C James

Yes, I think you have established that you can create mayhem with even a decrepit Volvo. And I just had to put Blackheart on the same model of bike you gave Jacob... The big question is: Will LiS 27 tell us Jacob's fate!??!!?!? Or will you stretch out the agony of your readers on this issue until a later chapter? And when do we get to see Catherine get her just desserts?

ROFL!!! What have I done? Blackheart has a fan club!!! And here I thought Eric would be the one... If it's an Australian accent you want, an Australian accent you'll get.

Hi Maddy! Welcome back!!! Well... Hrmmmm... I suppose, if you spare me your anti-spoiler spines on this issue, we could plan out a new and less exisntance-challenged future for Blackheart... Hrmmmm... Would Y'all like a happy ending for Blackheart? A happily-ever-after ending? I'm thinking of a wedding... Though it will have to wait a couple of years, as the other groom is presently a minor. But, the wait will be good, as the other groom's nose will have healed by then...

What? Myr won't post a chapter just because he doesn't have it? Seriously though, looking forward to whatever you post, whenever you post it.

:o But... But... But... Shadowgod possibly killed Jacob... Surely he can't be uneeevil? And I'm shocked... Shocked I tell you... That Blackheart is getting such support, while cute, sweet, innocent me is getting besmerched! Here you have us, side by side, And people are telling me that Blackheart doesn't look evil? And implying that I do? I can't say what will happen to Blackheart, whether he lives or dies, but I will say that the answer will be in the epilogue of FTL.

Yes, Shadowgod is known by many names.... (and who else is said to go by many manes? The Devil...) Sneaky, he is... But I note both similarities and differences in said story to LiS. Yay, the Volvo dealership!!! But, I was thinking of a volvo that wouldn't move much, even safer. And I totally agree about "Evil Steve". It has a nice ring to it, it does... Sooo, what will happen next? I guess it all really depends on what has happened to Jacob... That's the biggie, everything else hinges on it. This was brilliantly written with clues pointing in BOTH directions. I have it on very good information that Jacob's fate will be revealed in Chapter 27, or 28, or 29, or 30, or 31, or 32, or 33, or 34, or 35.

And where might that be? Let the chanting begin... SoB 5... SoB 5... SoB 5... SoB 5...

Bordering? Nah, I wouldn't say bordering... OK, so, he's more of a freelance, mercenary killer? ****** :nuke: ******WARNING!******* :nuke: ****** Spoilers for the most recently posted chapter (26) of Living in Surreality below!!! :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: BTW, to anyone who is wondering what some of the blackheart/motorcycle references in this thread are about, Shadowgod has been known to go by the nom-de-plume "Blackheart", and he is also the writer of the very excellent Living in Surreality, where one of the beloved protagonists has just had a motorcycle crash, and his fate has been left unsaid in one of the most eeeevil cliffhangers I've ever seen. The motorcycle that was being ridden in that scene was a Yamaha R6, as described in FTL 33 as Blackheart's bike. All connections between Blackheart and Shadowgod are, of course, entirely coincidental.

I think its all part of his eeevil plan to deceive us... Well, not to give anything away, but nothing in the story so far actually confirms his death. Chris saw him sailing towards the rocks (gracefully, of course!) with his brake-light glaring, and saw the column of smoke and flames from the explosion. You meant the murder-for-hire hacker? Out of a fear of the Echidna's spines, i cannot comment on future plans, but let's just say BTW, I love your new member' title!!

You couldn't mean me... Everyone knows I'm a lurker.. Graeme's stories can be found here. Time shortages are the nemesis of writers everywhere. Graeme, thank you so much for the time you spend, both enriching the world via your writing, and enriching the forums with your thousands of wise and sagacious posts.

Sorry I'm late... Three very different pieces, which I liked very much! The different "Messages" in each story made them each poigniant in a different way. Well done, everyone!

A PM is on the way.... BTW, could anyone who is having problems DL'ing the pics please let me know? I'm trying to figure this out and fix it. Also, if you can't see the pics, just let me know and I'll pm them to you as an attachment. Thanks! CJ Here's the pic of Blackheart from the FTL gallery.

Hrmmm, well, I'm not sure that a parody counts as fanfiction, but in this case it probably does. And I'll fix the "food" thing. Oops... Lol! Well, we have already had a dream sequence in LiS: Remember the earth-from-orbit one? So, I think you theory is very plausible! That dream seqence of them in a spaceship was, IMHO, major foreshadowing of their origins. In fact, rumor has it that when Shadowgod was designing the graphics for LiS's page, one of the candidates was this one... I think you can sue yourself... How can it be thrown out as frivolous is you have hard evidence that the law has been broken? You could always appeal... There is only one way to find out, File the suit! I think you will need two law firms though...

Oops.... But, for this, I blame my anonymous beta reader (Shadowgod) for not pointing out the problem during beta.

