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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 9/21: Interactive: "A Little Talk About Ousiarchs" [The Wandering Stars]9/21: Public: "A Little Talk About Ousiarchs" [The Wandering Stars]
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| Today's chapter in "Student Bodies: Transfer Students" is the last one I'll be posting there, as it is the completion of a commission. It is also a break from the recent pattern. Where "Burning a Bandmate" was the last in a straight-shot storyline, "Invader from Mars" jumps back to an earlier chapter to bud off a new branch. It's a little awkward to have only a one-chapter branch, but it was the only way I could manage the commission. Over in the Archives, meanwhile, there's also a sideways jump. "Templar Is Taken" lay at the end of one branch, while today's chapter, "The Senior People" , jumps back to continue "The Good Soldier" , which branched off earlier.And speaking of "The Wandering Stars" , I will be starting a commission in that interactive, for the first time in I don't remember when. That's the reason that I've been posting chapters from that interactive in the Archives, and tomorrow will bring a sequel to today's reposted chapter. The story thus far (if you have not been keeping up with what I've been posting in the Archives):It's ten years after the events of "The Book of Masks," and Will has been working for Fane, as the chief of their gang of shapeshifting agents. He's got a special grudge against the Stellae, as he was apparently blinded by one of them, forcing him to live inside the mask of Paige Knotts. (And this is the identity that all of his colleagues believe is his real one.) He has just returned from an assassination assignment (successfully performed, though with one casualty), and Professor Hyde-White has just revealed to him a new machine that will allow Fane agents to essentially "soul swap" with other people -- including the Stellae. Will's new assignment will be to infiltrate the Stellae by inhabiting the actual body of one, giving him not only their memories but also their prodigies. And in the last chapter to be posted to the Archives, he and Hyde-White have narrowed his choices down almost to their final determination ... |
| ... And I have to miss another day publishing. All my time went (and is going) to world-building so that I have a scaffold to hang characters and events on to. |
| Sorry, no SBTR chapter today. I was under the weather yesterday and didn't get one written. |
| Okay, after a month and a half's hiatus, I think I'm ready to do a little BoM writing again. (I've been scratching other creative itches.) First up, though, I'm going to push a little further along "Student Bodies: Transfer Students" , with "Dana Without Dana" Background? There's only 12 chapters there so far, so there's not much to say: Zach Dillon has been infected by a blue-goo parasite and is slowly figuring out what it has done to him. So far he has possessed and gained control of the bodies of two classmates: Beth Lartner, and Dana Pak. The latter is where he is now, and he has just discovered to his dismay that although he is in occupation of her body, he is does not have her memories. This story is not part of the BoM universe, and I don't want to leave the Archive readers without any fun. So while I am doing this one I'm going to publish a new-to-the-Archives storyline, starting here: "Cop In, Cop Out" This is new to the archives in more than one way: it is not a storyline in "The Book of Masks" but in the sequel, "The Wandering Stars." There is a prequel to it tucked inside "The Book of Masks," but there is a ten-year time jump between them, so I'll just let Archive readers jump in and try to figure things out on their own. |
| Today's chapter— * Interactive: "Golems Three-ish" * Public: "Golems Three-ish" * Commentary: "Re: "Restroom Raids", Etc." —brings this branch to a cliffhange/conclusion. I didn't aim to end this on the last day of the month, but it works out that way. Next? Not sure what, not sure when. Probably it will be in Transfer Students, but I'm not in the right headspace for any of this right now. Not that I'm feeling uncreative. But I'm working on something else, and that's got me seriously preoccupied. So I'm going to take a little break from writing around here. Could be a week, could be two, could be only a few days. I'm not going anywhere, will be checking in daily, just not publishing until further notice. |
| So I've been playing around with AI-generated images. Some of the results you can see in the forums: "Some BoM Illustrations (Yes, Sigh, AI)" . These include some illustrations for another branch in "The Book of Masks." For a lark, I decided at the last minute to make one for today's chapter, and it is embedded in the chapter, in both the interactive chapter and the public chapter. * Interactive: "Your Two-Faced Friend" * Public: "Your Two-Faced Friend" I can't do this for every chapter--certainly not for every published chapter, or even for every chapter going forward. I will probably have to delete them, even, at some point. But I thought I'd just toss in an extra today, and maybe I'll toss in the occasional extra going forward, depending on how an illustration like the above is received. |
| I am actually four chapters ahead in the current branch. But as I was rereading today's chapter prior to posting, I saw big problems that need major revision. So I'm going to skip today's posting to fix them, and return to it tomorrow. EDIT: Never mind. I was able to handle the edit with a fairly minor change, so there is a chapter today: * Interactive: "The Spell on the Other Side" * Public: "The Spell on the Other Side" |
