Posts #1161-1165: 25 May 2000

Post #1161, by loid

"Well I think your the one who has another thing coming." said evil manimani evily
"Yeah, sure."
"I'd like you to meet my new assistant, ArcRandite, come on down!"
Kiyo floated through the air, but he wasn't kiyo anymore, he was Randite.
"Hello Tim, in this land of eternal darkness, night never stops! I'm going to enjoy watching you suffer Tim"

Think what you want, but I think this is hilarious, and it's going to be super ultra double hilarious when we get to watch Liyoshi get huffy about it.

---

Post #1162, by Traceh

Tracy stood there for a moment after thinking for a while. Then she turned to Poo and Chris with a strange look on her face.

Yes, that is probably the correct response to guruzeth's antics and Falcon24 and PSI322's responses to them.

"Well Im really glad we arent fighting, I was never going to in the first place if it means anything, I just wanted to not get separated from any of you," Tracy said, glancing out the window of the station. She saw Falcon push the door open and stride in. "Where have our other friends gone?" she asked him.

Poor Traceh's like "wtf are we arguing about? Can't we just chill out and get along? In an IF?"

"Well...." he hesitated, "I saw guruzeth sitting at a table across the street."

"Okay then guys," said Tracy. "Will you try to work on selling that bat? Ill be back as soon as I can, hopefully not too long."

Tracy picked up her bag and slung it across her shoulder, walking hastily out the front door and breathed a sigh of releif, none too sad about leaving the police station. She looked around, first left, the across the street only to find nothing. She was wondering where Juliana had went to when she caught a flash out of the corner of her eye, a figure dissapearing into the woods.

"guru!" she called. "guruzeth, where are you going to?" He didnt seem to hear her, he looked as if he held pent up anger or worry, so she decided to follow at a safe distance and wait for the right time to aproach him.

I don't know if it was on purpose, but this is actually a nice callback to Traceh and guruzeth's first meeting, back at the Hotel Where It All Began.

After walking a distance much longer then she originally expected, she noticed him up ahead. He had stopped and was staring off in to the distance as if he saw something but wasnt ready to explore. She took her chance and called to him and he turned around slowly to face her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in disbelief. He gave her a blank look that she couldnt read, so she didnt jump to any conclusions.

That is to say, Traceh saying to guruzeth OOC through the vehicle of IC writing: I still have no idea what the hell you've been flipping out about, dude. Are you okay? What's wrong with you?

"I was about to ask the same thing to you, guru. Where are you going? I mean...well....are you just going to leave? After all that we have been through on this island, to leave it all behind... Well, I guess I understand. If you want to be on your own, let me know now so I can go back to tell the others and stay with them, I guess." Tracy looked up and saw the clearing up ahead, but turned away and waited. It was starting to get late.

Again, in other words, Traceh's like, dude, I invested a lot of time into writing a plotline with you, and now we've been joined by a bunch of other people, and now you're going to throw a hissy fit and stomp out just like that? Really? 

She was kind of fond of the guy, for some reason, but she would have been so much better off just letting him go off to pout in the corner by himself and move along with Poo and Falcon24 and diospadre. 

[This message has been edited by Traceh (edited 05-25-2000).]

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Post #1163, by guruzeth

guruzeth stood straight, gazing sharply into the distance. He turned briefly toward Tracy, who was looking in another direction, then back toward the clearing, and then finally he turned his body around. "I'm sorry," he said after a slight hesitation. "I left without much explanation. My past extends far beyond the point at which you found me... I used to be a fighter. I fought against just about every villain you can imagine... but it wore me out. You'd be surprised how disheartening a life fighting enemies that can never really be defeated is."

LOL. You probably don't know why I'm laughing, but it's because I oh so distinctly remember guruzeth's endless IF Wars against Tengu Man. That is what he's referring to. What he's saying, quite clearly and directly to his mind, is "f--- all this saving the world violence bulls---, there are 14 other IF threads to do that in, I'm out."  

The thing is, Traceh is an IF newbie and therefore doesn't know any of that--ditto for Falcon24 and diospadre. Those three are really dumbfounded; from their perspective guruzeth completely out of nowhere started throwing a temper tantrum, and they're like 'WTF?'

"I never knew that..." said Tracy.

"I vowed some time ago to never fight again unless it was necessary to protect my life," guru continued. "Besides, it's just stupid what they're doing! They're not gonna get dios out of jail by beating up the cops!"

Putting dios in jail was your idea, genius!

"Yeah, I know," said Tracy. "Hey, have you seen Juliana? I can't find her anywhere..."

guruzeth raised an eyebrow. "She was at the station..."

"She disappeared," said Tracy. "I didn't see her leave, it was sometime after you did. It's getting late..."

"She must be in the town somewhere, probably the hotel," said guru. "But I'd feel a lot better if I knew for sure. Let's go find her, and see if the others are in the slammer yet."

guruzeth is of course following along behind PSI322, who left him with basically no other option. He's also, kind of cleverly, offering Falcon24 one last chance to write a nonviolent conclusion to the whole jail thing, which of course Falcon24 will never accept, but at least guruzeth can say he offered.

Tracy laughed a little at that. "Yeah, let's get outa here before it gets dark." They hurried back out of the jungle and made for the hotel, where they hoped they would find Juliana at this late hour. What happened to the others?

Repeating the invitation for Falcon24 and/or diospadre to yield the point.

---

Post #1164, by Falcon24

Falcon strode down the hall of the station, heading for the Police Chief's office. He was about to barge in when he stopped in his tracks. "What am I doing!? This is SO stupid...I guess I'll just try to reason with the Chief." He walked politely into Chief Strong's office. "Hello, I am Falcon..I was wondering what the posted bail on diospadre is?"

Falcon24... backing down?

Chief Strong scratched his chin. "Well, the bail is set around $240,000, I'm afraid."

Falcon's eyes bugged out. "What!? That's crazy!"

Chief Strong laughed. "Look where you are, boy! EVERYTHING is overpriced in Eagleland!" He began to laugh insanely.

"Wait, can't I bargain with you? I mean, it's only an assault charge, nothing THAT serious..."

Strong's eyes turned cold. "I'm afraid that's not possible. Unless...you're willing to speak with a few of Onett's finest." At these words two officers stepped forward, seemingly out of nowhere. They grabbed Falcon by the arms.

"Hey!" Falcon shouted. "What the heck do you think you're doing!? I didn't do anything wrong!"

Strong simply stroked his mustache. "We'll be holding you on counts of disturbing the peace...you interrupted me while I was playing EarthBound, and I almost beat it!" Falcon attempted to pull away from the officers. He didn't want to hurt them, but he felt he had no choice. He thrust his foot backwards into one of the officer's kneecaps, and attempted to pull away from the other.

Ha ha ha. That's so delightfully fiendish a way of showing guruzeth the finger. "I TRIED to solve this without violence, but they jumped me! I couldn't!"

The first officer grabbed his knee in pain, and as Falcon struggled to get free of the second, the first pulled Falcon's bat from its holster and bashed him over the head with it. He fell to the ground, out cold.

"Uhhh...where am I?" Falcon, at last regaining his senses, found himself on the cold concrete floor of a prison cell. He looked up to see dios sitting on a bunk near him.

"Hey Falcon. What happened?" dios inquired.

Falcon coughed. "Crooked Cops.." He muttered.

Ohhhh, this is wonderful. Falcon24 was a very sharp lad--did you see how he threaded that needle? He managed to yield the point to guruzeth AND stick his tongue out at him while he was doing it, and via a tactic so unheard-of in IF that it's diabolically clever to employ it here: an AC losing a fight! (Actually, this is the third time Falcon24 has lost a fight in the Gathering, which I believe is three more than everyone else combined.) Now guruzeth more or less has to accept a negotiated truce rather than claiming victory. I declare Falcon24 the winner of this little spat, for what little it matters. 

Of course, on the only scoreboard that matters guruzeth is the victor: the girls, you have noticed, are following him. I think they'd have been better off following Falcon24, though.

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Post #1165, by diospadre

Well, I guess we're stuck here for a while" diospadre mumbled. "What time is it anyway?"

"It's 6:30. You've been in here for about nine minutes. Still holding out alright?" Falcon asked.

LOL. Oh, diospadre, I wish you'd posted a lot more in the Gathering than you did.

"I don't know, I think I'm beginning to become claustrophobic." diospadre replied, just as an officer brought over a phone. "You two got a call," he said.

"Hey guys, It's me, Chris. Guess what!" Chris exclaimed. "Poo and I sold the bat! We got two hundred bucks!"

"Well, youre only about 498 thousand dollars short," Fsalcon replied dejectedly. The bail is way to high for us. Why don't you two try to buy back the bat. We'll get out on our own. See you on the outside."

It's doubling me over with laughter how excited diospadre is making Chris sound about the two hundred bucks. I wonder if anyone involved remembers that, thanks to Chris's great fantasy date excursion, he and Juliana are carrying a pile of high end equipment, not just a single bat. Then again, Juliana is currently AWOL.

"okay, dios, see you then." *Click!*

"Well what's your plan?" Falcon asked.

"Well it all depends on wheteher my suspicions are correct. But I'll be able to get out of the cell pretty easily." dios concentrated, and the wavering beam of light extended from his arm again.

