... Doing a reading for school, when I could have gone to this!

(In fairness, midterms are next week, and I have three. Can't let myself fall behind!)

And, more importantly, did they all escape with their brains intact?

hS, probably more of a vampire than a zombie

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Still alive myself.

Since Discord isn't always friendly toward anonymizing proxies I've been out of the chat too.
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...it's a hell of a drug. I never touch the stuff myself. I like my sleep too much. I tend toward noon and later events.

How's you end up doing? Pull anything fun?

-Phobos

Got to Germany a few weeks ago to start on my semester of doing research, and since then I've ... done some research. Most of what I've gotten up to was on the project I had started last semester, which has good results now, but the things I specifically came here for are starting up now that all the relevant people are back from traveling.

On top of that, I'm getting hit with all the stuff that goes along with applying to PhD programs. So I'm busy, but not quite buried under all the work (as the inhabitants of the Discord can attest)

- Tomash

I'm spending far too much time trying to revamp my website in the wake of the loss of Photobucket. I could just patch the problems, but I'd rather do a full rebuild and get something that looks good and is stable.

hS

I have some freelance line editing work this coming month, so that's going to keep me busy. Also some proofreading lined up for January. I'm pretty excited about it. I'd just about given up on working in publishing, but I seem to have stumbled upon another path to the goal, if all goes well. ^_^

Phobos wanted to go to prerelease, but unfortunately his usual card shop messed up and didn't get the stuff, and the only other place available was full up. Sadface.

~Neshomeh

Because it's been a while since I posted here and this sounded like fun, so why the heck not.

1) "Try Again, Twi. you can do it." said spike

"Phew' This spell's a toughie. But I feel Lucky this time." said Twilight

"You can say that again, Twilight" said Ash as Twilight turns around and sees Ash "Ash you made it" Twilight said as she nuzzle him "I never be late and spike's right try again" said Ash as twilight smiled then went back at the apple "One...Two..." her horn is glowing ready to change the apple until "Hi!" Pinkie pie pounce on her then her magic was misfire bouncing at every side and hits the bird

"Pinkie you should be careful you almost got hit" Ash said

"Ash is right Why'd you do that?" said Twilight

"Sorry 'cause hugs are funeriffic! especially when you throw one around a friend. Whatcha doin'?" said Pinkie

"Trying to turn that apple into an Orange." said Twilight

"But you kind of threw her aim off." said spike as they see a orange with wings flying pass them "Well they don't call them flying oranges for nothing" Ash said in the humor but sees the flying orange ridiculous "Ash I got your side set for you to start practicing your alicorn magic" Twilight shows Ash an strawberry "So I need to turn that strawberry to something?" said Ash

"Yes Ash you need to change it to a kiwi" said spike

"I can do that" said Ash

----------

2) "Your skin... It sprakles!" I gasped.

Violet looked down at her foream, turning her hand over and over. It was indeed true; her skin seemd to glisten like a million diamonds had been embedded into her skin. She stepped away from the ray of sunlight, her expression sullen.

"You cann't be near me, Wilbur, it's too dangerous," she said. "I could kill you. The possibility really is there. You could vanish one night, without a trace, and nobody would eer know hwere you went. The only trace of your fate would be hte blood on my fangs!"

"It's a risk I'm willng to take," I replied, my eyes taking a look of stely determination. "Violet, I... I always wanted to tell you this... You're BEAUTIFUL."

Her eyes widened. "...I am??"

"You've always been beautiful, Vi." A warm smile on my face "And being av ampire doesn't change that at all."

----------

3) Harry finished eating the man that had shot him, he could smell the others that dared come to his island. He quickly got to the odd, white object and growled. He quietly got close to the object and smelled it, yes the intruders were inside of the thing. Harry smashed his right clawed hand into the thing's side, his claws sinking into the 'skin' of the object without any resistance. He then sank his other hand into the other side of the thing and then started pulling, the object making a ripping sound before it fell off, landing with a crash to the forest floor.

His targets were staring at him with fear, yes, he was the alpha predator here! He looked over all of the humans until his eyes came across one with red hair and bright emerald green eyes, he knew her. A memory flashed in his mind, that woman was holding him in her arms and was smiling at him. Roaring in pain as the memory hurt his mind so much, like his skull was being attacked by the vicious claw of the raptors! Harry angrily roared at the woman and lunged forward, attempting to snap at her legs.

