We are writing a story, or having a goof-fest. Please join us

[flatlined]

(Mods, if this should be in the Café Society, please move it. I put it here because there isn’t an actual story yet, just a lot of messing around in the mini-rant thread. Thank you.)

So, Nava and I were worried that we would be kicked out of the BBQ Pit mini-rant thread, so I’m putting all of our silly stuff here so that we can continue. If anyone wants to contribute, please jump in and help!

I’m not sure how to do quotes from another forum, so I’m just copy and pasting.

Me: We should try collaborating sometime. How are you with Lovecraftian horror? Dark, dank eldritch tunnels under ancient graveyards? Intrepid future archeologists finding the chamber where Dr. Herbert West’s creations took his head and entombed it in a vat of reanimating fluid. I guess there would have to be some kissy stuff because the hero will need to try anything to save the fair maiden. It would work with the heroine saving her handsome beau as well. I’m not so good with the kissy stuff, but there would be lots of gruesome experiments while learning how the reanimation fluid works, perhaps a nuclear disaster due to the power draw and violence. Lots and LOTS of violence.

@Nava

In order to be truly Lovecraftian, the characters must be mid-twenties (the older and not-so-wiser head of the expedition may be as ancient as thirty), hold multiple PhDs, be able to build a distillery which can be switched from moonshine to desalting water with no more work than changing what you place in the pot from nothing but an arm’s-length of garden hose and two empty decanters, shoot anything from derringers to Big Bertha and speak more languages than God.

And since the women must always be nurses or librarians, we can have one who’s a librarian, has a lot of rescue animals including a cat named Lucky, and whose buggy sports an embroidered fish-with-feet (we’re following the “rule of cool”: it doesn’t matter if it’s not logical so long as it’s cool).

@kaylasdad99

Make sure y’all glue gears to everything; then you can call it steam punk…

@Nava

And we can have corsets and people running around in lots of long underwear! Brilliant!

@Kimballkid

Or maybe a nurse who moonlights as a librarian.

@Projammer

Sounds like something that would need the Brazzers logo.

@kaylasdad99

:mad:

That is such a cheap, stereotyping comment. I feel like I am a worse human being, just based on the fact that I read it, or anything so simplistic and reductive.

It could also be a Naughty America logo.

@flatlined

(PS Nava, have you noticed that our story is already almost written already?)

@Nava

I think we’re missing about 40K words, but yeah. It’s all filler. Heck, we can fill a few pages just with the descriptions of what our heroine is wearing and not wearing at different spots.

Can you say “heck” where overly’s daughter is looking?

@flatlined

[SIZE="1’]Well, seeing as how the exotic, raven-haired beauty is currently sitting at a battered library computer, muttering to herself in Spanish about the slow internet connection…I’d guess she could say heck and nobody close would know

At this point in the story, the dusky polyglot researcher is covering her ample curves with a slightly dirt stained lab coat and the librarian is of course wearing a high collared lace blouse with a pastel colored jacket.

@flatlined

Olive skinned, damnit. Damn cats, damn short editing time.

See, this is why I cannot write anything.

@flatlined

I haven’t even started with the men.

There is the recently discharged Marine, over six feet tall, skin so black that it glows blue. He’s working as a page at the library while he uses his GI Bill to go to college. He doesn’t use a hand truck to move 100 pound bins of books, instead he uses his rippling muscles to lift them to his shoulder. He wears well fitting jeans that show off his muscular butt and shirts with the sleeves rolled up that display his impressive biceps.

I think he’s going to be the love interest because while the Herr Doktor is throwing a fit at the librarian’s desk, his limpid brown eyes meet the exotic Spanish beauty’s flashing eyes and something clicked.

Herr Doktor is tall and Teutonic, with an sharp face and flashing blue eyes with wrinkles from the years of working in the sun. He’s a demanding sort who doesn’t understand that he lives with mortals.

The wild card is a slightly built student at the Miskatonic University. He is pale with brown hair and large horn-rimmed glasses.

Nava, you are falling down on the job here…I need names. I’m terrible with names. GIVE ME NAMES!!!

@Nava

Can we make the Marine have thighs like tree trunks, please? And can we borrow a line from one of my coworkers referring to such a man, namely “I’m not sure that’s a quadriceps - I must check! In the interest of science!”

I think we could have three women:
the Hispanic beauty,
her friend the American librarian,
their common sister in law, the fainting blonde. This one faints a lot, asks “what happened?” a lot, and faints again before anybody has had time to explain.

No, make that four:
we also have the bitchy Bostonian brunette who all the men (including the married ones) are crazy for, and who dies in Chapter Two. Violently. The death itself is not described, but the room will need a few coats of maroon paint. How good are you at gorey descriptions?