"Petty impressive," Falcon said. "That look familiar, did you pick it up from somewhere?"

"Yeah, it's basically a copy of the Soul Reaver from that Legacy of Kain game for the PSX and DreamCast. I'm not really sure where how I got it, though, It just kind of appeared on my arm a few years ago." With that, dios took two swipes at the bars, which easily gave way. dios and Falcon ran out of the cell and towards the exit of the station.

I'm sorely disappointed diospadre has resorted to giving himself crossover superpowers just like everyone else. But I can at least respect that he thumbs his nose at the practice while he's doing it. Like I said once before, diospadre is basically Major Asshole, only better.

"Wait, dios, there's something we gotta do first."

********************************************

"Lieutenant, go check on those inmates. I'm going to take a little break." Captain Strong sat down on his chair to play a little EarthBound. He reached down to the system, only to realize the copy of the game was missing. He saw a shadow move past his window. He ran over to it, and saw dios and Falcon running from the station, tossing the game back and forth between them and giggling like schoolgirls. He leaned out and shouted "HEY YOU GUYS!!!" After realizing he had done everything in his power, he sat down and went to sleep.

And thus diospadre and Falcon24 have concluded the jail bit mostly violence-free, as a comedic interlude, exactly the way they would have had guruzeth just kept his mouth shut and said nothing. He did not give diospadre nearly enough credit for his capacity to reliably bring the funny. 

Posts #1156-1160: 25 May 2000

Post #1156, by Jonathan

Jonathan soon heard about the gathering and joined it. "Maybe I can find a way to get Nintendo here so I can get a copy of Mother 3 for us to play.

Ahh, it's been quite a while since any randoms that I have no recollection of whatsoever have popped in with a two line post just so they could one day tell their grandchildren they posted in the Gathering.

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Post #1157, by Falcon24

Falcon strolled out to the front entrance of the Police Station and sat down on a bench. He watched as a shady looking young kid(possibly a member of the Sharks) casually walked up to an old lady and 'relieved' her of her purse. He shook his head, but he vowed not to get involved. Besides, local law enforcement would handle the situation, he thought as he saw an Officer chase the punk down the street.

This is a delightfully passive-aggressive way of loudly rolling his eyes at guruzeth's fanatical pacifism.

Falcon sighed. Fighting was apparently in his blood, yet he didn't have the will to do it anymore. He was grateful for his new friends, but he could not think of any alternative other than combat. It was his state of mind, it was imbued in his very soul. He could not ignore it, and it would not go away.

He looked up to see guruzeth sitting at a table outside the bakery nextdoor to the station. guruzeth looked up from his lunch and stared at him. Falcon shook his head. "I can't just sit here. I'm sorry." He got up, pulled a baseball bat from the holster on his back, and walked back into the station.

To no one's surprise (and this annotator's pleasure,) Falcon24 is telling guruzeth to go f--- himself. The Six Friends have officially fractured and Falcon24 has announced he's starting his own group. Probably (I'm not reading ahead here, and you may be surprised to learn that I don't remember clearly what happens next) diospadre will go with him, the girls will go with guruzeth, and Chris will go off to sulk on his own. 

Falcon24 never saw the IF forum before the Gathering and doesn't understand the context of guruzeth's long feud with Tengu Man and disgust with this thread having basically become yet another Tengu Man and Company Kill Bad Guys and Save the World thread. He just sees guruzeth behaving like a complete douchebag and is responding accordingly. I think I speak for all of us when I say I can't blame him.

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Post #1158, by guruzeth

After watching Falcon go back inside the station, guru decided there was no use in hanging around any longer. He rose from the table he was at and began what he knew figured to be a very long walk, about a half mile down the paved road and then turning into the thick jungle.

You'd think guruzeth of all people would know that Onett is situated nowhere within a thousand miles of a jungle. You know he's pretty worked up if he's throwing his prodigious EarthBound knowledge to the wind.

It had been a long journey, and for the most part an enjoyable one. He thought about how he first arrived, confused and disoriented, and then about the journey to and through Scaraba with Tracy, and how they were almost killed on various occasions; he thought about the group they had met up with that were now all inside a police station trying to beat up cops.

I feel the need to interject here and say: to the extent guruzeth was "almost killed" during his too touchy travels with Traceh, it was only by way of circumstances contrived by guruzeth to repeatedly injure himself. At no point was he ever placed in any danger by anything resembling combat, or by any other writer. What in the world is he bitching about? 

He must have read them wrong; he didn't see them to be the violent type. He followed a narrow path through the jungle; as he walked on and on, the forest began to grow thinner. Was he nearing another town..?

guruzeth is actually ditching his group and advertising his willingness to be picked up by another group, which he must know is likely going to include the kiddies. He of course is going to rendezvous with PSI322 almost immediately, but it appears he has no qualms about leaving poor Traceh in the dust.

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Post #1159, by Little Yoshi

When Tim came to, he was in a cell. This wasn't much to his suprise, for he expected something like this. He saw Evil Mani Mani just outside the energy bars.
"So, you have awakened?" Evil Mani Mani asked.
"I haveth," Tim replied.

He's aping Frog's botched Shakespearean English from Chrono Trigger, in case you forgot.

"Would you like to know your termination date?"
"Ah, what the heck, sure," Tim said.
"...Well, you won't be terminated. But how would you like to live forever in that cell?" Evil Mani Mani asked, laughing.
"You think my friends won't break me outta here?"
"Well, considering the fact that they probably have no clue of the location of this base, and they are mere weaklings, no,"

The sad thing is that if anyone does attempt to come to his rescue, he will in fact make a point of forcibly demonstrating them to be both stupid and weak, so Liyoshi can look cunning and awesome by comparison. And people keep falling for it! I think the sheer volume of his posts is maintaining the kiddies' attention. It sure as hell lost mine a long time ago.

"Well, you've got another thing coming!"
"Oh I do, do I?" Evil Mani Mani inquired.(I'd continue this if there weren't a thunderstorm right now)

Carolina thunderstorms are nothing to be trifled with, so on this point, at least, I believe him. It goes without saying that he wouldn't dream of just leaving this post in Notepad and coming back to it in an hour. Who knows what new posts might have been made by then that would change everything! If you overlook the fact no one is paying any attention to Liyoshi at all. Liyoshi certainly is not overlooking that fact.

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Post #1160, by Pikachu3164

((SuperSpeedy, Pikachu isn't a stupid head. He knows that Mew can learn Transform, along with every TM in the book.))

So there, asshole.

[Bored, bored, bored. Dr. Andonuts, when will the repellant be finished.]

"Cell Extraction/Dissection takes a while. My guess is a few days."

[But I don't have that long! Grr...]

Pikachu, bored, went upstairs. He decided the Mr. Saturn might be able to entertain him.

"BoiNG! eViL STaTue TaKe FRieND oF SMaLL YeLLoW RaT!"

[What?]

"STuPID Rat. You No uNDeRSTaND. eViL MaNi MaNi TaKe FRieND, TiM!"

I'm just shaking my head over here. Why? Why do people want to be friends with Liyoshi? Well, I mean, yeah, a lonely kid is going to be friends with anyone who speaks to them. Even if it's just to say, over and over, "I'm cooler than you. You know I'm cooler than you, right?"

[Great. When does the vacation actually start?]

"NoW! you HaVe No PP! No CaN HeLP FRieND, As HeaLiNG MaCHiNe BRoKeN!"

[Dang. Guess I have to sit here, bored stiff.]

3164's like, "I'm not going to pay attention to you until you pay attention to me!" Or something?

Posts #1151-1155: 25 May 2000

Post #1151, by guruzeth

"Forget it guys!" guruzeth said. "You can think about EarthBound all you like, but this isn't a bloody video game, and cracking someone's head isn't gonna get you anywhere except in a nize cozy jail cell of your own!"

"There's no other way to get him out!" cried Falcon. "We gotta do it!"

"Just wanna pick a fight..." guruzeth said lowly. "Forget it guys. Do what you like, but I'm not posting your bail after you get tossed in the slammer. I'll be down at the picnic table where we ate lunch, or else in a hotel somewhere if you need me. Don't waste your one phone call on me." He turned and walked out of the station.

Can you imagine being a Six Friends member (other than PSI322, who as we will see was fully on board with this, if vastly less aggressive about it) and reading this post, blinking a few times, and thinking, "what the f--- was that all about?" Especially since, you will recall, it was guruzeth who put diospadre in jail for assault in the first place. Like, what in the hell did he think the rest of the team was going to do? Hold a bake sale to raise money for bail and a lawyer? 

This is actually a pivotal post in the Gathering, because "guruzeth throws a temper tantrum and storms off every time anyone suggests anything resembling violence" is going to be a Theme for the rest of the thread (and--spoilers--he's not nearly done injuring his AC yet, either) and watching the rest of his team react to his antics is going to be delightful. If he were anyone but guruzeth they would have ignored him the same way, and for essentially the same reasons, everyone ignored Liyoshi. But since he's the Supreme Ruler of the forums, and since the other Supreme Ruler of the forums who is also the single most popular person at starmen.net at this time (PSI322) follows him around, so does everyone else.

I know what you're thinking: How in the world did such a pissy, foot-stomping child of a poster become so prominent? And the answer is: I have absolutely no idea.

