The Annotated Gathering: 2010

21 November 2010

Posts #550-555: 23 April 2000

Post #550, by PSIOsman

After PSIOsman, Chris, Juliana, the Foppy King, Tim, Ness the Skittleboy, and Sir recovered from their stay inside the green tubes, they began to discuss what happened.

It's proper form to list yourself last in a group when narrating in first person. But screw that. It's time the world knew just how important PSIOsman is.

"Thanks," said Tim to the young surfer known as Alan. "You rescued us just in time. I was about to expire in there. But how did you know where to find us?"

"I don't know. I just had this feeling... that someone was calling me, someone named PSIOsman."

"That would be me," said Osman, stepping forward.

"YOU have PSI?" Asked Juliana, incredulously.

Everyone in the Gathering has telepathy, because, as we've discussed, teenagers were dreaming of cell phones long before they were invented and popularized. I don't think anyone has stated that telepathy = PSI, but let's face it, PSI is cool, so of course everyone has it.

"Well, only a little. I can do a bit of telepathy and some slight telekinesis, but that's it," he responded.

"Wow!" exclaimed Alan. "Can you teach me?"

"Sure. It's quite easy."

Not sure how well ol' Alan is going to take to playing the buffoon so PSIOsman can demonstrate to the audience how totally awesome he is.

Foppy King turned to Sir and the others and said "But what happened? How did we get inside those tubes? I thought we had beat the Supreme Starman!"

Ness the Skittleboy furrowed his brow. I don't know. All I remember is the wall buckling inward, and then we were here...

(Uh oh, we need someone to get us back on track. Who's with us and who's not?

Totally unnecessary parenthetical comment. How about you let the other authors decide that without holding their hands?

Oh, and don't get your hopes up on Alan deciding to continue hanging out with you.

[This message has been edited by PSIOsman (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #551, by SaturnAl

"I will help you defeat this stardude guy, or like, join you guys if you want." (Answer yes/no)

Apparently he's ruling out the option of answering "maybe," or asking further questions for clarification, or ignoring him and moving on. CHECK YES OR NO RIGHT NOW!

"I know this awesome PSI move, dude, called Surf. And, like, my surfboard can dish out major damage, dude."

Well, I laughed at the gratuitous 'dude's all over the place. Sure he sounds stupid, but at least he sounds different.

Obviously you knew he was going to brag right back in Osman's face that he already knows kickass PSI moves. Duh.

"Let's go said Osman...

Post #552, by SirMontyG

Ok, you guys need to tell me this things, ok? I need to know the info. Come on people, throw me a freakin bone here!

(Bad Dr. Evil Impression, but I'm just that stupid, arn't I )

Yes. Yes, you are.

Post #553, by PSIOsman

Come to think of it, all I really remember about PSIOsman was how he would always mistakenly think people were talking to or about him when they'd say "(something) PSI" in #earthbound. They were invariably referring to PSI322, of course.

PSIOsman was unsure of how he became the leader of the group, but he said:

You didn't. What happened was you tried to appoint yourself leader of the group, and now we get to watch your effort go down in flames as everyone ridicules and then ignores you.

Protip for all the kiddies out there: you don't get to be a leader in an internet forum community just by pronouncing yourself one. This was 2000 and PSI322 was running the show, so PSIOsman's gaffe didn't hurt anything. Try that now at any other forum and then laugh at how quickly you get banned.

"Sure you can join us. But I still don't know what happened! I thought we beat that Starman!"

It's been a couple posts now, and he's still bitching about Anthadd railroading them into getting defeated. Which of course PSIOsman can't be defeated. He's too cool for that.

"Well," said Sir. "I think we can be off now. I think we should go back to where that Supreme Starman was. We can't retreat, can we?"

"OOOH! Wait! I remembered what I was supposed to tell you! POO GOT INTO MAGICANT!!!"

The whole group turned and said, "WHAT?"

Don't worry about it. It would be pretty stupid to imagine Poo got into Magicant, seeing as how it doesn't exist and even if it did, it's in Ness's brain. Also, you don't get there without the eight melodies, which... oh, hell, forget it.

Osman told them the entire story, about how he found out from Andonuts how Poo went to Fire Spring.

"This is indeed dire," said Tim. "We must go find Magicant before Poo gains its power!"

Apparently all you have to do is go to Fire Spring and you'll be magically whisked there. Since you all can teleport anywhere in the world at will, you should make Magicant in approximately 3.5 seconds.

Sir led the group into the room where the Supreme Starman was...

"Had been," really.

Post #554, by Mog116

You won't see it because I'll be breaking it up with my annotations, but this post is one of the things in IF I hate the very most: A large block of un-paragraphed text.

There was a loud alarm, and millions of more Starmen came through the door.

What the f---? Millions? Into that smallish room? What are these, three-inch Starman action figures?

Mog116 never fails to deliver the absurdity, that's for damn sure.

"Oh. Crud. Mog flung his spear and it hit a starman on the head. He jumped past the Starman, and ripped his spear out of the Starman's head. He skidded around and landed by a pit. "Crud." "PSI Float Omega!" Mog began floating, then dashed at a starman at blinding speed.

Sorry, I can't annotated the recst of this post, on account that I'm blind. :(

In a flash, Mog landed behind about fifty starmen, who then fell dead.

Great! Only 999,950 to go. Also, Starmen don't really "die" so much as they "are defeated."

He dashed through the door with the Starmen rushing after him.

Question from the Annoying Question Guy: Where exactly the hell is the rest of the gang here?

OK, I just went back and checked. Apparently he hasn't caught up to the rest of the gang yet, and was engaged in a rescue attempt when NessTSB and SaturnAl jumped in ahead of him. So now he's just literarily masturbating for a while.

He drove his spear through the door close button, and the door closed just in time to have hundreds of starmen hit the wall.

I'd criticize him for pretending that traps the Starmen for more than five seconds, but... at least he realized this was getting boring and ended it.

Mog ran through the corridors, not watching where he was going. It was good he was floating, because the whole ship kept tilting.

Doesn't that mean he really more like floated through the corridors, as opposed to running? Or should I be imagining Wile E. Coyote running through the open air before he looks down and realizes he ran off the edge of the cliff?

He ran into a room marked: CLOSE RANGE WEAPONRY. Screech!!! There was a huge monster standing in front of him. It had a head that looked like a comet. It was tall. It had two necks that helped it balance its head. It had four legs, which were twisting around each other to form two legs, although, it looked like it had two legs. It was almost transparent. Mog could see something shining behind it. "Do you want to fight me, the dark shadow, The mysterious copycat?" "Can I get some help?" [Someone... Help.... I'm in a cave in the lost underworld. HELP!]

Apparently ol' Mog ingested some pretty awesome hallucinogens mid-post and is now working on some kind of sci-fi fic.

I suggest you let him be.

Post #555, by SaturnAl

"HEY!!!" Alan said. "If this stardude guy is metal, like, my surf move is water-based. I know water does something to metal, but i don't know what...."

"Guess my 1.3 GPA is showing up here," Alan said.

Yes, Alan, yes it is. But shouldn't that be, "Dude, I guess my 1.3 GPA is showing up here, dude?"

The whole group was glad to hear that about Alan's PSI.

You gotta say this for Alan: he doesn't get discouraged and start threatening to cut himself when everyone ignores him, the way Mog or Foppy King does. He just tells you that you think he is the s---.

13 November 2010

Posts #546-549: 23 April 2000

Post #546, by PSIOsman

(It was a SAM attachment. You add a radar, load in a missile and boom )

He's referring to something someone said less than five posts ago, and I'm writing this post right on the heels of the last one, and even I don't care.

After Sir fired the bazooka at Supreme Starman, the Starman took a second to regain his composure, then dodged the next shell that came his way. He then fired an EMP blast, which then disabled Sir's bazooka!

Um... somebody watched The Matrix without really grasping anything that was going on. It would be pretty awesome for Team Major Asshole if the "Supreme Starman" fired an EMP, since that would immediately disable the "Supreme Starman," which is, after all, a machine.

"Aw, Crap!" Yelled Sir.

Juliana sneaked up behind the Starman and gave him a SMAAAASH hit!

How nice of her. Let's hope the Starman doesn't turn around and just use it on her, huh?

Supreme Starman flew against the wall! The Foppy King ran towards him and dealt the Starman a fearsome kick in the head.

Come to think of it, there's no evidence that attacking a Starman's head is a good idea. They're humanoid, but they're robots. If one were designing a robot to fight humans, it would actually be clever to put the CPU and/or other vital systems somewhere like the left side of the abdomen, or the right thigh, or somewhere else nobody's going to think to aim, and make the head pointless and empty.

Then Tim rushed over, took out the Masamune and used a move called Hydro Slam on the Supreme Starman.

Tim is not going to like that. Tim attacks only with Leap Slash. "Hydro Slam" is not going to impress the ladies nearly as much.

The Starman keeled over, and it looked as if he were about to fall over... And released a huge pulse of energy! The energy blast knocked over Tim, Juliana, Sir, and the Foppy King... But Osman was untouched. His Scimitar had absorbed the energy!