He got a man instead, Harry dropped him and as he tried to crawl away, he stepped on his legs before tearing him in half. He ate the man before he used his powers to slash the tree down, making the object roll away, he gave chase. That woman would die, somehow she had hurt him, the greatest predator of the island! The pathetic humans had run out of the safety of the object before returning to it, attempting to hide. Well, he thought, I'll make sure they don't escape.

----------

Which one is the fake? Take your pick! :D

-SS

Three uncanonical Harry Potter spawns:


1) It took all the Slytherin Prince had not to kick Potter as he looked up at him from the dust of the graveyard. "Not so cocky now are you Potter?" He said sneering.

"Not so cocky indeed." Said Vodemort. He was finally finished regenerating. "You have done well Draco." He walked over to Potter. His black cloak swirled elegantly around him. "You were the chosen one mr Potter." He said. "And now you will die." He pointed his wand at Harry and used the killing curse. "Now Draco my son it is time to begin."

"Yes father." Malfoy said. His silver eyes shone with devotion. Finally after all this time pretending to be a weakling and a coward he would finally take his place at his father's side.

Voldemort took out his wand and pressed it against his Dark Mark. "Come to me my death eaters." And they were there the graveyard. Dolahov and Snape. Malfoy and Greyback. And all the rest. "My friends it is good to see you." He said. "It is time for us to step out from the shadows."

"My lord we will do as you say." They said.

Voldemort put a firm white hand on Malfoy's shoulder. "And my son shall lead you."

The Prince smirked. He was going to make them pay. Granger, Weasley and everyone who had mocked him would all pay.


2) A beautiful baby girl was born to two loving parents within the Snape family: Severus and Jaquiline. Both were of pureblooded origins, making the little girl pureblooded as well.

With curly black hair, deep blue eyes, and pale skin, her parents thought her perfect. Her godparents thought the same, as did her best friend (once he was old enough to understand, that is). Everyone who met her was simply enchanted, though she had no control over this.

Betrothal contracts were begged of Severus Snape, but he refused. If his daughter was to marry, it would be for love- as long as her suitor was pure blooded.

Now, the Snape family (which is one of the oldest when it comes to being pureblood) was also of mythical descent; that is to say, of sirenic descent. The song and beauty of the sirens ran through their veins. Their song was enchanting and caught attention of all. Their voice was a power of theirs, but it was not the most important. What was the most important, you ask? One word.

Love.


3) Harry's jaw dropped at the sight of her. She looked Harry's age and had long flaming red hair, matted with blood and water and hazel eyes filled with tears. Her clothes were wet and torn and covered in dirt from the storm, and her face was stained with water droplets, blood, and dirt. Needless to say, she did look like Lily Potter. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were the exact same color as James Potter. Wait...no...her eyes changed. They went from hazel to green, back to hazel.

Professor McGonagall moved Harry's hand to look at his scar while Professor Snape took the Lily Potter look-alike's wrist. "Bloody hell." Snape muttered. Everyone crowded around to look at her wrist. It was the same lightning shaped scar that Harry had on his forehead.

"What's your name dear?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Ph-Phoenix." She said softly.

"Your full name, please." Professor Dumbledore stated kindly.

She took a deep breath, "Phoenix Minerva Potter."


Which one's the fake? (Trick question; they all are! {= D )

~Neshomeh

So guess what fandom I'm doing?

Also, because I'm an especial jerk, below are two real badfic excerpts, one made up by me, and one passage from Stephen King's actual It novel. Make your guess!
-----
1. He stared at you for a moment, smile fading.

“What? I thought we were having fun?”

“You made me fall! My [butt] is wet now! I told you to be gentle if we did this.”

