Wapsi Held Hostage - Day 14 (was Castela Notice 2015-07-05)

[Sgt. Howard]

The door slams open and an older, gray haired woman stumbles in. "Sorry I'm late, everybody. I valiantly avoided the forums, tried to get caught up on my book reading while I was waiting. Like that ever works." She snorts. "i'm just going to pull up a chair and pour some coffee while you jibberjabber. Interdimensional physics gives me a headache.
Maybe I'll check out the door headed to the Crosstime Saloon later. In the meantime..." She digs in an oversized tote bag and pulls out a container. "Here's a few pounds of bacon to nosh on."

Crosstime saloon?? havent been there in years. please take me with you

Just came from there- crashed a few glasses in the finest traditions-

Louis knows a shortcut...

[oldmanmickey]

i really did love those stories. makes one wonder if alternate realities do exist.

[jayessell]

Music from 'Les Miserable':
One more day.....

[chicgeek]

*blinks* "Louis knows a shortcut? Oh, my...I would introduce him to the arcane delight that is bacon jam for that knowledge." She settles herself more comfortably in her chair and takes another sip of her coffee. It's not up to Mucha Mocha standards, but then, what is? Which sparks a train of thought. "We stumble or stroll in, alike in that we're all undergoing Wapsi withdrawal. We can't explore the 'verse around us. But BUT! That door opens to let us in. If we could make contact with that world outside, we can't step out but sending a message might be just barely possible and and if so!" Her voice becomes animated, her eyes brighten in response to an internal vision.
"Spit it out, lady. What have you thought of that we haven't?" a voice calls out from the room. "WE'VE only been here for days, not just some jenny come lately. Even if you did bring bacon." The last bit is muffled by chewing.
She smiles. "Simple. Send a message out. It's received. And, the door opens-to a delivery from Dietzel's pizza girl. Sure, we can't go out, they can't come in-I doubt they're aware of us at all. But, could an object like pizza be slid through the door? The door that opens to admit us, that we can open enough to peek outside?" She frowns. "Wait. I doubt my credit card is good in this dimension. Damn." She shrugs, and helps herself to a slice from the rapidly diminishing bacon supply. "Back to Wapsi discussions. Anyone else miss the diminutive Aztec purveyor of alcohol? I can just see a crowd shot of the paranormal pool, and a cameo scene of him there on one of those plastic floaty things holding a glass of something tropical."

[GlytchMeister]

Glytch glared in the direction of whoever heckled the woman during her idea.
Some of us still respect our elders... Hmph.
He returned his attention to the control panel and his exploration. After a few button presses, the portal's hum decreased in tone and volume before dying completely, and the image of the wapsiverse disappeared to reveal a blank wall lined in mica.
Acutely aware of everyone staring at him for potentially trapping them in the pocket dimension, Glytch cleared his throat nervously. "Ah... Not a problem! Just gotta press... Um..." A few uncertain pokes later, the portal fired up again. "Whew... Now, about the whole 'getting a message out' thing: I'm sure we can go into the wapsiverse and explore. The portal functions the same as when somebody walks in from their native reality. The concern lies in how the transformation into the artistic rendering of reality in that universe will affect us. And then we also have to be careful not to cause any 'butterfly effect' events. I don't know if that will alter the preexisting wapsiverse and how it is presented in our realities, or if it will just create a 'what-if' wapsiverse separate from the one Paul Taylor is writing."
Glytch got up from sitting in the entrance of his tent to wipe clean his plate, still talking. "As for Tepoz? Yeah, I miss him. I kinda miss the whole old crew, really. I guess it shows in my fanfic. I haven't touched the Gilchrists. Brandi, Monica, and Tepoz will all be showing up fairly soon, if things work as I intend."

[jwhouk]

Boss apparently chewed out the cable company for botching his install. Not sure if it means he's closer to regaining net.presence yet.

[chicgeek]

She grins at Glytch. "That sounds tempting! I haven't poked around here much outside of the daily discussion thread, and I see there's a fanart page. Someone drew the ladylike tentacle demon from Tina's head relaxing in a bathtub, after I mentioned it in the daily thread a while back. That was kind of them. And fun!. But is there a spot for fanfic? I mean, I can understand why not, most writers can't allow that on their forums. The Foglios won't read GirlGenius fic or ideas from fans, it could come back to bite them if a fan said, 'hey, you stole that idea from ME!' But if anyone would be willing to post a link to Wapsific they have out there online, I'd love to see. I do miss the old crew, won't lie. But Paul's been doing this since 2001. I can see him needing new characters, new stories. Yeah, the old crew is playing backup to the new, but that beats them being written out of the story completely. And there's a vast history in place, so much of which I'll bet the last strip of bacon we've never seen. Things tie together." Chicgeek looks thoughtful. "Another forum I'm on, we started in '08. We love the story we made, real life friendships happened, but the story's petered out. Lack of new blood, new ideas. We wax nostalgic sometimes, it was good. No, great. But without new blood from without or new ideas from within, you get stagnation. Entropy. Fading away." Shaking her head to clear it, she smiles. "Enough rambling. A toast. To Wapsi, old and new." And lifts her coffee mug.

