User:LurkingWolf/11:00 O'Clock on the MKGuild

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This is a completely fictional account of a particularly crazy night on the #MKGuild channel of irc.lapinia.org. Fictional, yet based on the fact that we're all insane in one way or another.

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Well, it’s official: I’m bored. I sit with both hands behind my head, relaxing as best as I could. In front of me is another blank document. It’s frustrating, not being able to come up with new story ideas. If my computer wasn’t a laptop, I might be tempted to do some keyboard bashing with my head. I hate writer’s blocks!

Well, it is 11:00 in the evening, so I guess I should really get some sleep. What am I talking about? Me sleep at 11:00? In the immortal words of Vizzini, inconceivable! I could never sleep unless I hit the sack after midnight. It seems that, unless I’m completely exhausted, I really can’t get my eyes to stay shut. Visions of all of the loose story ideas always bother me unless I’m too tired to even focus on my name. So, that leaves one other thing, stay awake doing something.

As fun as it is, Portal is really even more confusing than usual at this time of night, so I opt not to go for that. Age of Empires? Nah, my reaction time is down a bit too much. I look through my library of thousands of songs in Windows Media Player, but that goes nowhere. How many times can you actually listen to the Halo theme before you go insane, anyway? I’m not in the mood to find out.

I pop Firefox up again. Scanning the forums I frequent, I find out rapidly that most of the rest of the world is sane enough to actually go to bed at this time of night. Nuts. When will they figure out that sanity is overrated?

I drum my fingers along the blank panel bordering my touchpad mouse. I notice idly that it sounds almost like a horse running. I concentrate on trying to make it sound even more like a horse until I realize what I’m doing. That’s a bit too insane for even me to keep doing for very long. I glance at my computer’s built in clock. 11:02. Nuts, even that bit of randomness didn’t burn much time.

Well, since no one sane is awake, I really need to find someone absolutely insane to talk to. I scan through all the insane people I know, only to rapidly lose track of how many of them I actually know. My life’s confusing that way.

Finally, I get an idea. When it comes to insanity, one place really stands out in the crowd. Sure, just about anywhere I go is crazy, but that’s just me, mainly. There’s only been one place where I’ve been matched at every turn in my utter insanity.

I pop up IceChat, then tell it to join irc.lapinia.org. It pauses for a few moments, then starts popping up console message faster than any human could ever read.

[11:03] ->> Attempting to connect to irc.lapinia.org on port 6667

[11:03] ->> Connection Established

‘All right, here we go,’ I think. As it starts to set all options to my defaults, I sit back and relax, intent on enjoying the ride.

As my eyes close, I can feel a odd heat spreading over my body. I smile slightly, knowing exactly what’s going on. There is a little bit of pain in different parts of my body as my shape changes, but I have long been used to this phenomenon. I shift slightly as the tail grows out of my pants. My face hurts, but it’s quickly over. I finally feel that it’s all finished, and look myself over.

Just like I prefer, I’m an anthropomorphic wolf again. My fur is mainly black, though the tips of some of the strands of fur have white tips. Under my chin is a patch of white fur, but it is the only fur that stands out against the dark background. I am now dressed in a black shirt and black denim pants. Zipped halfway up is my leather jacket, which appeared out of nowhere during the change. Across the leather jacket is strapped a bandolier of vials, each containing a liquid of a different color. If tonight is one of the really crazy ones, I’ll be needing them…

My feet are now digitigrade, so the socks I had been wearing aare gone, as it would have been somewhat uncomfortable to actually be wearing them in this form.

Just as I finish my quick inspection of my form, I look up at my computer.

[11:04] ->> Attempting to join #MKGuild

A few moments later, a bright white light flashes. When I can see again, I am in a rather featureless room. I am alone for now, though, if all goes well, it won’t be for long. As I’m standing there waiting, a line of text appears briefly in front of my eyes.

[11:04] ->> You joined channel #MKGuild

All of the sudden, the room isn’t quite so empty. Set beside one of the wall is a hot tub, bubbling as the water jets agitated the hot water. How we survive the combined heat of having fur and being in a hot tub I have no clue, but we manage.

Along another wall is set a standard Olympic length swimming pool, for the ones of us who were aquatic in nature. Currently it is empty, but it rarely stays that way for an entire day.

As I arrive at my target destination, I see that the channel is pretty full. Upon further inspection, though, I see one person has an annotation his head reading [AWAY], and another with a long line of Z‘s. Still, there were at least seven other people currently here with me in the room.

I move towards the group, though staying mostly to the shadows so that I could justify calling myself LurkingWolf. I recognize several of the regulars. There’s Foxtaur standing to one side of the central discussion area of the room. As the name suggests, he’s a fox in ‘taur form. This mean that he has the upper body of an anthro fox, with the lower body being a pony-sized fox body, and the two parts connected at the waist on the upper body, and where a neck would usually go on the lower half. Thoroughly a confusing form when you are first exposed to it, but it grows on you.

Across from him is Virmir, the archivist for the Metamor Keep story archives. He’s a gray fox, emphasis on gray, looking rather short, but then again he’s also an age regressed gray fox on top of Foxtaur being taller than an average person. He’s a familiar sight on the IRC, so I look at who else is here.

Well, there’s Kiska, also known as Coal Train or Cathal. In his current form, he’s a gryphon. Yup, it is absolutely true what they say, we accept all kinds!

Also here is Shazer, who is currently in his anthro fox form. At various times, he has also been an otter, and likes to take full advantage of both the pool and the hot tub on such nights.

Kit is also here. He’s a calico fox, or so they tell me. I’m just satisfied in that he is a fox, so I’ll stick with that generally. He’s the newest of the writers, and also the newest person to join the IRC.

Ryx is also here. He’s a semi-rare sight on the IRC, but when he’s here he’s very helpful with advice on writing. Otherwise, he’s generally quiet. He’s the one skunk on the channel. Generally, this would give him some amount of fearful respect from people, since they associate skunks with their stench, but we are used to him here.

The last of the people currently here is Richy. He’s a fox too. The thought strikes me that we have way too many of them… Nah, actually, I could go for a few more. He seems to love transforming and transgendering everyone randomly, or just being random for randomness’ sake. I’ve made it a note to try not to say anything that could be taken as a pun and used to transform me…

I join the group, who all greet me in turn. I duly note their greetings and greet them back. Apparently, they were just having another random conversation, as always. I grin, that’s about how it always is. Someone always seems to start something.

Apparently Richy was already warming up a plan, because shortly after I arrive, and after a few moments of near silence, he slaps Virmir across the face with a TF muffin, designed to turn whoever it hits into a random animal. Virmir, however, has other plans. He points up to the words over his head, written in a font which reminds me of the old SNES RPG text. They read quite plainly, ‘Invalid form.’

“Come on, Virmir,” Rich says, shaking his head. “You never cooperate.”

“You should be used to it by now,” Virmir responds with a grin.

I laugh. While most other people change their forms once in a while, Virmir is quite set on always being a gray fox. No one has yet changed him away from his preferred form, and I seriously doubt that they will anytime soon.

As I laugh, though, Rich slaps me with a TG muffin. I shut up instantly, then ask, “Why do you always hit me with the TG muffin?”

“Because you cooperate,” is the answer. Before I can really continue, though, I begin changing.