Pennywise frowned then, extending a hand to you which you accepted. He pulled you to your feet. He brushed your wild hair out of your face, cupping your cheeks with one gigantic hand.
-----
2. He felt as if someone had whopped all the breath out of him . . . and then he heard that sound again, that sound that was half pressure on the skin and eardrums, that keen homicidal whispering rush—Swiipppp! He rolled off the bench onto the gravel, thinking So this is what they mean by déja-vu, now you know, you'll never have to ask anybody again—

He hit on his shoulder and rolled, looking up at the Paul Bunyan statue—only it was no longer Paul Bunyan. The clown stood there instead, resplendent and evident, fantastic in plastic, twenty feet of Day-Glo colors, its painted face surmounting a cosmic comic ruff. Orange pompom buttons cast in plastic, each as big as a volleyball, ran down the front of the silvery suit. Instead of an axe it held a huge bunch of plastic balloons. Engraved on each were two legends: IT'S STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME and RICHIE TOZIER'S "ALL DEAD" ROCK SHOW.

He scrambled backward, using his heels and his palms. Gravel went down the back of his pants. He heard a seam tear loose in the underarm of his Rodeo Drive sportcoat. He rolled over, gained his feet, staggered, looked back. The clown looked down at him. Its eyes rolled wetly in their sockets.

"Did I give you a scare, m'man?" it rumbled.
-----
3. It had learned, early on, that adults were more difficult to feed on.

Mind, there were no limits on what It could do. Rather than limiting, being in a space with only three dimensions essentially gave It endless room for change: manipulation, transformation, even rewritng the minds and memories of Its prey.

So while It was certainly capapble of transforming into, say, the fear of looming bills or the threat of divorce, there was something so much more visceral about the more overt fears of children.

If nothing else, the forms of childrens' fears made it easier to retain teeth.
-----
4. But The Bat didn't get far as something grabbed him from behind and threw him back into the open spot where he crashed. Batman jumped and threw several batwings at a wide angle but his enemy was nowhere to be seen.

"I/we waited so long for you, Bat-Man...Man-Bat...I/we expected more from you. You used to be such a worthy opponent.", mocked The Joker from the dark.

"Pennywise! Joker! Show yourself!", Batman shouted as he tensed up, ready for the attack.

—doctorlit is his own Loser's Club

1) "Yes, its true." I said looking away in embarrassment. "I am The Lost Olympian."

Annabeth gasped "But that's impossible! Selene disappeared over ten thousand years ago and your only sixteen! And Percy's sister!"

"I was reborn as Percy's sister" I said softly. "I needed to fulfil the Prophecy." I recited:

Daughter of Moon and Daughter of Night
Comes into the world a mortal to fight
With Sea and Wit she sails alone
Until one day she comes back home

"I didn't know about it until now" I said. "Please don't hate me."

Annabeth hugged me. "I could never hate you."

2) "There must be some mistake, my Lady would never have a child, let alone a son" snapped the girl who had been talking to Chiron.

"There is no mistake, Ms Nightshade, the symbol was Artemis claiming her child, I was informed earlier today that Percy was her son" corrected Chiron as he came over just in case she attacked him in some way.

3) My name is Penny Jackson,daughter of Poseidon. And I'm immortal.

Wanna know how? After the defeat of Kronos,the gods offered immortality to Percy,but he refused for Annabeth. Cute right? So they gave the immortality to me. It has upsides,and downsides.

The good thing is I won't die. But turns out,it's actually possible for immortals to die,and since I'm just a junior or whatever,my immortality isn't that strong. So,it's kinda like the Hunters of Artemis thing. If I don't get hurt,I'll be fine.

1) I didn't know what to think. Both Draco and Harry wanted me? But I was just an ordinary, plain girl with long, flowing black hair and silver eyes. Why was I so special that the hottest boys in school were about to start hexing each other over me?

2) "Are you going to believe me without Veritaserum?"

"We'll see. Start talking."

"Okay, well first off, I really am Harry Potter…but I'm not four years old. I'm actually seventeen. When I was one year old…"

3) I was so happy with my new job. My father wasn't as pleased as I, probably because he rather see me working at the Ministry of Magic than Hogwarts but I didn't care which one were more important. I only had space in my heart for one place and it was the school of magic. Also, Albus Dumbledore came to my house in London personally to offer the job. Who - in their right mind - would refuse such an invitation? Think I said yes with my mouth fulled of my mother's (delicious!) toasts with smoked salmon when the director asked me during brunch - he didn't seem to mind my behavior and noticed how grateful I was. Since the day he visit 'til the day I had to leave home the anxiety took over me completly. I was eating like a pig with pms, even chocolat started to taste like water after a while - and I couldn't hear that word anymore or I would vomite. When I had everything with me I was ready to go take the train. My father, one grumpy slytherin, kissed my forehead. My mother, a lovely gryffindor, hugged me until there was no more oxigen in my lungs.

