I have some polishing to do, but I'll post it a next week Wed. I may also have an announcement the day after that.

And I'd like to pre-emptively apologize to any Brits.

Read HP Lovecraft's "The Color out of Space". And while you're at it, read the Wikipedia article on the species in question.

Now read Hellkat's Toons From Space series.

Now lie back and light your mind a cigarette, cause it's just been blown

I know your stories are about blatant self-inserts, with the protagonists given no more personality than the back of my cereal box, but would you please stop making every single story first-person. It's clear that it takes a great effort for you to tear yourself away from it, but when you have your character, without changing perspective, narrate events that it is physically impossible for him to know about, it becomes rather jarring.

Also, we didn't really need you to spend several plot-breaking paragraphs so we could see two tertiary characters have sex. Two tertiary chars that already have their own story. It's like you realized no one had gratuitous sex yet, and just threw it in there.

-Eulalie

PS: I know there are plenty of people watching this account. I need, at most two more to spend five minutes their opinion known, and to choose the course of some of my future stories. Two people. Five minutes. Please.

1. First Story to be uploaded (when finished) (first 2 out of 4)
a) ADF Winner!
b) [Story B]
c) ACS: The Compulsion in the Can

2. Second Story to be uploaded (when finished) (first 2 out of 4)
a) ADF
b) [Story B]
c) ACS: The Compulsion in the Can Winnar!

3. [Story B] title (first 2 out of 3)
a) Bunnie Ears Neighbour Winrar!
b) The Adventures of Bertie Bunnie

4. Title for another story. (first 2 out of 3)
a) Malin goes Dark Winona!
b) The Smallest Part

Thanks for voting.

What's going on

with the profile imaeges and stuff

what is this what's going on what is this

I am a spy

...who has posting stories constantly since this summer. I worked it out, and it comes to about one story every two days.

I mean, I'm starting to suspect he's a troll. Or they're trolls, since the DONUT STEEL info has at least two different names, depending on the story. It's almost like he's copy/pasting elements from one story to another. Either that or he has some sort of occupation that allows him a lot of time to "write"; these stories are long. They're long, and terribly written, and can't even keep their POV static, and have some very, very strange definitions of love.

And yet he's fast coming up on Von Krieger's level of popularity. If I wasn't so Genre Savvy, I'd RAEG QUIT right now.

Related rant: What is it with new furry writers and stories that switch between first and third person perspective constantly? That's almost always the sign of someone who doesn't want to take the focus off their self-insert. It's perfectly okay to use tight third person.

[/rant]

Previously.

Currently.

I somehow got Halloween mixed up with Thanksgiving, so I thought it was the last Thursday in October. Which is why I nearly killed myself trying to finish the spike on "deadline", leading to me falling asleep at 3AM. Which wrecked my circadian rhythms, which is why I'm posting this at two-bloody-thirty-AM-in-the-bloody-morning.

The moral of the story is; always check your frakkin' calendar.

"The reason Oscar had stopped screaming, as it happened, was that the girl had reached up, her hand now looking like a thin covering of skin over bone, squeezed his mouth shut, and punched her fingers through his lips, clamping them shut. The she had detached her hand somehow, a new one growing from the stump, its bones twisted, spiked lengths of red and white."

Ordinary people you'd meet on the street, not furries. Along with the clothes they're wearing, thus;

Neville
Neville is a personal trainer. He is tall, slimly muscled, and African-American. He is currently wearing a white tank top and blue shorts. He has black eyes, and a shaved head.

I'm not even sure if I'm gonna use these. I tried using random people walking by, but that seemed too, what's the word? Ah, yes, creepy.

Thanks.

-Eu

Read this!

It's an experimental narrative form for me, and I need feedback.

It involved TF, herms, and an oil rig. Also, that blue asian ghost from street fighter or whatever, wearing that round hat. Except she had three holes cut in her top where her boobs would be. The one on her left had a boob and a butthole, and the one on the right had a ding-dong. The character I was play as was male, somehow knew that using the left hole would make him more masculine, and the right would make him more feminine.

