video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5206257500748953004&q=legend+of+zelda
An old Japanese commericial for The Legend of Zelda. So very very 80's.--
Oh, what has science wrought? I sought only to turn a man into a metal-encased juggernaught of destruction powered by the unknown properties of a mysterious living crystal. How could this have all gone wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

Were the board's display fonts changed recently? I haven't changed anything on this end, but the text on the boards looks different. It's hard to describe, but they look kind of "light weight" to me in recent days.
Jeanne

I know we've all got at least one of these - an idea that hovers constantly at the edges of your mind, taunting you with this piece or that piece, but never stepping forward long enough or far enough to latch on to it and put it down on paper or electrons.
So, since I'm bored, I thought it might be interesting to talk to people about them.

God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Put it in the soul of everyone
Do you know what you want? You don't know for sure
You don't feel right, you can't find a cure
And you're gettin' less than what you're lookin' for
You don't have money or a fancy car
And you're tired of wishin' on a falling star
You gotta put your faith in a loud guitar
Chorus:
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Gave rock and roll to everyone (oh yeah)
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Put it in the soul of everyone
"Now listen"
If you wanna be a singer, or play guitar
Man, you gotta sweat or you won't get far
Cause it's never too late to work nine-to-five
You can take a stand, or you can compromise
You can work real hard or just fantasize
But you don't start livin' till you realize - "I gotta tell ya!"
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Gave rock and roll to everyone
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Put it in the soul
(Instrumental break)
God gave rock and roll to you (to everyone he gave the song to be sung)
Gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to everyone
God gave rock and roll to you (to everyone he gave the song to be sung)
Gave rock and roll to you, saved rock and roll for everyone
Saved rock and roll
chorus repeats out...
"I know life sometimes can get tough! And I know life sometimes can be a drag!
But people, we have been given a gift, we have been given a road
And that road's name is... Rock and Roll!"
--Kiss, God Gave Rock and Roll To You II
The way I see this one... everyone within Doug's AoE who can hear the song, and who's present for the entire duration, gets one shot of his own broken magegift.
The very next song each individual hears, if it's one in Doug's arsenal, will activate as if that individual were Doug.
And, as a side-effect, ordinary magegifts won't function until the power has been discharged...
--Sam
"This is a totally deep hole."

By Phil Collins

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
(Doug recieves a premonition about a target's near-future actions, must be played after dark)
Ive been waiting for this moment, all my life, oh lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord, oh lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
(Target must be someone Doug dislikes or outright despises)
Ive seen your face before my friend
But I dont know if you know who I am
(Doug must be able to recognise the target by sight, thoguh they need not know him)
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off the grin, I know where youve been
(After the initial precog burst at the beginning of the song, the trance continues, and he sees groundwork already done as if he was an observer present at the time, including rough knowledge of where it happened, enoguh to draw a circle on a state map)
Its all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
Ive been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh lord, oh lord
And Ive been waiting for this moment all my life, oh lord, oh lord
Well I remember, I remember dont worry
How could I ever forget, its the first time, the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you dont fool me
The hurt doesnt show; but the pain still grows
Its no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord...

It should probably be less a matter of Doug thinking about a specific bad guy to target, than his subconscious picking one at semi-random from whoever fits the criteria in local reality - trying to force a psecific target makes it likely to backfire and just play through the first and or last time he encountered that target rather than showing anything new, and there's a certain level of nastiness that must apply to the things being plotted before it'll key in. So, on aslow night when the biggest evil underfoot is filling the Badmobile and drving off without paying, or using solid-light projection abilites to make it look like athe female lead is naked throughout the movie in a theeater, he gets to reminisce over that time Doctor Splice tried the old "water trap & mutant sharks" deathtrap and he turned the sharks into sea monkeys.
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