1) Sigyn Faye Anasta stood outside by the park outside of London. She knew it was a matter of time before she was truly hunted for what she was. She was the last of the true immortals. Yes, there was other out there but they were all tainted by the other two immortals, vampires and werewolves. Until there was a way to cure them there was no hope with their blood. The wind blew moving her blonde hair across her face. Her blue eyes locked with the nearly full moon. Her father died when she was in Hogwarts and that was centuries ago. Her mother died in child birth with her during a total solar eclipse. But she looked like she was in her mid-twenties. A scent caught her attention she had many traits of her fellow immortals. A heightened sense of smell and sight were just a few.

2) I grabbed an arrow from my quiver and load it on to my bow, I leaped to the front while at the same time turned my body to face the beast, and simultaneously released the strings of my bow and let the arrow fly towards the giant's head. I did my best attempt of an "action movie style archery" and shoot my arrow right to his head. And guess what folks? I f***ing did it! Well, only the whole "action movie style archery" part that is, it turned out my arrow just bounced off his skin.

3) "How could you, Ruby!?" I screamed, hearing Ruby's hurtful words. The pain in my chest was unbearable, and not only because of the Beowulf's claws. I loved her. She was the only anchor I had in this unfair world. She was everything to me! And now? It was all over.
"I'm one of them now! You know it, Yang knows it, everybody else will know, too! I'm gonna become half-Grimm!"

1) Once upon a time over 20 year ago professour Lupus was sit in his house he was only teenager now and he had not been made into the wearwolf yet.

2) [...] [Luna] woke rather suddenly with that familiar fire between her perfectly smooth legs. "Oh no, not now! Silly vagina and your feelings, always taking control of me like this!" she spoke to herself softly, a giggle leaving her lips.

3) but professor, hermione whaled, i cant go outside like this! i'm nakid andd ron wont like it!

I think the first one is real because it would be the most difficult style to affect deliberately. Reads like someone whose first language is not English as well as not knowing where to draw the line between narrative and author's note.

The second one could be fake because it's a bunch of Suvian cliches without any obvious writing tics (other than an improper semicolon), easy enough to fake, but that one specific detail about the family name gives me pause. Why Bellagio? Seems like something that could have specific importance to the author—but then again, it could be something randomly pulled out of nowhere. Or both!

The third one could be fake because it reminds me of "The Girl and Her Dragon," and I can totally see Iximaz pulling that off. It's not quite the same tic, though, since there are actual sentences here, even if they are improperly run together in a single paragraph. The weird spacing around the punctuation is another thing I feel like I've seen somewhere before. It could be a deliberate recombination of different problems, or it could just be terrible writing.

Hmmm.

I'm gonna go with the second one being the fake. It just seems like the easiest to make up.

~Neshomeh

Where did you graduate from, and what are your plans from here?

I can't believe nobody has made that joke yet. So, let me be the first.

So you know all the fuss a few weeks/months ago over the supposed author of My Immortal publishing a memoir?

She lied.

The TL;DR of it is that s**t went down, she forged documents, the memoir has been canceled, and her brother wasn't as lost as she claimed. Someone doxxed her; she lied about being Native American, about being put in the foster care system, and her claims of writing a trollfic in order to find her brother when he's been on Facebook all along and contacted her several times are, quite simply, false.

She was just another person who tried to claim the story as hers for attention.

Yesterday, October 1st, Germany's new same-sex marriage legislation came into effect. From now on, a marriage can be entered by "two persons of the same or different sex/gender". Still, there is a lot of cleaning up in other legal texts that still refer to "man" and "woman" necessary, as well as clarification on wether intersex people, who can opt to have the space for sex/gender to be left empty on official documents and IDs, can marry.

Still, it's a big step in the right direction.

~Ak, throwing rainbow confetti

Some fandom news.

Sword Art Online: Alicization has recently been annouced. I've been waiting for this ever since Ordinal Scale teased its release.

Some bad news.