Man, you're not going to believe this, but a baddie attacked a group and it injured everybody in the group... except the person writing this post. Shock! Awe!

It was now glowing with an unearthly light. Suddenly, an apparition appeared in the air, holding a katana. It slashed at the Starman, drawing his attention away from PSIOsman. It was Ness the Skittleboy! HE yelled, "Chris! Get off the table!" PSIOsman leaped into the air... He slashed the Starman as he came down. The Starman split in half, then disintegrated! With that, the Scimitar returned to normal.

"Yes! We beat him!" Yelled NSB.

You know, for the painfully poor battle scripting, PSIOsman was at least working a pretty nifty idea here: building into the post that came before him, and making the chronology line up. That's a long way beyond the effort most any other poster is taking.

However, the wall of the room started to buckle inward. PSIOsman sheathed his Scimitar, and ran to the other side. The whole group was hit by a wave of dizziness, and the next thing they knew, they were staring out of green glass tubes...

And he continues trying to piece together the writings of other posters, which will make it very difficult for Chris or PSI322 to object to it if/when they return. (Of course, Chris and PSI322 are talented writers, which means they can write their way out of an undesirable situation instead of trying to bitch their way out.)

PSIOsman glanced to his sides, and saw all the people in other tubes. He concentrated hard, sending out a telepathic message...

(I'm a bit confused. Can someone give me an update here?)

I know, it's both crazy and disappointing, but no... you actually seem to understand perfectly what's going on thus far.

[This message has been edited by PSIOsman (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #547, by SaturnAl

Far away in Summers....

A young surfer in Summers, Alan, heard PSIOman's call. "What was that? Who are you?"

Wow. It's been a long time since we've introduced a new Gathering poster. Sadly, I remember nothing about SaturnAl, so I can tell you nothing entertaining.

Alan didn't know anything about PSI, including about him having it, or how to use it.

If it's any consolation, Alan, Chris has been trying to figure out the same thing for hundreds of posts now.

PSIOman, in the test tube, told Alan the story and how to use PSI. "Okay, here it goes..."

Alan instantly appeared next to the test tubes, equipped with only a silver bracelet, silver necklace (chain), and his surfboard.

You get no points for guessing that the first thing he'd do with his PSI is instantly appear where the action is. The jokes on you, Al, old chap: Lots of people have already been doing that without PSI. You wasted a spell slot!

He saw PSIOman and co. in the tubes, and broke open the tubes with his board. "Thank you, thank you!" PSIOman said. He/she (whoever) taught Alan the basic PSI moves, and his special move, PSI Surf. Alan, PSIOman, and co. moved on...

Makes perfect sense to me that the aliens would construct prison-tubes that are easily breakable by a (presumably fiberglass) surfboard wielded by a 12-year-old. I don't know why you are having such trouble grasping it.

Post #548, by Tengu Man/Makron

(Too late Mog.

Uh-oh. You woke it up!

You don't have to scream, plus, just because you PLANNED that out doesn't mean anyone has to abide to it. If they want, they can make up their own idea. That's why it's interactive fiction.

That Tengu Man of all people is lecturing someone about what "interactive" means is meta-comedy on the highest plane. Here, watch this:

And I already came up with the ideafor 9th sanct, so better luck next time. I guess I should have told you this earlier. You can join my group if you wish, though.)

Did you catch that?

First, Tengu Man sternly informs Mog116 that he can't monopolize a future story arc. Then, in the same breath, Tengu Man--even with a dash of taunting for flavor--informs Mog116, and anybody else that's reading, that you can't mess with this future story arc because it's MINE. And then he invited Mog116 to become his minion.

Tengu was a magnificent bastard.

Darth and his group had just recently scaled a large mountain near Dalaam. They were greeted by the site of a large space ship.

"Is this where melody is coming from?" asked Paula.

Diamond Dog sniffed around... "I'm not sure... I think it's located somewhere around the ship, but this one can't be destroyed, so anyone and everyone that matches can claim the powers of this spot."

They proceeded around the back of the ship, and found a small door leading inside...

Not much here except Tengu laying down a few more railroad tracks. Oh, how I wish someone would skip along right behind this post and take it somewhere completely different, and quote Tengu's own post back to him when he gets pissed off.

Post #549, by SirMontyG

Hey Anthadd! We were just winning!

I was expecting so much more from Major Asshole than an ordinary one sentence gripe.

For some reason, Thread 2 Page 1 has only 39 posts on it instead of the normal 40. I presumed I'd made an error and missed a post somewhere, but after a half-hour of painstaking searching, I have concluded that I did not. I don't know why a post is missing, but I know it's going to throw off my organization. So my next post on this blog will pick up with Thread 2 Page 2 and will annotate six posts.

Posts #541-545: 23 April 2000

Post #541, by Foppy King

(Uh oh! I'm in 2 places at once! This isn't good...) "Fortunetely, I can split myself into 2 Foppys!" (Woo fixed that one.)

Thank you for reminding us why nobody wanted to include you in their writing, in about ten different ways. Now let's hope the "no problem, I can split myself into two and participate in two storylines at once!" idea never gets Tengu's brain churning.

Post #542, by Godeg

Mike promptly appeared on pink cloud, appearing next to Nathan.

You'll notice how a lot of things happen promptly in IF. It's for the best; not only does nobody want to write two or three posts that consist of "[character] climbed by himself up the mountain and some irrelevant stuff happened...", nobody wants to read it, either. I mean, people could make more of an effort to add a dash of interesting to the story ("Mike climbed the unforgiving mountain, struggling through rain, cold and fatigue, and finally caught up to Nathan...") but it's just hopeless to expect an IF'er to pull that off.

"Hey Nathan, how's it goin? You know me as Godeg off of StarCraft and whatnot. I thought there was some sort of party goin' on... what happened?" Mike asked Nathan.

The question of how Godeg recognizes Nathan, but does not expect Nathan to recognize him, is tossed onto the big ol' heapin' Pile of Questions in the Gathering That Will Never Be Answered.

"Well, it appears as if this island really is eagleland. Everybody decided to go out and look for the sanctuaries." Nathan replied.

"Well... since ive got nobody else, can i follow you for awhile? I mean, that is, if you want to..." Mike awaits Nathan's reply.

Aww, it almost sounds like something Chris would post. "I've got nobody else. I mean, that is, if you want to..."

Post #543, by Ness The Skittleboy

Back In Scaraba...

Ness The Skittleboy woke up from a very disturbing dream,a dream in which had answered the question of what was following Juilana and Chris.

This is, I'm pretty sure, the first mention of anything following Chris and "Juilana," whoever that is. (Let's hope he/she/it is not related to Juiblex.) Unless he's talking about PSIOsman.

Fate has been following him,and he had an image of Chris and Juliana in trouble.

No... that's not what all that groaning and moaning means, kiddo.

Oh... sorry. I got confused there. I thought this was Chris dreaming.

He sat down on the floor of his tent and began to concentrate.He transported to Stonehenge base and searched for the secret passage beneath the snow.He walked down the steps into the behemoth of the base and began searching for Chris and Juilana in the darkness.

I'm getting concerned that this "Juilana" is a Great Old One in disguise.

The path was littered with broken robotic parts of unkown orgin.Ness The Skittleboy suddenly saw a flash and he saw Juliana and another individual in front of him. The person with Juliana was fighting a starman and he saw Chris lying on a table in the corner.Juliana turned around,startled at Skittleboy's appearence and he nodded and said "Have no fear..I have no evil intent."

Well, then. He said he has no evil intent, so that's that. There's no way he could be a bad guy now! I'm glad that's settled.

Also, wait, what the hell? When did Chris say "I get incapacitated"? It's going to be funny to see how Chris responds to that. By swinging his Holy Mace of Admin Kickass, or by moping around? DON'T MISS NEXT WEEK'S SHOW.

With that he pulled out his katana and did the samurai luck ceremony.He then raised his katana into attack position and spun through the air,slicing the starman with a fierce backslash.The starman blocked and reversed,drawing his attention to Skittleboy instead of PsiOman.Blocking blows from the starman Skittleboy yelled "Now..get Chris off the table..hurry"

Ah, it's the White Knight play. Get the fair maiden's attention via heroic sacrifice. It's especially effective when, thanks to AC Immortality, there's no actual risk of having to sacrifice anything!

Post #544, by Anthadd

"Shrooom!" Anthadd exclaimed. "I challenge you for the Your Sanctuary you now control!"

Anthadd should know better. Shrooom! accepts challenges from no one but Ness. But I'm being as boring as Anthadd is, pointing that out all the time, so I'll shut up.

"Foolish child," Shrooom! hissed. "They never learn. Ness barely escaped with his life."

But you did not escape with yours. What in the hell are you doing back here again? This does not make sense.

"Maybe we're luckier," Kiyo retorted.
"Not."

...not? Shrooom! is a 13-year-old valley girl?

Writing like that in the Lumine Hall appeared in an empty hall.
"The denizens of Starmen.Net fare well...but can they survive the evil among them?"
"Yes...but only if they learn to work together."
"Then, we must test them."
"They have already proven their worthiness, by finding their way in such amazing ways. Magic, jets, swimming."
The writing disappeared.

