Posts #1076-1080: 19 May 2000

Post #1076, by Mani Mani

(Ooo, OOO! I wanna help too! :P)

I assume the :P indicates sarcasm, aimed at the kiddies.

Mani called, "I'll help! I'll put some Ice Rain on the sword!" She braced herself, getting ready for the huge multi-tech...

At least Lavos is being a good sport and waiting for them to get it all straightened out.

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Post #1077, by Pikachu3164

((Heh, no. Not a nice little plot twist. Sorry Ton, but Pikachu is leaving for vacation when Robot form Lavos is destroyed. I have a way to get him out of there without a Time Gate.))

Come on, 3164, that's it? I was hoping for some fireworks from you of all people. Where are Tengu and Liyoshi, I want to watch someone get rips--- pissed off here.

((Oh, and I also have a super-secret attack that I haven't decided if I wanted to show off yet. I don't think it's too fair that you get to defeat Lavos just because you said you wanted to.))

Correct, but boring. I already pointed that out, and even then it was correct and boring, because it's so obvious to anyone with any common sense!

Someone healed Poryhedron and Pikachu of their confusion, and they got ready for their octo-tech.

"Okay guys and girls! NOW!" Tim held out the Masamune.

Nathan and Jeff fired Gaia Energy onto the sword.
Paula used Fire Omega and blsted the sword. Poo used Starstorm Omega on the sword, while Mog cast Ultima on it.
Pikachu used a Thunder on the sword.
Both Mani and Tim used their ice attacks and the sword was fully charged for a sept-tech.

I'll give him credit for being willing to move the action along, at least. Seems no one else is.

Before they got a chance to attack, Lavos used one of those attacks someone described earlier, but Ton blocked it with the Disruptor.

As an afterthought 3164 thought, 'huh, I guess Lavos would be attacking somewhere around now. I'd better throw something in there so people don't think I lost track.' And it's fine because no one's interested in reading about what Lavos is doing, except maybe Liyoshi.

"Okay, Tim! Get on my back!" yelled Poryhedron. Tim jumped onto Poryhedron, and they prepared to pretty much blast Lavos into next year.

LOL, I really like 3164's narrative style. It's genuinely funny because it's so honest. There's no pretense to 3164's writing at all, you have to give him that.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-19-2000).]

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Post #1078, by loid

"There will come soft rains and the smell
of the ground,

And swallows circling with their
Shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremoulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whisling their whims in a low fence wire;

And not one will know of the war, not
one
Will care at last when its done

Not one would mind, Neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly.
Sara Teasdale, It's my favorite poem. What do you think Randite?"

Kiyo was aslee as this was all happening. He was able to go into his magicant and comunicate with Randite.

I think (a) that's a really stupid poem, (b) even if it were magnificent it would still be stupid for you to post it in an IF thread and ask for comments, and (c) I am vastly depressed to see one of my favorite posters displaying typical raging know-it-all adolescent colors.

The italics are loid's, in case you didn't realize.

"Were trapped here, paralyzed and all you care about is your stupid poetry?"

Also a fair opinion.

"Look, it just makes me think that if Lavos destroys the Earth and- woah woah woah, heh I forgot who I'm talking to here!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, well your one of Lavos's goons. One of-"
"Bah! I hate Lavos! For an eternity I've been draged across the universe to serve him! The other Randites are so spineless and weak minded they're practicly his slaves! You heard what I said to Pikachu."
"You mean your a good guy like us? You wanna fight Lavos too?"
"No and yes. I want to kill Lavos so I can enslave this pitiful planet! Destroy Lavos and your planet is still doomed, doomed, DOOMED!"
"Now there's the Randite I know!"

As you can see--though I certainly hope you figured it out on your own by now--slaying Lavos will in no way end the Crusade to Save the World. There will always be another megalomaniac to defeat.

[This message has been edited by loid (edited 05-19-2000).]

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Post #1079, by Mog116

(Cool.)

[Quick! Someone cast slow on my spells!] Mog yelled. Mog used two Ultimas quickly, that were frozen in time by the slow. Then Tim, Poo, and Mog, all jump slashed the left arm through the Ultimas. This destroyed the Left arm.

Obviously Ultima didn't hurt the ACs that jumped through its field at all. ACs are invincible. Don't be stupid.

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Post #1080, by SaturnAl

(OK i'm back. I've been very very busy lately. I'll go with you, Osman and GW.)

This is the third time SaturnAl has disappeared without a peep, and then almost immediately reappeared after PSIOsman posted "OK, SaturnAl's gone so we'll just ditch him." PSIOsman's problem is, he can't really stomach losing a precious follower, even if it's just an absentee follower, so he can't just tell him to get bent if he's not going to post anything useful.

Posts #1061-1065: 18 May 2000

Post #1061, by t0nberry22

(Good, now you guys are helpin' me. Now I'm satisfied.

Seriously, this is a gigantic development for our friend t0nberry: people are acknowledging him! they're offering to help him and everything! Group hug, guys!

And, since it's been a while, I'll say I'm actually fighting DT. I'll write more later, K?)

So this post's only purpose is to get his name back near the top of the posters' list, in the hope it'll help him not be left behind by his new friends before he gets around to posting something. It's hard work typing up paragraph after paragraph of achingly dull and already overdone battle sequences. That s--- takes time.

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Post #1062, by Little Yoshi


(I'll help narrate the Lavos Robo form battle)

Of course you will. You're everyone's favorite battle narrator, after all. 

(oh, and Ton, when you're done fighting your dark side, come help us please!)

Thus Liyoshi shoots down the last lingering thread of hope that maybe this battle wouldn't take long.

Tim was at the back of the gang, the place where a healer should be, but not he. He was obsessed with good armor, and had gotten an enormous defense boost in Magicant, though he sacrificed most of his offense. He ran to the front.
"Lavos! Are you the cause of the Jellyfish?!"
"So, you figured it out, eh? Yep! The Emperor jellyfish was merely a mindless servant of mine! and you, Tim! will be dearly for messing up his plans!RIGHT ARM! LEFT ARM!" Lavos's two arms extended from it's body. "Lavos attack plan 3A! Go!"
Lavos's Head cast chaos, his arms used their slicing attacks, and the jellyfish defended the body.

You know what? F--- this. I'm not annotating this. I have already annotated this post about 30 times and there is nothing new to say. I could just repeat exactly the same things I've already said 30 times and only change a few select words here and there... but then I'd be just like Liyoshi. I'll see you next post.

"Wait!" Tim said, and quickly put on Magus's theme."There, now we can fight!" The Left Arm threw it's two chopping thingies at Tim! 384 HP of damge to Tim! "And I thought I was well defended..." Tim moaned getting up.
Pikachu used a swift attack! Jellyfish couldn't block the blow! 12 HP of damage to the Head.
"Pikachu, you're supposed to attack thwe arms first..." Tim said.
[Oh, sorry,]

I'll jump in here long enough to laugh with you at how Liyoshi makes no effort to hide his dislike of 3164.

Porheydron used Blizzard! The jellyfish's shield's blunted the blow! The Right Arm threw two chopping thingies at Nathan! 401 HP of damage Tim used Lifeup Gamma! Nathan's HP are maxed out! The jellyfish attacked with Acid! Tim's defense fell! The head cast Chaos! Tim, Nathan, and Pikachu were confused! Porheydron used Freshen Up! Tim, Pikachu, and Nathan are no longer confused!

In a stunning twist, the item 'Freshen Up' is from Super Mario RPG, not Chrono Trigger. Presumably he went with that only because Chrono Trigger doesn't have any full party status recovery items.

[This message has been edited by Little Yoshi (edited 05-18-2000).]

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Post #1063, by t0nberry22

You probably think this means t0nberry in fact did start writing a real post right after he posted #1061 above, and posted it ten minutes later. But you're wrong. This was actually posted almost nine hours later. I don't think I even have to look it up to know that 16 and 17 May were Saturday and Sunday, and 18 May is Monday, based on the abrupt lack of posts for nine hours the morning and early afternoon of 18 May. 

OK, I did look it up, and to my shock, 18 May 2000 was a Thursday. So forget everything I said, I have no clue what's up.

Ton and Dark Ton were still fighting. They had started with their knives, but then they tried to whack each other with their lanterns. Now, it had come down to a bout of wrestling.
"Arrgh take that!" Ton dived at DT. DT dodged and kicked Ton. Ton went up... and then landed on DT. They started rolling around, grappling.
"Grrrr!"
"Yaaah!"
Meanwhile, Pika, Tim and the rest were till fighting Lavos.
"Man, this guy just doesn't quit!" said Tim, dodging a beam attack.
Suddenly, Ton and Dark Ton rolled in, still wrestling. Lavos fired a beam at them.
"Whaaaa?!!"

Ton suddenly realized that he and DT were in a different place. They were standing in a river. On one side, there was a beautiful valley. On the other, there was a wasteland.
"Where are we..." said Ton.
Suddenly, Eden Ton appeared!
"This is Limbo, the place between life and death. Your struggle has been so great, it could only be finished here. On one side of the river is life, on the other side is death. Whichever one of you knocks the other into death, wins. Now, are you ready for the final clash?"
"I'm ready."
"You bet!"

Well, they seem fairly upbeat, considering how close they stand to death.