...mostly because I'm having fun picturing Bob making puppy-dog eyes at a Game Master and saying, "Please?"
Play That Song Again
Joan Jett, Ricky Bird, & Frank Carillo
Twenty-one and lost out on the street,
You won't take nobody's sympathy.
Back at home you reached for love
But you was turned away.
Black and blue, you cry most every night.
You tell your friends that everything's all right
Hoping when you close your eyes
It all will go away.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
It's though there's someone trying to break you down;
There's a million takers in this town.
It's too hard when no one even wants to understand.
Guitar coming from a radio,
Always takes you where you wanna go;
Somehow all your troubles always seem to fade away.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
Guitar coming from a radio,
Always takes you where you wanna go.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
All right all night.
All right all night.
Effect: Doug has to play this song completely through, but then if he starts a new power song within thirty seconds, the power from the new song lasts twice as long as the song itself does ("playing" the song again) -- unless it's night. In that case, the power lasts for the rest of the night.
That's not necessarily as beneficial as sounds, because he can't shut it off once the second power song has finished playing -- he has to wait for the extended duration to complete -- and he can't use any other power songs during that period.
And if you need another unpleasant side effect, Doug feels like an alienated, unloved twenty-something at least during the playing of the initial song, although the second song should cheer him up.
DHBirr
"Up, lad, up! We've villages to pillage, maidens to slay, and dragons to rescue!"
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

About a week ago I noticed some of the threads that contained a large number of links to fanfics were getting very far down the Discussion Board list and very hard to find.
I've converted a couple of the older ones into a single smaller incomplete HTML page originally for my own personal use.
It's not complete and my goal was never to create a sorted or easy to use fanfic links page so it isn't pretty.
I does contain every link from two of the older threads I've so far edited into a abridged HTML version.
Since it was originally for personal use I've made no effort to credit the board members that started the thread or added comments and links.
www.geocities.com/hmelton...iction.htm
Hopefully you can access this page directly.
Please post a message here if you can't access it.
I will leave it at it's present location with irregular updates as long as no one complains about the blatent plagerism of me editing (by cut&paste) and posting other peoples comments without crediting them.
howard melton
God bless

I'm such a pathetic Evangelion fan that I know that Asuka's birthday is the 4th of December.....
*sigh*
Even worse? Rei's "official" birthdate is March 31st.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Is anyone else having problems getting to the RAALS site? I can't connect to it for some reason.*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org

A blast from the past here, something I haven't worked on in years but that keeps rising up in my backbrain and demanding attention.
This one has more of a psychological theme than most of my work. It's a meditation on identity, on the various forces -- internal and external -- that shape us. Experience, memory, personality -- all of these interact in subtle ways; our reaction to what's happening to and around us, our experiences, is colored by our personality and by our memories of the past; experience then fades and becomes memory, less and less accurate as time goes by and we unconsciously edit it -- editing itself guided by subsequent experiences and personality; finally, personality itself is at least partly shaped by lying memory and recent experience. We are what we have made of ourselves, and what the world has made of us. Experience, memory, personality.
Take one of those away, and things can get... interesting.
Mind you, this should also be a rollicking good heroic fantasy with True Love, High Adventure, Mistaken Identity, High Weirdness, and -- considering the setting -- a dab of Cosmic Horror and Things From Beyond.
Welcome to the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft.

YUME NO TORA:
Tiger of Dreams
A Twisted Tale from Beyond the Wall of Sleep
The First Night: What Dreams May Come