| We've finally reached a turning point, so I'm going to stop work on this branch here: * Interactive: "Chelsea 2.0" * Public: "Chelsea 2.0" * Commentary: "Re: "Fading Thunder" Etc." Next up, a return to "A Dead End" . This is the branch where Will, Caleb, and Keith became partners with a sophomore girl named Teresa. Where do we pick up?The guys have forged some custom masks combining their faces with those of other people, and they have succeeded in making two golems, which they have stashed in the old school basement for ... fun and games. Well, Keith and Caleb have been having fun and games; Will has been distracted and a little grossed out at the idea of "following" where his friends have already been. The plan currently is to forge some new masks for fun and games, and the guys are armed with some blank masks to take into the school. (To prevent themselves from being apprehended under their own identities, they will go in disguise.) At the moment, though, the question is what to do with the leftover graveyard earth they have stashed in the old barn out on the highway. (A barn that doesn't belong to any of them, but to some Eastman students they accidentally made the acquaintance of.) Make a third golem, or not? Tomorrow will bring the answer. |
| * Interactive: "The Price She Had to Pay" * Public: "The Price She Had to Pay" It's June 1st, which seems like a good time to try to get things going again. I've been doing some writing, but I've been slow about it. If I start putting chapters out, that should give me the discipline to put in the 20% extra work to make it a daily thing again. So, where are we? The chapters above continue the storyline where Will is working with Chelsea Cooper. He is currently inhabiting the mask of Steve Patterson, and has helped Chelsea tighten her grip on the cheerleading squad. Cindy has resigned it, along with Lin and Yumi (the latter a golem under Will's control), while the Garner sisters have been forced to quit. There will be school-wide tryouts to get replacements. And Will has forced Seth Javits to break up with Cindy. In return, he has put Seth in charge of giving extra practice sessions to three of the members of the basketball squad, and also given him access to the loft. |
| I was supposed to be writing over these last ten days, including getting two more chapters for SB:TS written, but the writing bug has been on a vacation. He might be on a vacation for a little longer, it's hard to tell. At any rate, I'm going to stop with "Student Bodies: Transfer Students" where it is for right now, and I will be stopping with new material for a little while as well. I'm not going on hiatus and I won't be going anywhere, and to make sure that I don't dip out I'm going to keep posting "new" chapters in the Archives, continuing the line branch that I've been publishing. (There's a continuation up there now: "Call of the Constellations" .) |
| Readers of the interactive will find a new chapter in "Student Bodies: Transfer Students" : "Beth's Body" For Archive readers, there is "The New Brother" , which is a continuation from "Frank Tells His Story" .This is the branch where Will trained in magic under Aubrey Blackwell; changed allegegiances to join with Frank and Joe to take Blackwell down; got outmaneuvered by Blackwell thanks to some anima bands; and who finally triumphed over him. The new chapter and those that come after are not actually new (they are quite old, in fact), but I never posted them in the Archives edition of the story, so they might be new to some readers. |
| Last chapter in the branch is now posted: * Interactive: "Red Harvest" * Public: "Red Harvest" * * * Everyone once in a while I get a request to add to "Student Bodies" , which was the first interactive that I ever launched. I usually decline because I lost interest in it a long time ago. The mechanics -- particularly the "multiple bodies, operated simultaneously" trick -- are hard to write, and the protagonist's power pack is so overcharged that there's not much challenge to him, so it's not very interesting to write.A couple of months ago, rugal started pitching ideas to a couple of us about doing a relaunch of that story, with more limited powers and a different set up. I was interested in his ideas, but less interested in writing for it, until one day a couple of chapter just sprang out of me, like a chest-burster. I showed them to rugal, along with some revisions to his basic ideas for the story and its mechanics. He posted a new version of that interactive, with the chapters I'd given him. Then, in between writing chapters for this latest BoM branch, I wrote some more for the revised "Student Bodies." You can find it here: "Student Bodies: Transfer Students" . Rugal can give more backstory on it (and correct some of my misrememberings and misapprehensions) if he wants. It has the same basic setting as "The Book of Masks" and "Student Bodies": Saratoga Falls, with the same high schools and characters. It is an alternate universe of those, I suppose, with some important changes. The first is that there's a new protagonist for the story, replacing David Johnson (though David is still a character). The second is that the entire "magic" background of "The Book of Masks" (including the Stellae, Blackwell, Fane, the Brotherhood of Baphomet, etc.) are missing. In fact, there is no magic at all in this universe. But these were also presumed missing from "Student Bodies." The third change is that the backstory on the "blue goo" is different, and so is the infection point.More important, in this version, the powers are more limited and take time to develop, so things are not going to get jumping right away. (It's a bit like BoM in this regard.) But given time, it should reach a point where most everything that was in the original "Student Bodies" (including the "multiple bodies, operated simultaneously" trick) will be again in play. It's just not there yet. Starting tomorrow and for the next week or so, I will be daily posting chapters there rather than in BoM. Readers of the Archives edition of BoM will not be getting chapters in "Student Bodies: Transfer Students," though. Instead, I will take advantage of the BoM hiatus to post some BoM chapters that are not currently in the Archives. I'll describe those chapters tomorrow, when the first one goes up. |