"Alright, let's get ready to rummmmble!"
A small bell appears out of nowhere and sounds out.
[Ding!]
Ton ran at DT. DT dodged and tripped Ton. Ton got up and punched DT in the stomach. DT keeled over. Ton kicked DT away. DT landed and then got up.
DT dived at Ton. Ton leaped up and landed on DT. DT flipped him off his back and got up. Ton landed near the edge. DT jumped on top of him and tried to force him onto the death side.

I know I say it all the time, but how could anyone possibly want to read more than six words of this? 

"Heheh... Now I shall rule! Prepare to die, TON THE WEAKLING!"
Ton thought fast.[What do I do? He's got me pinned! ...Wait, I remember now!]
Italics would really have been better than those thrice-damned greater-than-less-than symbols to express that you're thinking rather than talking. Damn 3164 to hell for introducing those wretched symbols.
Ton raised his hand. "Hey, Dark Ton, look over there! It's a human that's scared of you!"
DT looked back. "Huh? Where?"
Ton grinned. "Oops, my mistake. Just a gullible dark side of myself." Dark Ton whirled around just in time to see Ton flip him over his head. Dark Ton hit the ground. Dark Ton was surrounded by a strange white light.
"Noooooooo!!!!"
Dark Ton was vaporized.
"Yes!" Ton jumped into the air. "I beat 'em!"
Eden Ton talked again. "Good Job, Tonberry! You have defeated your evil self. Now your Magicant is whole again! Unfortunately, you will never get to see it again."
"Huh? Why not?"
"You see, your evil self got the 9th melody while you were getting the 4th, and that means..."
Ton groaned. "I have all Nine Melodies, and I defeated my Evil side!"
"But don't despair! You will have a good hand in fighting Lavos, and you now have 10 melodies! Now, back to the physical plane with you!"
Ton suddenly realized he was much more powerful than he looked, and the heritage of the Tonberry Race was flowing through him, giving him strength for upcoming battle. Ton then realized the powers of his ancestors!

Powerful on an absolute scale, maybe. But not powerful at all on the relative scale. You are God, sure, but so is everyone else.

Ton got 100,000 exp.
Ton went to level 50!
Ton's HP went up by 100!
Ton's str. went up 50!
Ton's def. went up by 50!
Ton realized the power of Disruptor!
Ton realized the power of Healing!
Ton realized the power of Lifeup!
Ton realized the power of ????????!


Ton woke up. Ahead of him, a group of people were fighting Giygas. They had not taken notice of his battle with DT.

I'm not certain if Giygas' sudden appearance here is a screwup on t0nberry's part or an attempt to introduce some kind of Lavos-Giygas-fusion stupidity. Probably a screwup; I'd expect him to be more elaborate with the latter, if he was doing it on purpose.

"Whoa! I better go help them!" Picking up his lantern and knife(Which were both glowing strangely, but Ton didn't notice), Ton headed into the battle.

[This message has been edited by t0nberry22 (edited 05-18-2000).]

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Post #1064, by Chris

Slowly, the work began. At first, everyone was simply working on digging up a big enough pile of sand to build from. After a few hours of digging and taking breaks to rest, they had a large mound of sand. Now, it was time to start the castle.

"How should we go about doing this?" Poo asked.

It's extra funny because EBPoo already disregarded Chris's attempts to control him and went to play in the surf. Chris is disregarding EBPoo's disregard. It's the Interactive Fiction metagame.

"I say we use this big pit as a moat." guruzeth replied.

"Yeah, that oughta work. Let's get started." Juliana said.

They started scuplting a base out of their pile of sand, and after another half hour of work, had build a solid foundation. Now, it was time to start building the towers. As they were being sculpted, Chris went in search of a source of flowing water to fill the moat with. He managed to find a hose, and soon, the moat was starting to fill with water. Tracy dug a drain path from the castle to the ocean, and the moat was soon flowing with water.

As dusk began to set on the land, the castle's finishing touches were being added, and tourists had begun coming to marvel at it. 

As far as I know this is the very first mention of any tourists in this entire thread. Naturally they exist solely to worship Chris.

Once the five friends had finished it, they decided to go see about finding dinner. They went back to the hotel, where they hoped to find food at the restaurant. They went in, and found themselves with a much more comprehensive menu that didn't require Chris and Juilana to translate everything. They sat down at dinner, and began to talk about all sorts of things.

Seriously, this is as boring as a Liyoshi post, and for many of the same reasons. It's the second time he's done a sandcastle-building post; he might as well have copied the first one verbatim and dropped a few extra names in. And now he's given us a teaser for his next post: they're going to eat at a restaurant! Again!  

I think this is happening because (a) Chris has established throughout this thread that he wants nothing to do with the Save the World Club, and the only thing he wants is to fantasize about hanging out with PSI322, but (b) the presence of three extra posters, and particularly of guruzeth (who he can't simply ditch for a mess of reasons) has rendered him unable to proceed with what he'd normally do, namely isolate PSI322 and resume the dating cycle. So he's just spinning his wheels until PSI322 or guruzeth decides what new thing. the group's going to do next.

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Post #1065, by Mog116

(Uh.. GUYS! I'M FIGHTING LAVOS TOO!)

No, you're bitching. Maybe if you did less bitching and more fighting Lavos, people would remember to include a token 'Mog took 85000 HP damage!' once in a while. You know why they don't? Because they figure--correctly--that all you'd do in response is bitch about that.

Mog put on his roller blades and blasted into Lavos. He shot through, hit Nathan, then started bouncing all over the place, causing about 300 Hp damage to Lavos (totalled), and stopped, on his head, on Lavos' Left arm. Mog flipped over, then drove his Spear into Lavos Left arm. Mog casted Posoin (Sp?) an his spear, and the posoin ran through Lavos Veins. This did about 600 damage, butMog had to rip out his spear, and join the others fighting.

So, are you glued to the edge of your chair for the Epic Lavos Showdown yet? Is your heart racing?

Posts #1046-1050: 17 May 2012

Post #1046, by Mog116

(Actually, It wasn't his Idea for Lavos to come. Besides, his AC is Darth. I think that maybe, he shouldn't be makin' such rules)

Ladies and gentlemen, you just read the wisest words Mog116 will ever write on this thread. And it's true, Lavos wasn't originally Tengu's idea. But only because someone got there first. Tengu would have come up with it or something very similar to it on his own, given enough time.

Mog suddenly felt an urge to go to Lavos's place (Why are so many of you gpin' to winters? Lavos is at Saturn Valley.) and fight Lavos's ROBOT form. (Tengu Maul said we couldn't fight Lavos's core, not his robot.) Mog teleported to lavos's crater wherever it is, then went inside.

I would theorize they are going to Winters exactly because that is not where Lavos is. And I presume the 'robot' means Lavos's second form, in the three-round final battle of Chrono Trigger.

(Ton, take my help, okay. I'll help you, okay. As long as you help me fight Lavos)

That's really godawful posting. You're supposed to write your AC into helping his AC, not try to push him around with parenthetical OOC comments.

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Post #1047, by Tengu Maul

I don't disagree on the vacation part of this, our characters also need the vacation, but I want the four to beat Lavos since they beat one invader(Giygas), and they have more experience than all our ACs combined.

You are welcome to your desires. It's just that you're not going to get them, because neither any of the Chosen Four© nor Lavos is your AC. So tell us what you want if you must; just understand that it's completely irrelevant.

Also, I'd like them to have signifiance in this story somewhere, since this is almost just an AC-fest without them.

Yes, it certainly is. You seem to have forgotten that PSI322 made it explicit in Post #1 that it was supposed to be an AC-fest.

But what you have to understand is, this is practically a cut-and-paste of his boilerplate Declaration of Intent to Control that he posted in almost every IF thread.

If you want to return to the vacation you can quit the fight and go back, and let us handle Lavos.

That's exactly what I've been saying for a hundred posts now! You can have Lavos! I don't want him!

Of course, if you're an IF veteran you can spot the problem: if a group of posters breaks off and tries to enjoy itself while ignoring Saving the World, then the Saving the World crowd will, sooner or later, try to invade the Party Crowd's storyline.

About our absence, it's just Mani and I(especially Mani) are very busy to worry about any IFs now a days. It's a little thing called "life", and we can't always shove it aside to be here[in other words I've been really busy].)

I have to wonder exactly what Tengu Man's "life" at this point consisted of. Tengu, the floor is yours.

Over the time, many things had happened, including Paula and Jeff conquering their Magicants. All they needed now was Poo, and they could go after Lavos' Core.

That right there is the entire plot substance of the post. Highly disappointing for a Tengu Man post, I must say.

(Poo, now we need you, or whoever has control on the real Poo to come to our group, and we can get this accomplished.)

I'm laughing because that is so deliciously Tengu Man of him. He's trying to control someone else's AC as if it was his own! His need to control knew no bounds.

[This message has been edited by Tengu Maul (edited 05-17-2000).]

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Post #1048, by Mani Mani

(Yes, I agree with Tengu. We do have lives outside the IF, and with the end of school nearing and all, it can be pretty stressful for everyone. Please bear with us here.)

Never in all the posts Mani Mani put on the forum did she ever, not even once, disagree with Tengu. You can understand why I always assumed 'Mani Mani' was Tengu Man multiaccounting.

Ness's group was just about ready to go to face Lavos. The girls and the boys were preparing in their separate rooms in the Twoson hotel. Soon, everyone came out and met in the lobby of the hotel. Mani looked Jeff up and down and smiled.
"Wow, Jeff. You seem so...so confident...and mature...since you came out of your Magicant." Jeff grinned a little.