Thanks Conner!!! I went with the stars for a solution to their adrift problem, because I figured that anyone living under clear night skies all their lives would be able to recognize the north star. (The skies here have no light pollution, so you see a tremendous amount of stars.) YEs!! That's the T-shirt from the story! What a coincidence that you would have a photo of it!!! BTW, also note the dark-blond spiked hair. Oh, BTW, if anyone is curious about the logo I described on the back, the two gothic dragond holding an Ankh, it looks like this:

Well, the reason for the early post was that I had to pre-empt something sneaky and underhanded that he was up to, so, I guess we can credit Shadowgod for being sneaky and underhanded? You raise a darn good point on the flip-flops. It's a case of the writer flopping. Wildone raises a good point below, and new flip-flops can KIND of be run in, if you clench your toes. It's awkward; I tried it tonight to see. You sure can't run too fast. Here's what really happened; I changed the escape scene a few times while writing. Originally I had the bad guys catching up due to the flip-flops, but then i realized that they wouldn't have time to get on the scooters and escape. So, I changed it, and forgot about the flip-flops. Oops. Sooo, been as we have some testimony (thanks Wildone!) that they can be run in, and the guys already had a 50 yard lead down the back of a small strip mall (and were starting from the middle) could they have barely made it, as written, or should I do some editing and change that? Good point on the motorists calling the cops: But how do we know they didn't? The police wouldn't have caught up (it was all over in maybe three minutes, if that) and Chris and Steve went down Tantalus the other way, so wouldn't have seen any arrive. Been as this is a 1st person POV, we don't know. A note here: Lost Cause appears in the chapter credits, because he was kind enough to help me with the on-scene information. I haven't been to Honolulu in years, and then only briefly, so I couldn't recall the roads that well, and I'd never been up Mount Tantalus. I was originally trying to remember some suitable terrain near Diamond Head or up the coast. LC suggested Mt Tantalus, and between his guidance and a good map, plus some googling, I had my scene. Thanks LC!! I remembered the Portuguese sausage and rice at MacDonald's from my visit there, and had to look up the Samin (I remembered it, but not the name). And what? Kill off Eric? But.. I thought it was a bad idea to kill off the heros... (Shadowgod, are you listening? ) Hi Andy! ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, the racks of computer gear were a tragic loss, agreed... And as for Blackheart, all I'll confirm is that he's either dead, or alive. Sorry, but there is no chapter 34 to post on Tuesday; it's still in Beta and 35 is only half done. I posted early to preempt some sneaky skulduggery by the eeeevil Blackheart. On Mount tantalus. I should have mentioned that they were swinging stuff only when near; not all the time. You can ride a motorcycle one-handed if you don't need the clutch, but yes, trying to manage a baseball bat would make it very difficult, so diffucult that one might nearly hit a garbage truck and end up over a cliff. And cliffhangers? Nope, I never use 'em... As for the flip-flop furor fiasco, I can't imagine where you got that idea. Thanks!!!

Happy 21st!!!

Thanks Bob!!! BTW, In order to forestall some sneaky machinations by the Eeeevil Blackheart, FTL Ch 33, Blackheart, is up a few days early!

Hi LC! Congrats on the new blog!! It sounds like you are very in touch with yourself, and that's a very good thing! And as for the "boyfriend", UGH. Sorry to hear that. CJ

Grame, congratulations on making :king: 2000 Posts :king: :music: :music: :music: :music: :music: Thanks for all you do, and for being such a great member of our forum community!!!

Twice!! Mine was probably due to a watch. A cheap electronic one that played "Stars and stripes forever" as the loud, tinny alarm. The watch malfunctioned one day, and I couldn't get it to stop playing until I adjusted it with a rock. Wouldn't have been that bad, if I hadn't been a pallbearer at a funeral when it happened.