[GlytchMeister]

The Sphinx and the Centurion Series:

-Works started by Sgt. Howard-

A Visit to Phix

The Elixir

A Very Happy Wedding

-Works started by jwhouk-

Cricket and the Counselor

-Other works started by Sgt. Howard-

Visiting Minnesota

U-296

-Works by Jharris16-17-

A Trip Down The Rabbit Hole!

A Visit From the Skinwalker

-Works done by Dave-

Waiting for Pablot

-Works done by GlytchMeister-

Purpose

[GlytchMeister]

So... Many... Links...

[jwhouk]

You forgot one - one that started it all.

Wapsi Me

---
Okay, a little aside to how we got here.

That little piece of fan-fiction linked above was written back in about 2008 or so. Typical Author Insertion; I ended up meeting Tina, Darren, Dietzel - and Monica. I found Dietzel wandering around the shores of Lake Calhoun; Monica was very grateful, etc.

Fast forward to earlier this year: Mr. Howard wrote his little fan fiction about the Centurion, who was courting his long lost love, Phix. The original ending went all Red Wedding with a Bobby Ewing twist - it was all a dream.

He followed it up with his "author insertion" taking a wrong turn after visiting a library portal - ending up in the back alley behind Chino Latino's.

Now, this just so happened to occur right after I really took a Very Wapsi Road Trip to the Twin Cities. So, I jumped in, basically making like I had taken a second trip to the TC to catch some of the stuff I'd missed the first time.

Only thing was, I ran into Mr. Howard - and a certain Latino babe. I wrote this funny schtick that I kept using the Library portals, but was never allowed into the Library itself. Ha ha, funny, right? We had a great writing tandem, and all was going pretty good.

Then, the Sarge decides that the Red Wedding wasn't to his liking - so he re-wrote it. (That's over here.)

And that was where everything kinda combined into... wow.

[GlytchMeister]

Whoopsies.

I knew I missed one.

[chicgeek]

Wow, thanks!

[GlytchMeister]

Yeah, you got some archive binging to do. Have fun!

[AmriloJim]

Now Mediacom says they can't hook up our house, and the tech just left. The office says they need to send a different tech out to see if it's even possible to hook up internet. Even after they told me they had service here, now they tell me this one house may be dead. *livid*

[jwhouk]

Someone get a Kickstarter together to pay for Pablo's legal bills - and enough CAT30 line for him to get a dedicated internet connection...

[oldmanmickey]

sounds like paul is living through another exciting episode of "as the cable turns"

[GlytchMeister]

I remember reading a story about this happening to someone else:
They work via internet, called a cable company to verify if the house they were gonna buy had internet.
Company said yes.
They buy and arrive at the house, no internet.
So they call the company and have a tech come out to try and install internet.
They say "sure! No sweat."
Tech comes out, says he can't do it.
A string of techs later, they finally learn it is somehow impossible to get internet to that house.

So now that guy had to move elsewhere.
Because the internet company lied.

I am, as I type, knocking on wood in the hopes Paul doesn't have to deal with that as well.

[GlytchMeister]

If he does... Well... It seems a lot of us know a lot about technology. And some of us know a lot about weapons.

I'm sure the cable company and our little group can...

come to an arrangement...

--- --- ---

Glytch reads the latest updates on Paul's internet status on his iPad. A slight snarl develops in his upper lip as he gets out his sharpening stone and begins to hone his blade, a menacing gleam in his eyes.

[Sgt. Howard]

Perhaps I should have a ... friendly... little chat with the cable people- I am sure we can come to a ... reasonable... understanding...

Bravo Base, this is Bravo Charley- will send co-ordinants for primary target to Bravo Delta and Bravo Echo- as soon as registered, have standby for fire for effect, over,

[AmriloJim]

Someone get a Kickstarter together to pay for Pablo's legal bills - and enough CAT30 line for him to get a dedicated internet connection...

I'm thinking the same... and although I strive to comment on issues without bias, I wouldn't object to the campaign using a "Big Bad Cable" theme against the ISPTSNBN (Internet service provider that shall not be named).

Perhaps I should have a ... friendly... little chat with the cable people- I am sure we can come to a ... reasonable... understanding...

Please do!