FrankL

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Beat me to it! Must spread rep.

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation Wikiquote and Memory Alpha list Sinanju's quote as: Quark: What do you think? Elim Garak: It's vile. Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy. Elim Garak: Just like the Federation. Quark: And you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it. Elim Garak: It's insidious. Quark: Just like the Federation. From Season 4: Way of the Warrior.

Re: Arabic/Middle Eastern based Character A friend in seminary used to refer to "demonized ova." The guys all thought it funny. The women were always grossed out to some extent.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... What's the emoticon for head exploding with the visual?

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation Clonus, The scary thing is how little things have to change to make your version. Frank

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation I have always suspected that the prime directive had more to do with arrogance and not wanting to share the wealth than it did not wanting to interfere in another culture. BTW, couple of sci-fi books I really enjoyed that dealt with a galactic alliance using their PD exactly that way was Ranks of Bronze, Foreign Legions, and The Excalibur Alternative.

Re: Icons - The Costume and Superpowers Store I fall into the category of quite conservative and religious. I recognize I might be an anomaly with my thinking here,* but I would be fine with people using powers like that. Like most pieces of technology, the item itself is neutral as far as good/bad. It's how it is used that matters. Specifically on using powers from Icons, I would say if you have it, then you have the responsibility to use it properly. *Excepting the group of Christian Sci-fi writers I frequent a forum of. They had a thread recently about supers. They'd agree with my conclusion.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" guest starring Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor. Out of the Silent Planet of the Apes. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Malfunction The artist formerly known as Prince Caspian Sinbad and the Seventh Voyage of the Dawn Treader The Silver Dentist's Chair About a Horse and His Boy The Mysterious Magician's Nephew The Last Battle for New York

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I hope everything turned out fine.

Re: The Badass Sewage Collector, or, "THEY became a hero?" The fantasy-comedy Hero: Second Class (and the just released sequel Hero in Hiding) has Cyrus Solberg from the island of Starspeak start out as the ward of a fisherman and fisherman-in-training. He is almost passed over by the representatives of the International Guild of Heroes because he has to finish cleaning the fish before he can present himself for audition. He is chosen by Destiny and apprenticed to Sir Reginald Oglesby (aka The Crimson Slash) and, as an apprentice, is only allowed to ride donkeys and mules on quests. As an apprentice, he also serves as Reg's chronicler (not difficult because Reg narrates his battles mid-combat). "The Crimson Slash stands bravely, sword drawn, as the two minions rush at him. The first swings low but The Slash jumps over the sword, bringing his own down to cleave the vile minion in two. The second swings for his head, but Reg parries and punches with his free hand. The minion goes down. Now, only one henchman* stands between The Crimson Slash and his target, the evil, vile, dastardly Goras Hawknose!" *More skilled and thus expensive than a minion, which are sold to Villains in economy packs and have serial numbers tattooed on their shoulders. Cyrus eventually earns the rank of Hero, Second Class, in the middle of the first book. He has Adventures, Quests, and general Heroics following. No more to avoid spoilers.

Re: My characters The first part of Granish's tale can be read here in the story "The Strong Survive." This story is five years before he loses the eye (that happens in "Pursuit," not yet available).

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Eagles do a Christmas CD. Hotel Bethlehem anyone?

I sent my first art commission off to juggertha@hotmail.com (who has done some work for Pizza Man). I got the finished piece today and was totally blown away by the detail and shading that he put into it. These are characters from the stories I write. [ATTACH=CONFIG]38599[/ATTACH] Granish d’Dunnor is a leonine Sachalin. The Sachalin are a race of humans merged to great cats with magic. The three races are leonine (lion merges), tigrine (tiger merges), and jubatine (cheetah merges). The leonine have tawny fur over their bodies, human hands, and catlike faces. Granish is fun loving, optimistic, and flexible. His desire is to become an engineer, but he is a skilled bard. He is cocky, flashy, and a swashbuckler. He wears flashy, colorful clothes and scarves. He carries a scimitar instead of a straight sword. He has 1 sister who is 7 years younger than he. He is very close to her and protective. He thought she was dead for 7 years, so he cherishes her. His people live by a simple philosophy—the strong survive, the stronger rule. Granish has seen several flaws in the system (his father abandoned his infant sister in the forest because she had a shrunken arm) and is struggling to find a better way. In the meantime, he still serves his kingdom’s high goddess. He wears a medallion around his neck to show his devotion. Granish’s father was the most beloved bard in their kingdom until he was killed by a tigrine noble. Granish’s quest for revenge brought the kingdom to civil war. Had he sought justice, things would have been different. He plays the lute and when the killer is finally dead, Granish will be able to share his father’s songs with everyone. Until then, he may pass them from “bard to bard.” He has a close friend, Karina Tomeii (coming later). She lost her younger sister to the same tigrine that killed Granish’ parents. Karina sees Granish as the older brother she never had. Granish’s weaknesses are wine, women, and song. He lost his eye in a bar fight. He flirted with a human barmaid, her father didn’t like it and cut out his eye. It did require 6 men to hold Granish down, though. The scene I would like. I see Granish as a very happy person. Dangerous to cross, but happy. He is standing to play the lute with his scimitar on the ground. He is smiling, looking out, with both eyes visible. He is dressed in bright colored clothes of simple cuts. I will definitely be using Juggertha for future commissions! (And I will be posting them here as they are completed. Rarely more than 1 per month. Will have to skip months also.) I am really pleased and excited! Frank Luke

