Caemgen

As always, any and all comments welcome... And thanks to my editor for catching as many of my many, many mistakes as he could - Typo Cop!



A Friendly Chat

“You need to get laid.”

This came from Officer Kirby, one of my teammates in the Daybreak patrol.

After laying my entire life story out to a certain redheaded Crey Field Officer I had found myself restless and uneasy and needing to figure out just what kind of jam I was actually getting myself into. As much as I tried to figure it out myself, my mind just didn’t seem to wrap itself around the answer. Too personally involved, perhaps; maybe I was too wound up by my own fears and desires; or, possibly, I just wasn’t bright enough.

“Excuse me?” I asked. His statement certainly wasn’t the reaction I expected from him. Officer Kirby, out of his Daybreaker Armor, appeared to be a middle aged stereotypical tough as nails, walk the straight and narrow kind of cop. Half of me had expected him to read me the riot act over my little salvage operation after the Freakshow incident and the other half expected him to just flat-out arrest me for tampering with evidence.

Yet some small part of me believed there was more to him than a black-and-white, good and bad, follow the letter of the law police officer. I certainly believed those were elements of his nature but something told me he had enough years and experience to see beyond that as well. I could have been totally wrong, of course. Half and half doesn’t leave any left over for “a small part” to have another view. Maybe I wasn’t bright enough after all.

“You heard me,” Officer Kirby answered as he sat across the table from me and continued to give me the cop stare he had been giving me throughout my story.

“What does that have to do with…?”

“It’s got everything to do with it,” he interrupted even as he tore into a glazed donut. “Seems to me this whole mess stems from twenty years ago when you made some stupid vow to your dead girlfriend.”

“Fiancé,” I corrected but he just brushed it away with the wave of one donut-filled hand.

“Ever since you woke up in that hospital with her dead and half your body replaced with metal you’ve had your life on hold and your head shoved somewhere anatomically impossible,” Kirby continued. “What have you done since then with your life? Have you done one thing that wasn’t overshadowed by the attack in the mall?”

“I… I...” I didn’t know what to say. Of course I realized that I spent years wishing I had a way to seek revenge and little else. I realized that I jumped at the Crey opportunity because I believed it may give me that chance. I realized I was little more than a hermit who had cut himself off from as much social interaction as possible in order to have more time to scheme and plot (most fruitlessly, to boot), but realizing something in your own head and having it shoved into your face are two entirely different things.

“My fiancé was slaughtered right before my eyes! She was carrying our child and some monster just blew her away without a second thought. I lost an arm, a leg, a hand, an eye and my doctors only know how much of my guts. I should be dead as well, for chrissakes.” When you have no answer to the question posed you may as well go on the offensive.

“Get over it,” Kirby said, totally unfazed by my outburst.

“What?” I all but screamed incredulously.

“Get over it,” Kirby said, calm as ever. “It was twenty years ago. Time’s long past when you should have come to some kind of acceptance and moved on with your life.”

“Acceptance?” I asked, starting to get angry. “You want me to just accept that my fiancé was murdered? My unborn child, slaughtered? You want me to accept the fact that I have been irrevocably maimed - turned into some half metal grotesquerie of a man? I should just accept that?”

“Years ago,” Kirby answered and took a swig of his coffee.

“Sit your butt back into that chair before I use it as a planter for my foot!” Officer Kirby growled as I angrily started to stand up. Whether I intended to storm out or to storm into him I hadn’t been sure. Hearing the growl in his voice, seeing the way he made the threat so calmly and seemingly without a doubt he could pull it off, I wavered a bit in my righteous anger and decided not to put it to a test.

“You came to me for advice, Michaels. I sat here and listened to your story and now you can sit there and listen to that advice. After I’ve said my piece, you can ignore it if you want. Think on it, if you’d like. Hell, laugh about it and do a polka all the way to the local bar for all I care. But first I’m going to lay a few facts out on the table. Facts you need to hear. Facts someone should have laid out for you years ago. You are going to listen to these facts and afterwards the life you lead is up to you - just as always; but at the very least, you won’t be able to claim ignorance caused your piss-poor decisions.”