The world was a tunnel, damp rock walls dimly lit by patches of leprous glowing fungi. The wanderer could not remember how long he'd been walking, why he was here...or even who he was. It worried him from time to time, but there was little he could do about it.
Ahead, for the first time in memory, something different: a narrow side-tunnel led right and down; flickering, ruddy light came from somewhere deep within.
As the wanderer studied his new option, another man walked out of the darkness of the primary tunnel. The stranger was so intent on studying a large map that he nearly collided with the wanderer.
"Whoa! Sorry, didn't see you there," he apologized, then squinted at the wanderer. "Excuse me, but have we met before?"
"I was just thinkin' the same thing," the wanderer replied. "I can't quite place it, though...what was your name?"
The stranger paused. "...Y'know, I can't remember it. Or much of anything else."
"Huh. Join the club! I think my name begins with an R...Ran-something...but not much beyond that. You have any idea where we are?"
"No clue. I know I was going somewhere, someplace I really have to be...but I can't remember what or where it is, and this stupid map is absolutely NO help!"
"Can I have a look?" The wanderer pored over the ancient parchment. "Hmmm... Pingaree... Mountains of Mo... Nonestic Ocean? Jeez, I've never heard of any of this." He pointed to a dashed line. "'Nome King's Tunnel?' That's the only thing here that fits the bill..."
"No, that doesn't sound right..." the stranger muttered. "Maybe I'm using the wrong map. I've got a whole bunch in my backpack." He unshouldered the heavy pack and rummaged through it, coming up with a sheaf of similar parchments.
Ten minutes later, the two had gone through maps of Zothique, Prydain, Patanga, Yoknapatawpha County, Barsetshire, Middle-earth, Midkemia, Sosaria, Schlarrafenlande, Florin and Guilder, Hyborea, Barsoom, Opar, Pal-ul-don, and Los Angeles. None were of the slightest use.
"Well," the wanderer sighed, "there's nothin' back the way I came but miles and miles of miles and miles. This's the first branch I've found. How 'bout you?"
"Just the same," the stranger answered as he repacked the maps. "I've been walking down that damn tunnel for as far back as I can remember..."
The wanderer jerked a thumb at the red-lit side tunnel. "Looks like this's our only option. Wanna team up for the duration?"
"Sure," the stranger replied. "Looks like we'd be going the same way anyhow, Ran...ran..." He shook his head. "Damn! I almost had it! I'm sure I know you from somewhere, but..."
The wanderer stood deep in thought. Ran... something. Ran... toe? Tao? Tao-me... "I think it's somethin' like...Rantaome?" He shrugged. "That ain't it, but it's close...I guess it'll do for now. Can you come up with somethin'? I don't wanna keep usin' 'Hey, You!'"
Now it was the stranger's turn to cogitate. 'Rantaome' fancied he could see steam coming out the other's ears. "I know it starts with R, same as yours...Ryou...Ryouki! No, wait, that's not right..."
"Close enough for government work," Rantaome interrupted. "You wanna spend all day burnin' braincells? Let's go!"
"I guess you're right," the newly-dubbed Ryouki agreed. "I'm tired of staring at mushrooms anyway." With that, he shouldered the pack and set off...back the way he came!
Rantaome grabbed his shoulder. "'Scuse me, but we were goin' this way?" He pointed toward the side-tunnel.
Ryouki looked about, surprised. "Wha'...? I could've sworn I was going that way..."
"Never mind. Let's just get outta here..."

The new tunnel sloped gently down for a hundred feet or so before twisting left. As they approached the curve the distant firelight grew brighter, letting the two get a good look at one another -- and themselves--for the first time.
Both were boys of perhaps seventeen, tall and black-haired. Rantaome wore black pants and a red silk shirt with wooden ties; his hair was tied off in a pigtail. Ryouki was clad in yellow and black, a shaggy mop of hair held in check by a like-colored bandanna; his heavy pack was topped by a bamboo umbrella. When he spoke, he revealed somewhat outsize canines.
Both were now sure they'd met before. Their memories, however, remained obstinately vague.
The curve led to a stairway spiralling into the depths. The light's source was definitely somewhere below; the two descended.