---

Post #1152, by Dr. Andonuts

Nathan thought, "i wonder what Tim is doing? Oh yeah, i can contact him telepathicly." [Tim, are you there?] Nathan waited, and did not hear anything back from Tim. "Or maybe I can't contact him telepathicly."

I really have no idea what this is about. Liyoshi posted himself getting captured two posts ago, eight hours before this one (the school day intervened, during which only guruzeth, who was a week from graduation* and no longer doing anything at school, posted.) Why Dr. Andonuts is just poking Liyoshi here, I can't fathom.

* Feel free to re-read the above post #1151 and marvel at the fact that--you think I'm yanking your chain, but I am not--guruzeth was the oldest poster in the Gathering. He was 18, PSI322 was 17, most everyone else was 15 and down.

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Post #1153, by PSI322

Juliana's gaze followed guruzeth as he stormed out of the police station. His words echoed in her mind, and in her heart, she knew that he was right, one hundred percent.

Being right isn't much help if you're so over-the-top, assholishly sanctimonious about it that most people would rather be wrong just to avoid being on the same side as you. 

Juliana looked timidly at her other friends and the police officers who were standing not too far away. She felt the sweat beginning to form on her palms and rubbed her hands together anxiously. Deep inside of her, she knew that this was not the real Juliana. The real Juliana, the shy, peaceful Juliana, would never even think of pulling a stunt like this. She could never bring herself to hurt someone, unless they had attacked her first, and even then, it was difficult for her; that was just her nature. She knew that there was no way she could engage in combat with the cops here.

Post 1151 demonstrated guruzeth's way of expressing disapproval of the behavior of his nominal allies. This is PSI322's way of doing the same. Though they are of one mind on the principle in question--namely, that AC violence in IF is dreadfully boring and they want nothing to do with it--it tells you everything you need to know about their respective personalities. 

I am pretty disappointed PSI322 didn't call guruzeth out at all for actually being the one to instigate this whole stupid police station plot, though.

Quietly, Juliana tiptoed towards the entrance, making sure that the others' backs were turned as she moved across the floor stealthily. Silent as anything, she opened the door and slipped out, completely unnoticed. She didn't care at the time that they would all wonder where she had gone; all Juliana knew was that she had to get away from there. She couldn't fight; she wouldn't fight for anything.

I wonder whether or not she was still thinking of the whole Stonehenge Base thing where other posters had her AC going all Conan the Barbarian on the sorry asses of several dozen Starmen.

Feeling relieved that she had made what she believed to be the right decision, Juliana walked away from the police station, wondering if she ought to try to find guruzeth or continue wandering on her own.

So this is PSI322 Gambit #7 on this thread, although this one has a new twist: it's not about escaping Chris this time, it's about following guruzeth. Why, in $DEITY's name why is the alpha female going so far out of his way to follow a guy who threw a public hissy fit over some insignificant thing that he himself instigated, you ask? 

Well, cut her some slack; teenagers make suboptimal decisions all the time. But it does cut somewhat back to some of the stuff I noted on Chris posts: that at least guruzeth isn't afraid to tell you exactly what he thinks and go off and do what he pleases, as opposed to Chris's maddening passivity and approval seeking.

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Post #1154, by Chris

Speak of the devil! I can't wait to see how he reacts to PSI322's post. Will he follow her as he's done six times before? Or will he write her off for now because she has made clear that from here out she is going to follow guruzeth wherever he goes, and Chris must know how that will turn out for him?

Chris was continuing to mull over how to rescue dios. Falcon had spoken of fighting, but Chris wasn't sure if it would work here the same way it had worked in Earthbound.

This is pretty funny if you remember the combat Chris had previously engaged in back when he was dragging PSI322's AC all over the world while she remained silent for several hundred posts. To wit: it worked exactly the same way it worked in EarthBound, only much easier because he was an AC. But yeah, some random NPC cops are totally a major problem. 

I have a feeling Falcon24 isn't going to see this from quite the same angle.

Plus, none of them were in any condition to tackle a dozen unarmed police officers, much less if they were to use their weapons. On the other hand, the team didn't have any money, and they certaintly couldn't leave dios in the hands of the Eagleand justice system.

I actually think it would be pretty funny, and a subtly clever nose-thumbing at guruzeth to boot, if they did exactly that. Then diospadre could show up a few posts later with no explanation at all for how he got loose.

"Guys, we can't fight. We can't hope to win. We've gotta find a way to get some money. Any ideas?"

"We could sell lemondade." Falcon suggested.

"Right. 'Lemonade for sale to post bail on our friend.' Oooh, that rhymes!" Poo replied.

LOL. I swear I didn't read this before I cracked the bake sale joke up above. Maybe I subconsciously remembered this post from when I first read it, 18 years ago, but I doubt it. 

"Wait a second. Chris, don't you still have that bat you bought in Tenda Village a while back?" Tracy asked.

"Yeah." Chris said, starting to see where Tracy was going with this.

"So, we sell that, and Juliana's Frying Pan, and that oughta get us enough money to bail out dios!" Tracy finished.

Ohhhh, now that's clever.  

For maybe the first time in the Gathering, I am genuinely impressed with something Chris came up with. Selling all the weapons and gear to bail dios out is exactly what guruzeth could and should have come up with, if he didn't want to crack skulls. It would have annoyed the Violence Faction, pleased the Pacifist Faction, and it wouldn't have required him to behave like a five year old. 

Ascribing this stroke of genius to Traceh rather than himself is pretty generous, too.

"Good idea. Hey, Juli--" Chris broke off in midsentence when he didn't see Juliana in the waiting room. "Hey, where'd she go?"

The idea that Chris would fail to notice Juliana leaving the room shattered my suspension of disbelief into a million pieces.

"I didn't see her. She must have gone outside for some fresh air." Falcon said.

"I'll go check." said Poo. A moment later, he returned. "She's not outside."

"Well, I'm sure she'll show up soon. Probably went to town to get something to eat. Let's go see how much a merchant will pay for this bat." Chris said.

They told dios that they'd be back soon, and left to find a drugstore that might buy the bat.

And so Chris opts to stick with the rest of the SixFour Friends and, for the very first time in the Gathering's eleven hundred posts, not to follow PSI322 or even to angst out about her departure. A landmark! 

(As noted previously, Chris knows very well that his pursuit of PSI322 is now over and has failed. She's with guruzeth, both IC and OOC. He bungled it completely in numerous ways I have chronicled in probably excessive detail, but I admire him for trying. He gave it his best shot, and he's gracious in defeat.) 

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Post #1155, by SuperSpeedy/Mankey Boy

[I understand, Pikachu,] said Mew. [My warp hole opens in random spots! And have you forgotten that my species can learn how to Transform?!]
[I know that!] shouted Pikachu.
Mew shook his head, and started changing. After less then a minute, he changed into Poryhedron.
"I can do whatever the original was programmed to do," said Mew, as Poryhedron.
Pikachu appauded. Then he went back to eating.
Mew transformed back, and said, [Hey! Don't hog the cheesy Saturn bar-shaped Delacacies!]
Pikachu looked confused.
[The Peanut Cheese Bars,] said Mew.
[Bone appiteit, or whatever,] said Pikachu.
After Mew ate one, he washed it down with a bottle of lemonade that he stole from Celedon Dept. Store's vending machine when he escaped from Team Rocket.
[Where'd you get that?] asked Pikachu.
[I stole it from one of Celedon Dept. Store's vending machine when I escaped from Team Rocket,] said Mew.

The Department of Redundancy Department approves of these last three lines.

[I store them in Pokéballs I stole from Team Rocket. I knew I'd need some food or drink, and storage for the food and drink, but I'm broke!]
Pikachu looked around like this: ; and asked, [Can I have some?]
[Sure!] said Mew. [Or you could have some Soda Pop, or some Fresh Water!]
[Just the Lemonade!] said Pikachu.
Mew took one bottle out and gave it to Pikachu, who chugged it down.
[Thanks!] said Pikachu.
[You're welcome!] said Mew.
Just then, a Tomato with eyes, which looked like this: ; hopped out. Suddenly, he turned into a cardboard cutout which looked like this: .

[This message has been edited by SuperSpeedy/ Mankey Boy (edited 05-26-2000).]
[This message has been edited by SuperSpeedy/ Mankey Boy (edited 05-26-2000).]

If you're just skipping the text and reading the annotations, you should cut that out and read the text. It's funnier than the annotations. But not this post. This time, you made the right decision. This is without question the most pointless post in the entire Gathering (thus far) that exceeded five lines. 

SS/MB edited this post at least twice a day after it was posted. God alone knows why.

Posts #1146-1150: 24-25 May 2000

Post #1146, by SirMontyG

...Deep darkness monkey!

See, I like Major Asshole because he'll always go with the funny option when you give him a chance.

"KIIIKIKIIIKIKIKI!!" (why are you guys trying to hit me!)

"Oh, sorry about that, little dude." appologized Sir "We thought you were an enemy.."

"Ki.KI?"(Oh, it must be because of that Sun Dome I had cast on myself. It's a spell that grants the user great speed, hightened reflexes, and a kickin tan. See?)

"Quite a phenominal power. How did you come across this encantment?" inquired Anthadd

"Kikkkiiikiki" (you would be suprised on the kinds of people that wind up here. I even heard that one monkey learned to teleport!)

