The Annotated Gathering: NessJeff

Showing posts with label NessJeff. Show all posts

04 December 2009

Posts #271-275: 17-18 April 2000

Post #271, by SirMontyG

Hey, Anthadd, good to have ya here. Anyone else coming?

I guess that's supposed to be IC (in character).

Post #272, by Chris

"Well, I think that you have enough people, so I'll stay here. Good luck on your quest, though!" Chris said.

It's really Chris's only viable play here. He can't go with Tengu, because

(1) He's an admin, dammit, and can't cede plotline leadership to a knave; and
(2) Hell will be overrun by glaciers before PSI322 will go with Tengu.

Once more (by this time Chris had become an expert in using the P.A. system), Chris made an announcement to change the schedule. Most things were being postponed until everyone reutrned from the trek to the inward island.

Postponed forever.

Much later in the story--we're talking once the post count is a four digit number--a bunch of characters would return to the hotel, which by then was long deserted. Aside from brief visits like that, I don't believe anyone is going to return from this trek to the inward island. And what's more, I have to think Chris knew that. He's just saving a little face.

However, if anyone who wasn't going wanted to do something, Chris would be out on the beach, trying to find something for everyone else to do.

For crap's sake, we don't need you to find us things to do. Thanks.

Chris had a real babysitter complex.

With that, he switched off the P.A. system and went to change into beach clothes.

Hot.

Post #273, by NessJeff

"Waitup!!!!!"
"What could you fight with?"
"I can use my smartness similarly to Jeff, but I can create my own weapons.

In the arena of logic... you fight unarmed.

I have a GunCon with a "Laser" I cobbled together from CD-R-O-M(Not stuff wesa noin talkin about) Drives."

Jar-Jar Binks actually was popular with many nine-year-olds, as NessJeff demonstrates here. And to all the curmudgeon Star Wars fans: Jar-Jar was not an iota less stupid than Chewbacca was. Sorry.

"How strong is it?"
" H. A. Pokey in 1 second."
"How come you didn't help fight the Krakens?"
"Dancing with Jenny and hosting tournaments."
"C'mon."
Meanwhile...

Dan's Theorem #4: When sentence fragments

Post #274, by guruzeth

Whoa. I had no idea I had done this. My real Gathering debut won't be coming for another 800 posts yet, but I guess like many other SM.Net celebrities, I felt the need to make a cameo, presumably during one of my computer-oriented classes at school (this was April of my senior year, so I had long since ceased pretending to care about class.) I was without a computer at home for most of the first half of 2000, which is why I won't be getting involved for a long time yet. Which is sad, because I'm going to be providing absolutely amazing unintentional comedy when I do.

...a teleportation portal opened up and guruzeth fell from the sky!
"Oof!" guruzeth landed, then rose and dusted himself off, and looked around. "Amazing..!" he marveled. "A real good IF story!" He got up and wandered around.

He was probably taking PSI322's word for it, or just assuming it was good based on the gargantuan post count.

I can't imagine I took the time to read the 273 preceding posts. Maybe I skimmed them. Maybe. But frankly, I don't even remember that. And double-frankly, I can't blame myself. They're a lot funnier now than they were then, when they were S.O.P. at the IF forum.

He stopped and checked his watch. "Hmmm, only a few more minutes until I get drawn back into the outerworld

i.e., until the bell rings to move you on to English class. Which is like the outerworld, whatever the hell an 'outerworld' is.

... better do what I came here to do." He grabbed his slightly-not-new @ and dialed up some buttons,

The @ is the denotation of a channel operator (i.e., god) on IRC. guruzeth was the Supreme-Dictator-For-Life of both #earthbound and the starmen.net forums at this time.

And yes, I realize I keep bouncing back and forth between third and first person; presumably you're aware, or have by now figured out, that guruzeth is one and the same person as this annotator. I'll recap this in 800 posts when he reappears, but I'll be treating guruzeth like any other Gathering writer in the annotations (third person), and generally will switch to first person when speaking from the present, as it were.

Still confused? T-O-O BAD!

and out of teleportation came his army of Crested Bookas, several thousand strong.

"Yes my children," cried guruzeth, "Now, for a totally unrelated plot twist, we're going to take over the Onett Burger Shop! Let's go!"

This was guruzeth's way of saying 'I'm just here to say hi, I'm not staying, you can ignore this.'

He paused. "But first, I must leave behind my @, so that all the wonderful IF posters can use my AC to take over the burger shop!"

Um... the hell? You're doing what with the what now? I'm sorry, I don't speak jibberish.

I guess he's declaring his intention never to return and licensing everyone else to kill off his AC as they please.

He set down his @ and then teleported out to Onett...

Post #275, by Gauntlet Wizard

"Alrighty," Siris said. "Enough Smash Bros. I'm going to see what everyone else is up to."

Siris began looking for a monster to fight.

After all, what else would you do in an IF? Like... roleplay or something?

All of a sudden, Siris spotted some sort of animal rushing into the Onett Burger Shop. A Crested Booka! Siris rushed in after it, stepping on something in the process. *Crunch!* Siris looked down. Some sort of mechanical device was on the ground, somewhat crunched. It had the appearance of an @.
"Hmm," Siris said to himself. "Guruzeth's @.

God, I hated it when people capitalized the g, with an obsession that could only be described as Tenguesque (such as when someone attached a male pronoun to Mani Mani or Roll Buster). I still do, honestly, but I have more of a 'what the hell' attitude these days.

Well, I'll, uh... replace it, or something." With that, he threw the @ into a nearby trash can.

He's pretty much summing up the popular opinion of guruzeth and his @. And you thought Chris was bad about flaunting his administratorship. He learned it from the master.

Siris ran into the Burger Shop. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. "The Bookas are destroying everything!" Siris set to work fighting the Bookas.

Thousands of them?

Sure, why not. Engage AC God Mode!

(Anyone want to help me beat 'em or try to hinder my progress?)

You expected me to make a snide remark about hindering his progress, right? Well, I'm not. I'd be more minded to help him. He's an engaging writer compared to the NessJeffs of the world.

30 November 2009

Posts #231-235: 17 April 2000

Post #231, by PSI322

Juliana had returned to her room after seeing the display put on by two large crafts in the ocean that appeared to be approaching the island, or something to that effect.

I LOL'd at her droll way of expressing that she really doesn't care.

She listened to Chris's announcement regarding the upcoming talent show and wondered whether or not she should enter it. She glanced down at her watch. She'd have to make her decision now, since it was imperative that all contestants attend the meeting which wasn't too long from now.

Oh, wow! A PSI322 grammatical boo-boo. You see those about as often as you see Halley's Comet.

Juliana pondered this for a few minutes as she sat at the edge of her bed combing her brown hair. Her only real talent was writing, and that wasn't exactly performance material; she knew that.

Compared to this crew, you're William f---ing Shakespeare. On quaaludes.

She'd danced for seven years, but she didn't feel like getting back into ballet at the moment, at least not for a show in front of all her friends. Juliana knew she could sing fairly well, but still, the whole idea of singing in front of everyone made her more than a little nervous.

It shouldn't. She could really sing.

After careful consideration, she decided not to enter the talent show; after all, wouldn't it be more fun to sit in the audience and watch all the acts on the night of the show? Juliana finished combing her hair, looked in the mirror, and smiled to herself. That's exactly what she'd do.

At this rate, PP/QC or NessJeff or somebody's going to end up taking first prize with their amazing display of eating a whole box of ding-dongs, being the only entrant.

Post #232, by Little Yoshi

Tim finished repairing his boat, he decided not to participate in the talent show.

Another one bites the dust!

What talents did he have? Playing video games?

Man, there is no end to the self-flagellation of young-teenage nerds.

Not something I always see at a talent show.

You'd be surprised how little talent is observable in your average talent show. Mostly because, as the Joker so astutely observed, if you're good at something, never do it for free.

So, he went inside and grabbed some lunch, then decided to ride over to the amusment park to see what had happened there since his accident.

Give Tim credit for getting off his ass and doing something to try and avert this talent show nonsense nobody except Chris has any interest in.

Post #233, by Chris

Chris glanced at his watch. The meeting was supposed to have started five minutes ago, and their were maybe a dozen people in the auditorium.

That's because there are only about a dozen writers in the story, Chris. And if they were all in the auditorium, that would be damn impressive since not a single goddamned one of them wants anything to do with this stupid-ass talent show.

Preparing to improvise and try to make this a success, he stepped up to the microphone.

NOBODY BUT YOU WANTS THIS TO BE A SUCCESS. IF YOU WANT TO IMPRESS JULIANA WITH WHATEVER TALENTS YOU HAVE, YOU CAN DO THAT WITHOUT DRAGGING EVERYONE ELSE INTO IT.

"Hello again everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed what we did yesterday. Now, regarding the talent show: as you can see from looking around, we don't exactly have a big turnout. Before I go any further, I'm gonna take a quick poll: should we have the talent show, or not?"

Most everyone voted yes.

No. No, I'm almost certain that if you actually took a poll, everyone would vote no. This is why you forced them to vote yes.