I wanted to shove my cybernetic fist through Officer Kirby’s face at that point. I came to him for advice, not a lecture. I certainly didn’t come to him to be treated like a wayward teenager needing some hard life lesson to be explained to him. Toss into the mix the way he had dismissed the fact my fiancé had been murdered and had waved away my injuries and I felt I had every excuse I needed to just walk out the door.

Still, he was right about one thing. I had come to him for advice. I did owe it to him to listen to it, no matter how distastefully he delivered it. I could always punch him afterwards if need be.

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Say your piece.”

“Fine,” Kirby replied and continued to stare at me for several long moments. Finally he took a deep breath and seemed to relax his posture and his attitude. Rising from the table he pushed the box of donuts towards me. “You brought them, may as well eat as you listen,” he said and then grabbed the coffee pot and refilled both our mugs.

“I’m going to tackle the most painful part first. Far as I can figure, it’s the only way to do it. Not only is it better to yank the band aid off quickly and get it over with, but I think the rest of your mess stems from the way you have your head screwed all up over that incident in the mall - over your fiancé’s murder,” Kirby said slowly and softly, trying to ease into it.

“Her name was Wendy, right?”

“Wendy… yes,” I answered cautiously.

“A true Wendy or was it short from Gwendolyn or something?”

“Just Wendy,” I answered a bit smartly. “Her mother was a big Peter Pan fan. What of it?”

“Just curious is all. From what you told me of her she sounded like a good person. A caring person.”

“She was,” I answered, my thoughts slipping back to her.

“Big on revenge, was she?” Kirby asked after letting me drift on my thoughts for a few moments. “An eye for an eye kind of gal?”

“What? No,” I said, being pulled away from images of the time I had spent with her. “She was one of the kindest, gentlest people I ever met.”

“A nurse? A healer?”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re out to honor her memory by vowing revenge?” Kirby asked in a moderate tone.

I tried to think about it before I answered but the thinking wasn’t coming easily.

“When you put it like that it sounds… I don’t know…” I trailed off, not wanting to complete the thought.

“Stupid?” Kirby prompted.

I took a slow, deep breathe and finally let it out in a sigh. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Idiotic?”

I nodded. “That too.”

“Selfish?” he continued pressing.

“Ok, ok. I get it. Point taken.”

“I hope so,” Kirby said with compassion in his voice rather than the smugness I half expected.

“Let’s keep pressing on while we have some momentum,” Kirby added before the silence could gain too much weight. “Next, you awoke a changed man - half metal. Crey Corp., in an act of corporate generosity, used their latest technology to save you ; seemingly pulling you back from the brink of death, right?”

“Yeah. I told you that part.” I slumped back into my chair having found my earlier anger had evaporated. “What of it?”

“You’ve been in this life for a while now. You’ve heard the scuttlebutt; the rumors and innuendo. Do you still believe Crey Corp. does anything out of generosity? Altruistically?” Kirby asked.

I sat there with a sense of dread building inside of me and just looked at him.

“What? Altruistically? It means…”

“I know what it means,” I said. “I’m not dumb. I’ve wondered about Crey Corp. before now. About why they saved me. About the years of follow up care all provided free of charge. Not even hitting up my insurance. About why I was chosen to pilot their armor – they had to have more qualified and experienced people, didn’t they? About whether or not it was coincidence that the implants and cybernetics they outfitted me with twenty years ago are so compatible with their Powered Armor of today…”

Officer Kirby been nodding along as I spoke. “All good questions,” he said and then took a sip of his coffee. “Come up with any answers?”

“Seems I’m better at coming up with questions than answers,” I admitted and got up out of my chair. I aimlessly walked around the kitchen area of our teams base of operations for a bit before finally grabbing an orange out of the bowl of fruit someone had set up – one of the girls, probably. Tac-Officer Hoplite or Officer Justice. Justice, I decided. Hoppy seemed more the nightlife kind of gal whereas Justice definitely had a mothering instinct about her.