Mani, just get him alone and kiss him and undo your top and get down to business. Guys are not complicated. A guy like Jeff especially would present zero difficulty at all. A 2 on your Seduce check would do the job easily.

"Thanks."
"Cheep cheep!" went Mani's chick in her pocket.

There's a good double-entendre in there somewhere, but I can't quite find it. I'm sure PP/QC could have.

"Well, are we all ready?" asked Ness. "We're just going to teleport near where Lavos is and wait for Poo there. We can't face Lavos without him." Everyone was ready, so Ness teleported them.

I can set aside Tengu's ongoing attempt to claim various EarthBound characters plus Lavos as his ACs. But this is still very annoying writing, because Mani makes no effort to justify why they can't face Lavos without Poo there. Even with Giygas, OK, Ness is the Chosen One and all, but Paula's the only one of the four that has to be there for it to end well. You can walk into the battle with everyone else in the party dead and she can win it by herself just fine.

The group stood at a distance from Lavos, on a hill overlooking the crater.
"He looks so small from here," mused Mani.
"Yeah, but we all know that's not true," said Jack.
"Now all we have to do is to wait for Poo to get here..." said Paula.
"I hope he realizes we need him badly," said Ness.

She's laying it on a little thick there. This is probably about the right time for guruzeth to jump in and remind everyone that EBPoo's AC is most certainly not the EarthBound character. Except he probably won't because that would just make Tengu's life easier, and guruzeth was in the habit of putting personal agendas ahead of what makes sense.

[This message has been edited by Mani Mani (edited 05-17-2000).]

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Post #1049, by Little Yoshi

(Agreeing with Mani and Tengu, I haven't posted due to enormous projects. Sorry)
(I would rather a vacation IF, but this adventure is pretty neat)

I don't really know why it's such a big deal to have things to do other than post on IF once in a while. Next we'll be reading 'sorry I didn't post sooner but I really had to piss!'

Tim finally woke up. "Whoa, and I thought I got up early..." Tim moaned, looking at the clock saying 9:00.

In 2000, 9:00 WAS early. For me, at least.

"Okay, everyone who's on the boat, I guess you all want to go to Lavos, so I'll get you all there," Tim said. He used his trusty spring-out-of-the-water-thingy, and landed in the waters just outside Saturn Valley.

I seem to recall this actually isn't the first appearance of MacGyver's latest work, the spring-out-of-the-water-thingy.

"Okay, everyone! Please watch yer step!Make sure you have all of your personal belongings, and go whup lavos's rear end...um, wherever that is!" Tim said. The crew(excluding Tim) disembarked. "I'll be back soon...maybe," Tim said, and sprung off.

I notice that Liyoshi really prefers to fight solo battles. That or he's waiting for a chance at a Big Damn Hero moment. Either way, I am pleased with how short this post is. The nuisance quotient of a Liyoshi post tends to grow exponentially, relative to length.

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Post #1050, by SirMontyG

Although taken for a ride by Sir's rage, Diamond Dog was far from finished. After a few exchanged blows, an odd sound could be heard...

*Trumpet Fanfare, folowed by odd elevator music*

"Just great." Anthadd and Sir said in unison. They both realized who had just dropped in..

"Pictures taken instintaniosly! Wait a minute, isn't that the cutest little puppy you've ever seen? Now you two guys get by your pet.."

"*cough* *cough* *Crazy* *cough* Um.. he's not housetrained, we'd better stay here."

"Well, alright. Ready? Say Fuzzy Pickles!"

"No." The two again said in unison.

"Perfect. That will bring back the fondest of memories..say, what are you two doing all the way out here, anyways?"

"Well, I was recruiting Anthadd to help get all the AC's together to destroy Lavos and a few other evils, but he's really just looking for the melodies, so I was going to help him with the Fire Spring and bid farewell." Sir stated

"Ahh, that's all and good, except only the chosen ones can defeat Lavos." Said the Cameraman

"Well, what about Randites or evil AC's?"

"What are you asking me for, I'm only a photograher..Ahh well, time to fly!" *odd elevator music*

"Man, now I really don't know what to do.."

*GrrrAwer!!*

Major Asshole yet again makes me LOL. This entire post is pretty much a 'hey Anthadd, I'm bored with this, can we wrap it up?' Major Asshole's bizarre tangents really add flavoring to series of posts that really can get pretty tedious. I'm sure you're as thankful for them as I am.

"Oh, right, the boss.." and so the heated battle continued

No it didn't. The heated battle ended like two Anthadd posts ago. It's Diamond Dog you're fighting now. So this is, I don't know, the hard battle or something.

Posts #1031-1035: 16 May 2000

Post #1031, by guruzeth

"Ugh," said guruzeth, squirming, "I can do without this suit, it's choking me. Now that I'm at a hotel, I can withdraw from my ATM card, so I'll be back soon." He took his leave, leaving the others to chat amongst themselves for about 15 minutes, before he returned, clad in khakis and a polo shirt, and handed Chris his suit. "So what do we want to do?"

The odd thing here is that I am now very fond of suits, or at least dress shirts and dress slacks. And 2000 was about the time I had started getting fond of them. The khakis/polo thing is true to what I wore virtually every day at the time, but still, I don't think this was about the choice of clothing. It was about guruzeth refusing to allow Chris to make any decisions for him.

"Well," said Juliana, "We've been pretty much everywhere, Chris and I."

"Ah, really, PSI?" said guru. "Well..."

"Please, you can call me Juliana."

"Right."

I like guruzeth's one-sentence notation that yes, he is aware of Chris's great PSI322-chasing adventures. The 'call me Juliana' thing is also an understated slap at Chris. That's right, we're on a first name basis already. In your face.

"I'm beat," said Tracy. "Maybe we should just kinda chill for a day or two on the beach or in a restaurant or something."

"I'd be up for that," said guru. "We can figure out what else we want to do in the meantime."

I'm somewhat surprised that guruzeth also punted on picking something specific to do, but I guess it comes back to what I noted in the last episode: he doesn't want anything to do with fighting for great justice right now.

"I'm hungry," said Poo. "Let's go have some breakfast."

"Excuse me!" guruzeth called to the ludicrously young assistant manager of the hotel. "Do you know any good places to eat breakfast?"

So guruzeth offers the hook to diospadre to join in. If he takes it, group guruzeth will swell to six members, which if it holds together would be the largest running group in the Gathering so far. This is what usually happens over the course of a long IF; you start with disparate small groups, and they condense over time into a few larger groups.

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Post #1032, by loid

"NO! Paralyzed! Cant, seem, to, move, or, talk, at, normal, rate, cant, stop, using, commas,"

I laughed. I'm a dork.

[Now lets do this my way, I can either leave you here to die, or you give my my sound stone back!]

"No, Lavos would torture me for all eternity if I gave you a sound stone."
[Your nothing but Lavos's slave, come on! with those melodies your stronger then Lavos! Together we can kill Lavos!]

Ah, the Darth Vader ploy--"together we can kill the Evil Overlord and reign over the universe"--which is named after its most famous example, but George Lucas certainly didn't invent it. It's been around pretty much as long as evil has. Which means pretty much forever.

"You mean, I and my people would be free of his control? No, we would die."
[Dont you understand? Lavos itself told you that you had to kill those with melodies beacuse the melodies can destroy him!]
"Destroy Lavos? I have secretly wanted to do that for 5 thousand years."
He then let go of Pikachu
That's how it ends. No punctuation. He burned it all up in that third sentence.

The '5 thousand years' thing is a DUN DUN DUN moment for sure, but it's not quite well written enough to make the small amount of sense required to hook your reader. We are left thoroughly confused about who Kiyo's People are or why we should care about them.

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Post #1033, by Anthadd

Anthadd noticed this golf club was unnaturallly hardy, and was withstanding essentially anything Carbon Dog could do.
Remembering what had happened previously, he became more prudent, jabbing with the golf club, throwing golf balls at high speeds.

I'm scratching my head pondering how jabbing with a golf club causes golf balls to be thrown. That is one far out golf club, is all I can figure. It actually sounds like something a random boss in Monster Party would do.

A flash of light blinded he and Sir, and the silhouette of Carbon Dog crystallised.

"Oh no..." Anth muttered. "Diamond Dog."

This is a specific f--- you to Tengu Man and I love it. Even if I am horrendously bored by this third iteration of a boss fight that was boring the first time it happened.

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Post #1034, by Mog116

(Dang, I'm confused. I feal like barfing up a new story. Is anyone as confused as I?)

You may well be confused, but I think your complaint has more to do with being bored. And yes, some folks, such as myself, are bored.

Mog walked past Kiyo/Randites room, not knowing what was going on. The he somehow found himself back at the Hotel. [Weird. Man, I'm confused.] He thought aloud. He walked along the beach awhile, pondering why he was here. Then he stopped. [Wait. We can't just wait here. We need to fight Lavos.] Mog sat off to fight Lavos' robot form. But, he decided not to go by himself. He stood on the beach, waiting for someone who was tired of this being an "Adventure" IF, instead of a vacational IF.

(Any takers? I wanna kill Lavos and get back to my vacation.)

A noble quest. Impossible, but noble. Here are some windmills, why don't you joust with them until you feel better?