"Well, that's settled. We'll hold the talent show. Though, instead of a talent show, it'll be more of something else. A play-sort of thing. In fact, that might draw more people here. Lemme go make an announcement, and we'll return to this meeting in about an hour."

Oh god. That's even stupider than the talent show. Just quit before you embarrass yourself so badly you wind up wearing a paper bag over your head for the rest of your adolescence.

While everyone else left, Chris went over to the P.A. system and made the announcement about the play that he would hold in two days, without a script, without a cast, without even an idea...

I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that play won't be happening.

Post #234, by NessJeff

Mog is getting a strong whippin'!

It's his own fault for being stupid enough to take your bait.

"I'm down to just my level 6005 Mog..."
"You're better than I thought. You got me down to just Paula and Sora/Biyomon with level 500 guys."
"Naturally."
"Paula! Slash with that sword that I blatantly stole from WotO!"

I have not a foggy clue what a WotO is.

"Oh, crud..."
Mog down to half HP!
"Dance! Dusk Requiem!"
"Owwwww... Elf Fire's good. My turn. Paula, PSI Digimon summon HerculesKabuterimon ø!"
*(Music in game) Giga Scissor Claw!"

Um... yeah.

"Crud..."
Drew won!
Just then, Drew(character) grew to lv. 78798!
IQ grew to 90000!(This'd work in the game!)

If Mog116 has any intelligence at all, he'll cut his losses and totally ignore this post, and NessJeff in general.

Post #235, by PSI322

Juliana went downstairs to grab a sandwich and a Diet Coke for lunch in the dining area.

For the record, Diet Coke is pretty much the most toxic substance in existence.

After all, she had missed breakfast, so she was fairly hungry. Everyone seemed to be talking about the controversy surrounding the accident at the new amusement park, so Juliana decided to stroll on over and check it out.

This should kill the talent show business, at least. Juliana doesn't want anything to do with it.

When she arrived at the park, she wasn't surprised to see that the roller coaster was temporarily closed for repairs; that was the ride that the accident had happened on, wasn't it?

Yeah... 'accident'.

*cough*

Juliana walked through the park at a lazy pace, looking at all the rides and all the Starmen.Netters, acting like children as they laughed and shouted from the various amusement park attractions.

Well.... they are children.

Deciding to join in the fun, Juliana went over and stepped up to the carousel. She chose a tall, old-fashioned looking merry-go-round horse that was painted a pale shade of lavender and climbed up into the saddle to wait for the ride to begin...

Good choice. Carousels rule.

This annotator gets horribly motion sick, and therefore is pretty much limited to the carousel, the ferris wheel and the Scrambler at any amusement park. Nevertheless... those are three awesome rides right there, and this annotator can easily spend all day at just them.

28 November 2009

Posts #211-215: 16-17 April 2000

Post #211, by Mog116

"We keep running into each other, know that?" Mog was standing behind Jenny in the apartment hall. Jenny slammed the door shut in surprise. "What're you doing here!?" Jenny asked Mog. "Came to ask you if you called your parents yet." "I did! My dad went Crazy! They're gonna arrest us!" "They can't." "Your righ the can't! If the arrest us..." "If they arrest us they will go to jail themselves. When I called my mom a while back she bought the island. They can still kill us, but then our parents would kill them. My mom owns the Island, so we do to, but there is one way the can arrest us and that's for running away.

What the f---???

Your... mother owns the island.

.... yeah.

But they can't arrest me, because I called my mom 3 days ago. If you get arrested I can bail everyone out." All this didn't assure her, though, mainly because she couldn't understand Mog because he said it very, very fast, as though he had planned that to happen and rehearsed the whole thing.

Watching the posters each try to figure out a way to make themselves important makes me smile.

"Umm... They can still claim the name under America! There's a loophole in that law." Mog stared at the wall a while. "Oh... Oh No! You're right! We have to warn the others." Mog and Jenny headed to the speaker room that controlled every speaker on the Island.

He had to have been high as a kite when he wrote this.

Post #212, by Tengu Man/Makron

The mysterious referee had gone his way north a little, having barely any problems except for a few small snakes and some cattle in his way. He found a large desert and went inside.

You know he's a badass because he so easily handled all that cattle.

Also: ...went inside? A desert?

"Whatcha need?"

"To know where I am, really, and directions."

"This is the Dusty Dunes Desert. It's big and not very populated, but a lot of sunbathers like to come here. West of here is the city of Threek, and east of here is the city of Fourside."

Threek, as some of you probably know, is the truer transliteration from the original Japanese of what in EarthBound is called Threed. As his handle suggests, Tengu Man was an early pioneer of wannabe-Japaneseism, which swept the gaming-oriented portions of the internet like a tidal wave around 2004-2005.

The boy pondered this to himself, "I never doubted it could be possible... But maybe I should bring back proof." then he spoke out loud, "Thanks."

GEE, I WONDER WHO HE WILL CHOOSE TO BRING BACK AS PROOF.

(If you don't understand that bit of sarcasm, then you obviously have never read a Tengu Man post, or even heard anyone talk about Tengu Man, in your life, ever.)

He left and went west, towards Threek. When he got there, he looked around, noting the large yellow circus tent in the center of town, and the rather interesting graveyards north of the town. He then came up with an idea.

"I can bring of THEM back to the party..." he rushed northwards, a smile on his face...

Back at the party...

"Has anyone seen that mysterious referee?" Chris asked, "I wanted to thank him about the swim meet."

If you want to put money on that, I'm willing to bet Chris actually could not care less about the referee.

"Not lately, probably in his room." said someone else.

Two punctuation errors from Tengu there. It was his Achilles Heel.

He went up and knocked, but got no answer.

"Peculiar..."

The door then opened. Chris shrugged and went inside, hoping to find the mysterious referee. He didn;t see anything except an answering machine with a note on it.

You know, it's interesting that Chris is Tengu's chosen vessel here; Tengu is conspicuously avoiding even referencing PSI322. Those two had a rocky relationship, to put it kindly. I suppose this was one of those periods where Tengu and PSI got in some IF-related snit or another recently.

"If anyone cares where I am, check in on this answering machine. - The Referee."

"Why not?" Chris turned it on.

Almost all other posters would have ended their post at that point, allowing Chris to decide whether he cared or not, but Tengu would never do such a thing. Tengu foreordains what other AC's are going to do, which is why his posts are so long. And if you tried to do that to his AC, he would flip out.

The referee's voice came in loud and clear:

"Since you do care, I'll explain... If you came to thank me for the swim meet, your welcome, but I've come upon a big discovery.

Hinting at ESP, there. A subtle little 'I'm awesome'. Tengu was pretty good at this IF thing.

As you know, the Syndicate found this island for us, BUT... that doesn't mean this island was empty before that time. I've seen buildings and other structures here, like a ghost town. This has made me to believe that the continent already has some inhabitants, if not a platoon of 'em. Dare I say... we may have come upon THE biggest discovery in the midst of SM.net history, and even EB's history itself... More will come as I find out..."

See how important Tengu has made himself? Mog116 better be taking notes.

If Chris were smart, or if guruzeth were around, there would be a post right after this one saying 'actually, the Syndicate knew that all along.'

Chris began to ponder, but remembered he had other things he had to tend to, and left...

Post #213, by Little Yoshi

Tim quickly got the phone in his boat working.

A not-so-subtle way of saying, I don't need your stinkin' cell phone.

By the way, this remarks me of Item #139 That Irks Me in The Dark Knight*: You know the scene with the two ferries, right? Captain A notices that the radio isn't working. Then Captian B notices that his radio isn't working. They both just shrug helplessly and concede that there's simply no way to communicate with the other ship.

Why the hell didn't they use one of the 400 available cell phones?

Possible arguments, shot down:

(a) "There were no cell phones on the prisoners' boat." Bulls---. It would have been mandatory for at least a couple of the cops to carry one.
(b) "There wasn't reception out over the river." Also obviously wrong. You can't go anywhere in ~~New York~~ Gotham and not have crystal-clear cell reception.
(c) "The Joker somehow jammed the cell phone signals." That's basically the only semi-plausible explanation, but come on. The movie loses all kinds of credibility for not at least having a passing reference to someone trying a cell phone and saying 'no good, there's no signal!' Also, this is highly problematic since the Joker was using a cell phone to communicate with the passengers via the ships' intercoms (that's how Batman was able to figure out where he was), which one presumes would be impossible were the signal jammed.

Back to your regularly scheduled Gathering...

* Item #1 is Maggie Gyllenhall, and for good measure, Item #2 is Maggie Gyllenhall. Let's move on.

"Hello?" his mom said.
"Hi Mom, this is Tim!" I said.
"How's Eagland?" She asked.

Not sure if that's Tim's typo, or if he's cutely having good ol' ditzy Mom not knowing what the island's name actually is and misstating it. I'm going with the former, as the latter is semi-clever and therefore probably beyond Tim's grasp.

"It's great, though I've had to battle off monsters for the island," Tim said.

For The Island©!

"Monsters?! They weren't big ones, were they? Are you hurt?!" Mom replied.

Sheesh, Mom, I'm an AC. I have super-lasers.