There's a 67% chance Anthadd was tripping on shrooms when he wrote this. That makes that first part make a lot more sense.

The SM.Netters within the Stonehenge base had been defeated, and now lay encased within the capsules the test subjects were, their strength ebbing.
"Help us...someone...please..." PSIOsman telepathically communicated.

Man, this is weird. Declaring that other people's ACs in a battle that has nothing to do with what your AC is doing have been defeated and captured is a great way to get a whole bunch of people pissed off at you. Anthadd has just done this very thing to the forum admins. I guess this is the kind of stuff that happens when you (as the admins have lately) go a while without posting. People just assume you're not really coming back and start doing whatever they want with your ACs.

Post #545, by Mog116

(HELLO! THE NINTH SANCTUARY IS AT THE SUNKEN GIYGAN SPACE SHIP FROM MOTHER1!!!!!! AND IF I"M THE ONLY ONE THERE, I'LL UNLOCK IT, WITHOUT YOUR HELP!)

Yeah, I wish you every luck in your effort to make that fly, bucko.

Mog reached the top of the wall he wasw climbing. "Huh?" There was a huge spaceship looming in front of him. It had to be several hundred feet tall. "Dang." Mog looked at the things gaurding it. They looked like super-deformed Starmen.

Pretty much every baddie in bad Earthbound fic looks like some variation on Starmen.

They were all wearing white robes, which were dangling above their feet. "I'm gonna need some help..." Mog, without thinking jumped forward.

Mog, without thinking wrote an IF post. Mog, without thinking could not understand why everyone either ignored it or got pissed off by it.

"PSI SUMMON: STRAY!" There was a flash, and a cat appeared. It did a quick dance, and confused all the Hooded Starmen.

Yeah... I didn't know you could use PSI to invoke Espers from Final Fantasy VI either. But apparently PSI can only summon the really sucky ones.

They started beating the well... er... They beat each other up. Mog won! Mog gained 12 PSI Counters (The measure of points you need to learn a new PSI) Mog realized the power of PSI Quake! Mog Realized the power of PSI Summon: Starmen! Mog gained 3675 exp.

Everyone else Realized the power of PSI Set to Ignore: Mog116. You begin to see why I am the very first person to read this entire thing. Or at least, I assume I will be. We're still only one-third of the way through it at best, so my sanity still has to stretch a long way yet.

[This message has been edited by Mog116 (edited 04-23-2000).]

28 July 2010

Posts #536-540: 23 April 2000

Post #536, by Falcon24

Falcon let out an ear-shattering laugh. "You fool! I'm not using the power of the Sanctuaries! i'm using the power of the Earth!!!" With that, Falcon raised a hand, and a large bolt of lightning came forth, soaring straight toward's Dr. Andonut's Sound Stone.

Okay: Two sentences plus a third for his scornful laughter.

Note how he doesn't go right on ahead and break said Sound Stone, but leaves the door open for Dr. A to handwave his attack away. Note also the brevity of this post, especially by Falcon24's standards; this is not a serious post. It's just an "I don't think so, kiddo."

Post #537, by Foppy King

Suddenly, the Foppy King teleported to Nathan. "Hi!"
"Hello,"
"I have what you need."
"You do?"
"Yes"
"May I have it?"
"On one condition."
"What?"
" PLEEAASSE let me join you!"
"Well..."
(Falcon's lightning flew towards the Sound stone)
"Watch out!" cried the Foppy King. He leaped into the air and took the lightning attack. 500 damage to the Foppy King...

Apparently talking really is a free action. He seems to have stopped time to have this brief conversation with Nathan between the time the lightning left Falcon24's hand and the time it arrived at Nathan's Sound Stone.

Even though There Are No Girls on the Internet, you could easily have convinced me Foppy King was an emo girl, what with his desperation for attention and attempt to guilt trip Dr. A into showing attention for him. (See, I took a hit for your AC, so are you really so coldhearted as to leave me to die now? Huh?)

[This message has been edited by Foppy King (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #538, by EBPoo

After landing the Skyrunner II on the Monotoli Building in Fourside, Poo set off to find Falcon. Now, where would I be if I was him? Poo asked himself. So Poo decided to go to the Magnet Hill Sanctuary location, only to find it in ruins. "My guess is...Falcon's been through here."

EBPoo is ignoring Tengu's edict that the Sanctuaries regenerate more or less instantly. Well, I say ignoring; most likely EBPoo never read Tengu's post in question, or any of Tengu's posts. They're kind of long.

Looking to a corner, Poo saw a giant rat. Communicating with it psychically, Poo could understand it. [SQUEAK! That bird-like figure trashed this place with his...what was it called? Oh right, Sound Sapper. He said something about heading off to Dalaam.] "Thanks for your help, rat. Well, looks like I can't do anything here. So off to Dalaam I go." Boarding the Skyrunner II once again, Poo set its navigator to Dalaam, his homeland. "Hopefully Falc hasn't messed it up too much," Poo said to himself in fear.

Now there's a rare thing, a flying unicorn of IF if you will: an AC confronts a random monster--one that was actually a boss in EarthBound at that--and instead of vaporizing it, asks it for help. Which the monster, relieved beyond measure to not be getting launched into the Sun for once, is only too happy to give.

Post #539, by Godeg

Hours later, Mike recovered.

If he were Foppy King, this post would have come only after posting (COME ON! MY AC IS UNCONSCIOUS AND HELPLESS!!!! PLEASE SOMEONE COME AND HELP ME!!! I SWEAR I'LL LEAVE IF YOU DON'T!!11) Well, yeah, with more misspellings. But yeah.

"Oof... that hurt. I wonder what i should do now..." At that moment, Mike's communicator went off.

"Sir, Sir! Are you alright?!" It was the Denterion.

"Yeah, im fine. My walker is busted up though. That was pretty crazy. Beam me up. I need to get some stuff." Mike replied. Mike expected to be beamed up to the Denterion, but that didn't happen.

"Sir, it appears as if our ship-bound teleporters are not working. We can teleport you to anywhere on the planet though..." Ops blandly replied.

Of course they can. Thus my prophecy of the mech's loss having no real effect on Mike at all comes to pass. Believe in the truth of Baron von Awesome, IF Seer!

"Carp!!! What else could go wrong?! Can't you send me down some supplies? Like food or a weapon?" Mike asked. In a flash of light, Mike noticed that a Pulse rifle and a peanut cheese bar were beamed down from the ship. "Sweet. Thanks guys. Now, hook me up with pink cloud again. I'm gonna go try to lay the smack down."

"Very well, sir. As you wish." the Denterion also added: " Remember, we're here for you if you need any support." Mike was teleported back to pink cloud.

Thus the invincible good guy goes off to do battle against the invincible bad guy. It's like playing multiplayer Goldeneye with Invincible turned on for all players. Try it sometime, and notice the total absence of tension. Notice also how quickly you get bored.*

That's really where IF as a concept fails: To make it work, to give the story real tension, you need a good writer to play the Big Bad who is willing, in the end, to lose. And then you also need several good writers to play Good Guys who are willing, long before the story ends, to die. That never happens, and that's why you get no tension.

Don't worry about the Gathering, though; there will be tension galore, soon. No, not in the form of any good-versus-evil fighting, of course. But there will be lots of obvious tension between the various writers. Not their AC's; the writers themselves. It's going to be fun!

* Invincible doesn't actually work in Goldeneye's multiplayer, but theoretically you could Gameshark it. Or just use your damn imagination.

Post #540, by SirMontyG

"A shield killer? Where'd you get that??" Sir questions in the heat of battle

"I had it!" A quite voice said. It was Foppy King.

Aww. It's too Foppy King already jumped in elsewhere. I have a feeling Major Asshole is about to teach him to be careful what he wishes for.

"There'l be time to tell you how cool you are later: Just use it!" Said Sir (He had locked on to the Starman's weak spot, his control panel on his chest, minutes ago, and was getting ainxious to use it. BTW, the lightweight bazooka dosen't have Site to air missles. That's just nutty.)

Major Asshole ridicules Foppy King for trying to act cool, and then spends the next three sentences trying to act cool. Smooth.

Also: It's Surface-to-Air, dumbass.

Foppy King used the shield killer! The protective orb dissapated the second Sir fired. *WHHAAAMMMM!!* the Starman suffered a direct blow.

"A few more of those and this guy's scrap metal!" Sir quicly reloaded and prepared to fire again...

Yeah, I know. These tension-free battle scenes just drag on forever. This is because
(a) Teenage boys like violence, and
(b) They're not so keen on, or good at, advancing a plot in any kind of coherent matter. So this is mostly the stuff they do.

Posts #531-535: 23 April 2000

Post #531, by pogopunk

screaming, pogopunk ran from the evil shape coming from the ceiling. "aieeeeeeee!"

"stop screaming you ninny," it said, "anyway, falcon's destroyed this sanctuary, so my work here is done..now on to another sanctuary..mwehehe" snickering to itself, the figure melted away, off to wreak more havoc.

No, I don't recall ever hearing about any evil entities from the ceiling, either.

"oh craps! this place is falling apart!" pogopunk said, to no one in particular, since ice had vanished.