Apparently, Hollywood thought it was a good idea to adapt yet another anime into live action. This time, they have chosen to adapt "Kimi o na wa" or "Your Name". They just never learn, do they? Given their track record, I can only hope that it is at least better than Dragonball Evolution and Netflix Death Note.

Did anyone know that Iron Sky has a website? Some of you probably did, but I only recently discovered it, and am very excited to begin exploring once I get over my chicken-ness and start. All I know is it's got a Flash thing on the main page, so it's probably interactive to some degree. Probably also was made to promote the upcoming second movie (which will ironically enough be released in 2018, and if you remember the Friday Forum segment hS did on it, will involve Hitler riding a T-rex. Yep. It's that weird.)

Ironsky.net is the address. Type it in if you dare, because apparently it doesn't turn into a link.

Now, some of you may be asking, why am I suddenly so knowledgeable about this movie that hS told us about one random day? The answer is: I got curious, especially since 2018 (when the space Nazis land in the movie) is the second calendar year in this school year, and I started speculating about what some of my friends would do if some of the spacefaring fascists took a wrong turn and landed near their location. Upon reading the plot of the movie on Wikipedia, I learned exactly how hilariously weird the movie was (and also concluded that were this to happen IRL, I'd probably get some blonde hair dye thrown at my face. And I would absolutely hate it.) I decided I liked it, and then continued researching it further. And then I found the website and bookmarked it. So yeah.

Thank you for reading my weird piece of Not News. You may now continue with life.

-Twistey

(And because this was posted mainly for hS, I shall accompany it with a piece of obligatory googly-eyed Walfas art.

http://www.makemegoogly.com/67XB7

There you go.)

This post comes to you live from the Touchdown Café in Canterbury Christ Church University, where I have just embarked upon an MA in Creative Writing. It's a fascinating course with a lot of time to hone my craft as a genre author, so it'll be interesting to see how this affects my PPC stuff.

One of the course elements that I'm particularly excited about is a section on learning to write critical essays... so I'll be doing that. I have something in mind for what to write a critical essay concerning, too:

TOS.

Wish me luck. =]

This isn't a new story, but a friend of mine showed it to me today, and I bet it will interest most of you folks, too. Neuroscience shows that reading can make you better at peopling. {= )

"Your Brain on Fiction"

~Neshomeh

Fallen London is a thing, as those who frequent the Discord may be aware. In considerably more exciting news, a new game in the same setting, Sunless Skies, is in public beta, and was showcased at EGX this week.

The fantastic platformer N++ is coming to Xbox One very soon now. If you ever played the original flash game, or N+ on the 360, you know the drill. If you never played the flash game... Well, it's free, so play it before you buy this one if you're considering it, so you know what you're in for.

Another event you may not be aware of that happened... In July? Jeez... Is the annual XYZZY Awards! Where the Interactive Fiction Community picks the best IF of the year, commercial or hobbyist, CYOA and Twine stuff to traditional Parser IF ala Zork or Adventure itself. I haven't looked over this year's winners yet, but in last year's awards (for the works of 2015), Birdland, a CYOA Twine affair, swept the categories. I would absolutely suggest playing it, because it is funny and touching and amazing and you can save the world from birds really what more do you WANT?

[takes breath after run-on]

In other news, I somehow managed to miss the release of The Delirium Brief, the newest Laundry Files Novel. The Laundry Files are, of course, excellent, and I cannot recommend them enough.

I don't think its anything specific about Gotham in particular, but it is a growing trend in comics at large.

We now have confirmed airdates for the new series of Robot Wars and Red Dwarf: the 22nd and 12th of October respectively. So that's fun!

Also, in rather substantially less fun news, Northern Irish YouTube content creator and former ChezApocalypse person Jill Bearup (who mentioned us in a long series about the history of fanfiction) was someone I respected considerably. I say was because she went full TERF recently, comparing - and I swear I'm not making this up - wanting to transition to wanting to eat chocolate cake for every meal. Now, when she brought us up in History Of Fanfiction Part 6: I Love You, Mary Sue, she said a lot of what we'd done over the years came off as "mean".

I'm not saying there's a correlation between bad feminism and Mary Sue defenders.

I'm just heavily implying it, because that's what I think.