"Don't worry Mom, I'm just fine...at this minute, but I've overheard something about that the FBI are going to drag us home," Tim said.
"Whew! You're okay! Now, about the FBI, I'll have Dad look over the laws about that."

I can't believe anyone's giving this load of FBI bulls--- the light of day.

"Well, Mom, I love you alot! Bye!"Tim said
"Bye!"Mom said. Tim waited. He never hung up on someone, he always waited for them to hang up first. Beep. Beep.

Haha. That's actually kind of interesting. I like reading about people's weird idiosyncrasies. I refuse to ever eat the last {piece of candy, cookie, potato chip crumbs, whatever}, even if it's something I love so much I considered marrying it, such as Junior Mints, on the theory I might really need it later, or someone else might want one later. Eventually it gets old and has to be discarded, but I've long since bought another package.

Tim hung up the phone, to see a Kraken looming overhead. Suddenly, the world around Tim became black, and he knew what that meant. An even battle!

I'm pretty sure Krakens don't fly. Like, almost positive.

Hey, you guys ready for an EarthBound clinic? I got one coming up right now!

Tim quickly fired defensive lasers.
32 HP of damage to Kraken!

Kraken has around 1000 HP. Tim's just getting warmed up.

Kraken emmited a pale green light!
It had no effect!
Tim fired his offensive laser!
123 HP of damage to Kraken!
Kraken breathed fire at you!

It's just 'Kraken breathed fire!'.

Tim's shield made the fire go away!

Kraken's fire breath has the same effect as PSI Fire Gamma, but is not blockable by any shield.

Tim equpped the Masamune instead, and slashed!
Just missed!
Kraken used a Crahing Boom Bang attack!
Tim's shield made the thunder disappear!

Unlike with PSI Thunder, no kind of shield can block the lightning from a Crashing Boom Bang or electrical shock attack. Tim should have referenced the Franklin Badge instead.

Tim's shield disappeared!
It didn't hit anyone!
Tim used Leap Slash!
352 HP of damage to Kraken!
Kraken breathed fire at you!
793 HP of damage to Tim!
"Thank goodness for my guts rating!" Tim said.
Tim used Lifeup y!

Gamma. It looks sort of like a little y.

Tim recovered 512 HP!

The result of Lifeup Gamma is always '[character]'s HP are maxed out!'

Post #214, by NessJeff

"Mog, this is a six on six battle. Select your best, I'll select my best. From my level 76779 or something like that."
"I'm dead, right."
"Not neccesarily. IF you can exploit weaknesses properly, you have a 1 in 647,768,868,567 chance of winning."

So why the hell would I bother playing? Do you think I, and/or all humanity, exist for the purpose of helping you feel like a winner?

"Never tell me the odds."

That quote's already been done. Like eleventy billion times. But most notably by QC/PP on this very thread.

"For my team I select, Paula! Sora/Biyomon(Digimon are considered attacks of the digidestined, by thebattle menu) Izzy/Motimon, CheeseLeoMon(Some are my own creation) Drew(Yes, I programmed me in. I am a weakling compared to Paula.)

ROFL

and Joe/Gomamon."
"Very well, I select..."

Post #215, by Superspeedy/Mankey Boy

Meanwhile, at David's and Poryhedron's hotel room:

David called his dad, whose also named David at work.

"Hello. Cerlione's," said Lou, a worker at dad's store.

Based on that information, I could have tracked down SS/MB's identity, home address, etc. in like 5 minutes.

"Hello," said David.
"Hold on," said Lou.
{two minutes later.}
"Hello?" said Dave's dad.
"Hey, daddy!" said Dave.

In case you were wondering whether SS/MB's age was a two digit number. It was not.

"Monkey Boy!" exclaimed his Dad. (Monkey Boy is one of the many names dad calls me. Sometimes he calls me "Buddy!" or "Dudeio" (pronounced Dude-E-O))

That's heartwarming.

"Did you get home from school early?"
"No, dad!" said Dave. "I'm vacationing at Eagleland island. [whispering:]Keep that a secret."
"Eagleland?" said his Dad. "That sounds like the country from Earthbound."
"It's a secretly discovered country/island discovered by the so-called 'syndicate' of Starmen.net! Waffle, another EB fan from New Jersey, is here, as well as some weird Pikachu and a pokémon author character I made."
"Who? Which AC?"
"Poryhedron!"
"What's he, a Pikachu?"
"No. He's a Porygon: a pokémon made entirly of computer code!"
"Figures!"
"He can talk, too!"
"Do you mean he can say more then his name?"
"Yep!"
"Let me talk to him!"
"OK!" He turned to Poryhedron and said, "He wants to talk to you."
"Hi!" said Poryhedron into the phone. He was holding the phone up to his head using his PSI.
"You better protect my son." said Dave's Dad.
"I will," said Poryhedron.
"How long is this vacation?"
"About 5 days, since the start. And today ain't the first day!"
"Okay. Put my son back on the line."
Poryhedron floated the phone over to Dave, who grabbed it.
"Come home when it's over!" said Dave's dad.
"I will. Bye!" said Dave.
"Bye!" said his dad.

Dave hung up the phone.

He's using the bullets to mimic EarthBound's text style, by the way.

"Come on, Poryhedron!" said Dave. "Let's find Waffle and Pikachu, and enjoy the sights and festivities."
"Okay!" said Poryhedron.

Sorry for the lack of annotation, but... I just really have no comment on this post. I'm just kind of staring at it with my mouth open.

26 November 2009

Posts #201-205: 16 April 2000

Post #201, by Mog116

"Heheh. I got a Paula's Quest file all the way to Level 136 in one night. I even completed MoogleBound."

Oh god. Please tell me you're not going to challenge him on Paula's friggin' Quest.

Mog was mumbling to himself in the room with Drew, Matt, and everyone else who was forced into the tourney in it. "Is this all the people that signed up?"

Good use of the word 'forced'.

"He made me." Matt said. Mog set on the banch and started playing Moogle bound. "Yes! I'm at level 356! UP YOURS! Yeah! PSI Freeze Orb! PSI Thunder Cloud! HAHAHAHA!"

It might have existed, for all I know. RPG Maker was all the rage in 2000.

Mog laughed insanely as Drew beat Matt in about five seconds. Mog beat several people, and ended up fighting Drew.
(Well? Drew? Who do you think would win. LVL>100 verse LVL>136? I'd say: 100<136)

I'd say we're in for an excrutiating e-penis measuring contest between 10 year olds.

Post #202, by NessJeff

"That be nothing. You lamers made me unlock, Level 76779! Yes I improved it. It'll be a cold day in heck before ya beats that!"
"C**p..."
"Mwahaha!" Desparate times call for desparate measures...

Yeah... I act surprised.

Post #203, by PsycoPyro

WARNING: Long PP/QC post coming. I don't blame you if you skip it. Hell, I want to skip it.

((Everyone SLOW DOWN!! Grr QC!!))

Yeah... sure. We will all slow down to accommodate your wishes. The internet bends to your will.

I was easily defeated by Drew after playing a game called "Paula's Quest". I sighed as Jenny said nothing. I could sense that she wanted to smile at my pathetic defeat. I shrugged the feeling off, thinking about my victory at the swimming race. I said congrats. to everyone who tried the race and I left for the hotel.

It's your own damn fault for playing the retarded thing.

As I walked back, I turned to find Jenny walking behind me.
"I'm tired," She said, "so I'm going back to my room until morning."
"Isn't Drew gonna walk you back to your room?" I asked her.
"He's busy with his game and I said I'd see him tomorrow somewhere."
"Oh really? Now that's something new."
We walked back to the hotel silently and listened to the insects buzzing. I then stopped and paused. Jenny looks at me with concern.
"What's up?" She asked.
"I need to ask you something." I replied. "Can I borrow your laptop? I really need to talk to Julie! I haven't seen her since we've left for your beach house."
"Uh huh. And then you would pitch it-"
"No, I swear I wouldn't! Just lemme talk to my gf! Please, Jenny!"

Yes, he actually says 'gee-eff'. For reals.

"Oh alright. The boat is at the harbor."
"Thank you so much. By the way before I go, I have something to say..."
Her eyes stared at me intentionally.
"I can sense that Drew guy likes you." I blurted out.
"Yea right!" She laughed, not believeing me.

I have no idea why the hell they're trying to rope NessJeff in. I guess you take your friends/followers where you can find them, especially when CHA is your dump stat, as it is with 90% of IF'ers as with D&D'ers.

"Don't be naive. You saw how he went after me when we were screwing around in the pool

*cough*

and the way he danced with you. Not to mention that he wanted to dance with you longer."

Yes, that definitely means he wants to bang the daylights out of 'her'. How disappointed he will be when he discovers 'she' is actually you, and quite thoroughly male.

Jenny feel silent

I FEEL ASLEEP!

and thought of what I said. We were both silent and I was afriad of what I had said.
"Well um, Good-night Matt." She smiled as she waved farewell and headed back to her room.
I went to the harbor, fetched the laptop from Jen's boat, headed back to my hotel room, and freely chated with my gf off AOL. I never felt so happy in a long time...

[This message has been edited by PsycoPyro (edited 04-16-2000).]