That's refreshing honesty, isn't it? He's acknowledging no one is listening to him.

"ugh, i'm getting outta here!" teleporting out of the cave of pink cloud, he appeared near a dalaamese shop. after munching on a bowl of rice gruel, he debated what to do next. he could try and stop falcon24, but he knew some other group would take him.

Translation: Oh wow, I just realized how boring this whole trying to oppose Falcon24 thing is.

[stinks, i'm stuck in a cell, those spoony happy-happyists] luna sent out. [anyway, someone help me, i hate it here]

I know I said this already, but it's funny the way teenagers were dreaming of cell phones before the technology to make it happen finally got there. Good thing the technology took its time; I don't think I could have tolerated a Gathering where everyone is txtn each other.

perking up his ears (even though that doesnt really help receive psychic calls) pogopunk sent out a message of his own.

[ok luna, i'm gonna come and help you bust outta there. it wont be pretty, so sit tight]

[yeah yeah, just hurry up. i'm feeling claustrophobic, plus it smells in here!] she said.

and so paying for his meal, pogopunk teleported off to the mountain cabin to free luna. arriving there, and batting a couple of spiteful crows out of his face, he entered the cabin. "phew! it does smell in here! geez, those happy-happyists are reallly in need of a shower or something," he said, covering his nose up. "ok, lemme try and bash it down with my pogostick." rearing back his stick, he took a deep breath and smaaaashed the bars. a loud metallic ring reverberated through the mountains, and pogopunk found his shiny new stick with a dent in it.

"silly pogo, you didnt do anything. sigh, do i have to do everything myself?" taking a hair clip, she bent over and picked the lock. "there, all better."

The bending over was the important part.

dumbstruck, pogopunk mumbled, "umm, well, er, good job, lets get going!"

luna and pogopunk made their way out, but were stopped by a small group of happy-happyists. "blue blue, loud ring you made, blue blue, not nice, blue blue, suffer!"

"so, what do you suppose we do know, luna?"

Talk about IF-as-fantasy-fulfillment. For the not EarthBound initiated among you, pogopunk just re-enacted every teenage boy's very favorite scene from EarthBound, the one where you rescue the pretty girl who's being held captive in a jail cell. (Yeah, deep down, it was mine, too. Teenage boys are predictable that way.) Except, of course, he put Luna in there instead of Paula. You might wonder what the hell that was all about seeing as how Luna effortlessly let herself out of the cell. It's because she was waiting for someone as dreamy as pogopunk to come and rescue her. Duh.

Post #532, by Godeg

Give Godeg credit. He's already hung around longer than I expected he would.

Mike arrives at pink cloud just in time to see Falcon24 hurl a large chunk of rock. Without hesitating, Mike powered up his weapon systems and fired upon the rock, saving the group that the rock was originally intended for.

How exactly does Mike know that Falcon24 isn't the hero, just about to save the world from certain doom by crushing the group of nefarious villains beneath said rock?

Well, yeah, I know he's Falcon24. But 'Mike' doesn't know that, cool mech thing be damned.

"Hrm... this looks bad. Maybe i should have just turned around when i had the chance" Mike thought. Mike sees Falcon24 turn around, directing has hand toward Mike's battle walker. "Oh carp. I'm screwed." Mike realized that he was in trouble.

The Department of Redundancy Department approves of those last two sentences.

Chunks of rocks started flying at Mike's walker from all directions, and the walker was destroyed. The resulting explosion launched Mike from pink cloud out into the Peaceful Rest Valley area, leaving him unconscious.

Though the mech was cool, you'll see (assuming Godeg continues posting) that it made no effective difference whatsoever on his AC, who will continue teleporting around and generally being invincible as normal.

Post #533, by Foppy King

(Ok please respond to me. Anybody. Do you now how boring it is to be ignored. PLEASE? I will join anyone. ANYONE.)

There's something almost charming about his raw pleas for attention. You're thinking, 'yeah, no doubt this kid killed himself eight or nine years ago,' but you'd be wrong. He's still around SM.Net now and again.

The cry for attention thing on its own isn't that big a deal. What's annoying is how damn lazy this kid is. This is four or five times now he's posted nothing except 'PLZ TO PAY ATTENSHUN TO ME?'. Zero content. It's not like it takes much effort to just write yourself into somebody's group, and they won't pay any active attention to you, sure, but they'll probably attach your name somewhere in their next post. But that's too much work for our friend Foppy King.

Post #534, by PajamaManV4M

Well.. I have about ten minutes. So I'll make this one quick.

Thank God.

PajamaMan was in trouble.

Any way we can skip past the 'trouble' part and move straight to the funeral? Or burial, even better.

No one had responded to his call for help.

Well, color me shocked. Shocked!

How would he be able to get through Deep Darkness with a bunch of mean baddies hiding in the swamp? He was scared of the swamp. He didn't know what enemies lurked below, and he felt like a huge serpant would arise and swallow him whole. And what worried him the most was that he kept getting a vision of a large, pink cloud getting the energy sucked out of it. All seemed grimy.

Where the hell did 'grimy' come from? SimCity 2000's random adjective generator?

Then, from the sky, he could see a small thing headed this way.
"Great! More trouble!"

It came down faster than he thought, and soon landed it's feet on the ground. It looked like a Flying Man, only the fact that his head was bright green and the rest of his body was dark green.

"Hi. I'm Zakk. You can call me Flying Man 6."
"Wh-who are you?"
"Zakk. I'm going to join your party."

Like hell you are. You're only allowed one AC in this story, son.

No, really, as with SuperSpeedy and whoever else, I presume he'll get away with working an AC, since PSI322 isn't reading his posts, and neither is anyone else. As long as he steers clear of Tengu Man no one will ever notice.

Post #535, by Dr. Andonuts

Nathan decided to teleport back to Pink Cloud and see what was happening. He hit a button on his laptop and appeared just in time to see Mike get hit. "Thats got to hurt," he thought.

That was quite unnecessary. "That was a totally irrelevant and redundant piece of dialogue," thought the reader.

Seeing that Falcon was using the energies of the Sanuary locations he took out his Sound Stone and used it counter Falcon's earth energies. Nathan then sent out a quick psyic call. [Anyone with a sanuary melody send half of their sound stone to Pink Cloud, quickly. We need the melodies to netualize Falcon's use of them.]

Oh, come on. Even ignoring the ridiculous number of spelling errors, this reads like an experiment to find the most weak-ass effort at opposing Falcon24 theoretically possible. I'll be shocked if Falcon24 uses more than two sentences on disregarding it, and doubly shocked if anyone besides Dr. A ever mentions it again.

28 March 2010

Posts #526-530: 23 April 2000

Post #526, by Luna

Luna rolled over from her nap in Peaceful restful vally.

Peaceful Rest Valley. loid is so proud.

"It really IS peaceful and restful here..." Luna sighed to herself, picking up her backpack and heading on towards happy happy village.

I always thought the name 'Peaceful Rest Valley' rather ominous--as in, you will rest peacefully AFTER YOU ARE BRUTALLY MURDERED. Whatever you do, don't f*** with the trees. They're made of napalm.

Suddenly, 5 people dressed head to toe in blue and carrying blue paint cans and brushes jumped in front of her.
"What in the... Happy-Happyiests! AHHHH!!!"

Now what in the blue hell are these guys doing back? It's been at least a year since Carpainter disbanded that cult and every resident of the village agreed it was the dumbest thing since Walter Mondale For President.

Luna screamed, running for her life. She knew she had somewhere around 100 hp and 70 pp since she beat up some mushrooms, but all she knew how to do was teleport, and she knew one or two hits from these crazed blue guys would knock her unconsious.

Really? One or two paint attacks? You're going to take 50-100 HP of damage from paint attacks? What's your Defense rating? -55?

In EarthBound, Ness's Defense rating when he first enters Happy Happy Village (sans Hard Hat) is around 12, and he takes around 10 HP damage from the paint attack. It's quite puny.

"Blue blue! We must catch her and sacrifice her to the blue gods!" one blue guys muttered

I wonder what Luna was smoking right before she wrote this? 'one blue guys muttered'?

"No way! You guys are nuts!" Luna yelled back at them, picking up her run.
Suddenly, she tripped over somthing that reminded her vaguely of an iron octopus, and somthing very heavy hit her on the head. All went black.

On the other hand, Luna has always spelled 'something' without the e. It's just something she does. |Dan| always did that, too.

When Luna woke up, she was in a cell.
"PLEASE let this be some VERY bad dream..." Luna said, and pinched herself. "Owch! Guess not... This is so typical... I suppose I have to send out a PSI call looking for help... but still, this totally stinks! How am I gonna beat the santuary NOW!?"

Luna has officially made herself available for the rescuing. PLEASE GET SAFELY OUT OF THE WAY OF THE NERD RUSH BEFORE YOU GET TRAMPLED TO DEATH. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

By the way, has anyone reading this ever awakened themselves from a dream by pinching themselves? I know I never have. It's never actually occurred to me, while actually dreaming, to try. Usually, when I realize I'm dreaming and decide to voluntarily stop dreaming, I hurl myself in front of a passing truck.