"Cool..so any chance we could get a hold of this power?"

"Kikikikikikikikikikiiiiiiiiikikikikikkkkikikikikki" (Sure. Just page me.) and the monkey gave the two his pager number, for just such an emergency...

I love pretty much everything in this post. A Make Yourself Cooler spell, known by a monkey who carries a pager. And there are even hints that Major Asshole played EarthBound, as previously discussed. That's why I like this guy. I hope he keeps providing comedic relief as the Gathering goes further and further into Serious Business.

---

Post #1147, by Anthadd

"Sir, why would a monkey carry a pager around with him?"
"I have no idea."

A waterproof pager, at that. And probably also shock proof, with the Zap Eels around. These are some space age monkeys we're talking about here.

Anthadd pocketed the number, thinking it would be smart to save for future usage, yet flabbergasted as to a monkey being in possession of a pager.
"Let's just hope we can reach the settlement soon, Sir." They continued on their way.

You can tell Anthadd doesn't quite know what to make of Major Asshole, but any company is preferable to no company so he's trying to hang in there.  

The last three posts (Anthadd-Major Asshole-Anthadd) took place over the course of about 40 minutes.

---

Post #1148, by Chris

After a few moments of stunned silence as dios was led away by the police, Chris spoke up.

"Come on, everyone, we've got go see what we can do to help."

"But what can we do? We don't have any money." guruzeth replied.

You're a bunch of ACs--the ACs who sit atop the Syndicate, no less--and we're really supposed to believe your hands are tied because you don't have money? Yeah, sure, pal. We just believe the hell out of that.

The group was then puzzled again, trying to decide what they could do for their friend. Then, Falcon spoke up.

"Wait a sec. Everyone remembers the first part of Earthbound, right? After Giant Step, Ness gets in trouble and goes to the police station, but gets out because he beats the officers in a fight. What if we do the same thing?"

Points to Chris for identifying Falcon24 as the most appropriate person to raise the option of solving the problem with brute force and violence. IRL guruzeth would do the same, but in-story he's a fanatical pacifist, so even Chris could tell that wasn't an option.

"One problem. We can't fight. We don't have the strength or experience." Tracy replied.

"Well, I've got my PSI, but it didn't work last time." Juliana added.

The periods at the end of quotations that should be commas are really tilting me here.

"Look, let's go down to the police station and see what we'll do from there." EBPoo said, and started for the door. The rest of the group followed, and they soon found themselves outside the police station.

You'll notice how Chris made space in this post for exactly one spoken line by each of the SixFive Friends. This is a pretty reasonable post. Not much happens, but it does move the plot forward ever so much, and he worked everyone in his unusually large group into it.

---

Post #1149, by diospadre

dios was led through the small Onett police station. As he passed one of the cells he heard somebody say someting about a phish, to which he responded with a scowl. The offending inmate quickly retreated beneath his bed. The officer tossed dios into the cell.

I have no idea what the phish thing is about. Presumably a long lost in-joke.

"man, I've gotta calm down. I can get the car fixed, and its not the attendant's fault he's a crazy nut. I think from now on I'll be a bit more easygoing." Just then, dios heard the voice of an officer.

This is diospadre's way of raising a middle finger to guruzeth. It's very, very mild compared to the way most of the IF veterans would respond to far less meddling with their AC than guruzeth perpetrated. But bear in mind diospadre had never posted on the IF forum before the Gathering, and never would again after it.

"Hey padre! You've got visitors." dios was led to the visiting room. He saw Falcon on the other side of the glass. "Hey dios, how are ya doing?"

A random cop wouldn't know better, but no one who knew diospadre would ever call him 'padre'. It was always 'dios'. Nice flavor there.

"Not bad, I guess. I've only been in there for 19 seconds and I'm already bored out of your mind. Are you guys gonna get me out of here?" dios queried.

"Why don't you just post bail?"

"Well, I can't and I'd tell you why but I'm too lazy to make up a reason." he replied.

I love diospadre's blase and genuinely funny way of expressing how stupid he thinks this whole thing is. He really knew how to work the passive aggression.

"Ok thats cool. Anyway, we're all gonna fight the police officers or something like that to get you out, like in EarthBound. Kinda strange though, seeing as our group is pro-pacifism." Falcon explained.

LOL, he just keeps it coming. What I really like here is diospadre has actually taken the trouble to read the posts of everyone in his group, and is gleefully pointing out the things that make no sense (such as Chris's last post and the fact, which diospadre instantly realizes, that guruzeth is not going to like it).

"Yeah, everybody except you, Mr. 'I just came back to life'," dios joked.

"Heh, yes I do like to fight a bit. Well anyway i gotta go to prepare," Falcon put his fist up to the glass.

"Theres no time for window love!" dios chuckled. "I've almost done half a minute in here! I don't know how much longer I can hold out!"

"Haha, ok. Good luck in there. and don't have an 'accident'." Falcon said with a smirk as he left.

The guard led dios back to his cell, where he was left to his thoughts. "Well, I hope they can help me. I don't really know their abilities, though. Better prepare just in case. I haven't used this since I lost my memory, I hope it still works." dios concentrated, and slowly a wavering blue beam of light extended from his forearm. He grinned as he retracted it once again.

It never hurts to remind everyone "hey, I'm an AC you know, so get this ship moving or I'm going to do my AC thing on my own." Which highlights what's so very wrong and assholish with what guruzeth did: it's not cool to sequester someone else's AC away from the action. diospadre is being very, very patient and good humored about it, by IF standards. 

Plus: what the hell, guruzeth? Of all the writers you could have stuck in a cell where they can't do anything interesting, you chose diospadre? Really? 

---

Post #1150, by Little Yoshi

I speculated at the end of Liyoshi's unusually brief last post that Chris may have kicked him off the computer. That post went up at 5:17 PM, then Chris posted at 7:33. So most likely they were interrupted by the call to dinner. This post went up the morning of 25 May, at 6:43 AM. It's short by his standards too, presumably because he had to go to school.

Evil Mani Mani was doing better then Tim this time. "Why?" Tim thought to himself, but decided it was because there were no rules here..."wait, no rules?! That means others can hlep us too? But I can't call others...but HE CAN!"

Tim hadn't realized what was happening, and looked around himself. 6 Randites had gotten him into a pincer battle. Tim, not knowing these thing's power, kept his attention on Evil Mani Mani.

Finally, after taking dozens of heavt blows from behind, Tim lept to his left, and had them all facing his face, or so he thought. 3 more Randites had appeared behind Tim. They attacked, knocking Tim over. 2 more Randites apeared. 11 Randites and 1 Evil Mani Mani vs. 1 Tim was not the fairest match you can imagine. Tim leapt to his feet, and Cycloned all of them. Each one of them asorbed the energy and shot it back at Tim for double.Tim used Lifeup Gamma, and 4 more Randites joined the battle.

Finally, Evil Mani Mani struck the deciding blow, diamondizing Tim. Three Randites picked up Tim's unconsious body, and took it to a Ranidte prison, located Northeast of Toto.

Holy s---, something actually happened in a Liyoshi post!  

By now, no one who's been in the Gathering for any length of time is going to attempt to rescue Tim, because they know exactly what's coming if they make the mistake of going anywhere near a Liyoshi plotline. Unless someone new and naive jumps in, I give Liyoshi about a day's worth of waiting before he gives up and returns to his usual self-pleasuring.

Posts #1141-1145: 24 May 2000

Just when you were sure the Annotated Gathering was dead, the Annotated Gathering is back!

It's been three years since the last update, and six years since the last time I regularly updated the Annotated Gathering. So based on that, I can make no promises as to how long I'm going to last this time. But I swore many years back that I would finish this thing if it kills me, and I'm back at it. I wouldn't feel right leaving you hanging now, because--I swear--the absolute most screaming hilarious material in the Gathering is still ahead of us. So I invite you to take a few minutes, as I have, and go back over the last hundred posts or so, to refresh your memory as to where we're picking up.  

Done? Great. Let's get back to work.

Post #1141, by Dr. Andonuts

"Huh? What? Kill lavos spwan? ok." said Nathan after Pikachu disappeared. Nathan reached into his pockets for another Gaia Beam (he left his w/ Jeff) but instead of that, his hand pulled out a small, barrel-shapped object. "Whats this?" he wondered aloud. "And why does it have all over it?"

Who to the what now? 

I wonder if this kid was on some kind of powerful drugs when he wrote this stuff, or if he was just so excited he couldn't rightly control his fingers.

Suddenly it hit him. It was a nuclear hand genade. "I think i had better leave this for another IF," he thought. He put it back in his pocket.

OK, dude. I have no idea what that was about. Probably something going on in another thread at the time, which has long since been buried in the dust of history.

Then he reached into his pocket and this time he pulled out his Gaia Beam. He shoot the lavos sprawn with it and let its counter-attack hit his shield. He hit it again and managed to kill it with a SMASHHHHHH! attack. "Whew! Hope I don't have to fight any more of those."

So, what, he decided to just pistol-whip the Lavos Spawn with his gun instead of shooting it again?

(In case you are wondering, a Nuclear Hand Genade is an item in one of the RPG-like games I play. Its describtion is "Kills the enemy. Period. Usually.")