"...Sixty-eight, sixty-nine...seventy," Ryouki muttered as they reached the bottom.
"Seventy? I only counted sixty-nine," Rantaome disputed.
"I was counting from the first step, and there're seventy. You want to go back and try again?"
"So was I, and I say sixty-nine!"
"Seventy," Ryouki stated flatly.
Rantaome shook his head. "This's stupid," he concluded. "How about this: there're sixty-nine and a half!"
Ryouki grinned. "I like the way you think. Sixty-nine and a half steps it is..."
At the foot of the stairway, the tunnel made a sharp right. The companions followed it...and stepped back in shock. Ahead, the tunnel flared into a great cavern...at least a hundred feet across, three hundred high, and brilliantly lit by a vast pillar of flame!
As they stood in awe, a voice rang across the chamber. "Greetings, O dreamers! Enter and be welcome! I am Nasht..."
Another broke in, "...and I am Kaman-Thah! We congratulate you...
"...on finding the Way! Enter, and be not afraid!"
His paralysis broken, Rantaome turned to Ryouki. "This what you were lookin' for?"
Ryouki, still shaken, shook his head. "I think I'd've remembered this!" he replied. "I've never seen anything like it in my life...I think."
"And did he say...'dreamers'? Let's check this out."
The companions walked slowly into the cave, trying not to gawk at its sheer immensity. Odd furnishings were scattered here and there: shelves piled high with ancient books and crumbling scrolls, a great stone altar carved with glyphs unpleasant to look upon...
Ahead, silhouetted against the flame-pillar, two tall figures waited: hoary and wizened, keen eyes peering out of vast thickets of greying hair, Nasht and Kaman-Thah projected a near-palpable aura of majesty. Completing the picture were their tall hats, reminiscent of the crowns of ancient Egypt--the word "pschents" flashed across Ryouki's lightly stunned mind.
Rantaome broke the silence first. "Um... pardon us... Can you tell me, um... where we are? And... well..."
"...where we're going?" Ryouki put in bluntly. "And why neither of us can remember anything?"
The one on the left, Nasht judging by faint distinctions in the timbre of their voices, chuckled deeply. "Ask not where you are, young ones, for this is every place and no place at all. Ask rather what you are now doing..."
"...and we shall answer," Kaman-Thah picked up, "'You are dreaming.' This answers also your third question, though not your second."
The boys stared at each other, then back at the tall old men. "This is a dream?" Rantaome finally asked. "So I'm asleep and dreaming all of you?"
"No, it's got to be me dreaming you," Ryouki insisted. "At least I hope it is, because I don't want to wake up and find out I'm a butterfly or some weird crap like that."
"Neither is the case," Nasht boomed. "You are both real beings, dreaming the same dream -- a dream that has led you both here at once, something which is most..."
"...Unusual," the other continued, an amused frown crossing his leathery face. "Unprecedented in the history of the Cavern, in fact. But not, I think, actually against any of the Rules."
"Indeed not. Shall we then address and inform them simultaneously?"
"May as well."
"Right, then." Nasht pulled himself into a slightly more towering state, and elucidated: "This, young travelers, is the Cavern of Flame -- the gateway between the two states of dreaming."
"Every human mind has its own private dreamscape," Kaman-Thah spoke, "a thing of airy fancy and little moment. At the same time, every mind touches lightly upon the realms of deeper dreaming to shape and sustain a single vast world -- the true Dreamlands of Earth."
"Most dreamers never truly visit the Dreamlands, save a glimpse or two in childhood or drug-induced stupor. It is a dangerous place, and a buffer is needed to ensure that only truly great dreamers -- the wise, the brave, the blessed, the hopelessly mad -- can enter."
"This is the buffer zone, and we are the judges. My brother and I are the eternal Priests of Dream, set here to prevent tragedy and great loss of life or sanity."
"And you, young ones, are our latest case."