Re: Creepy Villain Time Having my chars face off against an evil lawyer who runs a highly organized private army. Oh, not that kind of creepy?

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Star Wars: A New Hope Floats

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... After reading DrHoz's writeups, I started reading the mythos on my lunch break at work. It took a few stories before I got into them (I found reading even a short synopsis destroys the experience for me, so I didn't like "Call of Cthulhu" or “Nameless City”) The one about the guy doing the Yuletide ritual didn't hold my attention either. Before I started “The Colour Out of Space,” I decided that if I didn't like it better than the others, I wouldn't read any more. It gave me the shivers, and I decided to keep going. Yesterday, I read the first two chapters of “The Dunwhich Horror” on lunch. It opens with this: Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or without the body, they would have been the same… That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual—that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence. —Charles Lamb: Witches and Other Night-Fears While working through a coding problem later, the back of my mind was turning over some pieces of the story, trying to figure out what was going to happen next. Now, I should know better because I startle easily. Also, our cubes are arranged so that our back is to the opening. One of my coworkers came to my cube to ask me a question, and I came out of my skin when she tapped my shoulder!

Re: Guards and Soldiers The Dogs of War If you are looking for warriors, leave these mercenaries alone. They are soldiers, pure and simple. Founded and led by Vriedrich Bonderson, he instilled in them the same discipline and training that he instilled in his soldiers when he led the armies of Gunther. He still hasn’t figured out how he was beaten in that last war, but he suspects betrayal. The alternative, that the enemy armies were better than his men, is unthinkable to him. His unit is small (about 30) and joining is by invitation only. The Dogs host a tournament on a semi regular basis (when they aren’t on a job). The tournament has three divisions: unarmed combat, armed combat, and archery. The winner of each division is invited to join (on top of receiving the prize purse). All races and religions are welcome, as long as the individuals are good fighters and show discipline. Dwarves, elves, humans, and Sachalin fill the ranks. The Dogs charge highly for their services but they get the job done.

Re: WWYCD: Holes in the story Bolt - I suppose you're next going to tell me that all you have left is a box of one dozen, crazed, starving weasels.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Must spread rep.

Re: Planets of SF Author Hats Anthony what has already been said plus the good guys are all strong and virile, while the women are all beautiful* and exist for the... benefit (yeah, let's use that word) of the aforementioned men. The women are not only okay with this but embrace their role in society. *extremely rare exceptions such as Chameleon who is ugly part of each month. Chesterton a world where nothing is as you first think it is. Peter David's world there's a joke coming, you just know it.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Stephen King's A River Runs Through It.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... All this time with only 1 investigator completely dying and now two die in one night. Course, if you have all the bits of Givetti, McGinty does know resurrect...

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... What! The one PC I expected to live through this whole thing! I am going to be waiting for this installment.

Re: Who's Hunting You? And Why? Edward L. Walker III and his goons hunt all PCs in my setting. Edward's dad was the admin of a super soldier experiment that got shelved (at the dad's insistence) because it was deemed unethical. Edwards stole the research and completed it with his own scientists, testing it on unsuspecting people. Nothing happened on the surface. The PCs are the children of those experimental subjects, and Edward wants to see the results.

Re: The Last Daredevil asks for your help Garret would use his military contacts to confirm the story. If it was above board, he would pass the video on to those he has trained and now have their own teams. He won't join the Daredevils (he is *not* flashy), but he will spend some time there training any new recruits. He's good at that.