Post #204, by Pikachu3164

(Someone here, names SirMontyG, has decided to make me look bad. And that makes me sad. It involves making it seem like Mani got stuck in that tree because I shocked her. I would really appreciate it if people would stop bashing me just because I am a Pokémon.
And I would have saved Mani if I were here when she made the post. But, Sir beat me to it and made me look bad in the process.)

Welcome to the IF board, kiddo. Might want to get used to it. It actually wasn't personal; it's just that making other people look bad while making yourself look like god's gift to the universe is elevated to an art form here.

Anyways, back at the beach...
Pikachu was talking with Mani. He was particualrly disgusted that she had told Sir that he had shocked her when he hadn't.
[Mani! I did not shock you! Why did you say that? I look bad enough here as it is!] asked a very frusterated Pikachu.

KILL HIM WITH FIRE

"I'm not really sure.... But you did run off..." replied Mani.
[What is a Pikachu supposed to do? I'm a foot tall and my arms are an inch long! And I couldn't use my PSI because I didn't want to panic you!]
"Wait... you have PSI?"
[... ... ...]
"Do you?"
[Umm... Yes. I was an expieriment run by Team Rocket before I escaped. They gave me PSI. You have to keep it a secret though, okay?"

I guess this is supposed to be an earthshattering revelation.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 04-16-2000).]

You'll notice how the posts are starting to generally get longer. That will continue.

Post #205, by Queen Catherine

Well, it's been more than 150 posts now since I promised you PP/QC would be going away 'soon'. I was wrong. I apologize. I'm just as frustrated as you are.

I walked back to the hotel and went up in the elevator to the 7th floor. I walked down the narrow hallway, pulled out my keycard, and unlocked my door. Slowly I walked in.

I went into my closet and pulled out a dark gree Kimono. I stripped off my clothes and warpped myself in the robe.

There is no way in hell this poster isn't male. There's fanservice like this in almost every post.

Then, I made myself some caffeen-free tea and settled myself on the edge of my large bed.

Again.

I turned on the tv and watched the news. The topic was on "Children Misteriously Disappeared! SM.Net Might Have a Connection to the Case."

Tomorrow's topic will be 'Channel 6 news team mysteriously disappeared! We have no idea who might have a connection to the case. Seriously. Please don't hurt us, Syndicate.'

I sighed tiredly and wondered if I should notifiy my parents. Besides, Matt and I sneaked out of the house to come here onto this island. I started to worry about Matt and wondered what he would do. He desparately wanted to see his gf once again in person. Indeed was he love sick. Would he try to run away from Eagleland and back to MD or will he find a way to bring her over here too? And what about Drew? Was what Matt said was true? I was

He never finished that sentence. Forever we will be left to wonder. I was.......

As I finished my tea, I began to feel strange. My senses were growing weak and my vision was getting a little dim. What was wrong with me all of a sudden? Tea isn't suppose to do this.
I sniffed the tiny drops of tea that was in my mug. Something in it wasn't right, but I didn't taste anything funny. Just then, I heard a loud knock on the door. Someone or something came breaking into my Hotel room...

QC/PP has grown bored, even with his own meandering nonsense, and is going to again try to kickstart some violence. Really, the violence won't get rolling in full steam until a couple of the alpha dogs in this thread (PSI, Tengu, Chris) get it going.

Posts #196-200: 16 April 2000

Post #196, by waffle

Waffle walked over to the winner and congratulated him. "Man..."waffle said to himself, "Guess I should try more at all those practices..." He stood around at the beach,where the the cool breaze that made him feel so good was blowing. He was pretty tired and decided to relax a bit.

Waffle walked down the path to his room and wished Luna good luck next time.

Making sure to stay in Luna's consciousness. And actually fairly well played.

Then he went in his room and hung out while wondering what awaited him next.

Post #197, by Mog116

Mog awoke with a jolt. He hadfallen asleep in the dancing room. He had already slept the three hours he slept every night, so he went outside.

Yeah. I doubt that.

Mog yawned. He was not tired, Just when he woke up, he always yawned. He pulled a floaty-belty-thingy out and put it on.

Haha! Awesome. He's admitting he's around 10 years old and doesn't know how to swim?

He waded out into the ocean. He would try to learn to swim, so in case they had a surfing contest he could try.

Yes. Yes, he is.

(30 minutes later...) Mog pulled a water snake off his leg. He walked into the apartments, saw the PQ and EB tourneys, and decided to sign up.

There are no water snakes in the ocean.

"Well, I have no talents, and missed every other tourney, so..." Mog walked to Drew and got a Paula's Quest game. He went up to his apartment and played it and MoogleBound tell Dawn.

He and 3164 really need to start some kind of support group for attention-starved people who publicly hate themselves hoping someone will pat them on the back.

Post #198, by Chris

The next day, Chris was up with the sunlight.

Probably didn't sleep all night for being giddy over hanging out with Juliana all day.

He quickly showered and dressed, and rushed down to the lobby, where he found several people were sitting around, eating breakfast and chatting. Chris wandered over to the breakfast buffet, and began loading up his plate with bacon, grits, eggs, pancakes, most any breakfast food you might imagine (except waffles).

Chris betrays that he's from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon. The best description of grits came from a guy named Aaron Watt, who when asked about grits described them thusly: "You know on the periodic table, at the bottom, where it says 'Gr'? That's Grits."

He then looked around, and found a nice little table by a window overlooking the ocean.

He ate his breakfast, and wondered if anyone else would show up.

And by 'anyone else' he means... well, you know what he means.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited 04-17-2000).]

Chris must go back and edit 80% of his posts, often the following day.

Post #199, by NessJeff

Drew screams with joy! "Yes! Someone for me to beat! Fwahaha! Wait, I'll use my level 100 file on PQ. Not my 79979 level file. That's too easy, foo!"

Just to recap... he has been incessantly spamming his moronic excuse for a fangame in this thread, not hoping other people will enjoy it, but hoping that someone will somehow get suckered into some sort of competition with him, at his own (excuse for a) game, so he can win at something. It might be a feeling he's legitimately never experienced to this point in his life.

Drew eats cheese. I've hacked all on the island onto my signup! I won't Participate until the end, when I face da champ."
Drew begins singing.
"I'm on the road to Viridian City!
Meet my friends along the way, I'm on the road!
On the road to Viridian City!
I got a badge and the power to play!"
A yell from the admin level. "Shut Up! We can ban ya, ya know."
"Yes admins."

What the bloody hell?

The next day, everyone showed up for the tourneys...

Don't be too disappointed if this turns out to be wrong, pumpkin.

Post #200, by Tengu Man/Makron

Tengu Man likely spent a half hour repeatedly refreshing the page so he could record post #200.

The mysterious referee went to his room and got a large bag of cookies to eat. He wondered why he even came to this party. He stunk at sand castles, he also stunk at dancing, so he didn't go to the dance.

Also PSI322 was already spoken for by the time he realized a dance was going on, by an administrator, and Tengu was not confrontational with anyone beyond the level of easily-dominated 12 year olds.

He thought about entering a later event, but then something caught his attention. When he got there, he remembered there were many buildings and a few hotels, like a ghost town of sorts. He then came to a conclusion.

"This place isn't COMPLETELY new. People already live here, but they must have been desolated from us until now.

Isolated.

Maybe I can find some new people to join the party. Beats standing around doing nothing."

Actually, the Syndicate had all the natives whacked when they took over the island.

he got up, and prepared his double-bladed lightsaber, which came with his Darth Maul outfit, and went off north...

(I'm still not ready to be revealed yet, sorry. I'll reveal myself soon, k?)

Take your time. Really.

Posts #191-195: 16 April 2000

Post #191, by Queen Catherine

((I think I've found my brain! ))

Thank god. Does this mean you're going to stop multi-accounting?

"We have a winner!" The announcer shouted with excitement.
I bolted out of my seat and ran to the section where Matt was. He gasped for air and looked so tired as he hung onto the edge of the pool. I extended an arm to help him out of the water until he quickly grabbd it and pulled me into the cold water. I yelped in surprised and surfaced.
"That wasn't FUNNY!" I shrieked as Matt laughed hysterically.
"I gotcha, didn't I?" He laughed as I splashed at him and we wrestled underwater.
People started to gather around us...

Kinky.

Post #192, by NessJeff

Drew gets ticked at Matt.
"Matt, it's not nice to pull girls,"Drew said, "Especially Jenny,"He mutters, "into the pool without warning! For that, I force you to enter my EB and Paula's Quest tourneys tomorrow. Anyone can enter. Free Paula's Quest Game Paks For all!"
Everyone gets one.

For f---'s sake, we heard you the first time. No one wants to piss away a solitary second of his/her life playing your retarded fangame.

...was I too ambiguous about that?

Meanwhile...

[This message has been edited by NessJeff (edited 04-16-2000).]

Post #193, by Chris

"And our winner is...Matt!"

Congradulations poured in from all around the pool. Matt had managed to pull ahead and win the race. Chris went up and shook his hand, then brought him a towel.

So... you shook his hand... then walked away... then returned with a towel?

"Thanks." Matt said.
"Sure, no problem." Chris replied.

