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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 5/14: Interactive: "The Family of Heather Dow" 5/14: Public: "The Family of Heather Dow"
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| The competition was fierce, with several choices getting GPs. But the Free Vote totals of choice He continues searching the school gradually built an insurmountable lead and took the victory anyway. If you voted GPs for a loser, I'll soon be sending you a refund, as well as your share of the GPs voted for the winner. [Poll completed and deleted] Will, while searching the school for someone to test a magical mask on, has been dragooned into helping some girls. He now has a choice of going off one-on-one with Yumi Saito, who is a cheerleader; or he continue helping two of her classmates. What's his decision? The poll closes on Tuesday, August 2, at 12:00 ET. The current storyline continues with— Interactive: "On the Outside, Peering In" Public: "On the Outside, Peering In" BTW, the next time I do some kind of story-writing poll, I'm going to change the weighting so that Free Votes are worth somewhat less in the final result. Even when the results are fairly close, it takes too many GPs to push a lower-ranked choice to the top. I think that GPs, which are voted by people who are passionate, should punch harder. |
| The Plot Plinko poll is getting competitive. Not only has the vote been close this time around, but Gift Points are now being deployed. So if you're looking at the current results, don't assume that the vote is going the way it looks. There's other votes coming in behind the scenes where you can't see them! |
| The choice Someone else at the school after a random search was so overwhelming in the early vote that I am closing the poll early and moving on to the next one: [Poll completed and deleted] Will has decided to find someone at school to test the mask on. He could pick a teacher, a girl he spotted in the tutorial offices, or someone backstage in the theater. He could leave campus, and look inside a local department store. Or he could take another look through the school. What does he do? Unless there's another overwhelming early consensus, the poll closes on Sunday, August 1, at 12:00 ET. The current storyline continues with— Interactive: "Piled Higher, So Digging Deeper" Public: "Piled Higher, So Digging Deeper" |
| The choice Will uses it on a friend won the third poll and it wasn't even close, so now it's on to the fourth: [Poll completed and deleted] Will has decided to test the mask on someone at school. Who does he choose? His friends Caleb or Keith? A random stoner? Or a random anyone-else he might trip over after classes let out? Poll closes on Saturday, July 31, at 12:00 ET. And current storyline also continues with— Interactive: "A Double Game of Doubles" Public: "A Double Game of Doubles" |
| The choice Keep the book a secret won the second poll, so now it's on to the third: [Poll completed and deleted] Will has made a mask, and he needs to test it onto someone. Who does he pick? Himself? His brother? Or a friend? Poll closes on Thursday at noon ET. And current storyline also continues with— Interactive: "Bets and Bluffs" Public: "Bets and Bluffs" |
| Just a reminder that there's a poll running: [Poll completed and deleted] At the moment the results are pretty close. If they remain close, GPs could tilt the results one way or another. |
| The choice Keep investigating the book won the first poll handily, so now it's on to the second: [Poll completed and deleted] Here there are three choices: Does Will keep working alone, or does he find himself a partner? And if he does look for a partner, does he choose his best friend, Caleb, or does he look for someone else? Poll closes on Tuesday. The current storyline also continues with— Interactive: "A Second Chance at Leah Simmons" Public: "A Second Chance at Leah Simmons" |
| You know what we haven't had in forever around here? A Plot Plinko Poll! If you don't remember what that is, that's where we get really interactive. We start at the beginning of "Book of Masks," and you guys vote on which path to take. We continue down the branches, plinking between chapter choices, until we arrive at an unwritten choice. And that's where I take over, continuing the story from there. We've done this before and it's been fun (at least for me). There will be two ways for you to vote. The first is in a poll that I will post, giving the chapter choices. The second will by awarding Gift Points (GPs) to your preferred choice. You can find a fuller description of the process in the poll here: [Poll completed and deleted] That poll, and all subsequent polls, will be open for 48 hours, then closed and a new poll posted. Today's poll, naturally, starts at the beginning of the story, and you've got five choices of path to take ... |
