Script girl: Oh, sorry, have I? What a strange dream I’ve had. The dragon boy was changing sexes every time the worm goddess did, and then he stopped but it didn’t seem to matter, and then he changed sexes between episodes for no apparent reason. It made no sense at all. Man am I glad it was just a dream! I’d hate for it to be me who has to make sense of it!
Stage manager: Hate to break it to you, girl, but check out the script again. It was no dream.
Script girl (re-reading): Shit! Looks like I’ll have to blue-pencil the lot. Unless you can explain it.
Stage manager: Why bother? Since when has continuity on this site been worth a tinker’s dam?
Script girl: You mean “damn.”
Stage manager: No I don’t. Look it up.
Script girl (annoyed): Proofreader? Back me up on this.
Proofreader: Sorry, SG, but historically, he’s right. Rhett Butler notwithstanding.
Script girl: Whatever. Let’s just forget the dam thing.
Proofreader: Now you mean “damn.”
Script girl: Do you mind?
Proofreader: Sorry, SG, just doing my job.
Stage manager: Can we get on with it? Bad enough I’ve got to be the director as well as the stage manager, but we’re wasting time here. The characters are all frozen in place till we roll the action again.
Script girl: No. I’m sorry, but this isn’t your usual dipshit, run-of-the-mill thread here, this is an epic. The story’s hard enough to follow as it is without all these inconsistencies. Even the characters are starting to notice it. Since when has Wu been able to do things just by waving his hands around, for instance? I want a writers’ conference!
Proofreader: Can we do that? The Authors aren’t exactly the most accessible people, you know.
Script girl: Well, that depends on what channels you go through, doesn’t it? Me, I like the direct approach. (Looking out:) Hey, you!
Me: Yaaugh! Don’t do that!
Script girl: Why not? (Looking down:) You are the current Author, aren’t you? You’re in the credits.
Me: Guilty. But I don’t see what—
Script girl: So why don’t you round up your collaborators and we’ll thrash this out.
Stage manager: SG, the time, our budget—
Me: That’s um, not really practical, I’m afraid. It’s not like I know who they really are or how to get hold of them. Just because our avatars are on a first-name basis doesn’t mean we—
Script girl: So call ’em in by avatar already.
Me: Are you kidding? Zorlond’s stuck in a stalled sidethread chatting with Lord Æthar, and Anna Jaeger, who I hoped was going to help us with this when she jumped on out here and started doing the possessing-spirit routine, has just up and vanished. Believe me, sister, if I could call them in, I’d have done it long since. I’ve been carrying the whole writing burden on this thread far too long as it is.
Script girl: Have you? Well, then! That must mean you’re the guilty party! You’re responsible for all the script problems! Explain yourself, Dabbler.
Me: Myself? Hell, I can’t even explain the characters these days, it seems.
Script girl: Well, we won’t roll the action again until you do.
Stage manager (warning): Script girl...
Script girl: I mean it!
Me (irritated): What do you need explained?
Script girl: First of all, what’s with the sex changes?
Me: Huh? That’s easy. Wu had put his morphing powers on automatic, so he would be whatever sex least attracted by the Worm’s current form. There was an oversight at one point, and he didn’t go female when the Worm did. I noticed that when I started the next episode, so I silently corrected the point. You oughta thank me, you let the original error slip right past.
Script girl: I see. And the hand-waving ground-erupting and all that? Isn’t he supposed to do all his non-morphing tricks via clever devices?
Me: Who’s to say he didn’t? Maybe it was just a cleverer device than usual. Maybe you blinked at the wrong time, and missed it.
Script girl: And maybe you got lazy in your writing.
Me: Hey, he’s shrunk a trench coat to the size of a loincloth, remember? If most of it’s invisible, so maybe the devices are, too.
Script girl: The gun wasn’t.
Me: True. But that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Script girl (shifting tactics): What about the restoration of Avabigun and Hugabales?
Me: Hey, he’s a morpher, that falls within the area of his natural talents.
Script girl: Hadn’t you established that he could only morph himself, and that with great difficulty?
Me: I never said that. I said he had a limited number of standard forms for himself, and adopting more took time. Morphing between those standard forms is quick and easy, and he can change sexes at the drop of a hat. Anyway, I never wrote anything about what he could do to others.
Script girl: Surely you don’t expect me to believe he can do unto others what he can’t do unto himself?
Me: Of course not. But for someone with his powers, restoring people to their ordinary forms—whether it’s him or someone else—is as simple as falling off a log. He couldn’t have turned Avabigun and Hugabales into penis-monsters like the Worm did—not without a lot of time and work, anyway—but restoring them to their true forms was a piece of cake.
Script girl (sighing): You have answers for everything, don’t you?
Me: Well, you did ask for them. Besides, I am an author. Writing my way out of stupid mistakes is second nature to me.
Script girl: Aha!
Stage manager: Okay, that’s enough! I’m going to have to pull rank here, SG, we’re way over our budgeted time and resources, here. You want to fight with the talent, you can do it on your own time, I say it’s been patched together enough. Roll ’em!
Script girl: This isn’t over, boy!
Me: Fine. “I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare.”
Script girl: It’s a date.
Me: Sorry, I don’t date, the gals at home frown on that sort of thing, but if it’s a battle you want—
Stage manager: I said roll ’em!
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Sun Dec 15 01:06:32 2002
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