OK, you got me there: I admit I was wondering. A quick google search turns up nothing relevant, so if in fact he got that from some "RPG-like game," it was nothing even slightly important or memorable. 

[This message has been edited by Dr. Andonuts (edited 05-24-2000).]

---

Post #1142, by Little Yoshi

"I recall you sending your anti-diamondize pendant back to Mog, and in that case..." Evil Mani Mani said.
A look of horror came over Tim's face as Evil Mani Mani put Diamondize on his sword.
"Uh-er-um," Tim stuttered. The Dark Saber struck the Masamune. Tim leapt backwards and cast Freeze Omicrone, Special Yoshi Level. The Psychic super shield multiplied the damage by 2, and sent it back at Tim! Tim recovered 1257 HP!

The Dark Sabre was swung at Tim again, but Tim missed the block. Tim was somehow not diamondized, but this was because of extreme luck. Missing the block left Tim wide open for an attack, which he did.It did minor damage.

Mercifully, that's the entire post this time. For some reason--Chris kicking him off the computer, perhaps--he must have been cut short mid-post and decided to go ahead and toss up what he'd written so far. 

I know it's been years now since I last regularly annotated, but I did just re-read the whole Gathering and so I remain just as pissed off at Liyoshi as I was back when I was in my twenties, and will generally not be bothering to annotate his masturbation sessions going forward. If any of you out there in readerland are disappointed by this, let me know. I'm not holding my breath.

---

Post #1143, by SirMontyG

Sir pulled out a hall of fame bat he picked up from Tenda Village. "Let's finish this thing off and see if we can't meet up with Chris and the gang." Sir ran and swung, but wiffed. "Gua! Where'd it go?"

I have to give Major Asshole credit for knowing that the Hall of Fame bat is obtained in Tenda Village. It's easily missed and requires actually playing EarthBound all the way through and paying attention, which is a tall ask for this crowd.

"Ah, there it is." Andthadd pointed to a corner of the shrubs, where the same electric glow was eminating. "I've got it!" Anthadd pulled out his golf club and charged the glowing mass. Unfoutunatly, the results were the same, Anthadd also missed.

"Hmm, I wonder what this thing is?" As Sir saw the glowing orb spin off into another corner..

I'm really confused. What are they fighting? 

...oh, right. I double checked: they're in Deep Darkness now and fighting a Zap Eel. And Major Asshole is actually lampshading something I pointed out in the annotation I wrote on that post, which was only hours before this one in real time but was annotated five years ago: it's really silly imagining anyone can hit an eel that's swimming underwater with a baseball bat. So even more points to him, even if I'm sorely disappointed he's wasting his formidable talents on doing what everyone else in this thread except team guruzeth has already been doing for 800 damn posts now: pointless battling.

---

Post #1144, by Pikachu3164

I had been hoping that, three years of technological process later, there would now be an easy way to tell Wordpress to stop automatically interpreting anything within less-than-greater-than symbols as HTML. But my hopes came to naught but ash.

Pikachu decided to go upstairs while Dr. Andonuts worked on the Lavos Spawn repellant.

There, he saw something that surprised him. "BOiNG. iT SMaLL RaT. HeLLo."

[Whoa! It's a Mr. Saturn! The entire Mr. Saturn tribe, as a matter of a fact! Ooh! Peanut Cheese Bars!]

I find it interesting that he had the Mr. Saturn refer to him as "rat" instead of "mouse." "Rat" is a pejorative pokemon haters such as myself direct at all things Pikachu, who as per game lore is technically a mouse. Not that long ago, 3164 had Plague Rat of Doom refer to him as "mouse," which I noted at the time made sense because a rat wouldn't use "rat" as a pejorative. But the Mr. Saturn, who are super intelligent and presumably have no reason to hate pokemon, use "rat." I dunno, man.

"WHeN BiG SPiKy THiNGy FaLL FRoM SKy, aLL MR. SaTuRN CoMe To DoCToR aT WiNTERS. WaNT PeaNuT CHeeSe BaRS?"

[YES!!!]

Pikachu started to devour the homemade Peanut Cheese Bars, when Mew came in. Then, it occured to him that it was Mew's fault that Poryhedron was basically dead.

Pikachu started screaming at Mew. [YOU! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT THAT ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS IS DEAD!]

Mew was shocked at this sudden outburst of anger. [Whoa! Calm down! Why would it be my fault?]

[YOU PUSHED HIM RIGHT INTO MAGNET HILL! Now excuse me while I try and revive him!]

Pikachu ran up to the computer Mew had thrown Poryhedron in and tried to de-magnitize him.

I dunno, I guess the pokemon kiddies are just amusing themselves doing pokemon stuff. At the time I'm sure I was annoyed about that, but looking back, I say good for them for doing something more interesting (to them, anyway) than the Great Lavos Stupidity.

A few minutes later, Pikachu stopped and walked back up to Mew. [Sorry. I'm just under so much stress I feel like I'm going to explode. I came for a vacation, and now I'm fighting a bunch of porcupines. It's just too much for me.]

Right! That's what I just said! 

Now it makes slightly more sense: he's using the Mew thing as a vehicle to bitch to the world in general that he's tired of the Great Lavos Stupidity. Hopefully young SS/MB picks up on this also and doesn't think 3164 is mad at him.

---

Post #1145, by Anthadd

"Which EarthBound enemies are ball-shaped, and electrically-tuned? All I can think of is the Thunder Mite, but that's Pink Cloud."
"Trying to identify the enemy? Not sure it's the Zap Eel?" Sir asked.

Anthadd is taking the opportunity to point out that Major Asshole's description of the enemy--which Anthadd specified to be a Zap Eel--as a "glowing orb" doesn't make sense. He's doing it in a more engaging way than usual, though.

"Yes, but I now think it could be some kind of optical illusion."
"Why?"
"I say this in that possibly the sun is, somehow, extending light to create the illusionary suggestion of electricity."
"In English, please."
"The sun may be shining on that enemy such that it only resembles an electrically-tuned creature."

I know that, 18 years later, Anthadd comes off as an insufferable show-off with his gratuitously stuffy writing. But at the time we all found it endearing, somehow.

"Oh."
Anthadd took out another golf club, and using the clubs like chopsticks, lifted the enemy out. It was a...

LOL, using golf clubs like chopsticks? I mean, even aside from the inherent silliness of that image, if your enemy is kind enough to sit still enough that you can manipulate it so, perhaps you should just use the one golf club to, y'know, kill it? 

I like how Anthadd leaves it up to Major Asshole to decide what it is. (The risk is that some rando will jump in and say 'It's a Lavos Spawn!!!' but most likely nobody besides Major Asshole is reading this, so it's probably not a problem.)

Posts #1136-1140: 23-24 May 2000

Post #1136, by Foppy King

After attempting to comprehend what the heck is going on, the Foppy King was drivin to insanity.
"WOOO! BLOOPOB! PAAANNNTTTTS!"
Finnaly, Foppy King spontaniosly combusted.
BOOM!

There's an emoticon I can't see called nuke.gif, just to give you the extra flavor there.

Foppy King just drops by once every hundred posts or so to bitch that nobody cares about him. Nothing different here.

I'm surprised at how many of the kiddies think it's spelled "finnaly." 

---

Post #1137, by Falcon24

Falcon, still getting acquainted with his new friends, was not accustomed to being around other human beings. "I think I'll take a walk you guys. I'll catch up with you later." He knew he had some things to ponder.

He just got done going out of his way to join himself to the SixSeven Friends, so I assume he's not immediately absconding. Though it would amuse me if he was. More likely there's angsting incoming.

Falcon strolled casually through the thicket of trees, whistling a light and jaunty air. He suddenly realized that this was perhaps the first moment of true peace he's had since his arrival on the island. "Some vacation...I get controlled by evil beings, summon a great evil, then I get killed and brought back to life somehow...and NOW I finally relax."

Well, you seemed to be enjoying yourself at the time. So much so that anytime anyone else tried to interfere with what you were doing, you strenuously objected.

Relaxing was never really Falcon24's thing. One man's relaxing is another man's boring.

His thoughts then turned to his new companions. Of course he had known them from his daily chat sessions online in #earthbound, and his routine scanning of the forums...but what did he really know about them?

This is kind of funny when you consider that he spent most of his Gathering time heretofore trying to murder the very people he'd spent daily chat sessions with in #earthbound. Well, murder or enslave them. No point killing everyone; then who's left to worship you and do your bidding? 

"Well, they DID rescue me, and take me to a hospital, so they have to be nice people..." It occurred to Falcon that throughout his life he had rarely seen any true displays of kindness such as he had witnessed here. Perhaps not all people were bad people...and perhaps Falcon was too defensive for his own good.

It would be so awesome if guruzeth or diospadre showed up in their next post to present Falcon24 with a bill for their services."What, you thought we were just doing it to be nice?"

The notion of Falcon24 being defensive is funny. Yeah, yeah, psychoanalysis he's such an asshole because of his insecurities and he's actually very defensive about himself blah blah. Falcon24 was and is all offense, all the time. This is not a guy who plays defense.

"All I know is that this island was supposed to be a nice vacation, and now it's turned into the center of a struggle for the future of the human race...way too much pressure for a bunch of teens trying to vacation.

He says that like it's a huge surprise. And also as though he himself wasn't the one who decided partying was for kiddies and what this thread needed was everyone fighting crossover villains.

