The grand mashup continues

Lilia Argento, Wendy Massey and I have finally started working on our "grand mashup storyline" again. This is the one where Lucia, Queen of the Stars, Renard DuPrey, Maxine Chung and the brave survivors of Sirius Gate all end up in the same story. We were making grand progress on the thing back in April, when real life got in the way. Now we are making another run at it, scaling back our postings to accommodate our respective schedules.

For those of you who tuned in late, super-villain Renard DuPrey (who lives in an alternate-history Earth where super-powers are real), has world-walked through interdimensional p-space to meet Lucia, Queen of the Stars, a half-elven sorceress who has contact with the star-roaming Dragons. Lucia's ward, Toad, a young child raised by wolves, provides cynical commentary as Renard and Lucia succumb to their mutual attraction.

Meanwhile, Maxine Chung, who was raped by Renard DuPrey and now believes herself to be the vengeful valkyrie Brunnhilde from Wagner's opera cycle, is stalking p-space, intent on killing her betrayer, whom she identifies as the perfidious Siegfried. She has fallen in with Zirina, the Warrior Priestess, a traveling adventurer, who is puzzled by Maxine's mythic references and advanced technology.

Several light-years away, the doomed ship Sirius Gate, captained by Maxine Chung's husband John Chung, has fallen "down the rabbit hole" into p-space. Faced with starvation and worse, the 22 survivors of Sirius Gate have descended to an astonishing disc-shaped world, shaped like the Earth of Medieval cosmology. John Chung, along with ship's physician Dejah Moran (who is John Chung's lover), and the others must quickly find a way to survive on this alien world.

Have we totally confused you yet? Hang on for the ride. The roller coaster has just gotten started.

Reigning Babies

It's Reigning Babies!

Here is what is going on at New York Secondary School: When the world tunrs upside down, you had better hold on tight. What happens when not just one but two drama queens turn out to be pregnant? Well, Oola and her friends from the twelfth floor all knew that Chrysta Snow was with child and home in Virginia recovering from a broken ankle. Her return was a bit of a surprise. Then four days after her welcome-back, Deia Norton turns out to be pregnant as well and the father is...Phin-ee-ass, aka Sewer Mouth.

But wait, it gets even better. Though neither Chrysta nor Deia would admit it, they live for drama. Chrysta particularly does nothing to make peace between her present boyfriend and exboyfriend, one of whom (and it can only be one) is the father of her child.

Worse yet, Deia and Chrysta's pregnancies have caused many kids in New York Secondary's General Population to return to traditional values, well sort of. Getting pregnant and marrying the father of your child is cool. Hooking up and walking away unscathed is not. Suddenly, the popular but promiscuous Madira is both ostracized and without partners. Madira takes refuge on the study floor.

Meanwhile, Blessed Bartlow, a twelfth floor girl on scholarship, observes that if the rich kids at New York Secondary had to worry about how to support their offspring and whether they could finish school once they had a child, being pregnant would not carry half the cachet it currently does. Blessed may be right, but that and money on the Metro Card gets you a ride on the MTA.

Hang on. There's more drama to come, and it's going to be one wild ride.