Yes, really.

[This message has been edited by Luna (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #527, by Foppy King

"HELLO!" shouted the Foppy King.
"oh yes you can join us." said Tim and Co.
(I am angry for being neglected for the millionth time so now you are stuck with me.)

We continue to be utterly unable to care any less. And you're in for a rude surprise if you think anyone is stuck with you.

If you want someone to pay attention for you, please write some story. This is Foppy King's fifth or sixth post containing demands for attention with no content. That is entirely like too many people I know.

Post #528, by Anthadd

"I hate twiddling my thumbs!" Anthadd cried. "Kiyo! Let's get Rainy Circle!"

That's right, ladies: Anthadd is a MAN OF ACTION.

"But has it been destroyed?" kiyo pleaded. "And on a more pressing matter, can we defeat Shrooom!?"
"With our bare hands, no. But with these little weapons-" Anthadd displayed brand spanking new developments in slingshot and yo-yo technology.

Wait. Did Anthadd just use the word 'spanking'?

"What are they?" Kiyo asked.
"The Machinegun Slingshot and the Kamikaze Yo-Yo. You take the Yo-yo. I'm too inept with them."

And I mean, come on, obviously I get the machine gun. You can play with the yo-yo whose name suggests that attacking someone with it will kill you.

. Arming themselves, the two SM.Netters rushed out of the lab, after stocking up on Beef Jerky and Bottles of Water, and into the Rainy Circle Cave.

I guess the bottles of water are just for a dash of realism. No one else to date seems to have thought much of the human need for at least two quarts of water per day or so.

...Meanwhile...
The fight against the Supreme Starman was at a standstill.
No one was landing any serious blows. The low PSI knowledge, if any at all, of the heroes, was hindering their ability to fight.

I'm not sure about the 'low PSI knowledge' thing, Anth. I guess you can slide by with it, as long as you accept that Tim will inevitably apply a non-PSI AC God Mode while PSI322 angsts out mid-battle and Major Asshole makes fun of Tim.

And Supreme Starman had low agility, so they were able to escape his attacks easily.

I'm honestly not sure what agility has to do with firing frickin' laser beams. Anth is just honoring the decades-old D&D tradition that Dex affects your to-hit roll, even if he doesn't know that's what he's doing.

"It's all but hopeless!" Juliana cried.
"Not unless we can break the shield!" Sir exclaimed.

I think you meant unless; I don't think you meant not unless, which is of course a double negative. Normally I wouldn't point out something so nitpicky, but come on, this is Anthadd we're talking about, of course I'm going to gloat over his every grammatical error when he was 12.

"But how?" Tim countered.
"How about with this little Shield Killer?" Osman proposed, dodging a beam.

Sure, man, you can try it if you want, but Shield Killers suck. Even after you finally get it to work, chances are the Super Duper Ultimate Supreme Starman Mark II will just cast PSI Shield and replace it, and then get a couple free turns while you keep fiddling around with that Shield Killer.

Post #529, by Tengu Man/Makron

Darth, Diamond Dog, Paula and Mani then were given a signal to leave the cave, just in case the upcoming fight got too hairy.

Diamond said, "I think we need to let them handle this. They'll survive, if not beat him."

Paula and Mani were nervous about leaving Ness and Jeff.

Aww! That's so cute! Little softy Ness and Jeff need their big strong women to pwotect them!

"Are you sure?" asked Paula.

"Really, I don't anything happening to them." Mani replied.

"I know, but we must find out about this ninth melody. We have to get to the lab." Diamond Dog said and used Teleport Gamma[his own teleport] and took them into the labs.

I'm still marveling at how many AC's Tengu is getting away with operating here. I think it's mostly because, right now, nobody except Tengu himself is reading his posts. PSI322 certainly isn't.

*******

"Yes, I know about the ninth scantuary. It's also one of the most rare types, as it isn't powered by the Earth." said Dr. Andonuts.

And I didn't tell Team Ness about it back during the war against Giygas because, you know, I decided, who the f*** cares.

The language 'one of the most rare types' is golden. Tengu is reserving his right to keep cranking out sanctuaries until Team Tengu And Paula 4-Ever is at the 3,281st sanctuary and the Earth crashes into the Sun, if people try to mess up his storyline.

"What... is it?"

"It's powered by a Heavenly energy, and only one with a pure heart can unlock the shining spot.

GEE I WONDER WHO THAT'S GOING TO BE

The enemy there is also a very dreaded being, called the Ginack."

It's got huge, sharp... it can leap about... look at the bones!!!

Darth thought... he had an idea of someone who could unlock it, but who? He couldn't pinpoint who, but he knew it was someone...

(BTW, let me decide the character that can unlock the last santuary, k? You can decide where it's at if you want.)

I can't really promise you anyone's going to read this, so all bets are going to have to be off as to whether your instructions here will be followed. It's not like it's a big damn secret who's THE CHOSEN ONE PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW, anyway.

Tengu is surely smart enough to know he's not allowed to lord this much control in an IF. (He'd be crying bloody murder if someone tried to reserve such future plotting rights away from him, certainly.) He figures his force of personality will suffice to cower everyone else into letting him have his way, as long as he doesn't tweak PSI322 too hard.

[Also, you're free to use Ness and Jeff now at any time.]

Throwing a carrot to entice people to think him reasonable, knowing no one will take control of Ness or Jeff, who the masses regard as boring.

[This message has been edited by Tengu Man/Makron (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #530, by Falcon24

Falcon stood there, stunned for a moment. "So...the sanctuaries are powered by the Earth...and cannot be destroyed? Just great.."

Yielding the point to Tengu Man? Suspicious indeed. I haven't read the next paragraph yet, but I will bet heavily it either (a) contains some threat to do something even bigger and badder, like blow up the world or something, or (b) contains some kind of attempt to force the story off the 'Sanctuary' railroad tracks Tengu laid down and get away from the concept altogether. (Or both.)

Falcon backed off from the group, then halted, thinking. A twisted smile grew on his face. "Ahhh...so it is not the power of the sanctuaries I am absorbing..it is the power of the Earth itself!" Falcon looked up. "You fools! I possess even more power than you could imagine! I'm drawing it from the Earth itself...and I share a link with the Earth as well!! Now...SUFFER!!!!"

Looks like (b) is the winner. Mostly.

Falcon waves his hand and a large chunk of rock rips right out of the cavern wall. Falcon sends it hurtling towards the small band of heroes...

Wait. Which small band of heroes is this, again?

Falcon's full-on using the Force now. Darth Tengu should appreciate that.

Also, okay, maybe (b) isn't the winner just yet after all. This looks more like stalling for time, hopefully inducing the 'heroes' to run off a few posts about it, while he decides what direction to go next. Well played, even if he might not have been fully aware of what he was doing.

06 February 2010

Posts #521-525: 23 April 2000

Post #521, by EBPoo

"Ow...my aching head..." mumbled Poo as he regained conciousness. Hmm...green atmosphere, dream-like land, smiley faces everywhere...this must be Magicant, thought Poo. "AHHHH!" screamed Poo as Pokey ran towards him. After walking a long way, Poo finally stopped at a silver tentacle.

I'm a little surprised he's using the EarthBound Magicant, instead of employing the popular IF scheme of coming up with one's own Magicant... which actually makes more sense, because why the hell would EBPoo be running around (a) inside Ness's brain, which (b) was destroyed when Ness shattered the nightmare rock, as it were?

Looking around, Poo saw what was the Sea of Eden. Poo was about to go into the beautiful sea, but stopped when he saw a Kraken. Too scared to go on, Poo walked back to Magicant land. Taking out his palm-sized laptop, Poo took notes on how he got to Magicant. Then, confident that he could find Magicant again if ever needed, he touched the silver tentacle and transported back to Fire Springs.

Not that Poo isn't still an AC and capable of doing whatever the hell he wants with no explanation. I mean, rules are rules.

Glancing around, he saw Darth's gang. Worried that they would try to stop him from further journeying, Poo hid behind a magma rock. After making sure the group couldn't see him, he left his hiding place.

He's certainly a lot less brash than Falcon24. It's refreshing to see somebody employing AC God Mode toward stealth rather than trying to kick the ass of other invincible AC's... so far. I mean, once again, rules are rules; of course sooner or later he'll have to engage in the mandatory AC pissing match.

Then, very carefully, Poo walked out of the cave with enemies falling beneath his feet.

Now that is how you do a random encounter battle sequence. Thank you, EBPoo.

Walking back to the Skyrunner II was no easy task, what with dinosaurs roaming around.

Wouldn't there be a nonzero chance one of the wandering dinosaurs would have destroyed the Skyrunner II© by now, intentionally or accidentally?

There was even a giant yellow ball.

He's referring to the Ego Orb, one of the three Lost Underworld enemies, the other two being dinosaurs. What the hell the programmers had on their minds when they stuck the Ego Orb in there is anybody's guess, but a sound guess will include the use of illegal substances.

A couple hours later, Poo finally made it back to the Skyrunner II with the Fire Springs melody in his Sound Stone replica. "Now, where do I go next? How about...Fourside? Here we go!" *WHOOOOSH* The Skyrunner II took flight and navigated towards Fourside. "Falcon!!! Watch out, because I'm coming for you!"