Mog116 might be the first of the Kiddie Klub to openly state his boredom, but he probably won't be the last. It's not really because the Lavos thing is stupid, I don't think. It's more because it's now stretched out over many hundreds of posts and nothing--nothing--important has happened. It's a lesson in How Not to Write a Story. At the very least, if you must write an IF thread involving saving the world from a Chrono Trigger villain, give us some action. That's the big problem with the middle part of the Gathering (which we are nearing the end of).

---

Post #1035, by Pikachu3164

((I wish this would just return to being a vacation IF... If there was a way to one hit K-O Lavos, can you guess who would take it in an instance?))

The thing is, these guys were around when it was a vacation IF, and the reason we got to the Chrono Trigger crossover/Save the World silliness is that they--these same guys--got bored with the vacation and decided saving the world would be more exciting. Now they're bored with that and want the vacation back.

The other thing is, they badly miss the point here, behaving as though so long as Lavos is alive they have no choice but to fight. It seems to have never occurred to them that they could simply ignore Lavos and do whatever they want. If they did that, before too long the Lavos thing would be Tengu Man's exclusive plotline, and everyone else, even Falcon24, would have left it behind.

**********
Pikach jumped of of Randite. [Okay. I'm going to go get Tim. You stay here, understand!?]

Randite eyeballed Pikachu. "It's, not, like, I, can, move. You, par, a, lyzed, me, re, mem, ber? I, can, har, dly, talk. "

3164 seems as amused by loid's commas as I was.

[Yea, whatever.] Pikachu started to search through Randite's whatever he keeps his stuff in. He found what he was lookinf for. [I thought you gave the Sound Stone to Lavos!]

"I, was, going, too, but, La, vos, could, n't, take, the, pos, i, tive, en, er, gy. He, gave, it, to, me, to, keep, for, now."

[Sure...] Pikachu ran out, and started towards Tim's room. He thought that if he could get the final melody, Rainy Circle, maybe, just maybe, he could beat Lavos and finally relax. Pikachu noticed that the sun was rising.

Again. Let's hope no one arbitrarily decides it's not morning after all and we revert, Groundhog Day style, to the previous night.

[Tim! Wake up!]

"What?" Tim was not too happy that Pikachu had waken him up.

Pikachu told Tim what had happened during the night.[First, I got the Sound Stone back. Second, Randite is still controllin Kiyo. He's paralyzed in my room. Third, get us to Winters.]

Tim, still half asleep, managed to mutter a "Now?"

[Yes. Now.]

"Fine, whatever."

Everyone who has doubts Liyoshi is so easily going to agree to be bossed around like this, raise your hands. I thought so.

You have to give 3164 some credit, though. He's trying his damnedest to get something to happen. Unfortunately for him, if your goal is for something to happen then Liyoshi is the worst person in the entire world to have in your plotline.

Posts #1026-1030: 16 May 2000

Post #1026, by Mog116

(We're on Tim's boat, murkkie.)

That's all the clarification poor lazy murkkie is going to get. It's still more than I would have given him.

Mog almost laughed his stomach up when he got up. (It's the Morning, Kay?) he passed Loid's (Are you still Randite?) room-thingy on the boat, thenfell into the water. Mog swam, with much trouble, back to the boat. Then he remembered something. He pulledout a small romote control, then pressed the big button. There was a loud beeping noise, then Mog followed the noise, then tripped over something. He looked down, then saw his duffel bag. [Cool. He kept it.]Mog thought hard, then his duffel bag was teleported back to his house. [Well, that's finished. I wonder what to...] Just then, there was a thud, then a loud scream. [What the...]

(Someone finish this. I'm to lazy.)

I'm not sure what purpose that last line serves, other than to make everyone like Mog116 even less than they already do. The preceding paragraph basically constitutes a complete post by Moggot standards. It's hard to read, it accomplishes nothing, and even after several scholarly read-throughs it makes no sense. What does the duffel bag have to do with anything? Who cares that Mog fell into the water if nothing happens there? It's impossible to care about this post even if you try really hard to. 

---

Post #1027, by Pikachu3164

It wasn't really day time - Mog was just seeing things.

It appears 3164 is just about done dealing with Moggot's random crap.

What he heard was Pikachu jumping on Randite and letting loose a Thunderbolt. You see, Pikachu wasn't really a gullible little rat. When he heard Randite talk about gullibility, he knew Randite was on the loose.

The 'gullible little rat' thing came from loid's last post. I think we officially have a minor spat between loid and 3164, my friends!

[You thought I'd fall for that? Yor the gullible one... WHERE IS MY SOUND STONE!]

Randite was paniced. How could this rat know that I was lying? "I told you! It's with Lavos!"

Pikachu was outraged.

I don't think he strictly means IC, either. This is shaping up to be quite a hissy fit post by 3164 standards. He's as mad as hell and he's not going to take this anymore!

He was so close to completeing the original Sound Stone with melodies... His hopes of ever defeating Lavos and going on a vacation were basically desroyed. [I'm gonna make you pay, Randite!] Pikachu let loose the strongest Thunder Wave he had ever let loose. Randite was instantly paralyzed.

"Ouchies... I can't move!"

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-17-2000).]

Give 3164 credit for this: at least he didn't swear never to come back and stomp out of the thread in a huff, like certain other parties I could name were prone to do.

---

Post #1028, by diospadre

"Yes sir! Thank you very much!" dios exuberantly thanked the hotel owner. He was no longer a bellhop. He was now an assistant manager at the hotel, with an enormous pay increase, and lots of perks.

Such a thing is too absurd to approach realism; yet it probably doesn't crack the top 100 absurd things that have happened in the Gathering. This is why I love IF.

dios congratulated himself.

Like guruzeth, diospadre was fairly fanatical about insisting you do not capitalize his handle.

He looked back at how far he came. Three months ago, he was a nobody. He didn't even know who he was back then. He had woken up in a hospital; the doctors told him he was found on the beach. dios could only remember one thing of his past. The name "diospadre." He didn't even know his real name, let alone where he was from or what his past life was like. He proved to be very self sufficient, though. He quickly obtained a job at the town's resort and became friends with many of the town's wealthy inhabitants, even the distant Stoic Club members. He found he had a knack for making money, and was very well-off, despite the fact that he was a bell hop. Now he was managing a hotel, at his age.

I took up managing a hotel in my late 20s and that seemed to have been considered remarkable. So yeah, doing so at 18 if your parents aren't the owners would be very impressive indeed.

It was funny, he didn't even know his age. He figured he was around 17 or 18, though. He greatly enjoyed his life, but he still had the feeling that there was something more to him. This was the only thing that troubled him. Through all of his acclomplishments, he still felt he was meant to be more.
diospadre's attention was diverted by the group of teens enter the lobby. He smirked as he realized that he wouldn't have to work as their bellhop, or anybody elses', ever again.

It seems that since diospadre missed the party, and also because he always had a flair for being different (and not in the typical teenage "I'm just as unique as everyone else" sense), he decided screw this arriving by plane crap, I'm giving myself mysterious origins instead. And he actually made it work pretty well. I like this post. It's mildly self-fellating, but compared to the severely self-fellating air to almost everyone else's self-introduction posts way back when the post count was still in double-digits, it feels refreshing. And it's a proper Protagonist Introduction. This is clearly a Boy of Destiny.

---

Post #1029, by Chris

"Let's see here...what have we got?" Chris mumbled to himself as he looked through his closet for something for guruzeth to wear. "Okay, it's a toss up. You can take the red shirt and jeans, or the suit I wore last night. Take your pick."

"I'll try the first outfit." guruzeth said, and went into the bathroom to change. A few minutes later, he poked his head out the door, saying that it was too small.

"Okay, here's the suit."

After another quarter of an hour, guruzeth emerged in a suit, dressed to kill.

It is extremely funny, watching Chris attempt to dress guruzeth in his own hand-me-downs from the previous night. Chris is kinda-sorta trying to do the Right Thing, but failing so badly at it. I don't think guruzeth is going to take kindly to this. Chris probably meant it mostly as a call-back to the Greatest Date Ever with him and PSI322 the previous (in-universe) evening.

"Looks good on you. Now, let's go and see how Poo and the others are doing."

There is no logical reason why EBPoo would be excluded from this. I think Chris is mostly excluding him because Chris is an administrator and EBPoo was a common serf. Even that doesn't quite make sense, though, as EBPoo was a starmen.net staffer.

The two of them entered the elevator and were soon back in the lobby. They sat in a few chairs with Poo and talked of their adventures so far. guruzeth told of his journeys through Scaraba, Chris told of his travels through Deep Darkness, and Poo talked of his quest to rule the world, and subsequent awakening.

While guruzeth faintly smiled and exercised much effort not to sadly shake his head at such a feeble world-conquering attempt.

After a little while longer, the eleveator opened and Juliana and Tracy emerged. Tracy looked much better than she had when Chris had first met her, now that she had had a chance to clean herself up.

I, uh, guess that's supposed to be a compliment?

"Ah, Tracy, PSI322, come and sit with us. We were just talking about everyone's adventures, and we'd like to hear about yours." guruzeth greeted them.

A little weird that guruzeth is addressing PSI322's AC as 'PSI322' instead of the 'Juliana' she has already stated she prefers. But I think this one is attributable to oversight, rather than malice.

"Sure." Tracy replied, and they soon were seated, talking about the island and planning their next adventure, this time together...