Finally, after a busy night, people started heading to the hotel to go to bed for the night. There would be many festivities tomorrow; plus, the talent show was only two days away. Everyone had to start preparing their acts.

To be honest, I can't remember whether they got around to the talent show before they all got sidetracked by violence and crossover Big Bads from other games trying to destroy the world.

"Hey, Juliana. Mind if I walk you up to your room?" Chris asked, a little nervously.

Just a little. Took him 90 nerve-wracking seconds to bang out this sentence.

A little surprised, she answered, "Um...sure. We've had a good enough night so far."

He keeps using on-the-fence language like 'good enough', 'so far' and etc., presumably because he wants to encourage Juliana (the AC, in theory) to agree that hanging out with him is just awesome, without actually making her say so. He really wants Juliana (again, the AC.... ok... maybe not just the AC) to like him. He's almost pleading.

Take notes, guys: Girls do not like this kind of behavior.

They walked up to the hotel, then entered the lobby. Before going into the elevator, they stopped to grab one last drink at a soda machine. They then took an elevator up to the adminstrator floor.

That's right: Administrators get an entire floor aaaaaaaaaaaall to themselves.

No points for guessing which two people are the only Administrators currently active in the story.

"Well, seems my first date went well. Good night, Juliana."

"Good night, Chris."

And with that, she closed her door, and Chris walked down to his room, the happiest man alive.

He is not kidding. Funny how seriously a person can take an IF.

Post #194, by Luna

Luna was talking to herself as she headed up to her room.
"dang, dang, DANG!! I almost had it!" Luna grumbled. "I could have won! How'd he pull ahead?!"

You were too busy bragging about your kiwi birds on IRC and PP/QC managed to post first, is my guess.

"Nice race!" people around Luna were congratulating her as she walked up to her room.
"Oh well... I'll do better next time..."
Just then...

Post #195, by SirMontyG

"WOOOOOOHOOOO!!!"

Sir exclames as he rides out the wave he's on, pulling a mute grab off as well. "Surfing's the life, but it's a shame I missed those other contests." While contimplating, Sir forgets about being in the ocean and gets blasted by a wave. Undetered, Sir paddles back out, and looks on the horizon for another 7 footer (common on Eagleland Island, btw), and then looks back to shore. "heellpp.. hellp meeeee.." Were the faint words Sir heard and noticed a girl at the top of a palm tree with no way down. "I guess today is just my day for saving people or something.."

IF is awesome for that. You get to save 4.7 people per day, on the average, and that's on the fairly rare occasions when you're not saving the world/galaxy/universe.

Sir rides the next wave all the way in and rushes to the tree.
"Well how'd ya get up there?" Sir asks.
"Uhh, it's kind of a long story, and it involves a pikachu shocking me and instant teliportation, can you just get me down first?"
"That's Starmen for ya.." And with that, Sir helped Mani Mani down from the tree.

This is neither here nor there, but back when Buzz-Buzz stole the domain name earthbound.net and everyone decided to go with starmen.net instead, I alone opposed 'starmen.net'. My opinion was it sounds like a gay porn site. I still hold that opinion today.

23 November 2009

Posts #166-170: 16 April 2000

Post #166, by michael_cayer

In Canada, michael_cayer was VERY late for the party.
"This machine BETTER work! I spent all night on this!"
He reached for the lever, flipped it, then placed his hand on the Teleportation Square.
FLASH!
Instantly michael_cayer was converted to energy, fired into a satellite in space, and shot down again over Eagleland Island.
FLASH!
"It worked! But I'm really late... what did I miss?"

Question: What would happen if, a split-split-second after he was converted to energy but before he got beamed back down and reconverted, the satellite got blown up? Wouldn't that suck?

Post #167, by Chris

Having seen the crisis below, Chris stopped the ferris wheel and quickly unloaded everyone. He ran over to where the roller coaster jumpers had landed and checked to see that they were okay. Once he determined that all they had suffered were bruises, he ordered everyone out of the park until the safety of the park could be tested. Thus, everyone left the park and started back to the hotel, in search of another party.

I AM CHRIS AND YOU WILL OBEY OR ELSE

I'm not sure he gets how IF works. That or he's banking on his new awsuma admin powa to cower everyone in fear of disobeying for him. Shows you how different things were in 2000; you can imagine how well that would go over now.

Chris and Juliana walked down to the beach, where they saw that a whole crazy party was going on.

Not sure they're going to see eye-to-eye on this whole 'should we or shouldn't we segregate ourselves off into our own little world' thing. Little strongarming here. Before he might have written, 'Chris asked Juliana, 'hey, you want to go down to the beach?' Juliana said...' but now? F--- it, drag her along.

Seeing as how they weren't dressed for swimming, they parted ways for a while to change into something more appropriate for the occasion.

And for Chris to... you know what? Nevermind. I don't have the stomach to finish that joke. Mostly because it probably isn't a joke.

In a large, Olympic-size swimming pool, races were being held.

That reminds me: I vacationed at the Outer Banks in North Carolina, which is fantasically awesome, a couple years ago with a couple different friends. One was a family with five kids, ages 17 down to 5, who pretty much never vacationed; the kids had never seen the ocean before.

While the rest of us were having a swell time playing in the surf, their kids wanted no part of it. They spent most of their days swimming in the beach house swimming pool, not a hundred yards from the shore.

Why the hell would anyone swim in a pool when the ocean is right there?

At the beach, several different sand castles were under construction, while even more craziness was going on in the waters of the ocean. People were running, yelling, splashing, jumping, and just generally having a good time. The two new arrivees quickly joined in on the fun...

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited 04-16-2000).]

Post #168, by Little Yoshi

After thanking his rescuers profusley for the rescue, Tim walked off to his boat, and invited Mark and Sir to come and get healed, if they needed it. He then decided he would not go back to that amusment park till it was officaly saftey tested.

Note the conspicuous absence of any reference to Chris. I bet that was an awkward dinner that evening.

Post #169, by Queen Catherine

I yawned tiredly as it was getting late.

Over-emphasis. Either 'I yawned' or 'it was getting late' will do.

Glancing at my watch, it was time for my daily exercises in which I did for hour, in hoping to join the Cross-Country Team. However, I decided to put it aside today and work on it tomorrow.
I left from dance floor ((Maybe with Drew following me, it's up to him)) and overheard people talking about a roller coaster incident. Hearing that everyone turn out ok but with few minor injuries, I decided to talk a walk down on the beach. I watched the others play around...
((Drew, feel free to take over if you want to))

Is there ever any point to QC/PP's posts? We don't need a summary of events here. We just read them for ourselves.

Post #170, by NessJeff

Drew looks at his tourney signup.
"EB... Me. PQ... Me. Oh this sucks!!!! I'll just bring the signup sheet to the beach and the amusement Park. And anyone who signs up for the Paula's Quest tourney gets a free copy!"

To be honest, I can't remember whether Paula's Quest was a real game Tengu was making or not. I think it was one of those RPGMaker deals where Tengu always talked about this awesome game he was making, but never actually did anything that could be construed as making it. NessJeff just would not shut up about it.

Drew runs to the exact spot between the beach and amusement park and yells into a 10-megaphone strength megaphone, "Report to the middle of the island for an EB and Paula's Quest Tourney! Anyone who signs up gets a free copy of Paula's Quest!"

By the way, how exactly do you have an EarthBound tournament?

Drew waits for people to come. The people who come are...
(Anyone can enter, but I am more powerful at both. EB: Paula with 6777+HP. PQ: I fricking made it!)

Oh. Maybe it was something NessJeff slapped together in a day in RPG Maker, then.

Somehow, I suspect a Paula with 6777+ HP would be disqualified from an EarthBound tournament, even if we figured out some way to have one. The maximum obtainable HP in EarthBound without active hacking is around 3700 (which you get by jacking Vitality to 255 before leveling up to L2.)

21 November 2009

Posts #156-160: 15 April 2000

Post #156, by Chris

Once more, Chris and Juliana took their place out on the dance floor with everyone else.
As the themes from each town played, intermixed with the Sound Stone melody, the various couples danced around the room. Even the people who hadn't dance all night managed to find someway to enjoy the final dance.

You can tell Chris is nervous because his grammers is breaking down. 'hadn't dance', 'someway', etc. And I don't know what the point to that final throwaway line is; does he think the girl-less boys will feel better now? He's trying to be gracious in victory?

Finally, after all the music was finished, everyone clapped, and sat down again. The DJ said a few little good-bye messages. Then...

Yes, good, let's all move on now.

Post #157, by NessJeff

"Yes!"

Yes! YES! I don't care what your conditions are! I'm getting attention from a girl!!!

(Thank god for evenly divisible numbers!)

...what?

"Now, what's your opinion, Mark..."
Meanwhile...
and
Mark Said...

...it's like he set up a multiple choice to help himself decide which way to end his post, but couldn't decide and just tossed all three in there. Too excited and hyper to think straight, probably.

Post #158, by PSI322

The dance was over. "What's everyone doing now?" Juliana wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Chris replied. "People will probably find someplace else to party. You know how these Starmen.Net people are, Juliana."