Falcon decided that he'd do just that -- vacation, let other people worry about this Lavos thing. He looked at his watch.

"Wow, time sure does fly! I've been walking around here an hour or more. I'd better find the others." He searched for the closest way out of the forest. When he did eventually exit the thicket, he found he was in front of a small al fresco diner. He saw guru, Tracy, Poo, Chris, and Juliana sharing a Picnic Lunch at one of the tables, while dios was arguing with a gas station attendant just next to the diner who had scratched his Ford Explorer while filling the tank. He ran over to join them.

Falcon24 was from New Jersey (try not to act too surprised), where until very recently it was actually illegal to fill your own gas tank; it was the last U.S. state where a gas station employee filled your tank for you (and you were expected to tip). You also see that diospadre's love affair with his Ford Explorer was not just something guruzeth made up. Yes, I know it's just a f***ing Ford Explorer, but just having your own vehicle is a very big deal when you're 16. It instantly made diospadre cooler than everyone else. And he was not at all above reminding everyone of it.

---

Post #1138, by guruzeth

"OOPS?! I'LL SHOW YOU OOPS!" diospadre said right before slugging the gas station attendant, which set off a brawl. Falcon, guru and the gang ran over to break it up, with the attendant bloodied and diospadre fuming. "YOU TOUCH MY CAR AGAIN AND I'll KILL YOU! KILL YOU!"

I can appreciate running a good joke into the ground as much as the next guy, but that's a tad bit far. Unlike other parties I could name, diospadre wasn't a hot tempered guy.

If he WAS hot tempered, having his AC do this would be accurate--but it would also make the actual diospadre blow a gasket about somebody making his AC do something without his prior approval. Sometimes you can't win with IF. (If guruzeth wanted somebody assaulting the gas station attendant, he should have done it himself.)

"Whoa, dios!" guru said. "Calm down man, it's just a scratch."

"Twenty years for murder isn't worth the scratch..." said Poo. diospadre continued kicking and struggling, so the other six in the group dragged him back to the picnic table at which they were eating and set him down there.

"Such a... beautiful day!" said Juliana, trying to add cheerfulness to the situation. dios said nothing.

"I hope it stays that way," said Tracy as they settled down and dios cooled off a little. "Can't we even relax for a flippin day?"

Well, you're not doing much of a job of it so far. I like the meta here--guruzeth's complaining that they can't relax, while he himself is introducing plot elements that prevent them from relaxing. It's almost like he's just a dumbass.

They did manage to relax for a few hours. After finishing their meal, they decided to go wandering around the town to see what they could see. Unfortunately, as the evening dragged on, they were in a small shop when two police officers strode in. "Which one of you is diospadre?"

"He is!" dios pointed at Chris.

"What?! No, he is!" said Chris, and the others rolled their eyes and confirmed who the real dios was.

OK, that made me chuckle. I admit it. 

It would have been supremely funny had guruzeth actually followed through with sending Chris to the clink for nothing.

"I'm afraid you're under arrest for simple assault," said one of the officers as they turned him around and slapped on the handcuffs. "You'll have to come down to the station."

That's, uh, not exactly how these things work--what the hell cop would say "simple assault"?--but cut the kid some slack here, he was 17. At least he did leave it open for diospadre to follow up and decide what to do about it. Doesn't forgive the sin of forcing his AC to commit a crime, but it's something.

---

Post #1139, by SuperSpeedy/Mankey Boy

He opened this post by quoting Pikachu3164's last post in its entirety, which is an atrocity in IF and now widely regarded as a bannable offense.

Mew found where Poryhedron's dead body was. It was quickly fading away from the magnet. Mew grabbed it and used PSI Teleport to teleport to Winters.
--At Dr. Andonut's lab--
A warp hole opened, and Mew, with Poryhedron's body, came out.
"Hey!" said the Doc. "It's a Mew!"
[Poryhedron!] shouted Pikachu.
[It's too late,] said Mew. [He died of overexposure to magnets. He's losing polygons as we speak. I'll throw him into the computer. He'll be reenergized and he'll find his way to someone's computer, but he'll never be able, or want to, come back.]
Mew did as he said.
Pikachu was in a crying fit.

Hahahahaha. Oh SS/MB, you never cease to amaze. I can't wait to see how 3164 is going to take this. I'm like 92% sure SS/MB is just trying to be friendly here.

[There, there,] said Mew. [We all think life isn't fair, but we gotta deal with it. I should know. Team Rocket gave me so many gifts, but when Jamie Chan told me they were going to use me for evil, I was so angry and dissapointed. Dissapointed because they were pampering me, but I was no tool for evil. I bet you know why I was angry.]
Pikachu nodded.
[Then stop crying!] said Mew. [Ya gettin' your fur all wet, and you'll hurt yourself with your electric attacks!]
Talk about Jeckle & Hyde! thought Pikachu.
[Remember, Pikachu,] said Mew as he landed and walked upstairs, [I'm a Psychic Pokémon, so I can read your thoughts. I know what you think of me.] As he walked upstairs, his tail waved in an odd style.
Pikachu snapped his fingers, and then wiped his eyes. Then he said, to Dr. Andonuts, [So how about that antidote?!]

And now we return to our regularly scheduled EarthBound IF'ing. This post is a good example of why the pokémon kiddies were so widely loathed at starmen.net. SS/MB is harmless, but whereas 3164 has at least intermittently tried to post some EarthBound content, SS/MB has posted none at all. His posts are invariably all pokémon, all the time.

---

Post #1140, by PSIOsman

The four Lavos Spawn were growing steadily, as they fed off the energy of anything that accidentally got too close. Osman, Siris, TsuramiSea, and Alan followed at a safe distance, waiting for some sign of weakness.

These kids will never run out of new ways to make their opponents seem invincible. Invincible right up until my AC rips out the Super Ultra Deluxe Totally Kickass Final Attack of Doom and kills them dead, and then has his way with all the women. No, of course your AC isn't strong and cool enough to do that.

The Spawn crept through the city in a straight line, as though toward one goal. The Spawn then left the city and started into a forest. They cut a wide swath through the trees, leaving blackened husks behind.

The group trailing the Spawn stared at the remains of the Lavos Spawn's feeding with growing apprehension. Though the Spawn moved slowly, they crawled any obstacle as if it didn't exist.

They soon saw a clearing ahead. That meant... The Spawn were heading for another populated area...

"Through a forest and into a populated area" means the kiddies aren't giving up on hounding guruzeth just yet. Hilarity is doubtless going to ensue.

Posts #1131-1135: 23 May 2000

Post #1131, by SuperSpeedy/Mankey Boy

    quote:Originally posted by PSI322:
    (Did I just hear someone say "new AC"? I hope, then, that this is your ONLY AC, seeing as the rules allow for only ONE. If this IS, indeed, your only AC, then ignore this and don't be mad at me. Thanks.)

    ~PSI322, Moderator of Interactive Fiction

(Didn't you see "…raming Poryhedron next to Magnet Hill(We know what happens from that.)." Poryhedron is made of computer code, and gets deleted, or killed, when near magnets.)

SuperSpeedy retconning his last post into killing Poryhedron off when he introduced... whatever his newest AC was. Shock Bird? Yeah, I think it was Shock Bird. Poor kid. The Man (well, The Woman) is cramping his style.

---

Post #1132, by guruzeth

After a few minutes, they finally arrived, as Chris had predicted, in a small town.

Isn't it sweet of guruzeth to let Chris be right once in a while?

"I don't see the park anywhere around here..." said Tracy.

"Neither do I, but at least we're somewhere," said guru as dios parked his car and the group hopped out.

"Should we warn the townspeople about those Lavos spawns?" said Juliana.

"You crazy?" said Falcon. "If we wander around warning everyone that they're gonna get attacked by giant porcupines they'll lock us in the loony bin."

Well, they probably would, come to that. Probably the wisest play is to go through town warning everyone a tornado or something is headed their way. At least then some people might get in their basements and avoid the wrath of the Stupid Crossover Villains.

"Besides, who cares?" said dios. "I need to find somewhere to get my wheels fixed... and the next time my car gets hurt, I SWEAR I'm gonna kill someone." He glared at guru, Falc and Tracy. They chuckled.

diospadre's love affair with his Ford Explorer was something of a running joke at the time, and there was no one quite like guruzeth for overplaying running jokes after they've already played themselves out. More on this soon.

"Well," said Poo, "we could at least ask someone for directions here... I'm hungry, let's get something to eat before those things show up and we have to leave. I hope someone takes care of them..."

So this is--stop me if you've heard this before--yet another "I don't give a damn what happens here but I am not getting involved in Saving the World, do you hear me!?" post from guruzeth.

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Post #1133, by Anthadd

Anthadd and Sir were sloshing through Deep Darkness, and Anthadd was freaking out like there was no tomorrow.
"If only I hadn't come to this stupid gathering," he muttered, "this wouldn't be happeing." Anthadd continued to ramble on about hydrophobia.

Anthadd must REALLY be freaking out, like legitimately going crazy behind his keyboard, to have misspelled "happening" and failed to notice. Treasure this moment, Gathering fanatics: An Anthadd typo preserved for posterity is a rare sight to behold.