Falcon24 and EBPoo's breakup a few posts back was obviously planned; it's possible they have a whole plot thread planned out here. Let's wait and see.

Post #522, by Dr. Andonuts

Acting quickly Nathan grabs Pikachu's sound stone before Falcon can destroy Pink Cloud. He runs towards Pink Cloud. "NO, Stop Fool!" the shape coming from the ceiling yells. But it was too late. The sound stone had adsorbed the melody of Pink Cloud right before Falcon destroyed it.

Well, color me shocked about that.

Nathan quickly broke the sound stone into three pieces. He threw 1 to Pikachu, teleported another to the first person he could think of, Tim, and kept the 3rd for himself.

What with all this instant teleportation everyone's capable of, you'd think they'd have polished off all the Sanctuary melodies in about 45 seconds, wouldn't you?

IF is always going to have some plot holes, but stuff like this is the sure sign of an amateur. Go to Barnes and Noble and browse any book you choose on the subject of How to Write a Fantasy Novel, for instance. You'll notice how these books invariably start off by saying, 'Don't write a Lord of the Rings clone!' and then the rest of the book is an instruction manual for how to write a Lord of the Rings clone. But I digress. You'll also notice how pretty much rule #1 is: be consistent. People don't care how outlandish your magic system is, as long as it's internally consistent.

As with any bad fantasy writing, bad IF is littered with inconsistency, even within individual posters' own posts. But thank God for bad IF; I, for one, find it far more entertaining than Lord of the Rings.

He teleported to Onett to get away from the shape coming through the ceiling. Then he teleported to Fourside.

Hey, did I mention I can teleport? Aren't I awesome? Wheeee! Watch me teleport again!

He took a moment to catch his breath and activate the stealth routine on his teleport program so that Falcon couldn't follow him with his @.

Ah, the AC pissing matches continue. Question from the Annoying Question Guy: If you can and do ignore Falcon24's teleport tracking, what makes you think he won't just ignore your ignoring of his teleport tracking and track your teleportation anyway?

One major advantage IF offers over collaborative fiction or plain ol' single author fanfiction is the unintentional comedy provided by opposing writers endlessly trying to one-up each other over pointless stuff.

He then teleported to Winters, then Summers, then Twoson. Then his palmtop beeped, and a notice came up on the screen saying that his batteries were low. "I knew I should have used Duracell," he thought. "Oh well, how am I going to recharge a fusion battery in Twoson."

I sincerely doubt your gizmo could drain a fusion battery within your youngest grandchild's lifetime. I do not believe you know what a fusion battery would theoretically be.

Suddenly he remembered that Apple Kid lived in Twoson. He walked to Apple Kid's house and went in.
"Hi, Apple Kid, i presume," Nathan said.
"Yeah, i'm Apple Kid, who are you?" said Apple Kid.

I was really more under the impression that after Giygas's fall, Apple Kid was going to hang out with Dr. Andonuts on a more or less permanent basis, rather than return to his crummy house in a town where everyone hated him.

"I'm Nathan, a fellow invertor.

Watch me invert! Aren't I great?

I don't have time to chat right now, but could you recharge this fusion battery for me?"
"Hmmm," said Apple Kid while pulling out a chemisty set. "Looks like it just needs some H-2 and H-3. There."

I'm pretty sure if some stranger came barging into my house and demanded that I recharge his fusion battery right now, I would recognize his apparent desperation and relieve him of everything valuable on his person in exchange for my assistance (even though, as Nathan apparently doesn't know, the whole idea of fusion power dictates that 'recharging' a fusion battery means pouring some water into it.)

"Thanks," said Nathan. "I'll come by and chat with you later. Bye."
Nathan walked out, wondering what had happened after he left Pink Cloud.

The only thing I can figure is that Andonuts wants us to believe his AC and Apple Kid are buddies. Well... except that he introduced himself when he barged into AK's house, so I guess he wants us to believe that his AC is a world-famous invertor that AK holds in high esteem. That's about the only reasonable explanation for why AK didn't tell him to get the hell out and go jump in a lake.

Post #523, by Pikachu3164

Pikachu, who was way behind Nathan, came running straight into the room where Falcon was desroying Pink Cloud.
As Pikachu laid his eyes on the Sound Sapper, he realized that that stone was the negitive energy he had felt. [What the heck is that black thingy?! And why is Pink Cloud not there?] cried Pikachu.
Poryhedron ran up to Pikachu.

Floated, really. Sort of. I think. Then again, it's a safe bet 3164 knows a hell of a lot more about pokemon than I do, so take his word for it.

"I'll get a reading on it... Hmm... It appears to be some sort of device that absorbs Sanctuary power, then destroys the Sanctuary."
[Destroys the Sanctuary? Falcon destroyed Pink Cloud! We can't let that happen! The Sanctuaries are the power sources of the Earth!!! What do you think would happen if thes Earth had no more power!!]
"That would not be good, can tell you that!"

Don't sweat it, bro. Just do what the other AC's are doing and handwave it away. Tengu can teach you the way of ignoring any and all post content inconvenient to your intentions.

[Well then, help me destroy it!]
Pikachu ran up Falcom, and made the Sapper go flying. He then tried to destroy the thing. [Help me!]

Just knocking the gizmo out of Falcon24's hands risks setting him off. 3164 is either a slow learner or an evil genius.

"Ha!! You can't destoy it!"
Pikachu then stopped what he was doing, and stared directly at Falcon. [Falcon! Do you know what the Your Sanctuaries are?! They are the power sources of the Earth! If you desroy the Sanctuaries, you are also destroying Earth's Power. Were you aware of this? By desroying the Sanctuaries, you are destroying the Earth.]
"I never thought of that...." replied Falcon, who was seconds away from blasting Pikachu to 299X.

I'm leaning toward slow learner. I think 3164 is blissfully ignorant of the unwritten rules of IF, such as 'don't put words in other ACs' mouths wherever what they say is plot-important or character-important' (which is probably 90% of the time in confrontations like these). He's just trying to have a good old fashioned argument, but... this is one of those things that will piss off pretty much any writer, not just Falcon24. You should have seen the way Anthadd would flip out when people did this kind of stuff with his AC. To say nothing of guruzeth.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 04-23-2000).]

Post #524, by Godeg

Once again, sirens and alarms start going off in Mike's battlewalker. "Ahh... carp. Whats goin on now?"

You'd think he'd have developed a beast of a headache from all the alarms by now.

"Energy signal dissipating. Destination no longer a point of interest." the walker's computer stated plainly.

"Hrm... wonder whats goin on. Maybe i should just avoid that place totally. ...Nah, i'll go check it out."

Spoken like a D&D veteran. 'Yeah, I know weird s---'s going down and the whole damn place might explode any minute, but... there's probably XP and loot in there!'

More sirens started going off. "Shield harmonics haywire. Shield system powering down."

"Hrm... thats not good. That doesn't seem good, anyways. Eh, something's bound to happen." Mike had decided to continue for pink cloud, although he knew it could have been a bad decision.

XP. Loot. Easy Call. The DM wouldn't have put all this danger out there like a homing beacon if he didn't intend for me to go there right now, right?

Post #525, by Tengu Man/Makron

Ness growled on the way to the lab as he felt the essence of Pink Cloud disappiate, but then regenerate.

Dear Falcon24:
Just in case you had forgotten, my 'f--- you' still stands.
Love,
Tengu Man

"Whoever's trying to destroy the sanctuaries doesn't realize they can regenerate infinitely[in other words, destroyed sanctuaries eventually regenerate since the Earth itself powers them].

And by eventually, I mean in three f---ing seconds, so bugger off and do something that doesn't f--- with my plot plans, would ya?

I think we need to find his menace before we go any further." he said.

"I agree... this is becoming annoying." Darth said, pulling out his lightsaber.

DUN DUN DUN

"Where was the last fluctuation?" asked Diamond Dog.

By the way, I meant to mention this last time: Tengu has employed perhaps his favorite rule-circumventing trick here, commandeering a minor EarthBound character (Diamond Dog, in this case) and using him as an extra AC. Note how Tengu is essentially working four AC's now (himself, Paula, Ness, and Diamond Dog; technically Jeff is around too, but Tengu rarely uses him for anything,) and nobody is calling him out on it.

He might get called out on it if he tried to split them up and have, say, Ness and DD go off some other direction by themselves, but even then, he might not.

"Pink Cloud. That's were we should head next." Ness teleported everyone to Dalaam.

They made their way through the cave of the Pink Cloud. They saw Falcom fighting with someone.

Wait, did Tengu actually typo 'Falcon' too, or is he making fun of 3164 by repeating his spelling error?

Ness motioned to Paula, Darth and Mani to stay in the shadows while he and Jeff went face to face with him.

"That's him..." Ness gritted his teeth and slammed him with PSI Rockin Omega. Falcon was caught off guard.

Psychic shield! Hell-oooo?!

"Who did that?!"

"It's OUR turn..." Ness appeared within his sights, "You're the one trying to destroy the santuaries. I'd like to let you know you're failing miserably."