“Well, did you ever think about the fact Crey does nothing without an agenda?” Kirby asked. “Ever think that perhaps they were setting you up to wear that suit, or something like it, since the very day they saved your life? Crey is one organization that definitely thinks long term… Big picture. Now I’m not saying that Crey turned that Malfearance character loose and aimed him at you, not that I would put it past them, but I can easily see them laying in wait for someone to become available to them who fit their needs. Someone they could tinker with and experiment on. Someone at rock bottom who they could slowly build back up the way they wanted to for whatever scheme of theirs they happened to have going at the time… Ever think of that?”

“I think about it,” I said distractedly, paying more attention to my metal fingers peeling the orange than to my words. “I think about it a lot. I think about lots of things a lot. It’s just… my thoughts… they just never seem to get anywhere. I think and I think and I think but the conclusions just never come. It’s frustrating. Damned frustrating. All that damned thinking just makes me want to….”

I eventually noticed the silence and turned to Officer Kirby. He was still sitting at the table with his cup of coffee in his hands but his expression seemed troubled and he wasn’t looking me in the eye anymore. He was looking at my hands. My hands which were dripping with pulp and juice from the orange I had torn into a thousand different pieces. Seems I forgot to stop peeling the thing when it ran out of peel. Seems I forgot in quite an aggressive manner.

“Huh,” I said, quite intelligently. “Well, guess I’ll clean this up.” I started grabbing paper towels from the roll and focusing on that task rather than the conversation we’d been having.

“Makes you want to do what?” Officer Kirby said, getting up and bringing the trash can over so I could have somewhere to throw my mess.

“Hmm?” I asked as if I didn’t follow.

“All that damned thinking just makes you want to do what?” he said patiently.

I continued to clean up the mess and Kirby just stood right there holding the trash can for me and awaiting an answer. His patience and stoicism could really be annoying.

“Not go out and kill puppies or anything. Christ!” I finally answered, annoyed at the silence. “I get aggravated. I get annoyed. I get frustrated. Whatever! It makes me want to just put on the suit and go, is all and…”

“Go fight crime?” Kirby asked. “Go and beat up some criminals?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“No!” I said, correcting myself immediately.

“It’s not like that. It’s not about fighting crime. And it’s certainly not about beating up criminals,” I tried to explain. “It’s about the suit itself. Just deciding to put it on helps calm my head. The process of it… The stripping down, the precise order in which each piece must be put on, the checking and rechecking of each connection… There’s an almost Zen like quality to the process, you know what I mean? It’s calming. Relaxing.”

“Being in the suit itself… don’t you feel this way too? It’s a sense of… man, I can hardly describe it. There’s a rightness to being inside the suit. It fills the gnawing hole in my belly and makes me complete; or least ways as near to complete as I ever feel anymore. My head gets all garbles up with thoughts and questions and memories and junk and I just cannot relax until I slip into the armor,” I said. “Isn’t it that way for you? For all of us?”

Officer Kirby had at some point set down the trash can and leaned back against the counter. His eyes were still on me but the hardness had left them, in their place their seemed to be only concern.

“No,” he said. “It’s not like that for me at all. My armor is nothing more than a symbol and tool used to do my job. Just like my normal police uniform and revolver.”

“So you never need that fix of just being inside it? That calming rush it brings?” I asked, bewildered.

Officer Kirby narrowed his eyes. “You a junkie, Michaels?”

“What? Screw you!” I answered, shocked.

“I’m serious,” Kirby said.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever touch is beer,” I snarled at him. “The occasional shot of whiskey, maybe. I didn’t even experiment as a kid, for chrissakes.”

“It’s not drugs I’m asking about, Michaels. It’s the suit. Are you addicted to the suit?”

“What?” I asked incredulously. “That… That doesn’t even make sense!”

“I wouldn’t have thought so yesterday but now I’m not so sure…” Kirby said before trailing off into thought for a moment.

“Look, I’m not some dirt bag junkie. It’s not like I really need to…” I started.

“Shhhh, give me a second,” Kirby said in a distracted manner. “Let me just… OK, I’m going to think out loud here, interrupt me if I get anything wrong.”