Of course, he went for both, and ended up as some weird latex herm-lizard-thing.

The oil rig was the Resident Evil type, the kind with all kinds of doors and stuff you need to find a key for every five steps. The character wasn't the only one transformed, but for some reason there were only about five people onboard.

After the main character was changed, we ended up in some hall with a bunch of black heroes. Including Aquaman, who is apparently mulatto in my universe. (I think my brain cross-referenced him with Connor Hawke. They couldn't see or hear us, but me and one of the other freaks managed to use our psychic powers to get all the heroes to do a SOUL fist raising.

Right on, brother.

And when I woke up and was trying to figure out how I was going to recap this, my brain promptly spun off a new idea for a story.

My mind is a strange and terrifying place.

So, I wrote this story, and despite the personal meaning for me-it's in there, somewhere. Look behind the mad science-I realized that it accords loosely with the monomyth. Very loosely. Like an octogenarian's sports bra loosely.

Departure
The Call to Adventure
The call to adventure is the point in a person's life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.

The Doc literally tells Sonny he's going to be used for experimentation.

Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.

Averted. Sonny thinks he'll prevail, and come out the other side a hero.

Supernatural Aid
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known.

Nope. No magic here. Obi-Wan has left the building.

The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.

Sonny crosses over a literal threshold when he's abducted. Thing is, he thinks he knows what's going to happen, due to being Genre Savvy.

The Belly of the Whale
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person's lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself.

Played straight; Sonny is perfectly willing to get out of the house for a while if he can become an action hero.

Inititation
The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.

Averted. The only "trial" Sonny has to overcome is a scrubbing by an attractive nurse.

The Meeting with the Goddess
The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the "hieros gamos", or sacred marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely. Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional love and /or self unification does not have to be represented by a woman.

Played straight. Sonny meets Lily, and learns to be a little less of a dick.

Woman as the Temptress
At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.

Well, Sonny gets a bit...excited during his rub-down, but that's about it. I wanted to show he's uncomfortable with who he is, hence the "race bonus" quip.

Atonement with the Father
In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power. For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be "killed" so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this killing is literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm.

Inverted. Transformation, confrontation, it's all there. Just...in the wrong order. Usually Hero confronts Darth Va-I mean, the father figure, and then is reborn.

Apotheosis
To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return.

Sonny ends up more or less as a minor god. However, he's far from "above all strife". Heck, he wades into strife with fists flying.

The Ultimate Boon
The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that supplies immortality, or the holy grail.

Sonny failed in every way, really. He doesn't get out, doesn't really endear the guards to him, and is even killed. Poor guy.

Return
Refusal of the Return
So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes?

He doesn't. I don't mention this in the story, but the only reason he's even going to the con is to show off.

The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.

Nope. It's perfectly safe, what with all the guards being incapacitated or mind-controlled and all.

Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn't realize that it is time to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon.

In most traditional series, this is represented by the gods calling the Hero to heaven or suchlike, whereupon his friends say they need him, resulting in at least one slashfic. No such thing happens here, but I'll try to include it in a later story.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.

Sonny is still, fundamentally, a dick, so he doesn't even bother. In fact, this step is inverted; he actually moves his stuff into the Doc's evil lair.

Master of the Two Worlds
In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.

Nope. Our boy's still a dick. A dick who'll be trying to make more real-life friends in the future, but still, a dick.

Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.

Sonny never had any real plans for his life in the first place, so this one doesn't really apply.

Link to some incident characterizing the worst members of $belief, or controversial event involving member of $belief.

Paragraph making it clear that $poster has personal issues relating to $belief. Somewhat cliched personal anecdotes about being a member of $belief as a child, specifically a somewhat strict section.

Paragraph about the hypocrisy of $belief. Implication that $belief is mostly made up of self-righteous hypocrites. Selective quoting of $belief's text which points out the "hypocrisy" of person(s) linked to in first paragraph. Generalization about members of $belief, based on aforementioned link.