"What're you talking about?! I destroyed the power of Pink Cloud!"

"Um, duh... These sanctuaries are powered by the Earth itself. They regenerate a little while after they're "destroyed". You can't permenately destroy the Your Sanctuaries. Sorry to disappoint you." Jeff appeared, aiming his bottle rockets at him...

I for one am eagerly anticipating Falcon24's next post. This impending confrontation between him and Tengu is the most exciting thing on the Gathering since Chris's whirlwind courtship of PSI322 back when they were having that dance.

For the record, I do not expect him to fly off the handle; been there, done that, and he's smart enough to know it won't accomplish much dealing with Tengu Man. I more expect him to accept the challenge and we'll get to see a writer one-upping contest between two of our volatile star writers. Don't let us down, Falcon24!

05 February 2010

Posts #516-520: 23 April 2000

Post #516, by PajamaManV4M

PajamaMan had no time. He needed help.
Anyone who can hear me.. help.. I am stuck in Deep Darkness.. anyone..

If anyone wants to help PajamaMan, get to Deep Darkness.

Add yet another entry to list of People Crying For Attention. At the rate this is going, it doesn't look good for the rain forests.

This was posted two minutes after PMV's post #516. I suppose he didn't know how to use the 'Edit Post' feature.

Post #517, by PSIOsman

(Does anyone else think this should be compiled into a fanfic?)

Ten years later, I'm the first person to compile it into anything. And it's not really a fanfic. To try and actually edit the various grammatical problems and disorganization out of the Gathering... well, if there's a particular room in hell for editors, I'm sure that's on the to-do list there.

PSIOsman, Scimitar in hand, ran through the dark halls of the Stonehenge base. He saw the remains of battles with Starmen and Mooks all over.

"The guys must have been through here…"

He heard a ferocious battle up ahead. HE ran through a door, and saw Tim, Juliana, and Sir defeating the last pair of Superb Starmen.

I highly approve of the way he went out of his way to not only ignore but pretty much spit on Liyoshi's attempt to force someone to write a long fight scene.

"Hey, guys! I have something to tell you it's about Poo! He--- uh…"

They all turned toward him.

"What?" Asked Juliana. "What about Poo?"

"B-b-behind you…" Osman stammered.

They turned back around to see the Supreme Starman hovering in the air.

Maybe it's just because I'm so awesome and plebeians can't do it, but I could have told them about Poo and mentioned the Supreme Starman, all in one sentence.

"Uh oh…" said Sir.

The Supreme Starman started flying around the room, firing laser blasts at the group.

Scary.

PSIOsman leaped and dodged, but he got grazed in the arm. The Diamond Scimitar skittered away across the floor. Tim, Sir, and Juliana scattered, trying to avoid the laser fire. Sir pulled out his light bazooka with SAM attachment and took aim. The shell locked on. Sir fired… and the shell exploded seven feet away!

Thus blowing Major Asshole's face off?

"CRAP!" Yelled Tim. "He's got a shield."

(a) This would appear to be Osman's way of saying 'ha ha, Major Asshole, no bazooka for you this time!'
(b) Are you tired of everything having shields and a big deal being made of it all the damn time? I am. JESUS CHRIST IT'S GOT A SHIELD WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW OH GOD WE'RE SCREWED

PSIOsman got up. The Supreme Starman turned to him and started charging up his Supreme Beam.

Well, that's pretty stupid of it. Its standard beams were doing the job pretty well. Damned set-in-stone AI scripts.

Wait! Don't tell me what happens next!

Osman ran to his Scimitar, and in one motion jumped, leaped off the wall, and brought the Scimitar down just as Supreme Starman fired. The blast reflected off of it, and struck the Starman's shield. However, Supreme Starman was a bit shocked, as was PSIOsman…

PSIOsman makes a totally awesome move to save the-- DAMMIT! I told you to wait!

Post #518, by Chris

(Ladies and gentlman: Due to the fact that Ice had to close the original topic due to its incredible length, I've created a Best of Interactive Fiction archive. For now, it's the only IF in there, but more may be added as time goes by. Just letting everyone know.)

Yes, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Chris. Without your efforts, I wouldn't have the entire Gathering archived on my computer (and on various backup media) to this very day.

Post #519, by Mog116

Long time no see from one of the active posters back at party time.

Mog opened his eyes. "Huh!? Wnere am I?" There was a Nurse by another bed at the hospital. "You fell down a flight of stairs."
(I really did, My mom got me a get well Video-Game because I pulled my leg. I've been playing it)

Mog avoids naming the video game, because if he did that, some people might say something like 'oh, that game rules! What do you think about (insert plot event here)?' and then Mog would be forced to admit he's lying.

If Mog weren't lying, you would think he'd be giddy about his new game and bragging to everybody about what game it is.

Short version: Mog disappeared from the IF board for a week, was staggered by the volume of posts during his absence, and came up with a mildly exotic-sounding story to explain his absence and hopefully garner some sympathy. He still has nothing on EBaholic, who faked his death and got half the community to believe it, even though he claimed to have died of cystic fibrosis even though he had posted numerous pictures of himself showing that he weighed 250 pounds*. SM.Netters weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, as a bunch.

* One of CF's telltale symptoms is that its victims get deathly thin before they expire. And CF is a horrible disease, and faking it because everyone hates you and you want to read a bunch of posts from people saying nice things about you, is deplorable.

"Oh." Mog got up, tripped over his duffel bag, pickecx up his duffel bag and went outside. [Hm... We need the Melodies so... PIKACHU Send me a sound stone!] All of a sudden, a rock fell from the sky and hit Mog. [Look for the Ninth Your Sanctuary spot] Mog realized the power of PSI Teleport Omega! Mog realized the power of PSI Sound Omega! Mog realized the power of PSI Summon Omega!

I don't quite understand why people find it necessary to add various superpowers to their AC's for no plot-relevant reason at all right in the middle of the story. Why don't you just cut to the chase and state right at the beginning that your AC is God?

Mog Uses PSI Teleport Omega to teleport to The Lost underworld.

I once theorized that many people in the EarthBound world have Teleport Omega. Evidence: Go into the empty room on the third floor of the Fourside Department Store, stand in the far bottom left corner of the screen (next to the door) and use the For Sale Sign. Observe that your customer will arrive from the right, where there is nothing but a solid wall.

"I'll start here." Mog walked up to the Lost Cave. This place has had really strange music, Mog thought, Mabye I should start here. Mog turned left and saw something gleaming. He walked to it, and, in a bright flash, A PSIer (My version of an Earthbound Esper, It teaches you Different PSI) Mog realized the Power of PSI Float! Mog used PSI float to cross the gaps. After a while, he stopped to Examine his PSIer.

Name:
Stray: Confuses enamies.
PSI:
Float: Makes character float, cross gaps.
Mimic: Mimics last command.
Warp: Exits dungeons.
Quake: Earth damage.

Mog eguips it, and proceeds to climb the muontain.

For some people, IF is nothing more than literary masturbation. Oh, yeah, MY character has THIS power and THAT power and THAT power and HAHAHAHAHAH POWER! UUUUUNLIMITED POWER!!!!

(Note: I want to write about the song I find. Anyone who wants to help may help, though. Just let my reveal the giygan Spacecraft From Mother1, were the last song is found. WHOOPS! Well, ya know m=y plan, so anyone can reveal it)

Sadly, his plan to make himself important by naming the 'Ninth Sanctuary' has a fair chance of succeeding. You'd think people would just ignore people randomly spouting something like this without bothering to write any plot about it--Mog's post here contains nothing except the aforementioned literary masturbation--but... well... I don't know why they do what they do.

Post #520, by Falcon24

"Get AWAY from me!!" Falcon kicks pogopunk to the other side of the cavern. "You have no idea what you're doing!!" Falcon scrambled onto his feet, grabbed the Sound Sapper,and raced towards Pink Cloud. "No one will stop me!!!!"

Three exclamations, three quotes straight out of the Generic Villain Handbook. I'm certain at this point that Falcon24 is doing that on purpose.

At Pink Cloud at last, Falcon scrambled to fling the switch on the Sound Sapper. The black rock emanated with pure evil energy as the world, and music around the sanctuary became distorted. The Pink Cloud began to turn a shade of grey...

Hey, question: If you wreck Pink Cloud, mightn't you fall through it as it disintegrates and plummet to your violent doom three thousand feet below? I mean, obviously Falcon24 personally wouldn't, with wings and all. But it sounds plausible, right?

04 February 2010

Posts #510-515: 23 April 2000

Post #510, by icEFusioN

The other thread got messed up cause of so many posts. Continue on in here.

Yes, that's right, welcome to the very first second thread of a forum topic in starmen.net history. The first one got so long it broke the s--- out of the forum.

Post #511, by Little Yoshi

Tim(or at least, I think I'm still at Stonehenge, I haven't been mentioned here in a while)

Boo hoo. Cry us a river.

You've surely noticed the frequency with which people toss into their posts little comments whose purpose is to complain about not getting enough attention, no?

ran down the dark corridor, Masamune in hand, trying to dodge the Superb Starman's devasting lasers. Once in range, he gace it an Aqua Slash, a move he invented by using Rainy Circle's power, and Leap Slash together. It wasn't easily defeated however. This gave Tim's friends(I'm not sure exactly who all is here) time to catch up.