“Way back when, Crey Corp. saved you from the brink of death using methods and technologies only they know. They replaced several of your organs and fixed others. Not through transplants though, right? Some kind of technological process?”

I nodded. “They don’t really go into details but my sense was some things were replaced and others… Modified?”

“Not the kind of thing you hear about going on in modern hospitals though, is it? Twenty year old cutting edge technology is usually every day crap by now, isn’t it? So why isn’t yours?” Kirby asked, not really wanting an answer. “They’ve been your only doctors since then, I assume?”

“They said a normal physician wouldn’t understand the differences.”

“Of course, of course,” Kirby said, waving a hand to show he got the gist or it. “I’d guess your visits to their doctors got more frequent in the year or so before they recruited you for the Daybreaker program…”

“Now that you mention it,” I said.

“And these days?”

“Three times a week. One a couple hours after each of our routine patrols plus one in between.”

“And meds?” Kirby asked. “How often they have you taken pills?”

“No pills,” I answered. “I get a couple injections each time they visit but they say those are for…”

“Doesn’t matter what they say they’re for,” Kirby interrupted. “What does matter is what they’re really for.”

“You think they’re drugging me?” I asked, shocked. Of course I knew all the rumors about Crey by now but still…

“They are drugging you, only questions are with what and why,” Kirby answered.

“Look, Michaels. Those people did something to you. Something big. They have bits and pieces of machinery and programming and God knows what else inside more parts of you than you can name. They always shot you up with drugs but now that you’re wearing the armor it’s a lot more frequent. Also now that you’re wearing the armor you need to wear the armor…”

“I wouldn’t say need to,” I said defensively.

“No? You did earlier. The word itself plus in about ten other ways. Describing it you sounded like a junkie describing why they need a fix. The more you talked about it the more agitated you got, the more jittery - like a junkie. It’s hard not to wonder if that isn’t part of what they did to you, Michaels.”

“So now I’m a junkie and I never even realized it? I asked.

“You’ve picked superadine addicts off the street,” Kirby replied. “Any of them ever think they were junkies?”

I so didn’t want to be dealing with this anymore. I was sick of this whole conversation since at least half an hour ago. I couldn’t think about it anymore. It was all too confusing and too annoying and all I really wanted to do was to climb into my armor and… and get away from it all.

It occurred to me that I’d been having those kinds of thoughts a lot recently - more and more I’d been having them.

“You really think they’re messing with me?” I asked with my eyes squeezed tight and my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried to concentrate on a single train of thought.

“I do,” Officer Kirby said solemnly.

“Why?” I asked. “Not only why, but for what reason?”

“If I could figure that, out I’d be in the FBI,” Kirby answered. “What I guess is that they had some scheme in the works and when the mall thing happened they noticed you and you fit into their scheme. Don’t ask me why or how, I have no idea. I figure they did their surgeries and experiments back then and they followed your progress through the years. It was easy since you had to go to them for all your medical needs.”

“When this Daybreaker Program fell into their lap, I’m guessing they saw a way to accelerate their program. Or maybe just test it. Anyway, they had a suit all ready to go and coincidentally it fit you almost to a T,” Kirby continued. “Seems to me they got you messed up and they kept you that way. Given their history, I would think deliberately. It kept you from straightening out your life, putting it back together. It kept you from asking pesky questions such as what they were doing to you and why. Do you really think, in your right mind, you wouldn’t have demanded to know what bits and pieces of you they replaced? What they replaced them with? And why? You have any explanation for not demanding those answers?”

I didn’t.

The room was still and silent for a long time. I didn’t think about the things we had been discussing so much as just let them settle in.

At some point a kernel of knowledge seemed to open up inside of me. A kernel that said I was no longer myself. That I was different than I should be. Than I wanted to be. This wasn’t about a mechanical leg or a couple of robotic arms but rather an inner difference. I had lost myself and there was no doubting when I had done that. The question was, could I find myself again?

“I want it out,” I said in a whisper. “I want it all out.”

“Hold on there now,” Kirby said, talking a step towards me.

“Seriously, I need it out. I need these alien bits and pieces taken out of me. I need to be myself again!” I could hear the panic in my own voice.