"Hydrophobia?"
"Hydro: water. Phobia: Fear. Figure it out from there."
A zapping sound alerted the two to outside influences. "A Zap Eel?" Sir offered.
"Most likely," Anthadd replied.

Zap Eels are actually one of the very few enemies in EarthBound you have to pay special attention to, for if you don't they can and will f*** you up. Of course if such a thing existed it should be able to fry a person without getting within 20 feet of them. Have you ever pondered the absurdity of kids with bats, frying pans and guns trying to kill an eel slithering around them in a swamp? Do you know how fast eels are in water?

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Post #1134, by Gauntlet Wizard

"Ah!" Siris gasped. "Can't... move..."
Siris's body had been slowed, and the Lavos Spawns were still slowly approaching the city. Siris focused his mind and concentrated on a high powered healing spell. After a few seconds, the groups' ailments were mostly healed. "We need to stop those Spawns!" Siris yelled...

(I don't have time to finsih, carry on Osman or someone)

 I have to at least give Gauntlet a little credit here; his character actually at least did something in this post, however minor and inconsequential. Of course, being Gauntlet, he ends the post with another cry for attention. It's been fifteen years and it hasn't been answered yet.

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Post #1135, by Pikachu3164

[PIKA!] Electricity formed, and Pikachu released a gigantic Thunder attack. It destroyed two of the Lavos Spawns and severely damaged the remaining. [Nathan!]

"Yeah?"

[You finish the him off! I need to go do something!]

"Okay!"

I checked, and there is a gap of about 45 minutes before this post and it's predecessor. So yes, there's a pretty good chance 3164 is mocking Gauntlet here. The kid has a smidgen of cleverness about him.

Pikachu used PSI to grab one of the dead bodies and Teleported to Andonuts Labs.

"Hey! It's a Pikachu! And he's carrying one of those things that had attacked the lab earlier! Want a donut!?"

[Nope. Let's make this simple. I want you to make a repellant designed to repel one of these Lavos Spawn.]

"A Lavos Spawn? Jeff told me about those earlier...."

Well, Pikachu went on to tell Dr. Andonuts the story of how Lavos had fell on someone's head earlier, and everyone went on a quest to gain melodies to destroy him. Lavos was on the edge of life at this point, but the Lavos Spawn were still on a rampage, destroying Eagleland. They were as serious as Lavos himself, and he needed a way to stop him.

"Well, I suppose we could use the basic cells remaining in it's body, extract the...."

[Whatever. Just make the repellant, and a vaccine for me. I have a friend who happens to be one of these.]

"Okay. As soon as I have a donut."

I did chuckle at the "as soon as I have a donut" line (presumably he has donuts now; he didn't when Jeff showed up at his lab in-game.) 

So 3164's idea is apparently to use Lavos Spawn Repellant to make the moronic things go away so they can go back to having fun. A noble cause, my young friend, but you'll as soon sell sand to an Arab as sell your compatriots on that idea.

Posts #1126-1130: 23-24 May 2000

Post #1126, by Falcon24

Falcon's eyes shot open. He looked about himself, trying to take in his surroundings, when he noticed he was floating!

You really cheapen exclamation marks by using them too much!

He kicked his feet wildly. "What the heck!?" The green light intensified. This was followed by a bright flash.

As the flash slowly faded away, everyone could now see that the room was a mess. Bottles and viles of medicine lie shattered on the floor, and all sorts of medical equipment lie in dissarray around the room. Everyone was covered with a dark substance, similar to soot.

Falcon was lying on the floor, face down near some broken equipment. He struggled to rise, his face covered with the same sooty substance as everyone else. He stood on one knee, and coughed out a mouthful of the black dust. "Um....ow.."

Falcon24 never read any of Traceh's posts, but even if he had he would likely have handled this post the same way. He's unique, dammit, and the healing bugs are going to have a much more spectacular effect on him than on some pissant like guruzeth.

I calculate we're in for a lot of fun as he and guruzeth try to one-up each other on the Look At Me I'm Important scoreboard.

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Post #1127, by guruzeth

A few hours later, Falcon had been released from the hospital with no wounds and the doctors' wide open mouths, and the group was sitting in the hospital lobby discussing their plans.

Setting aside what an atrociously badly written sentence that is, we can appreciate guruzeth jumping right in and skipping the timeline ahead to trivialize Falcon24's attempt at making himself important. Yessirree, we are in for some entertainment with these two.

"We should still head for the amusement park, I think," guru was saying, "just so long as there's water rides, or at least some method of getting wet... and provided it's still there. If these Lavos things keep coming, we'll have to get off the island probably."

In English, guruzeth is saying "keep your violence far away from me or I'm so out of here. Stay tuned; he's just getting the Angst Machine warmed up.

"Yeah, I hope they stay away," said Tracy. "It's about time we got to relax!"

Unfortunately, just as she finished speaking, there was a low rumbling outside and panicked people burst into the hospital. "There's giant porcupine-things out there!!"

The whole group simultaneously shot to their feet, looking around at one another. "dios!" guru said. "Let's get outta here now! Head for the park!"

Odd; I don't remember any other writers sending Lavos Spawn after the Seven Friends. Do you? Why would guruzeth inflict it on himself, other than to draw attention to himself as he angsts?

"What?! I just spent three hours cleaning my car!" diospadre cried. "And now you wanna screw it up AGAIN?! Why don't I just let them kill me instead and end my suffering?!"

guruzeth was trying to make jokes based on diospadre's well-established (elsewhere on the forums) love affair with his vehicle. guruzeth was never very good at making jokes.

Everyone else just shook their head and dove into diospadre's wheels, and dios fired the engine and took off.

"Well, at least the scenery is nice," said Juliana, gazing out the window at the swaying palm trees as they shot across the island at about 50 MPH on an unpaved road.

Suddenly, the air was pierced by Chris's scream. "DIOS! LOOK OUT FOR THAT TREE!"

I guess he wanted Chris to feel included--you know how important that is to Chris--but I have to be honest: I've read better cliffhangers.

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Post #1128, by Anthadd

(You actually defeated Diamond Dog and absorbed the power of the Fire Spring without my powerful weaponry?) asked the rock, aghast.
"That's correct," Anthadd replied. "Sometimes it takes brain, not brawn to solve a problem."
(Pfft. You're just lucky.)

They're ACs, so brawn doesn't even enter the equation.

"I seem to remember Anthadd commenting that you'd give him something if he returned," Sir pointed out.
(Oh, very well. Take the ability.) The rock was visibly agitated.

Anthadd learned PSI Teleport Alpha!

"Let's return to the Tenda Village, Sir," Anthadd said, charging up a teleport, and they disappeared into the sky.

That's too bad; I liked Anthadd being among the last holdouts without teleportation. I think the charter members of the Four Friends (guruzeth, Traceh, Chris, PSI322) are now officially the last four ACs left that have never invoked teleportation after some fashion or another. (Though PSI322 and Chris somehow managed to get from Deep Darkness to Winters by walking, which sounds more than slightly suspect to me.)

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Post #1129, by Traceh

"Chill out Chris, he isnt George of the jungle ya know," Tracy spat. They all gripped eachother as dios made a hard left turn, scraping the side of his 'friend' on the huge tree trunk but not seriously injurying anyone.

I actually laughed. By itself it's a lame joke, but playing off the asinine way guruzeth ended his last post it's funny. Nice understated smackdown of guruzeth there (and though the bad line is attributed to Chris, everyone knows guruzeth wrote it).

"Woo! that was close!" called Poo from the back. The vehicle came to a screaching halt a few feet away and they all watched in disbelief as dios ripped through the door and circled the car. Hey let out an 'oooh my poor baby!' and hugged the dent with a look of pain in his eyes.

See, it wasn't just guruzeth that picked up on the "diospadre loves his car" thing.

Juliana looked at them. "Well, we have to do something, dont we?" She opened the sliding door and edged around the car to console the greif-stricken dios. "We can fix your car when we get somewhere...but if you dont mind, we are in the process of running from an evil force. Do you really want your precious baby to be eaten by a giant porcupine?"

Traceh also picked the right person to do the consoling; this is exactly the kind of thing PSI322 would do, as you know if you've read her moderator-duty posts in this very Gathering. Traceh is a sharp poster.

"I guess you're right," he said with a sigh. He patted the dent, slowly backed away, and got back into the driver's seat.

"Alright," said guru, "back on track. Hand me that map please, Chris." Chris took the map from the dashboard and tossed it back. "This map says we are somewhere....and thats about it. I guess if we keep close to the beach and follow it for a while, we aught to end up at our destination."

Was it ever actually established what their destination is? As best I can recall, the only thing concretely stated about their destination was that it was away from the beach.

Chris looked out through the front window and studdied the forest. "Well, Ive been noticing the trees are becoming less dense. You know what that means....a town isnt too far. At least I think thats what it means. Heh."

I imagine that's probably what it means. Though I suppose it could be a crude tribe of cannibals; wouldn't that beat all?

"Letts find out!" cried Tracy. "dios, are you gonna show us just how cruisin this Explorer is?" With that they were off, faster and faster (and yet at a somewhat safe and reasonable speed) through the remainder of the forest. But where were all the animals?

Safe and reasonable? She must not know diospadre very well. Also I'm pretty sure animals, having honed their survival instincts over millions of years of evolution, are doing a fine job of staying the hell away from the speeding two-ton death machine.