Not so fast, partner. What's this business about you having friends?

Juliana bashed it with a SMAAAAAAASHing hit, and defeated it. They moved on, only to be greeted by a pair of Superb Starmen. They started firing long range weapons at Tim, Juliana, and Sir, who had caught up. Tim had a good defense, and great armor. He tried to protect Sir and Juliana by getting the blows.

I think 'absorbing' or 'deflecting' was the word he was searching for her to describe his amazingly manly activities. When in doubt, toss in a form of 'to get' and move on with your life.

They reached the duet, and attacked, full force, defeating them quickly.

LOL @ 'duet'. The Superb Starmen were singing while firing frickin' laser beams! ('Duo' is the word he wanted, and either couldn't quite grasp it or tried to be fancy.)

They rounded the bend, and saw a Supreme Starman! This guy looked very similar to Final Starman, but bigger, and with a jetpack.They knew this battle would not go quickly(and please people, don't make it short!)

The world wants to know: If you're so concerned about someone else simply writing 'so Sir whacked the Supreme Starman and we all moved on' (a legitimate concern, because nobody except Timmy wants to read a long battle sequence, much less write one), why don't you write it out yourself right now? Right: Because it's boring.

Here Liyoshi is trying to clamp down limitations on what other people are allowed to write, which is a monstrous IF no-no. Made worse by the fact that one of those people is the Supreme-Dictator-For-Life of the forums.

Post #512, by pogopunk

still frozen in place, pogopunk noted that falcon had defeated the guardian. he saw falcon bring out his sound sapper, and at that moment everything clicked. "OHMIGOSH, HE'S GONNA DESTROY PINK CLOUD!" pogo exclaimed. "gwaaa! you cannot have it!" lunging himself at the bewildered falcon, they wrestled on the floor, falcon trying to get into the sanctuary, pogopunk trying to knock away the sound sapper. ice just sorta stood there, with his mouth open, halfway drooling. he stared dumbly at the two, when suddenly he threw himself into the two. biting and snarling took place, when suddenly a loud rumbling shook the floor.

"grrrr! pogopunk, ice! get outta the way and let falcon destroy this place. he must continue to rid eagleland of the sanctuaries, so i may take over! nyahaha!" boomed a mysterious voice. the group stopped wrestling and stood in fear, wondering who the evil shape coming through the ceiling was...

[note: lets not have it be pokey or giygas. be creative!]

Once again... well, just see the annotations to the above Liyoshi post. IF is a constant struggle for control, which is why it's called 'Interactive' rather than 'Cooperative'. Big difference between those two concepts. Cooperative fiction is never done on a private forum; it's done between a small, select group of writers who are usually friends or at least friendly acquaintances, one or two of which everyone knows to be the alpha dogs with final decision making authority; it used to be done via email, but now is typically done via a private forum; and the plot is typically planned out ahead of time.

Waaaay back in the day, I was part of a group of five writers... I think it was myself, PSI322, Anthadd, TsuramiSea and Falcon24, but don't hold me to that. We all agreed IF had gotten to be more of a bother than it was worth, and we should write our own cooperative fic, which we called 'Project: Spectrum'. It petered out after a little while. Sometime later, just PSI, Falcon and myself did one (on a private forum) called 'The Nightmare Rock' which was actually quite good, but once again, it just kind of died on the vine eventually.

Sometime after that, after I had vanished from the scene, Falcon joined with PSI, SimonBob and various other luminaries to produce the humbly titled 'Greatest IF Ever', which really was excellent and I think is still in the starmen.net fanfics section, along with various other successful collaborative fics. If you tire of the unintentional comedy of the Gathering and want to see cooperative fiction that works, go look those up.

As usual, it turned out I was the problem.

Post #513, by Godeg

[Onett, near giant step]
Mike was sleeping, when all of a sudden alarms started going off.

"What the freak? What's goin on?!" Mike exclaimed, as he was confused from being jerked out of sleep so suddenly.

The battlewalker's radio came to life, and started throwing out a series of messages. "Sir, it appears as if a massive energy signature has appeared on the island that you are on. It seems to be in the vicinity of pink cloud. It is advised that you stay away from there."

No points for guessing what happens next.

Nitpick: If the guy's using the intentionally vague phrase 'in the vicinity', he should probably be saying 'of Dalaam', not the very specific 'of Pink Cloud'.

"Shuh, yeah right. I'm goin over there. Gimme the location." Mike ordered, and the location was downloaded to his walker's nav computer. "Alright, im gonna go there... just as soon as i go check out the sanctuary."

If you find your mech hacking through underbrush, you know you're on the right track.

Mike sets off to Giant Step, and just as he was about to arrive there, he was confronted by a humungous ant. "Holy cow! What the freak is that?" Mike wondered, bewildered by the insect that was as tall as his walker.

"I am Titanicystein Mk. II. I am the guardian of this sanctuary... take it from me, if you dare." the gigantic ant stated, and a battle started.

Wasn't that guy already whacked? Maybe he's actually Titanicystein Mk. IV, but they have a Guardian Digger-like complex where they all think they're II.

The ant started to attack Mike, and Mike started freaking out. Alarms were going off everywhere, and the situation wasn't looking good. "Cycle shield harmonics! Target lasers to strike between the carapace!" Mike exclaimed, and the walker's computers executed the orders. Lasers of many colors were fired, and all scored a hit between the head and thorax of the ant. The ant exploded, and Mike was free to go on to investigate the sanctuary.

The Enraged PETA Activist and his cohorts came after you!

[Giant Step]
In the sanctuary, Mike could just barely hear a melody being played. Mike wondered where it could be coming from, and decided to dismiss the thought. The left display in Mike's walker started to glow, and the computer said that a melody was recorded and saved. "Hrm... thats kinda cool... kinda. I'm off to pink cloud now to investigate this energy fluctuation." Mike said to nobody in particular. Mike activated the autopilot, and the walker was headed in the direction of pink cloud, just as he was falling asleep.

You have to admit that long-distance transportation that operates itself while you sleep or do whatever else you'd like, currently available only to those wealthy enough to own private jets, is an awfully nice concept. You think the world's a small place now because of the intarwebs, you ain't seen nothing yet, son.

Post #514, by Foppy King

At Stonehenge Base...
Tim had been fighting off Starmen and Octobots, and was growing tired. Then, a Starman fired a Multi Bottle Rocket. "AAAAAHHHH!" he yelled. Suddenly, the Foppy King rushed into the area and casted Shield Omega.

Which, if you had the HP of an EarthBound character, would not prevent you from getting killed by the Multi bottle rocket. Even at half damage you're still talking around 800-1000 HP there. But these are AC's, of course.

The Multi Bottle Rocket was deflected. The Starman was defeated. "It's you again." said Tim. "I would like to asist you." said the Foppy King. Tim replied...
>Yes >No
(For Tim to decide)

'Good. You just did. Bye!'

Post #515, by PajamaManV4M

PajamaMan traveled through the murky swamps of Deep Darkness, getting such-n-stuff on his pajamas.

What makes Deep Darkness such a desirable spot for people to wander around in, anyway? Was it just the PSI322 Effect, or is it that people for some reason are actually attracted to the notion of slagging through an endless, thick, filthy, poisonous swamp full of critters that want to kill you? It's not as exotic as it sounds.

He was glad that it washed the mud off, though. To keep his head up above the swamp, he kicked his legs up hard when his head started sinking.

Not gonna work, Junior. You can't tread pudding.

He started to get used to the murky depths of Deep Darkness. No problem. he thought. It was perfectly silent, and it seemed nothing could stop or threaten him at all. He took a right turn and found a nice amount of land, just enough to crash for a little. There was a broken helicopter which seized to work on the land(you can guess where he is now),

What the hell does any of that sentence mean?

but he didn't pay much attention to it. Everything was A-OK.
..
..
..
"WHARGH!!!"
PajamaMan barely avoided a huge pile of barf aimed at his head. From the water arose the biggest pile of puke he had ever seen.
The Big Pile of Puke.
"DROWN IN PUKE, SPANKY!" the Big Pile of Puke hollered, throwing up at PajamaMan.

You have to admit, that is a very masculine taunt.

He jumped behind the helicopter, and almost threw up himself when he saw the vomit comit splatter on the windows. The Big Pile of Puke was going insane, barf flying on the trees. Soon, he stopped.
PajamaMan slowly sidestepped to the right, thinking that he went away.
"HAHAHA! ATTACK!"
An Even Slimier Little Pile flew out at PajamaMan, screaming at the top of it's tiny lungs. He had almost no time to react.
PSI Nachos Alpha!
"Huh?" the Even Slimier Little Pile gasped as psychic cheese and nachos flew at him.

I would think a smily little pile and/or big pile of puke would love to be smothered in nacho cheese.

The mexican beam worked it's way quickly toward The Big Pile of Puke, sending them both against a really big tree. They were both KO'ed.
"Niftyness!"

The Annotated Gathering

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