Oh, ho, ho, you have no idea. Some of the stories I've heard from the conventions the last few years...

Juliana laughed. "I know, I know. It's true. I bet there'll be a party on the beach, or something. It's pretty cold out there, though, so I'm not sure what'll happen."

No, it isn't. You're near the equator and it's July or August, according to the timeframe you set up yourself. Even at 3:00 it's about 95 degrees out and muggy as hell.

The two of them walked over to waffle and Luna, who had been dancing as well. "So, what are you guys doing now?" Chris asked. "We're wondering if any partying is going on now, or anything like that."

Wait, aren't you two the alleged Syndicate members?

Post #159, by NessJeff

Drew takes the DJ megaphone and says, "Hey! I rigged up a wireless SNES and 2 Huge GBCs which are hacked so anyone with a Paula's Quest(My home made game!) cart or their EB cart can participate in a tourney! Sign up on the wall!"

That's quite a hack. An SNES cart is about the same size as a GBC.

The People who signed up for each game were...

Power to The People! Down with the Man!

Post #160, by Chris

"You know, I'm not supposed to tell you this until tomorrow, but the Syndicate is building a small amusmant park behind the main hotel. We could go visit it and hang out there for a while." Chris said.

Um... glad you remembered you're supposed to be the boss here, but Juliana ranks higher in the Syndicate than you do, and you're confiding Syndicate activities to her that she doesn't know about? How does that work?

"Sounds like a great idea." Waffle replied.
"Let's go!" Juliana and Luna said at the same time.
So, Chris led the way to the amusamant park.

Yikes. That's the second different butchering of 'amusement' Chris has committed in a few lines.

When they arrived, they saw that there was already a ferris wheel and a simple roller coaster built, with a log flume set to open tomorrow. The four arrived at the park, and...

And at post #160, the Gathering finally breaks free of the beach/hotel area.

18 November 2009

Posts #146-150: 15 April 2000

Post #146, by Mog116

The thousandth reply in the IFS! WHOOOHHOOOO!

This guy is fond of content-free posts.

He means it was post #1000 in the IF forum as a whole. Which it wasn't really, since we pruned dead topics from it regularly. But hey, an excuse to pump up my post count!

Post #147, by Earth Bound Ranger

The hour had gone by very slowly for Mark, who was still sitting on the beach.

Have you noticed time always seems to go more slowly for you? I've noticed time moves more slowly while I'm reading your posts.

I should talk, though; it won't be that long before I'm right in there with Chris and Falcon24 and the rest writing soul-twisting nine-paragraph posts.

After the fireworks display was over, Mark sat back down in the sand to think a while. While thinking, Mark remembered the dance, and ran back up to the dance hall. Once inside, He went to the snack bar to attack the penut cheese bars. He ate about 5 of them, and then looked around for someone to dance with. Unfortuatly, most all, if not all the girls were either taken, or being taken at that moment. The only thing left was to ask for a cut in. So Mark went up to Jenny and Drew and asked if I may cut in (All gentalmanly like). Her response was...

All right! A guy willing to do something that takes some stones!

Post #148, by waffle

Waffle slowly smiled. He was relieved that Luna said yes.

You don't say.

Now he actually had someone to dance with. A new song started and they went out on the floor...

Post #149, by Chris

"30 minutes until the end of the dance," the DJ announced.

Give Chris credit for finally realizing it's time to end this thing. Plus what else is there for him to do with Juliana? The dance thing's been conquered; gotta move on to the next mission.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time. After having dance through several songs, Chris and Juliana walked over to the snack table to try the peanut cheese bars that everyone was wolfing down. Then, they each filled a cup of punch and sat down at one of the side tables to watch the others dance.

I have more patience than most for this kind of thing, but the total lack of anything resembling story development is beginning to frustrate me.

Post #150, by NessJeff

Drew is thinking about what Mark said.
"God, I hope Jenny keeps dancing with me. She's the first girl I've ever danced with!"

We already covered this topic. Not a great idea. But then, it's probably not unusual when you're 11.

Drew took a deep breath and waited for Jenny's response to Mark's offer...

This may be the feeblest attempt to keep your girl in the history of mankind.

[This message has been edited by NessJeff (edited 04-15-2000).]

Posts #141-145: 15 April 2000

Post #141, by Mog116

(Matt, I TOLD YOU THE TIME!!!!)

Pshaw. Like Matt can be bothered to read other people's posts.

This was sometimes an issue on IF, Person B getting offended when it's obvious Person A, who Person B is trying to write a story arc with, isn't reading his posts. (Usually Person A is your average bad poster who doesn't read anybody's posts.) I'd suggest you ignore the kid and find yourself a new story arc, but you know how a lot of people find complaining more fulfilling.

Mog thumped the Snack table. He didn't want to dance. Mog walked outside and saw Tim putting sheilds up on his boat.

The shields are inherent. Haven't you ever seen Star Wars?

Mog walked down the beach. He saw a Kralen swimming around. Mog pulled his Hover board out of his Hover board and chased after it. *POP* The Kralen Hit Mog in the head. Mog flew around the Kralen. Kralen flung around and knocked Mog's Hover board away. Mog lost himself. He turned red and hovered in the air.

Since Mog can fly/hover, I assume the hover board was only there to make him look even cooler than he already did, if that's possible.

"Moogle Magic White!" Mog flew straight through the Kralen, under the water and killed about 87 kralens by shooting beams of Holy light at them.

It might have been 88. It was hard to keep proper count amid all the excitement and Holy light and all that.

He flew back around and landed on the beach, not being able to remember any of the fight.

Post #142, by Little Yoshi

(I'm not helping out with fireworks, I'm repairing my ship)

Things are starting to get snippy. This is potentially a fun development.

"Mog, are you okay?!" Tim asked.
"Huh?" Mog asked, then looked himself over.
"You just turned red then white, then fell on the beach," Tim explained.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Mog replied.
"I'm gonna just peek inside the dance room to see what's happening, then I'll be back,"Tim said.

As you can see, Tim, in a gathering full of godlike AC avatars, protection from monsters is wholly superfluous.

Post #143, by NessJeff

Drew is still dancing with Jenny. The Legend of Zelda song ends.
"Play Paula's theme!!!"
"Okay, but let someone else choose the music next!"
"Ahh, who cares, I'll just give you a play list."
Playlist says(In this order)
Moomba #5(Final Fantasy version of Mambo #5(The real song sucks)

Then why in the six purple hells would you make a Final Fantasy version of it?

Shadow's theme

Shadow's Theme? Don't get me wrong, I like Shadow's Theme, but who the hell would want to play it at a dance?

Schala's theme

See above.

Paula's theme

See above. Etc. It applies to everything on this list.

Rydia's theme
Cid's theme(All 9 of 'em(Cid in Chocobo's Dungeon/Racing)
Sound Stone theme
Zelda's theme(LOZOT)
Umi's singing of the sound stone theme(It's on file here somewhere...(SM.Net)
"Auuuuuuugghhhhhh! Fine! I'll play all your songs!"
"Good. I'll pay you $20 later..."

Sure! Thanks! I'll play your songs later.

Meanwhile...

Post #144, by Mog116

Mog was still bored.

Yeah. We all are. But for the number of posters that keep cranking out posts, I daresay that the Gathering was at this point officially in danger of dying off, thanks partially to the disappearance of four of the better posters--PSI322, Chris, Luna, waffle--on account of they're dancing with each other and none of them wants to be next to post. And I assume Tengu man was busy with some other thread at this time, since none of his Tengulings have shown up to prepare his grand (always bloody) entrance.

Violence and or/moving the story away from the beach/hotel where it's been taking place so far is going to be coming very soon, lest the thread die. It's a classic hallmark of a dying IF thread when it's being kept going by only three or so mediocre posters.

Not knowing what to do, Mog went back to The party.

What is it with this guy and capitalizing 'the' for no apparent reason?

He pulled out his Gameboy and put his very bad Game he made himself in, Mooglebound. "Oap, there it is, You're gonna die! Oh..." Mog lost at his own game extrordinarilly fast. He threw his Game boy in his duffel bag, then walked over to the Snack table. He ate 43 Peanut Cheese Bars, then sat back down.

The counts of snacks eaten remind me of the newspapers in SimCity 2000, where an RNG would spit out random absurd lines in articles like 'Pizza Delivery takes 2,385 hours' and '413 people were killed in a gang shooting'.

Post #145, by Luna

Luna looked up at waffle, blushing slightly. "S..Sure, I'll dance... It's better than sitting here all night doing nothing except watching OTHER people dance.."

I guess Luna was still relatively new, very young, and not quite the Uncontested Alpha Female she would soon enough become. Anyway, this is not helping move the plot somewhere, now that the three girls are accounted for and everyone else has long since left behind the dance theme.

Posts #131-135: 15 April 2000

Post #131, by Mog116

(Yah... Just leave and what do ya get? another 40 replies)

This thing really is taking off. Just go back and note just how many posts were listed under 14 April 2000, and then consider that all of the writers were in school all day and most of the posting activity was in the 16:00-1:00 timeframe.

Mog watched as everyone started dancing then thought "Boy... Isn't every girl already out there?"

