Instead of giving commentary here, I'll just point to the commentary thread, which got started early and has a lot of fun, juicy speculation in it: "Commentary: The Needle Skips" Up next is a return to a Will-and-Sydney storyline, picking up with "A Girl for Kirkham" . That was the subject of a poll, and it's time for me to pay it off. Background: Will and Sydney are making their own Brotherhood of Baphomet using golems, and after briefly impersonating Amanda Ferguson, Will has taken over the identity of David Kirkham, a triple-A bully at school who was beating Will up for being unworthy of going out with Sydney. Backed into a corner, Will was forced to continue the persecution, and accidentally forced the Will-golem to break up with the Sydney-golem. (Sydney herself is still impersonating Kelsey Blankenship.) Sydney is upset by this, and wants to reestablish some kind of public relationship with Will. Will (probably misunderstanding her) thinks she is looking to steal an identity that Kirkham can date, and has been entertaining some ideas. There are five choices, but the poll winner was "Lisa Yarborough," and that's the choice that will appear tomorrow. |
ThePrussian has already launched the commentary thread for the current branch— Which is totally okay! I don't mind early talkbacks at all! I'm flattered, in fact, when I don't have to make them myself! —in the forum. So, you can go over there to speculate about what's going on and who's involved, if you wish: "Commentary: The Needle Skips" And me? I still have to finish writing this branch. I've been goofing off with other writing projects, but need to buckle down onto this one. |
Today's chapter— * Interactive: "A Final Confrontation" * Public: "A Final Confrontation" — wraps up the current branch. The chapters didn't get a lot of views, so I don't think they were widely popular. But there were some people who got pretty into it. ThePrussian said some unnecessarily kind things about this part of BoM—"Commentary: "Dodging Out of Dodge"" —and I got a lot of GPs and even some emails from other readers who liked it, and I am grateful to Easy, thatdude, the-knight-croisant, and ThePrussian for them. Those were very encouraging. So what's next? Well, I'm taking my life in my hands, sort of, by plunging into a commission that I haven't finished writing yet, and have had a hard time with. I think I've got the first five chapters in shape for publication, but that's as far as I've gotten, and those five chapters got rewritten, revised, shifted about, cut, reworked, merged, and centrifuged a lot of times. I'm hoping that the chapters that follow will come more easily and quickly. But where are these chapters going to appear? They are going to pick up from "An Overwhelming Question" . That's the branch where Will lost the book--he had it stolen from out of his house, apparently--and wound up getting involved in a weird way with Stephanie Wyatt. And it ended on a fairly alarming note, with Will up in his dad's office at Salopek as something blue was shoved into his face. Tomorrow's chapter will pick up where that last one left off. |
First of all, big thanks to Masktrix for taking over storytelling duties for me the last two weeks or so. I really enjoyed the chapters, and being on the other side of a Plot Plinko! Rugal has something going on still, I think, but I'm going to jump back in with a series of chapters that's been sitting on my hard drive for ... (checks files) ... more than a year! It starts with: * Interactive: "The Return of the Native" * Public: "The Return of the Native" That's a sequel to "An Embarrassment of Cameron Hubers" , which was a branch that's been in suspension since I was a little boy, it feels like. The back story: While messing around with the book, Will and Caleb made a copy of Gordon Black, the thuggish basketball player, and then accidentally revealed themselves and it to him. Instead of killing them, he forced Will to wear his mask while he (Gordon) took over Will's life. WtF? Well, it's because Gordon has a shitty home life, Will discovered. One thing and another happened, and Will put Gordon's life on a different track. He stood up to Gordon's abusive father, but that got him kicked out of the house, so he (as Gordon) moved in with Caleb. He also fixed some relationship problems that Gordon was having with Chelsea. There were some other hijinks involving the football squad, but this sequence in the branch closes and opens with Will and Gordon stripping themselves of the masks and returning to their previous lives. Will they have learned anything from the experience? Will there be further shenanigans? Tune in to find out! |