“Relax, Michaels. Calm down,” Kirby was saying in a relaxing manner as he came up to me and took my shoulders in his hands and steadily leading me over to a chair. “We’ll get them out of you once we find out exactly what they are and what they’re doing to you?”

“How we going to do that? Can’t very well just ask them, can we?”

“No. That probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing at this point,” Kirby agreed. “We’ll ask Derrick instead.”

“That kid? The one who worked on our base?” I asked in confusion.

“That kid is my cousin and he didn’t work on this base, he designed it. Top to bottom. From the computer systems to the teleporter. He may be just seventeen but I guarantee that kid is smarter than anyone the Crey Corporation has working for them.”

I never posted on these? Hmph...

Anyway, love the female rocketeer and Baron Brass. The others are really good as well but those two really jumped out at me. Nice.

I have to vote for Shia... A large part of the reason is that it is "all CoH" in that even a newbie such as myself can recognize easily what characters he's portraying, what the storyline behind them is, etc... It also clearly shows the moment we are looking for.

I like Foo's but couldn't that just be any guy having a really bad day? And while I like the humor of the ice cream being that final straw the piece just doesn't convery to me that he's about to go out and seel vengeance upon the world.

As for Apro's... I like this piece but I just don't think the emotional payoff was as strong as it could have been. Having to read a note tacked into the piece lessens some of the impact for me. To me the picture should speak for itself. Yours does, actually, but you don't know the mother daughter connection (and thus get the stronger emotional payoff) until you read the note.

I think you could have gotten the mother/daughter connection into the picture itself by including a family resemblance... Be it having the daughter wearing a version of the moms armor or even at least having the same color scheme.

Great art as always.

Doc Brainbleed looks kind of sad to me - as if he's having to destroy something he'd rather not. I think it's mainly the eyes and the darkness around them but the pose too makes me think he's less than gung-ho about what he's doing.


I think this pic of Cashoo makes her look more wicked than any of the others I've seen. Not that there's anything wrong with that I didn't think she was walking, more posing for effect.

And I'm glad that you dropped the peg leg, at least for this costume. Dead I can overlook... Slivers in weird places? No thanks


And a legal Cashoo? Something tells me that could lead to trouble. Happy Birthday Cash!

Guess 1: Poland
Seems a bit too obvious a choice, specially since you used a RNG, but if it was the winner and I didn't pick it when I had the chance I would have to kick myself.

Guess 2: Oman

Oh man, it woudl be sweet to win!!

Ya... But which one you getting the artz for???

Huh??? WHERE?????





(I only wandered in because I thought I heard someone mention boobs....)

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!

Our lucky guesser took guesses at:

9/22 1:30 AM
9/23 8:30 AM
9/24 9:24 AM
9/25 11:58 AM
9/26 12:13 PM (times are whatever the heck region I have the board set to since I never changed it...)

Our lucky winner wins an all expense single character full CG rendering of the single character of their choice by http://taclobanon.deviantart.com/

If our winner has a Deviant Arts account they should PM that to me so I can PM it to me so I can let taclobanon know who won. They can they copntact the artist themselves to arrange reference shots, discuss poses, etc etc etc...

Taclobanon:

Numbers NOT picked:
56 59 68 79 93 94

Numbers Picked:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 57 58 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 95 96 97 98 99 100


Entants:
Pyro_Nympho, Christopher Robin, EnnVee, The Foo, Lazarus, Ambiguous, Jophiel, TremDei. Eddy Swan, PeteyCat, Kai, Vivace, PowerStream, Starwind, bubbawheat, Suichiro, GrayHuntress, StormVyxen, Oathbound, , PyroNympho, ChristopherRobin, Lazarus, twelfth, PeteyCat, tuter king, Eddy Swan, JOPHIEL, Starwind, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Bubbawheat, Kai, VexXxa, StormVyxen, Pyro_Nympho Lazarus, ChristopherRobin, EnnVee, Eddy Swan, Twelfth, PeteyCat, obijuan, KomradeKommunism, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Hercules, Bubbawheat, Graevity, oathbound, Kai, The Foo, Calash, StormVyxen, Lazarus, Pyro Nympho, EnnVee, Starwind, Eddy Swan, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, ChristopherRobin, obijuan, Suichiro, Hercules, Calash, VexXxa, Kai, Typo_Cop, Powestream, twelfth, Bubbawheat, Oathbound, The Foo, Calash, McBoo, EnnVee, TremDei, StormVyxen, ScooterTwo, Powerstream, Lazarus, Pyro_Nympho, Starwind, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, christopherrobin, obijuan, eddyswan, Suichiro, Kai, ScooterTwo, Twelfth, Bubbawheat