All three of them, yes. This can be an issue on the internet.

Mog grabbed about 60 peanut cheese bars, stufffed several in his duffel bag, and started chowing down. "Mine, I'm bored."

Reminds me of a funny story from the 1996 Pennsylvania state MathCounts finals, held at the Hampton Inn in Carlisle, PA. David Kenepp and I (14 at the time) shared a room, and the competition was sponsored by Tastycake (makers of Butterscotch Krimpets and other such deliciousosities), who had several tables stacked up with Tastycakes beside the hotel pool. David and I went down to the pool, swam around a bit, then beelined to the Tastycakes. We each brought an extra beach towel with us, and so we each took two towelfuls of various Tastycakes back to our room with us. Must have been about 40 packs of them. Each. And we at them all in one night.

In a related story, David (the team's star) bombed the competition the following morning. I easily recorded the highest score on the team, because I was legendary for my superhuman sugar tolerance.

Also, there was a girl from a small neighboring town--a pretty nice looking girl, by the way--who had tagged along with our school's team since she had qualified individually. She was at the pool the same time we were, but didn't know the way back to our rooms, so the teacher/chaperone asked David and I to take her back with us. "Yeah, sure," we said, and then ignored her and left her standing there, and went to load up on Tastycakes. When we were finally ready to go five minutes later, she was gone. Far be it from us to check on where she went. We shrugged and went back to our room to gorge on Tastycakes. I miss those days.

If you're out there, Erin from Bellwood... it wasn't personal. It was just priorities, you know.

Mog never learned how to dance, so he was kind of glad noone had asked him to dance.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Post #132, by Queen Catherine

I danced with Drew and has a good time.

I can has good time?

Matt (PsycoPyro) stops headbanging and goes over to me.
"What time does the talent show start?" He asked.
"I think it's at nine." I replied.
"What time is it now?"
"I dunno. My watch is at my hotel room. Why don't you go ask someone?"
"Kay-o!"
He runs off somewhere and I resume dancing with Drew.

What exactly the hell was the point of that post?

Post #133, by SuperSpeedy/Mankey Boy

Wow. Back from the dead. It's about time we had some more GADGET SUGAR RUSH injected.

(Great. I'm gone for a few days, and about 100 replies pour in. And to note, the pokémon I rode wasn't Shock Bird, rather a robotic replica of it, and it only made a brief appearence. And If Pikachu can be in here, then so can my Porygon AC, Poryhedron!)

*facepalm*

"Cool! waffle!" David said at the dance. "How things back at your town in our home state?"
"Okay," replied waffle.

They say that like being from New Jersey is something to be proud of.

"Hey, a Pikachu!" said David. The Pikachu went into hiding, but David grabbed it and gave it a hug.
[Aww, thanks!] said Pikachu.
"Whoa! It's psychic!" exclaimed David.
"Did some-one say a Psychic Pikachu?" exclaimed a Porygon. Everyone raised their weapons, ready to hit the Porygon, who disappeared and reappeared in a flash of 0's and 1's. "Sorry. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Poryhedron: experimental Porygon 0-1-6-4. I made my first I-F appearence in 'Gotta Stop 'em All -or- Death to You, Pikachu!'.
ROFL @ 'Death to You, Pikachu!' I remember that now that he mentions it. That partially explains 3164's persecution complex.

The hatred of pokemon at starmen.net back then was extreme. And I wholeheartedly approved, and approve, of it.

Also, SuperSpeedy, never one to pay much attention to the rules, is violating the one-AC-per-writer rule, for which I'm sure Chris or PSI will smack him down momentarily.

Every since David thought me up, I've excited inhislaptop and all of his digital devices, including the mechanical version of my partner, Shock Bird.

I assume he meant 'existed'. I don't even really want to think about the ramifications if 'excited' is actually what he meant.

Hop on, #3-1-6-4. I'll let you ride me. I can mystically fly using anti-gravity."
Pikachu said, [Well…]

Post #134, by Mog116

Mog runs off after Matt to tell him the time. Matt runs into the wall. "it's 7:35." "Oh" Mog walks back to the Snack table, pulls a very large cup out of his duffel bag, and pours the punch in it.

Baron von Awesome approves of that. I just took a swig of water from my signature 32-ounce stein.

*GLUG* Mog drunk the whole thing in one cartoony *GLUG* type thingy.

Writers take note: If you can't stretch your vocabulary far enough to capture the correct word ('gulp' or 'swig' in this case), you can always fall back on the old standby, 'type thingy'.

Mog walked back over and sat down. He pulled a CD player out with a "How to dance" CD in it, and thought "It's kinda Ironic. I'm a moogle that can't dance. Heck My name's even Mog! He's the dancing king."
Mog put the CD To dance and asked (Girl) to dance. (Note: any girls fine. as long as she wants to dance.)

Sorry to break it to you, bro, and I know that actually reading other people's posts before making another of your own is just so much, whatyacallit, work, but all the girls are now spoken for. Just as well you can't dance, eh?

[This message has been edited by Mog116 (edited 04-15-2000).]

Post #135, by NessJeff

(Mog, Matt needed to know the time, not me.)

I presume Mog116 originally said Drew in his above post, and then edited it after NessJeff posted this.

Posts #126-130: 14-15 April 2000

Post #126, by Chris

Just as Drew and Jenny walk onto the dance floor, another slow piece comes on. Chris and Juliana start dancing again, this time more relaxed.

He means he's more relaxed now. Somewhat. Deep breaths...

All through this, Chris is thinking "Wow, this is only the second girl I've ever danced with. This is fun! I've gotta do this more often."

He's lying; this would be the first girl he ever danced with. I know this because a month later he posted in the legendary Freaky Magic (which I will annotate after I finish the Gathering) that he had never danced with a girl before. Unless in this case he's counting his sister when he was 6 or something. But I agree with him here that admitting to PSI he'd never danced with a girl before wouldn't be a smart play.

While Juliana and Chris drifted along the dance floor...

C'mon, Chris, you can do better than that. Write us some dripping sappy prose here. Hell, I can do better than that. Hell, I will do better than that, later in the Gathering, which makes me blush even now and I will probably be merciless on my past self about.

Post #127, by NessJeff

Drew is making futile attempts at dancing with Jenny.
"You aren't doing that well now, but it's pretty natural."
"I hope you're right, 'cause ridicule sucks."
Just then...

Your suspicion is correct, Drew: You suck at life.

So..... what now?

Post #128, by Little Yoshi

Tim decided not to go to the dance, at least not yet. He had several reasons.

Oh god. Here comes an autobiographical Tale of Why I Suck Oh God Why Me that we'd all rather have skipped, if it weren't so damn funny to read now.

1:No girl would ever ask a somewhat plump boy to dance with him anyways.

Maybe a somewhat plump girl would?

2:The LAST thing he'd want to happen is for some monster to storm the dance, so he'd patrol the shore, and he knew he might need to protect some of the other somewhat disliked people/animals.

Tim is trying very hard to prevent the Gathering from dissolving into endless violence, which is like trying to prevent the sun from rising in the morning.

3:He hadn't read the overcoming shyness book yet, so he was quite shy.

4:Chris already snapped up the girl I wanted.

(Yes people, Chris did almost win that twist contest. The only reason that other couple won was because they went last, right Chris?)

I wonder if Chris let Tim have the N64 for an extra hour in exchange for writing that?

So, he patroled the shores.
"If that thing gets in, the dance will be over in a flash!"Tim exclaimed, seeing a jellyfish nearing the window where Luna was.
(insert laser sound)
"Whew! Got it!"
(note:if any girl wants to dance with Tim[quite unlikely, though], they can just come outside a ask him)

Ouch. I hurt. Reading this even nine years later makes my insides hurt. It's painful. Please make it stop.

Note to aspiring IF writers: Don't leave parenthetical comments at the end of your post restating what your post already made clear.

Post #129, by NessJeff

Drew bigins dancing better than Squall in the SeeD ball scene(Li'l too natural). Jenny seems surprised, but happy.
"Good, Drew! You see? Dancing comes quite naturally!"
"Yes! I'm dancing with a girl, I'm at an SM.Net convention, YES!!!"Drew thinks to himself.

ROFL. Sure he might have been thinking it, but at least Chris had the self-restraint not to type it.

"Yo DJ! Play a remix of the Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening overworld music!"

Because every competent DJ has a remix of that handy.

"OK kid!"
Meanwhile...

Post #130, by waffle

After looking around enough at all the people dancing,waffle just had an urge to. Of course,he needed someone to dance with. He scanned the room and noticed Luna sitting there,also not dancing.Thinking he had nothing to lose,he took a deep breathe,tossed his punch cup aside, and walked over...
"Would you like to dance?" he asked. She replied..

THAT'S the spirit, waffle! YES! High five! I am so pumped.

[This message has been edited by waffle (edited 04-15-2000).]

Posts #121-125: 14 April 2000

Post #121, by Pikachu3164

[Yeah. Another Pokémon hater to add to the list. I wonder if anyone here would start a conversation with me without wanting to kick me.]