There was silence for a moment, then another, as Rantaome and Ryouki tried to digest all this.
"...So... If we qualify..." the pigtailed youth managed, "you let us through, into this fantasy world? Then what? Do we ever wake up again?"
"Certainly!" Nasht laughed. "You will awaken to the real world, and when you again sleep you may -- if you so desire -- pass directly to the Dreamlands without again visiting this Cavern. It is by no means a permanent change of address -- at least, not immediately."
"Not... immediately?" Ryouki frowned. "That doesn't sound good."
"My brother, I think, enjoys worrying our guests overmuch," the other priest grinned. "A true dreamer has, in essence, two lives. Should you die in the Dreamlands, you will awaken unharmed -- but you will have forever lost access to deeper dream. But should a dreamer die first in the waking world, he may postpone final judgement upon his soul by retiring to the Dreamlands, there to live out both nights and days until Death again claims him."
The fanged boy had to admit that seemed like a good deal. "What about our memories? Will they come back?"
"Dream-amnesia is a common enough thing," Nasht mused. "It is likely that neither of you will recall this experience when you awaken -- for the moment each of you is, in effect, leading two entirely separate lives. It may pass with time, or it may linger.
"But enough of this! You have come here," he stated with a smile, "down the... Sixty-Nine and a Half Steps of Light Slumber..." (at this Rantaome, Ryouki, and Kaman-Thah winced) "...and it is our decision that you are both worthy to pass down the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Sleep, and become True Dreamers. Is it your desire, then, to enter the Dreamlands?"
Rantaome thought for a time. "I think... I think if I had all my memories with me, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. I can't really pin anything down, but I think my life's been way too stressful lately... too much excitement an' stress..."
"...They're talking about sending us to some kind of fantasy world, you know. Won't there be excitement and stress there?"
"Indeed there will, young man," Kaman-Thah interrupted. "The Dreamlands are not tame by any standards -- adventure is the order of the day, although there are islands of calm in the storm. Monsters walk the earth, evil men -- dreamers and dreamlanders alike -- plot there as they do here, and all manner of magic and mayhem can be found within."
"...I still think I should go," Rantaome concluded. "Whatever my 'waking life' is like, I think it's kinda repetitive. I'm stressed out and tired of the same old same old, y'know? Whatever's down there it's gonna be a different kind of excitement, and I'm ready for that. You?"
Ryouki nodded. "I'm going too. I was looking for something when we met... maybe I'll find it in the Dreamlands, or at least find out what it is."
The two youths turned to face the Priests of Dream. "We're ready," they said in unison, and Nasht and Kaman-Thah moved aside to reveal behind them the way down.

In these latter days much of the Dreamlands have been very thoroughly defined and explored, so that any dreamer may rely on the best-known regions to be waiting beyond the Seven Hundred Steps; the exact distance from Ulthar down the Skai to Dylath-Leen may vary by as many as five miles, but one may rest assured that the city of basalt towers does indeed lie downstream from that town where no man may kill a cat. Likewise, the geography of the three great continents and the seas that separate them is well-known; though dreamers who wander too far inland from Ilek-Vad may find themselves trapped in an unformed and chaotic waste, and reports on the land of Sarrub cannot agree on its true nature.
In ancient times, though, when the first primitive humans walked the shores of Theem'hdra, the Primal Continent a million years vanished--ah, then the Dreamlands were yet in flux, shaped and reshaped without end by the nascent dreams of mankind. But even then, even when the first human dreamer ventured down the steps of Deeper Sleep, she found the core of the Dreamlands, as it is now and ever shall remain, there awaiting her.
Thus it was that, as our heroes made their way down the Seven Hundred Steps, the walls subtly changed; neither could tell just when rough stone became polished, gleaming wood, but by the time they reached the foot of that staircase it was apparent that Rantaome and Ryouki were somehow within a living tree. And thus it was also that they opened the stout oaken door, trimmed with both horn and ivory, and stepped out into the Enchanted Wood; for the Wood lies at the heart of all the dreams of mankind.
The two dreamers looked about, taking it all in: the gnarled, twisted oaks towering above crowded out most of the morning light, leaving the forest floor to odd and unsightly toadstools and puffballs, though here and there the sun broke through into grass-carpeted clearings. The Wood was eerily silent; not a note of birdsong or whirr of insect wings disturbed the primal stillness.
"So..." Rantaome broke the hush. "This is the world of dreams? Kinda boring, don'tcha think?"
Ryouki shook his head. "Not to me. Don't you feel it? That rush of...of belonging, of being somewhere you were always meant to be..." The bandanna'ed youth spread his arms, as if to embrace the forest or the world itself. "I feel like I've come home."
(more later)
--Sam
"Gravity is a harsh mistress."