So like Traceh, Chris wants to keep the plotline moving but has punted the opportunity to actually choose what they do next. But then, you have to remember that EBPoo has signed up for Team We Don't Want To Do Anything Because We Think This Lavos Crap Is Stupid. So they're not likely going to do anything that has any relevance to saving the world. They're just going to kind of gypsy around a while.

---

Post #1030, by SirMontyG

Anthadd fell into the pit of lava below, but Sir quickly ran down a nearby path after him.

"ANTH!!!" Sir's desparate cry echoed through the springs.

"Sir! Over here!" Sir looked over and saw Anth off the side of the cliff, the head of his club hooked around the edge with the rest of his body dangling.

For the record, this was written a good five years before the Return of the King film. Peter Jackson is a long way away from having invented that one.

"Hang on!" Sir ran over and helped Anthadd up. "Whew..you okay?"

"That lousy mutt..." With a look of rage in his eye, Anthadd ran back up to the spring, Sir following behind...

Anthadd doesn't really do rage. Also I am growing increasingly disappointed with Major Asshole, because he's starting to remind me of Liyoshi with pointlessly dragging out a foregone conclusion of a battle. Major Asshole needs to get back to what he does best, which is loosely travel around and make fun of people.

Posts #1011-1015: 15 May 2012

Post #1011, by Pikachu3164

Hey... I've noticed quite a few things I want to point out that seem a bit wierd...

Brother, I've spent the past few years pointing out things that seem more than slightly weird by the truckload. Let's see if you have anything new to contribute.

Note 1 - ((Mog - You at the hotel waiting for someone to arrive so we can unite and ultimately defeat the Randites and Lavos.))

That's, uh... just what Mog116 said in the very last post. What's weird about this? I'm sorry; wierd.

Note 2 - ((I've noticed that no one here seems to be in the same time period. Guru, Tracy, Poo, PSI, and Chris have all expierienced nightfall, but for some reason, Kiyo hasn't expierienced yet.))

Well actually that was just something Chris threw in that makes no sense. guruzeth and Traceh at least were quite plain that it was still broad daylight when they walked into the hotel. So yeah, it's a little off, but no one really gave it a second thought except 3164. That's within the same plotline. Synchronizing time across plotlines? Forget about it. Neither interesting nor necessary.

Note 3 - ((Falcon, if you wanted to come back to life, you should have told us. Now, I have to make up some wierd way to revive you...))

I love that this kid has the balls and/or naivete to talk to Falcon24 in such an indulging tone. That's worth an Awesome Point.

Note 4 - ((How come almost everyone who was in Part I stopped posting...))

Because they have zero interest in saving the world, they were there to party and act weird. It may have slipped past you unnoticed, but there has been a substantial mood shift in the Gathering over these hundreds of posts. A person posting the kind of mild insanity that characterized the first 200 posts would now be ridiculed and possibly attacked for it. The Gathering has become serious business.

That's why there was a long mostly boring slog of 500 posts or so. But now the entertainment value is going to once again spike, because we're about to enter the Gathering's endgame, where most of the posters take themselves way too seriously.

**********

Pikachu and his group, throughly exhausted, managed to get back to the Yoshi.

There, everyone rested until night fell. The battle had totally left everyone forgetting about Randite-infested-Kiyo.

I have to admit, I forgot about him too. And I wasn't even in a battle.

Pikachu was out on the deck locking at the stars, when Kiyo walked up to him. [Hey, Kiyo! Aren't the stars pretty? Hmm... I feel like I should be remembering something...]

Kiyo walked up to Pikachu, and grabbed him. "Stupid rat. I can't believe you forgot about me!"

[Randite! Yikes! Yikes! Help! Help! We've got a Randite problem! Help! Help! Aieeeeee!]

Randite, before Pikachu could draw to much attention, blated Pikachu with his gun and threw him into the ocean.

What the f--- is 'blated'? I assume it was a typo of 'blasted'. Not that a mere gun is going to do any damage to an AC.

Right before he blacked out, Pikachu thought Boy, I seem to be a bully magnet... Oh no! The Sound St.... AIR!

It's almost a guruzeth ploy but then he had to throw in some whining about being bullied. Making it a 3164 ploy.

----------

At Saturn Valley, Falcon's body laid lifeless.

Lay lifeless, unless 3164 means Falcon's body was laying lifeless in the same way that a hen lays eggs. 

All of a sudden, the Apple of Enlightment appeared. "This AC was not meant to die, at least not yet. PSI Super Healing!"

Not once in the history of the world has an AC ever died and stayed dead. Well, making exceptions for pissed-off writers invoking Rocks Fall Everyone Dies and leaving the thread in a huff. Should be obvious why that doesn't count.

All of a sudden, Falcon was revived.

That was pretty much the lamest resurrection in the history of IF. And that's really saying something.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-15-2000).]

---

Post #1012, by loid

Randite looked through Pikachu's yellow backpack until
"YES! The sound stone! I serve my master well indead."

Glad to see the old grammar-free loid is back.

Kiyo headed towards Saturn Valley as Tim, Nathan, Shockbird and poryhydron were sleeping, and Pikachu was sleeping with the fishes.

I love this post so much. More posts like this are what IF needs to get fun again. It's short. One thing happens, but it's one (relatively) plot-advancing thing. Something funny is tossed in. Post is over. IF: loid is doin it rite.

---

Post #1013, by loid

Randite looked through Pikachu's yellow backpack until
"YES! The sound stone! I serve my master well indead."
Kiyo headed towards Saturn Valley as Tim, Nathan, Shockbird and poryhydron were sleeping, and Pikachu was sleeping with the fishes, and i mean that in a mafia like way, not literly ok?

A double post because loid apparently was unaware posts were editable by their authors. Which explains a lot about the gramers.

I *think* loid was trying to say "don't worry 3164 you're not dead, I didn't just try to kill your AC, I was just trying to be funny." But the funny thing is, if you took a few levels in Reading Comprehension you see loid made the problem worse. "Literally" sleeping would mean just that, sleeping, a condition from which almost everyone recovers. "Sleeping with the fishes" is mafia-speak for being dead of not-quite-natural causes.

---

Post #1014, by SirMontyG

Sir waited for a second, and opened his mouth in response. What came out was:


"Is Mel Brooks jewish?"

"How long did it take you to think of that one, Sir?"

"....Three days.." Sir, although a little dejected at his failed joke, rushed headlong into battle side by side with Anthadd.

I wish I could even appreciate the joke for why it failed, but I have no idea what the hell is going on here. Also, did you ever notice no one ever rushes headshort into anything?

*Boss Battle Swirl*
*bupadabaaa!*

Sir and Anthadd engaged Carbon Dog!

This would be the fourth Carbon Dog battle in this thread, I believe.

Anthadd made a quick first attack and clubed Carbon Dog right in the head, causing one of his horns to slice off!

Horns? What the hell have you been drinking? Carbon Dog has ears, this ain't Evil Mani-Mani.

"Wow. Good shot.." Sir said, but it was CD's turn to deliver the pain. Carbon Dog used PSI fire gamma!

Which Carbon Dog can't use. It just breathes fire. You know, because it's made of fire. When you're made of fire you don't need to focus psychic energy to burn people.

Both were totaly scorched by the attack! "Ouch, that was about as hot as Phoenix..alright, my turn! Siddown, boy!" Sir ran and jumped behind CD and swung at the back of his legs. It worked! As a natural reflex, CD fell straight to the ground.
"Hey, Anth, now may not be the time to ask, but if you've got any PSI, now'd be the time to use it!"

I'm pretty sure Anthadd spurned all, or almost all, PSI as a profane thing he would not touch with a 20 foot pole. More at 11.

Post #1015, by Mog116

Mog jumped up and down. "What are you doing?" [Somethings... WROng..fhgeradse.... Randitesdf... PSI Lol!] Mog fell down, then a picture of Randite taking the Sound Stone appeared.Then suddenly, Moggot back up.

I like that. I declare Mog116 'Moggot' from now on. Perfect.

Mog realized the power of PSI Lol!

This thread could use some of that. Here's hoping he uses it liberally.

[Well! We hafta stop him. If I use PSI Lol, he May laugh the randite right off his brain.]

-murk, wanna stop him?:
-Loid, wanna get ridda Randite?:
Well, I found out how!-

Mog and Andrew end up whereever Randite is. Then Mog used PSI Lol. Mog, Andrew and Randite started to laugh hysterically!

'Lol' with that particular capitalization tilts the hell out of me. Ugh.

(Will the Randite leave!? It's all up to Loid)

It would have been a lot simpler just to kill him.

Posts #1006-1010: 15 May 2012

I think this may be a first: I'm posting Annotated Gathering on an anniversary of the actual posts' origin. Today marks 12 years--12 years!!--since these five posts were originally posted. On the nose, too; it's 18:13 as I write these words, and these five posts span from 14:31 to 18:33. It will probably be right around 18:33 when I put this post up.

Post #1006, by Pikachu3164

And Pikachu responded... [My head hurts.]

"Pikachu! You're okay!"

[My head hurts.]

"Yeah, well, we beat the Plague Rat of Doom. Let's go the melody."

[My head hurts.]

Pikachu, Tim, Nathan, and Shock Bird climbed up the ladder to the Magnet Hill. Pikachu and whoever else in my group that doesn't have the melody used their Sound Stones, and then decided to think of a plan later.

Later is always the best time to think of a plan.

They exited the sewer, and met up with Poryhedron.

"Pikachu! How'd it go?"

[My head hurts.]