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Post #1130, by SirMontyG

After a few missattempts, Anthadd and Sir teleported back to the Tenda Village.

"Whoa.." Sir said, a little dissy from the teleport, "What a rush.."

Major Asshole definitely likes to diss, but I see no diss there.

"Anthadd! Sir! Welcome back!" Said the Tenda leader. "Shall we discuss your journies over a cup of tea?"

"Well, alright" Said Sir, ready to reminise..

~~~~
From what I can remember, I came to this island only to stay for a short time. A few days for the party. After a rough journy, I was met by Tim, who showed me the nearby hot springs. I fell asleap in the springs, only to awake to see dozens of others ariving, starting up sand castle touniments, water races, dances, and even building an amusement park. I met a few friends, and accidently ticked off Mani and Pikachu, something I still regret.. Anyways, a group of AC's decided to explore the interior of the island, and boy did that start up some excitement! I tried to tag along, but I was either ditched or got lost and ended up wandering into a quick adventure with Chris, soon to be put here in the village. That's the first time I met Anthadd as I recall.. Gosh, that's good tea. Can I get another cup? I'm not boring you, am I? Well, hang tight, I'm halfway done.

Not boring me at all, actually. If Major Asshole wrote a stream-of-consciousness book I would read all 300 pages in one sitting, even full of typos.

Anyways, Chris and Juliana came back to help us out with the electro specter that desided to attack the village, and I got a new weapon: the lightweight bazooka! From there, I traveled with the runaway 5 to Fourside, only to find Falcon had destroed magnet hill. I confronted him later in Scarabia, nearly killing myself by touching the sound sapper. If I would have been there a few seconds earlier, I could have stopped Lavos from being awakened, although destroing myself in the process..Well, I traveled for a while, actually meeting up with Lavos, and for a second we shared the friendship we had in the past.Unfortunatly, he had a battle to attend to, so we went out seperate ways. Ran into Chris again, went on a quick trip with a few other Knights of Nee, and even defeated my indesiciveness in a cool action sequence in my mind. After that, I attempeted to summon all the AC's together to battle, but that one kinda bottomed out after I learned Lavos can only be defeated by the chosen four. That and the fact many just wanted to have the vacation we started earlier instead of fighting. Then I got a call from Anthadd, I rented a beamer, helped Anthadd get his melody, and wound up here.
~~~

Sir noticed that, due to his rambling, he had finished off 4 cups of tea.
"Heh, kinda got carried away there, huh?"
he would have gotten a responce, but everyone in the village was dead asleap.

I don't know what motivated him to post a summary of all his activity in the Gathering, other than perhaps wanting to see it on his screen for his own amusement.

Posts #1121-1125: 22 May 2000

Post #1121, by Chris

Most everyone was sitting in the hospital waiting room, waiting to find out what had become of their mysterious friend.

You have to admire how accepting the newly minted Seven Friends are. Some random dude, who for all they know is just some wino that wandered into the woods, gets run over by their car and instantly they assume he's their friend. D'aww.

Chris had gone out to get a few sodas for the group, but everyone else was seated silently in chairs, awaiting news. A few people were reading, others were staring at the the wall.

The silence of the hospital was broken by Chris's return. He had a few drinks in his arm, as well as a bag of chips for anyone that was hungry.

"Any news?" he asked despondently.

"Nothing." guruzeth replied.

He doesn't even know Falcon24 in-story, so we can only assume he's despondent because he knows he won't be getting any further attention from Juliana. Even proving he knows what 'despondent' means and how to spell it isn't helping.

Chris joined the crew in chairs, and picked up a magazine to read. He flipped to an article titled "How to Make the Most of Your Eagleland Vacation." He read for a few minutes, then put it down, deciding that he didn't want to think about the adventures here, now that someone had almost (indeed, had) died as a result of the "adventures." While he sat there contemplating this, he began to doze off, and soon was sleeping in his chair in the waiting room.

Yeah, we're all certain this is the absolute truth, and his sudden lack of interest in "adventures" has nothing at all to do with the fact he can't solo with Juliana anymore.

You'll notice this was another medium-sized post in which nothing happens; we're in a holding pattern here because the writers involved are understandably leery of deciding what happens to Falcon24's AC.

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Post #1122, by diospadre

diospadre was't able to sit in the lobby any longer. He hated hospitals, the thought of dead bodies made him noxious. He decided he would go clean his car out, after all there were 5 muddy kids in there a little while ago.

Won't there be 6 muddy kids in there in the near future, though?

dios turned on the cd player in the car and began scrubbing away at the dirt. Then he came to the bug he had spit out earlier. An idea suddenly struck him. "guruzeth said these were healing bugs. I bet this could help our new friend."

The grand prize goes to diospadre for being the first to remember that Traceh has a jar full of healing bugs! Let's give him a hand.

Seriously, you have to hand it to him for being the one guy in this whole thread that actually has been reading at least the posts of the people he's plotlining with.

dios grabbed the dead bug from his expectorate and ran into the hospital. He quietly snuck into the room where the unconcious boy lay, and put the bug in his mouth. He then poired some water into his throat to make him drink. Suddenly the boy was lifted from the bed, surrounded by a strange green aura, opposed to the blue one he and guruzeth had experienced earlier.

Further proving he actually read Traceh's posts from quite a while ago; he knew what color guruzeth glowed when he was experiencing Deus Ex Machina.

Suddenly a doctor and diospadre's friends rushed into the room. "What's happening!?" the doctor yelled.

"Nothing much, doctor, I swear! I was just shoving a giant beetle down this unconscious kid's throat and pouring water down... I mean... hey, wait! LET ME GO!"

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Post #1123, by Little Yoshi

Tim did a Leap Slash over the Lavos Spawns, and struck the machine. It made a noise, and then exploded into pieces. The ice barrier fell, and Tim without thinking casted an Ice spell on everything. The shells all retaliated, and Tim was not undamaged after being hit by 8 Needle attacks. He scrambled to his feet, and chopped off their heads one by one. Then, he hadn't been noticing where he was going, he bumped into something hard. It was Evil Mani Mani, again.
"Let's go," Evil Mani Mani said, teleporting them to an icolated(sp?) arena.

Liyoshi, alone still proudly doing exactly what he was doing almost a thousand posts ago. Everyone else, not alone, still proudly not giving a s---.

[This message has been edited by Little Yoshi (edited 05-22-2000).]

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Post #1124, by Traceh

Tracy looked up from the magazine she was reading. She had never been that fond of hospitals, especially the part about blood. Ugh...blood. *cringe*. Her eyes wandered and she noticed diospadre get out of his seat, a look of disgust on his face, and walk out. She stood up and wispered "I'll be right back, mmmkay?" and started on her search to find a drinking fountain.

Whispered to who, and why is she whispering? Is it supposed to be a secret that she's gone?

About half way down the hall she spotted one, and made a bee-line towards it. After exaughsting her stomach's capacity for water, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and was about to head back to the others when she heard a noise a few rooms down.

Peaking around the corner she saw a strange green light eminating from a room a ways down the hall. Being as quiet as possible she tip-toed down the hall and glanced into the room where there an unexpected sight met her eyes. There he was, the stranger they had pulled out of the rain, glowing a greenish light. To his left was a smug looking dios and a verry frightened looking doctor.

She's not diospadre nailed, no doubt of that. Though I doubt the doctor would look frightened. Instead he'd be saying some Latin words and explaining that it's perfectly normal given his symptoms and course of treatment that he is levitating and glowing like Slimer.

Tracy ran into the room and tugged on diospadre's sleeve. "dios..what have you done? What's happening to him? And how the heck are we supposed to explain this little predicament to the doctors...let alone the creepy people the doctors work for!?"

Wow, she hit the nail on the head about hospital administrators. That's especially impressive given it was 13 years ago. You ain't seen nothin' yet, Tracy...

By then the others had noticed the light and were at the door, along with a few curious onlookers who were no help at all. She ran down the hall, grabbed her bag, and wrapped the purple egg-filled bottle in a sweater and shoved it to the bottom of the bag where it would hopefully be safe. She slung the bag up over her shoulder and ran back to the room.

So far the Seven Friends are doing an admirable job making interesting things happen while avoiding, as they must, deciding what happens with Falcon24's AC.

[This message has been edited by Traceh (edited 05-22-2000).]

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Post #1125, by Pikachu3164

Pikachu started to get impatient.

Well damn, I never would have imagined that could happen.

It was almost dawn, and he wqanted to get back to the hotel. [Ah, I don't want to wait another minute! I just want to get back to the hotel!]

So, Pikachu used Teleport Omega and arrived at the Eageland Hotel. There, he saw a bunch of Lavos Spawn.

[Oh for crying out loud! When do I get to take a vacation!]

Pikachu ran up to the Lavos Spawn and created a Light Screen. Then, he immobolized them with a Thunder Wave. Then he used Swift, Thunder, and other various moves in an effort to get rid of them quickly.

You have to imagine he called it merely an 'effort' because he knew it was doomed. It's odd the way some of these kids never seemed to have even considered that it's Interactive Fiction and so they do have some power over what their ACs do, and could forcibly take a vacation if they really wanted to. That, or violence was truly what made them happy, whatever they may say. That's the story of human civilization in a nutshell right there.