| No GPs were voted in the last poll, so the final result is just the Free Vote result: * Luke Richardson: 50% * Luke Martins: 21.4% * Cameron McCarthy: 14.3% * Chuck Johnson: 7.1% * Nathan Elliot: 7.1% There was not a lot of participation -- no surprise, since these are almost all new names, and it's for a MtM swap anyway -- but because of thin participation, I held off writing a chapter because GPs could have swung in at the last moment to send it in any direction. So, no chapter until tomorrow, which will be the stopping point for this branch. |
| The last poll in the "Fröhliche Momente mit unbekannten Menschen" series is now closed. GP votes cancelled each other out almost exactly, so that the final tally is almost identical to the Free Vote tally: * Talk to Kim: 48.4% * Talk to the Hispanic girl: 35.5% * Talk to the girls in plaid: 9.7% * Wait for one to approach you: 6.5% This wasn't much of a surprise. I don't know when I'll pick this up. |
| No GPs got voted in the last poll, so the final result is just the Free Vote result: * Skip the concert: 66.7% * Go to the concert: 33.3% Result: * Interactive: "The Boys to Come" * Public: "The Boys to Come" * Poll: [Poll completed and deleted] [Closes Wednesday at noon] The other poll series is on its last entry, and I think the poll above will be the last for this series as well. Which choice gets picked will be the last one in this branch, before I switch to something else. We'll talk about that later. |
| Like yesterday's poll, the GPs basically cancelled each other out, resulting in a final tally very close to the Free Vote result: * Talk to her about your romantic life: 57.9% * Change the subject: 42.1% The last poll in the series: [Poll completed and deleted] |
| The GP results basically canceled each other out, so the winning choice got about the same percentage in the adjusted vote as in the Free Vote: * "Why does Ella need an official boyfriend?": 46.1% * "Leave Ella, and let Sydney make a decision for": 36.2% * "Any of those guys would do. Just pick one.": 17.6% * Interactive: Interactive: "Ella on the Loose" * Public: "Ella on the Loose" * Next poll: [Poll completed and deleted] |
| Another landslide. There were no GPs so the Free Vote determined the winner: * Talk to Caleb: 91.7% * Meet with Carson: 8.3% I closed the poll an hour early, in part because it was so lopsided, but mostly because I've got things to do at the usual hour I close and post these things. The next poll in this series is up: [Poll completed and deleted]. And whichever way it goes, there will be only one more poll in this series, because each choice leads to the climax of a branch. Related: there is also a new (sort of) chapter in this branch. I published "The Value of Old Things" in the Archives edition last month, but forgot to publish it in the interactive. It is one of the choices offered at the end of the current poll, so if you haven't seen it and want to cast an informed vote, you should take a look. |
| In contrast to the last poll, this one was another run-away winner thanks to lopsided GP voting accenting a heavy Free Vote: * Hang out with Carson: 80.8% * Return to Patrick and his gang: 19.2% Next poll: [Poll completed and deleted]. |
| Almost exactly a year ago (and it feels longer than that!) I announced ("Fetching Up Point" ) that I was taking time off from BoM to write an unrelated script. Unlike the previous time I tried writing scripts (that benighted "Spider-Man" project), this one not only went fast and easy, it was a joy to compose, probably because I improvised it from the start instead of trying to outline it first. I don't remember how quickly I got it done, but it has been completed and filed away for many, many months. (Closer to eleven months than to eight, I am sure.) I recently returned to it to make revisions and edits, and for anyone who is curious to see what I was working on and how it turned out, it is now posted in three parts. It is a fan-fiction reimagining of the pilot of the 1991 animated series The Pirates of Dark Water. That is a fairly obscure series—I won't ask anyone to confess to watching it when it debuted 34 years ago—and I only watched it early last year (via Warner Archive's DTV release) because I was intrigued by some clips I tripped over on YouTube. It sat in my head for awhile, until the urge to do a fanfiction overwhelmed me. Relevance to BoM? None, really. But I will note that when I went to invent an antagonist much nastier and dangerous than in the original series, I found it in TF fiction. Also, it appears that Frank and Joe were haunting me as I wrote it. The relationship between Rathka and Ren (as I see it now, with some distance) somewhat recapitulates theirs, though in this case Ren is far, far more callow and immature than Joe is, and Rathka older and much sketchier than Frank. But even their coloration is similar. (Though in that case, it's because Ren was originally blonde anyway, and Rathka would need visual distinction from him.) It is divided into three parts and it begins here: ""The Pirates of Dark Water" (Act 1)" There is also a commentary page (with spoilers!) that discusses some of the changes I made to the original story and lore, and why: "About this Fanfiction [Spoilers]" . I suggest saving that (if you do read any of this) for after reading the script, unless you just don't care. |
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