Your main takeaway from this part is that the Kiddie Klub has agreed, with or without so many words, not to make any further issue of their multiple ACs. I can't remember if guruzeth/PSI322 pushed the issue or not.

---

Post #1007, by Chris

After searching for a few minutes, Chris found himself a nice spot to watch the sunrise. A few tourists were on the beach, but other than that, the silence of the ocean only served to accent Chris' thoughtful mood.

It's odd because I don't remember there being any tourists on the beach back when this all got started. Continuity is falling apart! On an IF thread!

He sat on the sand, watching as the darkness turned into the predawn grey, and wondered what he might do today, whether there was anything he could do.

Besides sit around angsting, I presume. Which appears to be the only thing he's good at, or at least comfortable with.

Slowly, the first rays of sunlight crept onto the shore, and then, the sun began to appear on the horizion. At first it was only a tiny sliver, but soon, Chris saw the whole disk rising up into the low sky. The land began to warm up, and more tourists arrived at the beach to enjoy the Summers oceanfront.

I'm not sure if this kind of writing came naturally to him, or if he was consciously working to imitate PSI322's style in his effort to impress her.

After a while, Chris rose from his place, and began brushing the sand off of himself.

Wait, at what point did he end up on the beach? In his last post he was in a hotel room, having distinctly left his designated rock. I'm confused.

He looked around, and walked towards a small dock situated above the water. There, he threw a few handfuls of sand into the water and watched it fade away into the water.

In this sentence you will notice the unnecessarily repeated prepositional phrase in this sentence.

Amusing himself and feeling a bit better, he decided to return to the hotel and find something to do.

It's funny because the way he wrote it is slightly awkward and suggests 'amusing himself' is separate from the sand-throwing. Meaning he did something else after that to, er, amuse himself. ...yeah.

"PSI322 at your service," were the first words he heard as he walked through the doors, and saw Juliana with three other people.

And turned greener than the Incredible Hulk, but without the muscles.

'She looks much better know,' Chris thought to himself as he strolled up to the people he didn't know.

I think he's kind of publicly crying about PSI322's quasi-rejection of him with the 'she looks much better (now that she's in someone else's company)', but it's not helping him at all. Because yeah, that is in fact exactly correct. His highlighting it only highlights his relatively poor position right now.

"Ah, more newcomers. Welcome. I'm sorry there aren't more people here, they're off exploring the inner island, where a battle to save the world is being waged. In the meantime, I'm glad to meet you. I see you've already met PSI322. I'm Chris, the administrator of the boards."

Um. He does realize that he's introducing himself as the administrator (as if he alone was The Man) to freaking guruzeth, right? You know, guruzeth? Supreme Dictator For Life? the guy who, you know, made you an administrator like two months ago?

It's like he aaaaaalmost but not quite grasped what I said a couple Chris posts ago, about direct warfare against guruzeth holding his only sliver of PSI322 hope. He just couldn't quite bring himself to follow it through.

"I'm EBPoo, and this is Traceh." EBPoo said, introducing himself and his companion.

Traceh was guruzeth's companion, actually. Chris switching her to being EBPoo's companion seems to be indicative of Chris having already written off PSI322 and guruzeth as together. That or Chris never read any guruzeth posts, and actually only knows he's there because of PSI322's last post.

"So, you're Chris," the third person said. "Well, here's your chance to meet your boss. I'm guruzeth."

No, Chris! No! Nooooooo! See? He was SO close to getting it right! And then he backs off and acknowledges guruzeth's superiority. I do appreciate, though, that he makes guruzeth come across as a dick. It shows that Chris pretty much thought that's what he was. And he was right, guruzeth truly was a dick.

"Ah. A pleasure, guruzeth, to meet you in person.

This would be a good spot to apologize for pretending to be The Man. You'd think parents would still say sensible things to their kids like "son, if you ever try to pass yourself off to a group of people as The Man, for f---'s sake make sure the actual Man isn't among them first!"

Oh, and good morning, Juliana." Chris decided to say nothing more, lest he offend her by reminding her of last night.

"Well, now that we're all here, what should we do now?" asked Juliana in a friendly tone.

I like how Chris is deciding how Juliana feels for her.

"Well, Traceh and I just finished floating down the Scaraba river and into the ocean, so we could do with some towels and a change of clothes." guruzeth replied.

OK, so he did read guruzeth's posts, and apparently Traceh's to boot. So it was definitely that first thing I said up there.

"I've got something I could get you, guru. Traceh, I'm sure Juliana, I mean, PSI could help you out there." Chris answered, leading the way back to the elevators.

Why did he go out of his way to call her 'PSI' instad of 'Juliana' all of a sudden? Is he being standoffish? I can't really tell.

---

Post #1008, by Mog116

(Uh... KAY! Im sorry bout how I didn't answer. I was to absorbed in Wild Arms2. Yes, it's out, for any of you that care.)

I don't even remember anything called Wild Arms 2 or what it would even be about. Apparently it was a semi-popular series. Wild Arms 1, 3 and 5 are featured in the Let's Play Archive, but 2 is not.

(Uh.. Wait, where am I? I'm not sre because I was too confused of trying to read that last page, and I kept getting everything confused with My Fangame I'm making.) (So, Where am I? Anyone know?)

His attempts to make himself seem busy and important are rather grimacingly pathetic. Also, read the thread yourself you chucklef---.

---

Post #1009, by murkkie

(I think we are still in the hole)

I don't know or care what that means. And why is murkkie popping out of nowhere after posting nothing for like a week just to say this to Mog116? Moving right along...

---

Post #1010, by Mog116

No, where at the hotel. I'm to lazy and confused to post, though.

I am pretty certain they're not at the hotel. It appears Mog116 has decided to follow the action, which appears to be in team guruzeth right now. Which reminds me, where is Tengu Man? We haven't seen him for a while now.

Posts #971-975: 12-13 May 2000

Post #971, by Pikachu3164

[Well, first off, seeing as Tim's sitting right behind you, I don't think finding him will be a proble.]

Kiyo swung around very quickly and saw Tim. "Huh? Didn't you go to get help?"

"I was going too, but the entire ordeal went by saw quickly, by the time I took 5 steps, you were normal again."

Although Liyoshi would likely insist on giving credit to his True Form Shield or something.

"Oh."

[And, I don't know if you'd particularly like this, but I could trap you in a PSI Box or something when nightfalls and hope Randite doesn't escape. Or I could Teleport you to the Deep Darkness for the night... Wait! The only melody I don't have is Rainy Circle! And Andonuts Labs is right there! Maybe Dr. Andonuts can make some invention to hold Randite when night comes, while we go get the last melody! What do you say...?]

These guys must like loid as much as I do, to go to such lengths to keep him around when the obvious thing to do is kill him.

"I don't know.... I don't like the idea of a box, Deep Darkness is just gross, and what could possibly hold a Randite?"

[I dunno. I just want that melody. Maybe all the melodies could destroy Randite.]

I guess 3164's just brainstorming and hoping one of his ideas strikes somebody else as cool. But if he lacks the conviction to think his own idea is cool, why should anyone else think it is?

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-12-2000).]

---

Post #972, by Mog116

(PikaChan, are both those ACs yours? Only ONE AC aloud. If they aren't, sorry.

Wait, what? With all the crap SS/MB is pulling you're calling out PikaChan for violating the one AC rule? Why the hell?

[We gotta get back to the Hotel!!]"I know that. You have wings. Can't you fly?" [Can't fly until I'm 28. I've got it!] [PSI Float!] Mog cast PSI Float on them and the flew out. "You have PSI! Why didn't you teleport?" [I was hoping to see some Criminal Caterpillars...] "Well, Teleport!" Mog and ANdrew teleported to the Hotel.

There's no way to know who the hell Mog is talking to until he mentions Andrew (murkkie, I think?) at the very end of the post.

---

Post #973, by SirMontyG

Sir waited out on the couch of the lobby. He had been sitting there for hours now.
"man, will anyone show up?"

I think Major Asshole is used to this eventuality by now and knows just what to do.

Just then, two figures could be seen floating in..

"Hey! Great to see someone show up! But I've heard that Anthadd's in trouble, and I've got a problem. Should we wait for more people to show, or should we enlist Anthadd's help after helping him out first?"

I forgot what they need Anthadd's help for, to tell you the truth.

And with that Mog said.....

---

Post #974, by Little Yoshi

(Sorry to object to your posts, guys, but I'm not about to "run for help" when one of my best friends is being killed right in front of me. Also, in case you need to know, I'm obsessed with healing and defense, and with such a low offense, my max MP have risen. I'll take care of any wounds.

Yeah, we're soooooo surprised Liyoshi is going on a bitchy fit. 

Also, did we beat Plague Rat of Doom?I don't think that he'd just give us the melody... I'm going to assume we haven't gotten the melody, therefore I'll have our group, Pikachu, Nathan, Shock Bird, Kiyo, and Tim[is that group right?] go fight the Plague Rat of Doom)

He bitches and whines every single time anyone else causes his AC to do anything at all, and bosses his "friends" around. And he can't figure out why nobody likes him. Total lack of self-awareness really runs in that family.

"Well, now that that's over with, let's get moving!" Tim said. They fought a few minor fights, but Tim's allies easily handled them with their physical attacks(remember, my offense went WAY down after defeating my dark side).

But your Insufferable Nuisance Index went way up. And I didn't even think that was possible.