Oh yeah... Congratulations to Bubbawheat!!!! It's about time someone got it! I mean seriously... 94 guesses it took??? *sheeesh*


And just because I like to try to keep everything above board and allay suspicion before it can even be voiced, a screen shot of the PM I sent myself before I even started the contest:

If they're guessing too soon, they're killing themselves if they guess right.

I WILL be checking the posts of the winner to make sure they followed the 24 hour rule... (there is some SMALL leeway but not much.)

If the right guesser violated that rule, they are not getting the prize. The contest will be void, I'll think up some (quicker) contest, and they will not be eligible.


But no, not stopping unless we get down to 1 number left, as mentioned above. If that happens, once again I will think up some new way... I don't like it being a contest of who could just be the quickest to post.

Uh, yeah.... You two and your bad guesses are one (err, two) of the reasons this contest is taking so long!

Numbers still open:
56 59 68 79 85 90 93 94

(I actually considered stopping this and doing something else once I saw we were down to 10 numbers left but it's just gotten too amusing to see how far it'll go...)

I decided to have all my posts start with CCC... Until I can't think of a semi appropriate title that works, at least.

Anyway, I got really, really bored at work last night and to entertain myself I decided to pick up a pen...

Amazing work...

Congrats StormVyxen and Alasdair... Great job.

mousedroid - I wholeheartedly agree with your picks and thoughts. I think both costumes were great and I think the only way to decide between the two was if you wanted a "classical" feel or a more "modern" one.

No Winner Yet....

10 numbers left...

Contest is closed to anyone who hasn't already entered. It would be WAY too unfair for someone to walk in now and grab it.

If it gets down to just 1 number left, I will be thinking up a tie breaker. Nobody is winning just because they were the 100th entry.

Current status:
The open numbers left should be:
56 59 68 70 79 85 87 90 93 94

Taclobanon guessed used:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 57 58 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 69 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 80 81 82 83 84 86 88 89 91 92 95 96 97 98 99 100

Entants so far:
Pyro_Nympho, Christopher Robin, EnnVee, The Foo, Lazarus, Ambiguous, Jophiel, TremDei. Eddy Swan, PeteyCat, Kai, Vivace, PowerStream, Starwind, bubbawheat, Suichiro, GrayHuntress, StormVyxen, Oathbound, , PyroNympho, ChristopherRobin, Lazarus, twelfth, PeteyCat, tuter king, Eddy Swan, JOPHIEL, Starwind, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Bubbawheat, Kai, VexXxa, StormVyxen, Pyro_Nympho Lazarus, ChristopherRobin, EnnVee, Eddy Swan, Twelfth, PeteyCat, obijuan, KomradeKommunism, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Hercules, Bubbawheat, Graevity, oathbound, Kai, The Foo, Calash, StormVyxen, Lazarus, Pyro Nympho, EnnVee, Starwind, Eddy Swan, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, ChristopherRobin, obijuan, Suichiro, Hercules, Calash, VexXxa, Kai, Typo_Cop, Powestream, twelfth, Bubbawheat, Oathbound, The Foo, Calash, McBoo, EnnVee, TremDei, StormVyxen, ScooterTwo, Powerstream, Lazarus, Pyro_Nympho, Starwind, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, christopherrobin, obijuan, eddyswan, Suichiro,

No official ruling since I was sleeping... It's been stated from the get go that guesses must be 24 hours apart. I'm too lazy to check each persons guess against their last guess to make sure of this but I will be checking the winners posts. Now I MAY give SOME leeway on a strict 24 hours but not too much. And if I find that the person who chose the correct number was guessing more often then allowed then once again I'll be calling this null and void and thinking up some way to rerun...

