...looks like it's going to be another big one, circa 200K or so. There is a suggestion on my prereaders' list that I divvy it up into two chapters; I'm not sure I want to do that. Just out of curiosity, do people here have a preference?

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Just in case folks haven't been following the little tiny subheader at the top of the page, which I've started changing again recently, my fickle muse drifted back into my life last week and I've started churning out more of chapter 13. My prereaders have gotten a scene a day for the past week except for the weekend, when they got the entire extant chapter for review and to see all the new material in its proper places.
I'm not going to promise anything at this early date, but it's entirely possible that if this keeps up, I'll have the thing done by the end of August.
Wish me luck...

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

For those who can't wait for their local game store to stock a copy, GURPS Shapeshifters is now available and shipping from SJGame's online store, Warehouse 23.
www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?SJG6533

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

For those who can't wait for their local game store to stock a copy, GURPS Shapeshifters is now available and shipping from SJGame's online store, Warehouse 23.
www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?SJG6533

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

No secret meanings or hints about stories to come here. Just a fun song.
-- Bob
----------------------------------
We are what we're supposed to be
Illusions of your fantasy
All dots and lines that speak and say
What we do is what you wish to do
We are the cartoon symphony
We do the things you wanna see
Frame by frame, to the extreme
Our friends are so unreasonable
They do the unpredictable
All dots and lines that speak and say
What we do is what you wish to do
It's all an orchestra of strings,
Doing unbelievable things
Frame by frame, to the extreme
One by one, we're making it fun
We are the Cartoon Heroes, Oh oh oh
We are the ones who're gonna last forever
We came out of a crazy mind, Oh oh oh
And walked out on a piece of paper
Take a Spiderman, an arachnophobian
Welcome to the toon town party
Take a superman from nevernever land
Welcome to the toon town party
We learn to run at speed of light
And to fall down from many heights
It's true but just remember that
what we do is what you just can can't do
I know the route of craziness
A bunch of dots that's chasin' us
Frame by frame, to the extreme
One by one, we're making it fun
We are the Cartoon Heroes, Oh oh oh
We are the ones who're gonna last forever
We came out of a crazy mind, Oh oh oh
And walked out on a piece of paper
Take a Spiderman, an arachnophobian
Welcome to the toon town party
Take a superman from nevernever land
Welcome to the toon town party
You'll think we're so mysterious
Don't take us all too serious
Be original, and remember that
What we do is what you just can can't do
What we do is what you just can can't do
What we do is what you just can can't do
What we do is what you just can can't do
What we do is what you just can can't do
We are the Cartoon Heroes, Oh oh oh
We are the ones who're gonna last forever
We came out of a crazy mind, Oh oh oh
And walked out on a piece of paper
There's still more to come,
And everyone will be
Welcomed at the
Toon - Toon
Town - Town
Party
-- "Cartoon Heroes", Aqua
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Last Thursday, 17 July, Peg and I went to the theater. The Princeton Summer Theater was putting on "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown," and was having a special opening night tribute to the author/composer/lyricist of the play, Clark Gesner (Princeton class of '60), who died about a year ago. Peggy and I knew Clark -- I first met him about 22 years ago, and Peggy met him the first time I took her to the Princeton campus. Because our circles didn't often intersect, we were actually somewhere between acquaintances and friends, but he was always happy to see us, and always willing to chat for a while when we ran into each other. We both miss him quite a bit.
In any case, maudlin reminiscing aside, the show was a very good production. One wild, daring act of casting: a girl with a voice like Didi Conn was playing Snoopy, and did a fantastic job. They didn't hide the fact she was female, and had changed all the relevant pronouns in the script to "she" and "her" -- this was most explicitly an alternate Peanuts universe where Snoopy was female. This didn't change much except... well, Snoopy has always been mildly flirty with the girls in the strip and to a lesser degree in the play; however, in this production, the flirtiness got aimed at the male characters, which was just a little... odd, until you got used to it.
Anyway, if you're in the Princeton NJ area, and it's still running when you read this, consider going to see the show. Tell'em a friend of Clark's sent you.
Anyway, on to the titular fic idea. This came less from the play than from one of the prop/set pieces -- Lucy's psychiatry booth. I remembered a scene from one of the cartoons, where a coin was dropped in her jar, and she spent several minutes shaking it and rhapsodizing on the money and the sound it made... and I thought, "you know, that's so very Nabiki."
I thought about it for much of the first act, then discussed the idea with Peg at intermission. We argued a bit over the implementation (Peggy retracting her objections to one of my suggestions when she saw the number "Suppertime"), and kept discussing it for a couple days afterward. I think the idea's settled down enough that I can throw this little teaser/concept up on the board for everyone's amusement.
You're A Good Man, Ryoga Brown
by Clark Gesner and Rumiko Takahashi
Dramatis Personae:
Ryoga Brown
Nabiki Van Pelt
Tatewaki Van Pelt
Peppermint Ukyou
Mousse Schroeder
Featuring Ranma Saotome as Snoopy, and "Ranko" Saotome as The Little Red-Headed Girl.
See Ryoga get depressed and go to Nabiki for advice.
See Nabiki plan to make enough money to buy herself a queendom.
See Tatewaki attempt to live without his bokken and fail miserably.
See Ranma cower in fear at the sight of the cat next door.
Thrill to such immortal dialogue as Peppermint Ukyou's "We had okonomiyaki at our house three times this week!" and Nabiki's "My aunt Marion was right. Never discuss marriage with a magician!"
Don't miss songs like Ryoga's "The Fight Song", Tatewaki's "My Bokken and Me", Ranma's big number "Suppertime", and the classic ensemble piece "Martial Arts is..."
Coming soon to an anime-Broadway martial arts fusion theatre near you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