They turned a corner, and met a golden flash.They were all stunned for a moment, but looked around the cporner to see what caused the flash. When they peeked, there was an immense blue flash, and they were flung up against the wall.
"I didn't know that the Plague Rat of Doom controled Ice," Nathan mumbled, getting to his feet(the blue flash was a severe Ice blow)

This writing is so bad I'm cringing in pain. On so many levels it's hard to unravel them, but let's give it a shot.

1. It's annoying and nonsensical for an established villain to suddenly show up with a new attack and no reason at all to be offered for it. Especially when we all know said villain is doomed and it will make no difference.

2. The narrative itself is where you explain things, not in parenthetical comments. Don't treat your reader like an idiot if you want to have readers. (There are myriad good reasons why Liyoshi does not have readers.)

3. Quit writing to masturbate. Other people trying to participate (this is interactive, remember?) hate it, since you're getting off at their expense.

There's more, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to tease it out.

Pikachu noticed that Shock Bird wasn't awake yet, probably because Flying Pokemon are weak to Ice,Pikachu thought.

That is going to piss 3164 off so much. It seems like this entire plotline is dissolving into infighting.

Kiyo got back on his feet, preparing to cast a powerful spell, only to be knocked out by another blue flash. This time, however, Pikachu and Nathan were K.O.ed too. (I'm not saying that I'm super strong and that you guys are all puny, I'm still up, because I absorb Ice attacks) Tim walked forward, and saw the figure. It was Evil Mani Mani.

If these guys respond to this in any way other than punching him in the face and kicking him out of their plotline for good, they are spineless bitches. In fact, guruzeth is a spineless bitch for not banning him from the thread. This is the most pissed off I've been reading the Gathering yet. Liyoshi is a colossal asshole and a selfish prick and it makes my mind reel to think that anyone would tolerate his presence. (This being the internet in 2011, in before "lol assburgers".)

"So we meet again, Tim," Evil Mani Mani said.

Yeah. Just in case you thought I was being too harsh on him.

Tim took a moment to whip out a weird device that played musc, and switched it to Magus's theme.
"I see you're with a group. A little yella rat, a frozen bird, a human under our control sometimes, and another human that..." Evil mani Mani couldn't think of an insult.
"Anyways, my mission is now to annihlate all party people from this isle, then to take over the world. How's that sound? Bwa ha ha!" Evil Mani Mani shouted, running in for the kill on Tim's uncounsious friends.
"NOOOOOO!!" Tim shouted, and ran up to Evil Mani Mani and teleported them both out of the sewer, just before he Evil Mani Mani struck Nathan.

"Is it just me, or are these sewers getting unbearibly cold?" Nathan said, shivering from the repeated ice attacks
"Nathan, maybe it is just you, but don't you remember those Ice attacks from that Golden Statue?...!I mean,-" Kiyo started.
"Evil Mani Mani!" The four said, all awake now.
[Hey, where's Tim?] Pikachu asked.

Because damn, I wanted to kill that asshole with my bare hands.

"Hmmm, he WAS here just a second ago..." Kiyo said.
"Remember? He absorbs Ice! He wasn't knocked out by Evil Mani Mani's attacks!" Nathan remember.
[Then where is he?] Shock Bird asked.
[Here's a note, let's read it,]Pikachu said, and read the note using PSI
(Pikachu reading note)[Gone to fight Evil Mani Mani. Be back soon. your friend, Tim, the Yoshi-obsessed guy]
"Well, let's go ahead and beat The Plague Rat of Doom, then find Tim!" Nathan said. they started walking forward, until someone teleported in front of them.

It was Tim, who was in bad shape.
"I-I *pant* sealed him temporarily in a po-*wheeze*portal, but he'll be back. Those R-Randites are very strong," Tim said.

(If you need me to edit this post, just tell me, and I will!)

I need you to go away and never pollute the internet with your selfish prick rantings again. Can you do that?

---

Post #975, by Carbon Dog

this place is preaty liveley!

It's a good guess that this guy was preaty drunk when he wrote this.

Posts #941-945: 10 May 2000

Post #941, by Chris

In the hours that followed, Chris and Juliana sunbathed, swam, built sand castles, and just generally enjoyed the beach.

Chris especially was enjoying the view.

After spending most of the afternoon on the waterfront, they decided to tour the town a little bit. They visited the Scaraba Cultural Museum, and saw interesting exhibts about the ancient past of Scaraba.

Such as--I am not making this up--Ram Raisin the Fifth's training pot.

They visited Toto, and browsed among the shops there. They visited the little food carts found along the boardwalk, though they passed on the Magic Cake for now.

You might remark that you couldn't care less about any of this, but then I might point out that it's not about you, you selfish asshole. Chris is thoroughly enjoying writing this, thank you very much. Daydreaming in print is indeed much fun.

Eventually, it started getting on towards dinner time, and the two of them had made reservations at the premier restaraunt in town. Chris had rented a suit from a small shop he had found in Toto, and was preparing himself for dinner. After dressing and spending a little time looking at the ocean from his room, he set off to meet Juliana outside the restaraunt.

An interesting person would probably find something more involved to do than stare at the ocean, or at least think some kind of heavy, fascinating thoughts while staring.

---

Post #942, by Mog116

(Uh... Kay. Threed, I guess. No, wait, how bout Saturn Valley?)

Clearly he doesn't know the answer to murkkie's question, either, so he's winging it. Straight in the direction of the action, of course.

"Uh, Where're we going?" Andrew asked. [Er... I dunno. Dusty Dunes is by Saturn Valley, right?] "Isn't that where Lavos is?"
[You think we can't take his robot part?] "But isn't Lavos stronger because he has fused with Giygas?" [Er... You're right. We better not go yet.]

That is the very first time I have ever heard such ridiculous bulls---. I pray it goes unnoticed forever.

"How bout..." Neither Mog nor Andrew released that they had been walking straight at a big hole in the ground. "[Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee!]" Mog and Andrew screamed. (murkkie, you tell where we are. I'm to lazy.)

I don't like even Mog116's chances in a laziness contest against murkkie.

---

Post #943, by SuperSpeedy/Mankey Boy

(SS/MB opened this post by quoting Luna's last post in its entirety, which I'm not going to include here because it's a hideous waste of precious space.)

(It's Poryhedron! Not SuperSpeedy! Speaking of him, I'm going to say he'll just be sleeping in the hotel, so I no longer use him. He'll make cameos, but he isn't important to me. So I'll try to introduce Shock Bird…)

By "him" he meant SuperSpeedy. I think. He's declaring Poryhedron his primary AC now.

"Uh, Pikachu?" said Poryhedron, waking Pikachu up.
"Cha-a-a-a!" yawned Pikachu. He then said, [What?]
Poryhedron, afraid Pikachu would use an electric attack, used Conversion veriaton 2 to change his resistance to electric attacks. He then said, "You said we're going to Magnet Hill, right?"

Wouldn't it have been brighter to have electric-proofed yourself before waking up the emo electric rat? Come to think of it, if 3164 had that ability he'd probably use it to set Electric as his weakness. So he could hurt himself more.

[Yeah,] said Pikachu, who tried to shock him with a spark, but failed. [Why?]
"I'm made of computer code!" shouted Poryhedron. "I get messed up by magnets! I go, and I die! It's a suicide mission for me, I tell ya! In other words, I'm not going!"

Well, it's this close to being a good point. All he missed is that code can't be messed up by magnets. It's the physical apparatus that stores the code (disk drives) that gets messed up by magnets.

Just then, a Zapdos crashed through the window. It crowed and said, [I'll do it for ya!]
"Shock Bird!" said Poryhedron. "You made it! Pikachu, this is my friend, Shock Bird."
It crowed and said, [Pleased to meet ya!] It shook hands/talons with Pikachu.
[Thanks,] said Pikachu. [Now let me sleep.]
It crowed and said, [OK. I'll just build a nest on the ceiling. Just give a shout when it's time!]
Shock Bird used Agility! It built its nest in 10 minutes*!
(*Electric-type, and Flying-type, Pokémon are really fast. Agility lets a Pokémon double its speed. It can use Agility up to 8 times in battle, though it'd have more energy to use it.)

Unsatisfied with demonstrating through his spectacular writing how cool Pokemon is, SS/MB has added technical explanations to his proselytizing efforts.

---

Post #944, by TsuramiSea

The king of remarkably long posts is back. (By 2000 standards. Just yesterday I popped into what little now remains of Starmen.Net's IF forum, and by its standards what you are about to read is a very short post. About half the average post length. This is near the top of a long list of what's wrong with IF in modern times.)

The boy arrived in Twoson and began checking everywhere, except for the Orange Kid's house, he doubted that anyone would be there. He worked his way up the town from the tunnel, and was completely unsuccessful until he reached the hospital.

TsuramiSea entered the big, white, sterile building and began to look around the lobby. He went up to the receptionist. "Say, are these visiting hours?" he questioned.

"Yes, until 5:00. Are you visiting a friend?"

"Yes, I sure am."

"I can find the room number for you. What is the person's name?"

"I don't know, I just know a friend is here," remarked Tsurami calmly, and walked upstairs, leaving the receptionist baffled.

I hope this ends up with a brawl with security. Even I can't always suppress my violent urges.

TsuramiSea looked around the hall until he saw a girl pacing around nervously. "Hello there!" he called. "Might you be one of the SM.Net members?"

The girl looked surprised for a moment, and answered, "Yeah, who are you?"