Names, let’s see, let’s see…
Ana-it’s-only-got-one-N Irurre, a nursing student who knew she and
Irene Kozlowski would be friends because Irene can actually pronounce Irurre, and can we make her look like Spice Weasel?
Helisabetta (“why would I spell my name normally?”) Irurre, who can’t pronounce Irurre, neé Kozlowski,
and Gabrielle Don’t-Call-Me-Gaby Shaw-Renaud (the gutted one).

Helisabetta is married to James (born Jaime) Irurre, and the sister of Henry Kozlowski. Which yes, means Irene is married. Her husband is the Teutonic Henry, who’s friends with give me a minute the improbably-named Per Janssen (who happens to be from Minesotta, yes there are African-Americans there and some are even African-Danish-American). James isn’t Teutonic at all, but he shares with his brother in law the difficulties comprehending that there is a world outside their jobs.

Henry is an engineering professor, and the odd cat in being the ancient age of thirty. The rest are in a vague mid-to-late-twenties (ladies’ ages are never given explicitly, of course). James teaches the kind of linguistics in which arameic is viewed as a parvenu.

Students:
Joshua Brown (hey, there has to be at least one Brown or Smith in any story, I’m sure names like those are equivalent to a red shirt),
Jonathan and Charles Renaud, who are twins but don’t look alike and are up to here of everybody saying “but you don’t look alike!”; Jonathan is Henry’s assistant (general gopher and maker of stenocopies), Charles works with James (maker of stenocopies and general gopher),
Donald Labaziewickz called DL,
Simo Hakon, who spends a lot of time arguing the relative superiority of Roman vs Egyptian engineering with his friend Jurgen J. Jurgens (the meaning of the middle J is never revealed).

I sure seem to like the letter J a lot, at least when it comes to names.

Any other students can be named by the method of going to Linkedin or facebook (or an actual phonebook if one is available) and matching someone’s firstname with somebody else’s last.

Y’all can join too, hey? It’s a come one, come all gorefest!

@kaylasdad99

For the Marine, how about “Grignr”?

KIDDING! See the smilie?

Please don’t hurt me.

@Nava

I have two requests:

1. let’s have a Stupid Homicides Detective and a Nice Newbie Cop (along with assorted other police people)
2. let’s move this to email before we get kicked from the thread

Its rumored that the bitchy Bostonian brunette who dies in the second chapter had her heart stolen. All of the women don’t believe that because they are sure that she never had a heart in the beginning.

So far, here’s the start of the story: It was a dark and stormy night…

[Nava]

…which, as everybody knows, is great weather if you can spend it indoors, in a well-lit place such as the Miskatonic University Library.

The hour being 5 o’ the clock, lectures were mostly finished; this produced the usual tide of freshmen trying to reserve required reading (not acceptable, by University policy - required reading must not leave the Library), graduate students searching for the latest journals, and others looking for a quiet spot to arrange class notes or some light reading. Irene sat at her desk, apparently lost in paperwork but actually watching the work-study librarians. Paula handled her new charges with a steady hand: she had worked at the library for three years, but this was the first time she supervised others. A minor commotion moved through the queue - a jumper! Irene would normally have let Paula or the students themselves handle it, but even from the corner of her eye she recognized her husband’s favorite jacket.

[kayT]

Subscribed.

(Sits back, pours drink.)

[Sunny_Daze]

::raises hand::

Love interest of whom? They all seem paired up or doomed? And what’s his name? Might I suggest Mike? Hmm, or former marines might only use last names. Rogers?

[Nava]

Hey! I know she’s little, but the plucky sidekick is neither paired nor doomed!

[flatlined]

Irene frowned as she saw the man her husband was with. Herr Doctor Von Knowsitall. Yes, the man was brilliant and was helping her husband with his doctorial thesis, but he was also demanding and didn’t seem to understand that if the material wasn’t available, it just wasn’t available. Hidden texts were hidden for a reason.

She noticed that there was another person in the group, a beautiful olive skinned woman who seemed to be arguing with Herr Doctor. Herr Doctor strode up to the counter, slamming his fist down hard enough to make the piles of books jump and frighten Lucky into jumping behind the desk. As Paula was

Grignr, who was shelving books, stepped up to the counter and asked if there was a problem while Herr Doctor continued to berate Paula about the lack of the Necromancer. As Irene was jumping to her feet, she could feet running into the large room. Suddenly a couple of police officers were there, yelling that the library was now locked down because there was a dismembered body found outside and everyone needed to be questioned before being released.

[kaylasdad99]

“I’ll be with you in a moment officers,” said Grignr politely. “I just need to pick up this box of gears that fell off the counter when Herr Doktor Knowsitall – errm, succumbed to his emotions. With complete justification, of course” he added, with a slight bow toward the irate German. “I honestly don’t know how he puts up with being surrounded by such inferior intellects as ours. It must be like trying to interact usefully with a tribe of barbarians.”

Grignr flashed a dazzling white smile at Paula, making it clear whom he really thought had been a boor in this situation.