God, I should have banned this kid. Don't get me wrong; for the unintentional comedy value here in 2009, I couldn't be happier I didn't. But at the time, it's amazing I didn't ban him. PEOPLE HATED POKEMON EXACTLY BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU

By this point, four more people had come to the dance. Chris and Juliana were still dancing, but Mark, Jenny, Drew, and Psycho (your AC is Matt, right? I have trouble keeping track of names.)

You could, you know, read some of his earlier posts.

had joined in the dance.
Hoping that one of them may like Pokémon, he walked over to them and satrted to talk with them.

Not to wax philosophical or anything, but if your entire self-identity is tied up in Pokemon and you can't figure out why people don't like you, you probably have at least a handful of diagnosable mental disorders.

(One of you four start a conversation with Pikachu. Do what you want, talk to me, slash me in half, kick me, give me a Peanut Cheese Bar, just something. Kay-o?)

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 04-14-2000).]

Post #122, by NessJeff

"Yo, Pikachu3164, over here!"
[Yes, Finally!]
Drew and Pikachu begin talking/thought-speaking about PoKéMoN and DiGiMoN and stuff.
[Yes! Someone who won't kick me!]
[Ya know, that's my philosophy on school. Every day I don't get kicked is a good thing.]

ROFL

(Drew can use thought speak, but it's shaky, and not done well.)

Awww, the emo kids have made friends with each other! It's so cuuuute! Now they can sit around together and cut themselves!

Post #223, by Luna

"Hrmmm... great party..." Luna observed from her spot at the snack bar. People were talking in one corner, and a few people were dancing. The rest were sitting around doin nothing. "I need to strike up a conversation with somone, Dance with somone, or sit here bored as a log all night. I just hope SOMONE will talk/dance with me..."

Translation: WOULD ONE YOU LAZY FRAIDY-CAT GIRLY-MEN COME OVER HERE AND GET ME INVOLVED ALREADY? NO, I WILL NOT ASK YOU TO DANCE!

It's amazing how many boys spend years dreaming of a girl--as many SM.Net boys did of Luna, for instance--but even when an opportunity clearly presents itself, don't have anywhere near the balls to say 'hey, wanna dance?' And this is why said girl has never noticed them and will never notice them.

Post #224, by Queen Catherine

I start to get bored and I really want to dance. I was boared just standing around and watching. Then, I began to notice NessJeff is looking for someone to dance. I smile at him...

I have no idea what motivated 'her' to do this. Maybe vindictiveness toward 3164. Just thinking that thought made me smile.

Post #225, by NessJeff

Drew(That's me!) and Jenny(That is your AC's name, right? I'm not good with names...) walk up to each other.
"Yes?" Drew asks.
"Would you dance with me?"
"Okay, but I'm not very good. I liked your Super Smash Brothers fanfic."

Good god. The correct answer is 'yes', doofus! The myriad ways guys screwed this kind of stuff up....

"You liked it? Wow."
Drew and Jenny walk on to the dance floor together...

Posts #116-120: 14 April 2009

Post #116, by Chris

Chris and Juliana danced. After the song was over, they sat back down at one of the tables.
"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Chris asked.
"Yes, it was." Juliana replied.
They sat there, enjoying watching the other people dance.
During this, on the dance floor,...

The problem with finally getting what you dreamed of for so, so long is... now what are you going to do? Damn if Chris knows. Didn't even try to put words down to describe it; just skipped ahead. I can see him shell-shocked, perhaps shaking a little (that's how the superfluous comma got in there at the end) at his keyboard.

Post #117, by PsycoPyro

Me, Jenny, and Mark carry the Jellyfish to the ocean and dump it. We then decided to chill out and return to where everyone is. We see everyone dancing.
"There must be Banger and Goth music here too!" I said as I walked to (whatever source is playing music) and makes it/them play "Du Hust" from Rammstien. Some people start headbanging. I pick mylighter up and ignite it as I headbang.
"Now this is a party!" I said.

I chuckled. You can always count on one of the psychos to annihilate something boring like slow dancing as soon as they detect it.

Post #118, by Luna

Luna glared down at the small yellow rat. "As much as I despise yellow rodents, no one can deprive somone else of a peanut cheese bar." She grumbled and handed him a cup of punch and a couple peanut cheese bars.

Hopefully she remembered to give him the ones with the razor blades in them.

"There ya go." She said, forcing a nice smile onto a face that wanted to grin evilly and drop kick the pikachu.
[have a nice day... er, night!]
"You too!" She said, at last letting the painful smile drop.
"Talk about torture" she mumbled, picking up her punch glass and bolting the remains of the punch down.

You don't seriously think we're out of punch, do you? The Syndicate is never out of punch. We have the good stuff in the back.

Post #119, by Chris

The next song to come up was Twist and Shout. Juliana asked Chris if he knew how to twist.
"I almost won a twist contest once. Let's go."

That gives him a definite leg up on this annotator in the Juliana Derby.

So, they went out onto the dance floor again, and began to twist. Other people jumped up and began to twist along to the music. In fact, everyone loved it so much that when the song was over, they played it again. Finally, Twist and Shout was off, and people began to settle down again, waiting to see what came on next...

Post #120, by NessJeff

Drew is being sad and crud."Everyone here has a friend but me... Why do all the girls here not like me?" 'I wish someone would ask me to dance...' he thought. 'Does anyone here not have a date????"'
he came close to saying.
Just then...

I'm still laughing. If he posted more, NessJeff would be right there in the MVP of the Gathering discussion. Maybe they don't like you because all you goddamn do is bitch about how girls don't like you. Maybe you should ask THEM to dance since you are supposed to be the male, not a whiny little girl. I'm happy people like NessJeff are in the world.

Posts #111-115: 14 April 2000

Post #111, by Chris

Finally, a slow piece came on. Of course, it looked rather strange, with no one on the dance floor and everyone on the sidelines. Full of courage, Chris decided to make the first move. He walked over to PSI, and said: "Wanna be the first ones on the dance floor?"
She replied...

Ladies and gentlemen, there he goes!!! He's sidling up to PSI... putting on his best smile... I think he's going to do it....... Yes! YES!!! PANDEMONIUM!!!!!!!!

I like the phrase 'full of courage' there. See, it was just like the Ghost of Starman and Starstorm Omega --- he just had to wait a few turns to store up a full load of courage before he could let 'er fly.

Post #112, by PSI322

PSI322 had been sipping her soda very carefully, so as not to spill any of it on her dress. It was long and pretty; the color was burgundy, one of her favorite shades most definitely. Her hair was still curled as it had been when she'd arrived to the island; she loved to wear her brown hair that way sometimes.

She's describing an actual dress she owned, for the record. She's not kidding when she says it was pretty.

Now that PSI322 is posting again after 100 posts of the kids, it makes it really stand out how she was like four standard deviations above average for this place at writing skilz.

All of a sudden, there stood Chris, asking her to be one of the first out on the empty dance floor. PSI322, a little surprised, set down her cream soda on the table and stood up. "Sure, why not?" she said, feeling flattered. She started to walk out onto the floor with Chris...

All told, I'm certain this is Chris's favorite post on the SM.Net forums ever. So this one's for you, Chris. I have immortalized it.

[This message has been edited by PSI322 (edited 04-14-2000).]

Post #113, by Luna

Luna hung out at the punch bowl, looking around warily for jellyfish. She bolted down a few peanut cheese bars, and drank another cup of punch. "I need to relax. no Jellyfish are going to attack me here..." She said, trying to reassure herself of that as she slid into a chair next to the snack table. "But I don't feel like dancing. I don't wanna make a COMPLETE idiot of myself... and this IS a slow song, so I'd best wait it out..."

Luna is not shy. This is her way of announcing, as PSI did a couple posts ago, that you had better approach me because I am not going to approach you.

Post #114, by Pikachu3164

Pikachu ran into the dance hall as himself.
He thought of buying a real fancy-like suit, but decided against it. Besides, no one ever notices him, so why would it matter?

GO LISTEN TO SOME NIRVANA AND LEAVE US ALONE WOULD YOU

Right away, he ran to the snack bar, took some Pepsi, and a dozen Peanut Cheese Bars. Then, he ran to a nearby chair and started to chow down on the Peanut Cheese Bars.

[I wonder if anyone will even come sit by me?]

You know, if I were AC'ing in the story by this point, I am certain I would have, at great peril of 3164 thinking I was his friend, handed him a damned device that allows him to speak English, so he would stop with the f---ing less-than-greater-than symbols.

Pikachu took a quick survey of the floor. Chris and PSI were dancing, and Luna and Waffle were at the snack table.
He hopped over to the snack table, taking the risk that Waffle and Luna weren't Pokémon haters.
[Hi! Can you hand me a Peanut Cheese Bar?!]

You know, I'd think it would have occurred to Emo Boy by now that some people may be fine with pokemon, but just dislike him.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 04-14-2000).]

Post #115, by NessJeff

Drew is trying to get people to play Paula's Quest, and has had 6099 Peanut cheese bars and 899 bottles of Surge. He calms down and finally asks (A girl here) to dance. (The girl) says...(Any girl who'll say yes or no, respond.)

LOL! I'm dying. This might be the funniest post yet.

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