| Today brings the last chapter in my return engagement to BoM: Interactive: "Fun and Games" Public: "Fun and Games" It wasn't a huge story, but it's always fun writing for Chelsea. I also enjoyed getting some of Jessica Garner in there, even if she was a fake and probably ramped up to 110% by Chelsea. Tomorrow I shift over to a radically different branch with a storyline that takes off from "The World Smashers" . The story so far:The Personae, after slipping from Will's grasp, has wound up in the hands of some high school YouTubers, and Will has lately joined them in mischief. As the story opens, they are looking for a "research project" (aka, "an excuse to screw around with masks and disguises") and Will has pitched the idea of swapping people unawares and watching how the victims react. But who to switch? One choice has already been launched. Which of the other four will get started tomorrow? Tune in to find out. This is one that I started writing before I took that super-long sabbatical, and it's the first one I continued when I started getting back into BoM. It was originally going to be for a commission, but I don't remember the details of the commission or who asked for it, so I am presenting it as a freebie, just because I loved the idea that I was pitched. This is a longer one, and will run for 2 weeks. |
| I mentioned yesterday that I started writing again about six weeks ago. But I delayed making a formal return (at least in part) because I wanted to make my return kind of splashy with what I hoped would be popular content. And who's the most popular character in BoM? I think it has to be Chelsea Cooper. So my return storyline takes place in the same general branch where rugal was last writing: Chelsea got ahold of the grimoire after her boyfriend accidentally golemized himself, and she and Will have partnered with it to conduct experiments and mischief. Chelsea has been impersonating Gary Chen (!) while Will has been spying for Chelsea from under a mask of Yumi Saito. By the time of "Occupied Territories" Chelsea has won some important battles: she has forced Eva and Jessica Garner off the cheerleading squad and crippled a planned coup against her leadership. But she has also promised Will some extra masks, so that she and he will have the same number of potential impersonations, and Will is contemplating some possibilities. Today, he makes a choice in * Interactive: "Grabbing a Garner" * Public: "Grabbing a Garner" (NOTE: The public Archives now include the run "A Banquet of Babel" --> "Occupied Territories" , which lead up to today's chapter.)Note: I made some important changes in "Occupied Territories" and in the four-chapter run "Debts and Acquisitions" through "The Shopping Trip" , though they don't affect much outside of those chapters. TL;DR: In the original versions, Chelsea talked Will into giving her masks to enslave some of Chen's gangster bosses. I removed that, as nothing was done with that plot development, and it limited the amount of subsequent fun to be had. |
| So, it's been a couple of months since I've checked in here -- not even so much as a log-in. I suppose explanations are in order. First of all: No, nothing happened to me. No health issues, no life issues, no monsters crashing in through the front windows to send me screaming out the back door. Okay, from my point of view, there was kind of a monster ... Like a lot of things in life, creativity is cyclical. I think over the years I've done pretty well at providing daily content around here. Yes, I've taken some weeks off, usually with prior notice. That need for a break is one of the regular cycles. Comes about once a year or so. But there's also a longer, deeper, nastier cycle. A mega-crash. It doesn't happen all that often -- only once every couple of years -- but it has happened with me before. It's the kind of cycle where I don't just take a break from writing. It's the kind of cycle where I scrape off everything to do with creativity and invention and don't come back. Let me put it this way: If I was the kind of person who took, uh, "stimulants" and/or "depressants", this is the kind of crash that where I would crawl into a bottle or up inside a needle. That's how far away I need to get from the writing game. Fortunately, I never acquired a taste for those particular kinds of vices, so I find other ways of coping. I'll leave it to you to judge whether Civilization is a healthier habit than whiskey, and Minecraft a safer addiction than morphine. Suffice it to say that I am now a much better player of both those games. It also happens that this kind of mega-crash occurs without warning. It starts as nothing worse than severe procrastination, and in this case it was a couple weeks or before I even recognized what was going on, at which point (I have to confess) the crash had gotten so deep and so hard that I didn't even give enough of a shit to come back and post a short "Gone Fishing" notice. It was that bad. But about six weeks ago I started to come out of it, and started to get my feet under me again. I had to rebuild my confidence and stamina, practically from scratch, though, and instead of coming straight back here -- when I had no confidence that the return would even take -- I spent that time writing some storylines. Getting myself in shape. So, am I back now? I'm still shaky enough, and humble enough, that I can't promise there won't be any hiccups going forward. In the meantime, I have written enough content to fill about four weeks, and I'll start publishing it tomorrow. During that time I hope to finish rebuilding. I am most definitely back enough that if I feel the ground going out from beneath me again, I will say something. I know I have left some people in the lurch with this disappearance, and I am all about making amends and catching up. I have a giant backlog of emails I need to shovel out, and that may take some time. For now, I beg your patience. |
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