In case anyone needs a few brain cells killed, "Pink Lady and Jeff" are apparently being rebroadcast on the Trio network.
Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

I just finished the scene on which I have been blocked for so long, the next scene after that, and part of a third. Let's hope it lasts.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Because ClassicDrogn asked about it a few days ago, here's a capsule summary of the action in DW1. Please be aware that this is one of my earliest works, and also never got nearly as much brainshare as the other Steps did. As a result, it's somewhat skimpy compared to the other plots that are in active development, and has big "need idea here" holes.
---------
Drunkard's Walk I: A Horse Ain't A Horse, Of Course, Of Course
Summary copyright (C) 1996-2003, Robert M. Schroeck.

The local timeframe for the story is a year or two before the Valdemaran portions of "By The Sword". Elspeth would be in her early teens, long out of her "Brat" phase.
Doug awakens in the Companions' Grove in Haven, Valdemar. His arrival and attempts at diplomacy alarm the Companions, but the subsequent appearance of Heralds helps calm things down a bit. During this time he first meets Delandra ("Dee") vel'Devarn, late-teens Herald-Trainee and sole orphaned child of a noble family whose holdings lie on the Hardorn border. Dee is obsessively intense and prone to overworking herself; her Companion Sylvath is even more distrustful of Doug than most of the other Companions.
Doug establishes his bona fides, gets a bit of an orientation, and eventually is presented to the Queen, who declares him an honored guest and grants him quarters at the Collegium until he can find a way home. A magical accident involving (unknown to anyone involved) Vanyel's heartstone exchanges language skills between Dee and Doug, and for this reason she is assigned as his semi-permanent guide and aide; this relationship eventually blossoms into a deep friendship, becoming the first of the "brother-sister" relationships Doug acquires on the Walk.
To avoid going stir-crazy from lack of activity, Doug ends up teaching unarmed combat to Trainees, and trades some of his advanced techniques to Alberich for advanced training in various weapons.
While Doug settles in, we explore Dee's backstory, which centers around border disputes over her lands, which butt up against Hardorn. The death of her parents seems to be cut-and-dried, but there is something that makes her wonder; were they murdered? Who would benefit from destabilizing the area?
We meet some of the main cast from the books, including a 12-year-old Elspeth, who gets some specialized -- and deadly -- self-defense training from Doug. Doug grows increasingly depressed as he tries to find a way home and repeatedly fails.
In exploring the Collegium and the Palace, Doug discovers a forgotten part of the library holding many books on magic, and really notices for the first time the compulsion that keeps the Valdemarans from thinking much about magic. Unable to do anything about it, he studies the texts he found and learns about node magic.
Around this time he also encounters the vrondi for the first time. He can see them in magesight, and is more amused by them than anything else. Being the egotist he is, he enjoys being watched, and does some silly stuff just to get a reaction from them.
Dee suffers an accident or two that might have been intentional attempts on her. Or not.
Growing desperately lonely and homesick, Doug tries to create a gate on the site of his arrival. It backfires in a subtle and devastating way: he does little but create a massive magestorm and an illusion of Shadowwalker that breaks his heart before he realizes what it is. Dee and Sylvath have to go out, find him, and drag him back in, but not before he falls ill from a combination of exposure, his depression, and burning all his strength to force a gate.
Dee nurses him back to health, and during that time he tells her more about his homeworld than he's told anyone else.
(...)
Dee goes on leave/holiday/whatever to her family home on the Hardorn border. Doug goes with her.
Visit to Demsbury, a city (ie, large town) in Dee's home district -- it's under attack by a suspiciously large and well-equipped band of bandits. Doug and Dee fight the attackers. He uses "This Corrosion" to destroy the attackers' armor and siege weapons. In the midst of the attackers' confusion and retreat, Doug and Dee get inside the town