"I'm TsuramiSea! Which SM.Netter are you?"

"I'm Mani Mani," she replied. "So, you're TsuramiSea?"

Say what? I can only imagine this was planned out ahead of time, as many Tenguling posts were.

"Yes," he returned simply. "Pleased to meet you."

"Same here," said Mani Mani with a slight smile. Silence followed.

Tsurami finally found the nerve to ask a question. "So.... what's been going on? I got here LATE, when everyone was already exploring. All I know is that Lavos is here, and.... well, that's all I know."

I read the entire last 600 posts, and you're not very far off from knowing everything I know. Plus you didn't have to read the account of Liyoshi's epic battle, which lasted approximately as long as the French and Indian War but was even more pointless. So you came out ahead, really.

Mani sighed. "Well, I don't know about any others, but a person named Darth and I were traveling to find the chosen ones. Ness, Paula, and Jeff were all at a picnic in Twoson. We traveled for a while, finding Sanctuary Spots, when Lavos came. It landed in Fourside. (Ah! thought Tsurami. So that's what the hint guy meant by "the Big Banana"!) In the end, we were fighting it with Falcon24..." This came as a surprise to Tsurami, who had heard that Falcon summoned it. "... and Falcon got destroyed. Then we all attacked it, and Ness did an attack that blew away the eye, but put him into a coma. He came out of it, though, now we're waiting for Darth to come back with Poo."

I think maybe he's trying to help murkkie out by summarizing the last 600 posts in a single paragraph. It's sad to say, but he did a pretty fair job of it.

"Ah, I see," said TsuramiSea. "Is this Darth an SM.Netter too?"

"Yes," said Mani. "As a matter of fact.... he's Jack!"

TsuramiSea did his blinking bit again. "Jack is here, is he.... it would certainly be an amusing scene to meet him..." TsuramiSea giggled mischievously to himself. Then he said, "Well, I really should get back to looking for the others. It was nice to meet you though, Mani Mani."

The Tenguling worship of their Glorious Leader was just this side of a crush. Let's move on.

"Same here," she said.

"And hope you find Poo!" called Tsurami, as he went down the stairs.

Outside of the hotel, Tsurami considered his next move. "Well, other friends are in Summers, Scaraba, and Lumine Hall cave. I could reach those places, they're all in Chommo. But, I'll need a boat from Fourside or something, I'm still on Eagleland! On top of that, I've only been as far as Threed!"

You're probably confused, so let me explain: "Chommo" is the name Tengu Man came up with for the non-Eagleland areas of the EarthBound world. Yes, I know it sounds stupid. No, no one outside the Tenguling Brigade will ever pay any attention to it. We done here?

He gave a little sigh of resignation. "Dusty Dunes Desert, here I come...." He began walking down the street towards the Chaos Theater, but had a bright idea. "Wait! I can take the bus! Just 'cause I never use it in the game, doesn't mean I can't use it now!" Ready for a bus ride, Tsurami took off for the bus station.

Long trips on a bus are not really something to look forward to, in my experience. And I have more experience in the matter than I'd like.

[This message has been edited by TsuramiSea (edited 05-10-2000).]

---

Post #945, by Little Yoshi

(Mog, I forgot I got Magnet Hill! Anyway, Pikachu needs our help, and don't know this Shock bird character, so I think Nathan and I might be useful)

You know, it's a little sad that SS/MB thought "Shock Bird" was an imaginative name for a Zapdos.

"I think Mog is back, so, I'll give him back his stuff," Tim said, and teleported Mog's stuff(yep, all of it) to Mog.

Hey, don't look at me like that. The shorter Liyoshi's posts are, the happier I'll be.

Posts #931-935: 9 May 2000

Post #931, by guruzeth

guruzeth felt something running through him... almost like electricity, he could feel the current, but somehow it was different, it was strange.

Different from electric current running through your body? Which you know the feeling of because you've experienced it before?

He looked down at his outstretched arm and saw the faint sky-blue eminating from him. "What...? he said slowly. "What's going on..?" It took him a few seconds to realize that the pain from his broken foot and his aching back were no longer there. Suddenly, in disbelief, feeling as if he were in a dream, guruzeth stood and took a few furtive steps, looking constantly in bewilderment at the previously injured ankle.

And still he won't shut up about his injuries.

He turned to Tracy; her mouth was as wide open as his was. "That bug... there was something about it... a healing bug..?" guru said.

It certainly seems to me like the bug gets the raw end of the deal. Good thing PETA never noticed the Gathering, eh?

She remained seated against the coffin for a moment before slowly rising, her head still slightly spinning from what could have been a concussion. "I guess that bug was more valuable than I thought... I'm glad I traded for it now!"

I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone when I point out I'm pretty sure I'd rather have an opal ring than guruzeth's company. But it was never far beyond him to flatter himself.

guruzeth leaned over and picked up the bottle the bug had been in. "Something else is in here... are those what I think they are..?

Tracy took a close look at the bottle. "Looks like... eggs?"

"We could have a bunch of those healing bugs before too long," said guru. "That could be awfully handy..."

Oh god. You just walked me through all that bulls--- just to set up an endless supply of AC God Mode Deus Ex Machinae, essentially adding up to limitless invincibility? With guruzeth's ability to detail his injuries before getting them healed preserved? Shoot me now. Paint the walls with my brains.

Seriously, knowing I myself wrote this ten years ago just pisses me off even more than it would if Liyoshi had written it, because it sounds like a slightly better written version of exactly what Liyoshi would write.

Tracy looked around and shuddered. "This place is spooky. We should get out of here."

"There's only one way out of this room..." said guru. "I don't know where it goes, but I guess we don't have a choice."

Taking it slowly because Tracy was still a little woozy, they began to follow the narrow labyrinth of tunnels and stairs in the Pyramid.

Feed her one of the eggs, maybe, Boy Genius? Why not!

As they walked past some large, intricate heiroglyphs, something caught Tracy's eye. She stopped and turned slowly; guru stopped when he saw her doing so. Suddenly, the heiroglyph lunged at them!

But it's OK, because guruzeth's carrying a bottle that has death bugs in it, which causes anything that attacks him to be instantly killed!

---

Post #932, by Little Yoshi

"Hey, Nathan, do you remember way back whe we were traveling with Luna, and we learned a dual-tech(it's a move which involves two peoples' abilities, such as shooting fire onto a sword, and then slashing with the sword) called Gaia Slash? I may be weak, but the Masamune has incredible power, I think Gaia Slash(you shoot Gaia Beam energy onto my sword, and I slash) will help us alot against the sanctuary guard, the Plague Rat of Doom. Shall we be off?" Tim asked.
(Nathan, wait for Pikachu and/or Porheydren to say if it's okay with them for us to tag along before posting, kay-o?)

I have to be honest: I have run out of ways to make fun of Liyoshi or express exasperation with him. Let's move on.

---

Post #933, by Pikachu3164

((Hey, Yoshi, what kind of boat is the Yoshi? A small, puny rowboat? A yacht? A motorboat? A houseboat-like boat? Geez, I ask the stupidest questions.))

Yes. Yes, you do. 

I'm pretty certain it's a yacht. I seem to recall that from the party. Remember the party? Those were the days.

[You don't need to ask to tag along - as long as you have a bedroom on this boat somewhere, or some other place for me to rest, follow us for as long as you want!] Pikachu was extremely tired and wanted to get some sleep.

Oh, thank $DEITY he put the reference to resting at the end there. Otherwise I would have vomited all over my keyboard.

"Yeah, there's a bedroom in down there." Tim motioned towards a door. "Why do you need some rest?"

[Let's see... First off, I started the day by going to fight my nightmare - Dark Pikachu. Then, I was thrown into the Sea of Eden. Shortly afterwards, I discovered that the Nothing Blue Drugstore didn't carry Peanut Cheese Bars. Then, Mondo Mole attacked me. Then, when I went to Luna' and waffle's Magicant for a visit, I had to be kicked out. Just a while ago, I barely managed to avoid a battle with Lavos and Baby Lavos. Just now, I completely missed a Teleport and I plummeted into the ocean. Good night. Wake me up if a Kraken attacks or something.]

Bad idea. This is Liyoshi's vessel; of course something's going to attack.

Pikachu woozily walked into the little bedroom, and fell asleep.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 05-09-2000).]

---

Post #934, by Little Yoshi

(I'd say my boat is an extremely small[for a yacht, at least] yacht. Yeah, 4 bedrooms. I'm trying to get more)

Four bedrooms is actually a fairly large yacht.

"I need to sleep too," Tim said. He had gone through 18 hours of hard battling, and he needed more rest.

Honestly, it didn't look that hard. But it IS horribly difficult to stay awake through 18 hours of it.

---

Post #935, by Mog116

(murkkie talked to me so, I'm ComIGn BacK!

And I'm high as a kite! Wheeeeee!
Well, what did you expect him to do? He has nothing else to do with his time.

F u hv prblms wth ths, kll m ff. ThEn I'lL ComE BaCk And Annyo YOU)(murk, try using quotations. they're by the "l" key)(Tim, you have all the melodies. Ultima, remember?)

[So you came into the desert?] "Well, thats where noone would think of going, so..." Andrew said.

Noone's insidious plans continue to reach into everything.

[Yeah, well I'm lost and I don't have anything to drink seeing as I prayed my Duffle Bag to Tim] Mog and Andrew walked back towards the town.

Um. That's great. I guess?