Drift all the way to Mauritius? Hmmm, that's a long way... There wouldn't be much left of 'em by the time they got there... Thanks Ieshwar!! Ugh, I hate being inside a plane on the ground when they shut the airpacks off; hot and stuffy can be an understatement. Hrmmmm, Now that's an interesting idea... On an airliner as opposed to an airplane? Only briefly. Once, while in the pattern landing at Dallas one night, I saw the landing lights of another airliner. They weren't moving in my window, just growing further appart (which to a pilot has a single meaning: you are on a collision course). The other plane was under a mile away, and it looked to me like an ATC mistake, and an imminent mid-air collision in a few seconds. That made me think I was about to die, but there wan't anything I could do about it so i just sat back to watch. The other plane puled up and cleared us by about 250 feet (Passing directly above), just in time, but it certainly qualified as a near-miss, and I made darn sure, once on the ground, that ATC was aware of it. (they were, the other pilot had leveled out at the wrong altitude, and somehow not noticed the lit-up 747 at his 2-o-clock) Hrmmm, another time would be on a non-stop from Los Angeles to Paris; passing over greenland, the autopilot malfunctioned, making the plane pitch up and down wildly for a few seconds. That was just a momentary scare. Another would be over the Rockies, hitting CAT (clear air turbulence) of a very severe kind; we lost ten thousand feet, give or take, in about 30 seconds. One other time, over New York (in the holding pattern for JFK) the plane pitched up suddenly, and I heard the engines spooling up to max power. The pilot held a very steep angle of attack, and I felt the plane begin to shudder. That's the warning signes of an impending stall, and suddenly the nose dropped, going from about 30 degrees up angle to 30 degrees down in a couple of seconds. That was a partial stall, not a good thing to be in while close to the ground. That's about it for the bad stuff, which isn't bad considering I've flown over a million miles. (which ads up to a LOT of time in cattle class airline seats, ouch. it also means I've survived a great deal of airline food, LoL) However, for an airplane as opposed to an airliner, I've had a much longer close call. I was a polot of a single-engine small plane, when a massive fuel leak occurred, resulting in fuel (and fuel vapors) within the cabin. I had to shut down both the engine and the electrical system due to fire risk, and that plane had electric flaps. I was at ten thousand feet over the southern California desert, and the only thing I could do was line up for a dead-stick, straight in approach to a nearby airport. I knew I likly had fuel in the wheel cowling area too, so that meant no brakes, and no flaps meant a far higher than normal landing speed. I should mention that I was a student pilot at the time, I'd never even tried a no-flaps landing, and a dead-stick landing means no second chances. If'; i'd had a parachute, I'd have used it. I was almost breathing again when I neared the airport and determined that I didn't have the altitude to make a 90 degree base-to-final turn and line up with the runway. So, I set the damn thing down on a taxiway at half again it's normal landing speed, smoothest damn landing I ever made, oddly enough. For most of the ten miniutes or so I was in the air, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to live. Oddly, I felt pretty detached about that; and just concentrated on doing what I could. I was ninteen at the time, and I'd faced death before, but that had been sudden, over in an instant, no time to think. That emergency landing was my first real encounter with a liklyhood of death for any length of time, and I remember being surprised, in the final seconds of the approach, that I wasn't nervous. I've never really had much of a fear of death, but I've always had a phobia about burning alive, so I was surprised that I wasn't nervous. Of course, any dreams of nerves of steel were soon dispelled; I rolled to a stop right next to the little airport's restaurant, so I hopped out FAST, jumping down off the wing and putting some distance between me and the loose fuel (I feared a spark). Once clear, I turned and walked towards the staring people at the resturnt. At that point, my knees went weak, and I fell down on the runway, skinning my knee in the process. LoL. Yeah, my knees went that weak... But Steve, you are the king of wicked cliffhangers, and I dare you to claim otherwise after LiS 26! Crabbing a plane into a crosswind to land is normal; the danger is if you don't straighten out to roughly parallel with your velocity vector before the gear touches pavement. On a small plane, that can flip you. On a big one, it could overstress the main gear, causing it to fail. Not a good thing.

A favorite? Aww, Steve, of course you are a favorite... Of course, being a favorite target is a favorite, right? I also hereby nominate Shadowgod for cliffhanger king, for writing the most spine-tingling fingernail-biting cliffhangers. :king: Why yes, I just might... Andy, you were right, the writer needs a time machine. The Shadowy one has been advised, repeatedly, to give Jacob a 1972 Volvo with a blown engine rather than a motorcycle. Here, indeed, is something that appeared during the beta-reading process; Jacob felt like a slug, a modern day centipede, inching along serpentine canyon roads. At first ahead of Carlos, he eased off the accelerator, allowing Carlos to walk past him with a friendly wave; Carlos, walking at a steady clip, soon rounding a corner and disappearing from sight. A small frown graced Jacob's lips, wondering if he appeared any bit the pathetic creature he felt like. Creeping into the final curve of Wild Oak road before it opened into a mile long straightaway, Jacob

Glad you weren't hurt in that fall! A lack of balance is never a good thing near big drops... Like I always say, it's not the fall that gets you, it's the bounce. Yes, Blackheart is indeed Evil... He's a real blackhearted scoundrel! Of course, the chapter name might be misleading, and Blackheart might not even be in it. And fear not; unlike the evil writer of Living in Surreality, I never use cliffhangers.

Howdy Steve! (or have you changed it yet, due to what that eeevil other steve did?) The Hana road camping may or may not be allowed, I'm really not sure. Its been a few years since I was in that area, and I've camped out in Hawaii, but not there. From what little I remember, the road is often a fair distance from the shore, and there are plenty of deserted beaches, so maybe they will be ok, allowed or not, if no one sees them. I can't answer the other questions due to spoilers, but as for the eeeevil Blackheart, well, all I'll say is that; FTL Chapter 33, Blackheart, will be posted on Tuesday.