I noticed another besides the one you noticed who did indeed post in less than 24 hours. People who either didn't pay attention to the rules or who are disregarding them will not get the prize...


That said, we still have no winner...


Taclobanon
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 58 61 62 65 66 67 69 71 72 73 75 76 77 78 80 81 82 84 88 89 91 92 95 96 97 98 99 100

Entants so far:
Pyro_Nympho, Christopher Robin, EnnVee, The Foo, Lazarus, Ambiguous, Jophiel, TremDei. Eddy Swan, PeteyCat, Kai, Vivace, PowerStream, Starwind, bubbawheat, Suichiro, GrayHuntress, StormVyxen, Oathbound, , PyroNympho, ChristopherRobin, Lazarus, twelfth, PeteyCat, tuter king, Eddy Swan, JOPHIEL, Starwind, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Bubbawheat, Kai, VexXxa, StormVyxen, Pyro_Nympho Lazarus, ChristopherRobin, EnnVee, Eddy Swan, Twelfth, PeteyCat, obijuan, KomradeKommunism, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Hercules, Bubbawheat, Graevity, oathbound, Kai, The Foo, Calash, StormVyxen, Lazarus, Pyro Nympho, EnnVee, Starwind, Eddy Swan, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, ChristopherRobin, obijuan, Suichiro, Hercules, Calash, VexXxa, Kai, Typo_Cop, Powestream, twelfth, Bubbawheat, Oathbound, The Foo, Calash, McBoo, EnnVee, TremDei, StormVyxen, ScooterTwo, Powerstream, Lazarus, Pyro_Nympho,

Still no winner...

As for the edited post by twelfth, there is no harm since his first number had already been chosen and teh second was not the winning number so it'll stand as his guess.

1) I have to assume that he would still pick 66...
2) If he chose yet a 3rd number and it won I believe there would be understandable upset by others...

If the winning number is picked in an edited post I will call the contest null and void and start it over, giving a much smaller number range to pick from and only allowing those who had already guessed to participate. But lets make sure that doesn't happen...

I'm thinking, if that did happen I may make a tally of exactly who entered and how many times and give each entrant the same number of picks as they had in original contest... Or something along those lines. Let's avoid me figuring it out, eh?


DO NOT EDIT YOUR POSTS IF THEY HAVE A GUESS IN THEM.

Current standings:
Taclobanon
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Entants so far:
Pyro_Nympho, Christopher Robin, EnnVee, The Foo, Lazarus, Ambiguous, Jophiel, TremDei. Eddy Swan, PeteyCat, Kai, Vivace, PowerStream, Starwind, bubbawheat, Suichiro, GrayHuntress, StormVyxen, Oathbound, , PyroNympho, ChristopherRobin, Lazarus, twelfth, PeteyCat, tuter king, Eddy Swan, JOPHIEL, Starwind, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Bubbawheat, Kai, VexXxa, StormVyxen, Pyro_Nympho Lazarus, ChristopherRobin, EnnVee, Eddy Swan, Twelfth, PeteyCat, obijuan, KomradeKommunism, ScooterTwo, Suichiro, Hercules, Bubbawheat, Graevity, oathbound, Kai, The Foo, Calash, StormVyxen, Lazarus, Pyro Nympho, EnnVee, Starwind, Eddy Swan, GrayHuntress, PeteyCat, ChristopherRobin, obijuan, Suichiro, Hercules, Calash, VexXxa, Kai, Typo_Cop, Powestream, twelfth, Bubbawheat, Oathbound,


next update after I wake up... Somewhere between 8pm and 9pm eastern....

It's the grin... total Joker grin with the high cheekbones and such. Oh, and pointy chin...

Liking the piece so far though right now I wouldn't recognize it as Mel...(but I always was bad with faces... and names... and numbers, math, social studies, english, astronomy, phys. ed.... Well, you get the picture.)