Doug fixes and improves the town's wooden palisade wall, using "We Built This City". Doug (using "I'm Alive") and Dee minister to the wounded of the city, as they have no healers left... including a "mole", who, after healing, attacks and critically wounds Dee; Doug kills him with his bare hands, then, over Sylvath's obvious but unvoiced objections, flies her back to Haven and the Healers' Collegium, who stabilize her.
Right after midnight, he is able to heal her, and the next day they return together to the town, which has by now discovered that their fields are absolutely devastated -- first by the battle, and then by "This Corrosion" -- most of their crop is gone. Doug tries to jumpstart the fields using "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears. Meanwhile, Sylvath throws a hissy fit about Doug while Dee is amused.
Doug and Dee finally make it to Dee's estates, discover the band of mercs wasn't an isolated incident. Somebody wants the land and they're wearing down at the defenses. The fellow overseeing the lands in Dee's absence is old and to a certain degree willfully blind about the severity of matters. He didn't want to alarm her, so he hasn't been telling her (or the Crown, for that matter) about the troubles.
(...)
Doug and Dee's defense of Demsbury seems to have stemmed the tide; regular dispatches from her estates indicate that the attacks and whatnot have dwindled to almost nothing since the big defeat. After several months, they relax and begin prepping Dee for her graduation to full Herald.
(...)
Dee is kidnapped right out of Haven just as she's leaving on some pre-arranged trip (her internship?), so her disappearance is unnoticed for a while. (Sylvath is disabled somehow.)
When they discover her kidnapping (kidnappers' demands?), he tries a new song (Radar Love, by Golden Earring) to see if he can locate her; to his surprise, it not only allows him to home in on her, it physically drags him there at mach speeds, leaving an arrow-straight swath of shockwave-caused destruction in his wake.
Dee is imprisoned in a keep on the Hardornen frontier, despairing. Feedback from song (lyrics specify two-way linkage) alerts Dee that he's coming; she's languishing in a cell of some sort. She decides that she's not going to be stuck there waiting to be rescued, and figures out a way to spring herself.
(...)
Kidnappers include a mage -- they're a hit team from Hardorn, intended to destabilize the region so it can be politically annexed. Doug faces the mage, detects a nearby node he's using. Not knowing how to handle a node properly (the books really don't say much except "don't"), Doug sucks the entire thing down in one gulp as he's triggering a song, and turns into something like a fire elemental by accident... bye-bye mage.
Dee is somehow instrumental in bringing him back, as he's lost in the welter of power.
(...)
Weeks later.
Doug moves on with a song he thinks will get him home. Tearful parting between him and Dee, cool one from Sylvath. Before he goes, he takes Dee on an illusionary tour of his home world.
(...)
Two years later, Dee is caught up in a vision -- a communication from Doug. Make it a touching coda that provides a neat closure.
------------
As you can see, it's pretty crude. Delandra doesn't get nearly as much to do as she should, and is in fact more passive than she should be. Furthermore, I set up hooks for her at the beginning and never follow through on most of them. Of course, this is mostly because I abandoned it in deference to Lackey's views on fanfiction, but if I were to ever pick it up again, I'd rebuild Dee's part from scratch, almost.
So there you go.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

In the wake of a shopping trip...
I gave her a thorough once-over. Low-heeled ankle boots that had a pattern of piecework and color that would have made them something like saddle shoes had there been more than a hair's contrast between the two shades of leather. Red spandex biker shorts. Black leather jerkin-like top with a military cut to it. Surmounting it all was that trenchcoat -- Australian-made, matte black leather, hanging nearly to her heels. She wore it slipped over her shoulders like a cape, a single button at the top of the chest holding it in place like a cloakpin. Between its swirls I thought I could see the end of her scabbard. She stopped a couple of feet away from me, planted her fists on her hips, and gave me that artless, confident grin of hers. "What do you think?"I looked her over a second time, and shook my head. "I knew Ishouldn't have let you stay up all night watching 'Highlander'."She laughed. "I can't wait to let Akio know that there can beonly *one* prince."

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.