Comments by people reading journal entry that only reinforce poster's distaste for $belief. Complete lack of self-awareness of $poster's and commenters' own self-righteousness, due to website journal entry is posted on being largely of $political_faction, which is opposed to $belief.

Repeat.

Nequ dewatches $poster for being a dick.

Sonny Gets Mad Scienced
There's this guy named Sonny. Mad science happens to him. Also, he makes a crapload of jokes.

I just got through watching Doctor Who. Specifically "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances". For those of you who haven't finished watching an episode that aired nearly four years ago, here be spoilers.

The episode's resolution hinges on the nanogenes recognizing Nancy's DNA and correcting their interpretation of Billy's. It occurred to me, shortly after that episode ended, that they could've gotten it wrong again and simply tuned Billy and Nancy into gasmasked rubber hermaphrodites.

I see your ears have pricked up.

So they get transformed. The nanogenes get it wrong in such a way that they can be transmitted by sexual contact. They also program Nancy and Billy to "heal" as many people as possible, wink wink. Did I mention that they're now functionally invincible?

Insert joke from Jack about how he's normally open-minded, but-" here.

Cut to a few years later, and aliens land on earth, like they seem to every twenty minutes in Who. They open the door of their UFO, only to find a few billion contagious herms.

Who now have a spaceship of their own.

ALTERNATE ENDING: Our heroes are assaulted, but manage to fight their way to the TARDIS. But not before one of them is infected...

To: All Depts.
From: ADMN Dept

Starting today, all ASC departments and facilities will use the ISO 8601 dating format for all documents. All digital documents will be updated. All physical documents generated prior to 2000-01 can remain as they are. Please familiarize yourself with the new dating protocol using the attached file.

Thank you.

***ATTACHMENT***
0124.87.lnk

I'm running an "Interactive Story" over at Process-Productions. If you like that sort of thing, if you have an account, and if you can find them, play "Eldritch: Fleshpuzzle Red".

Does anyone else using Firefox 3 have the font size change randomly whenever they switch to a FA tab? If so, is it fixable?

EDIT: Fixed. I went into about:config and set browser.zoom.siteSpecific to "false". I also set the minimum font size to 14.

Five years ago
The events on the TIBERIUS.

Two years ago
Walkabout 1/4
C-Snakes: Infiltrator

One year ago
Civilian FAQ
BioS Trooper transcript
UNF "Defiance" recruiting poster released (Galatean version)
DON'T PANIC

Last week
Scanner log
Chat log

Now
B-Snakes: Objective 2/4
B-Snakes: Crossed 3/4
UNF B-Snakes Infodoc reclassified
B-Snakes: Control 4/4

The near future
Monique Borgier

Out-of-continuity/just for fun
Ithel Black: Dive
Toni gets Latexed
Malin Goes Dark | Malin

I had a dream where I was in the role of Cameron Poe from "Con-Air". And I was the only one who had b-snakes, and Cyrus Grissom died...

The rest on my teh Livejournal.

I've been working on a new story, and I've already got the plot outline and the main thematic elements work out. I was sitting there, thinking about it, when I realized that I still hadn't finished B-Snakes.

Stupid brain.

So recently, on my favorite gaming blog, I follow a link to a Wall Street Journal article about teens who have "virtual summer jobs".

I click on the "Interactive Graphic" link. Go on, click. I would like to draw your attention to the second entry, that of one Kristina Koch. I noted, before I clicked, that the person in the thumbnail was entirely androgynous, and not in the pretty-bishounen way. I'm talking that lady on Trading Spouses, the God Warrior who was entirely indistinguishable from a potato from the neck up.

Upon following that link, I find, of course, a furry dragon avatar. An elaborate one, with Ms. Koch's actual avatar in the top left, equally elaborate. I was immediately reminded of one of the axiom of AnonyFur; the prettier and more elaborate the fursona, the uglier the person behind it.

And then I made this entry.