The Book of Masks Homepage

Complicated Results

Today's chapter—

Interactive: "A Face to Meet the Faces That You Meet" 
Public: "A Face to Meet the Faces That You Meet" 

—is a cliffhanger and that's where I'm going to leave it for now. But don't worry, I intend to come back to it, as I explain in the commentary post: "Commentary: "Conspirators Three""  

Next up though is a total change of pace, a change of of interactives even. I started accepting commissions last week, and tomorrow I'll start publishing the first of them, over in "Student Bodies" . Specifically, it will be a sequel branch to "A School Survey" . The plot thus far: David in his flight from the base has possessed the bodies of the three Garner triplets at Westside High—Marc, Eva and Jessica—and has been practicing his powers on them. He now feels a lot more confident with his abilities, but not so confident that he can infiltrate and investigate the military base. So he is going to practice some more by extending himself by possessing others at Westside. He has five choices, two of which have been started. I'll start on a third choice tomorrow.

This line will run for 10 days.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, today also ends a really complicated and somewhat controversial series of polls. (I forgot to post a deadline for the polls, but the usual thing is to close the polls when the day that the last chapter in a branch gets published. I am closing it a few hours earlier than is traditional, but that's because today is likely to be very complicated for me, and I need to handle business while I've got a moment.) As I explained in the previous blog entry, this poll is going to have to end with two sets of results, one being the official results and the other some unofficial results that exclude some votes that excited my suspicions.

To start, here are the official results, as percentages:

Poll 1 Who Moves Where:
"Sydney Dates Kirkham" (47.6%); "Sydney Dates Will" (39.7%); "Will Dates Sydney" (12.7%)

Poll 2a Sydney Dates Kirkham as ...:
Lisa Yarborough (42.3%); Andrea Varnsworth (32.3%); Ximena Calderon (11.5%); Sydney's choice (10.0%); Mindy McAdams (3.8%)

Poll 2b Sydney Dates Will as ...
Andrea Varnsworth (27.4%); Dorothy Harmon (24.3%); Sydney's choice (23.4%); Jenny Ashton (17.0%); Danielle Davis (7.9%)

Poll 2c Will Dates Sydney as
Preston Spinks (31.0%); Geoff Mansfield (24.1%); Erik Carstairs (17.2%); Blake O'Brien (17.2%); Steve Patterson (10.3%)

And the unofficial results:

Poll 1 Who Moves Where:
"Sydney Dates Will" (49.0%); "Sydney Dates Kirkham" (35.3%);"Will Dates Sydney" (15.7%)

Poll 2a Sydney Dates Kirkham as ...:
Andrea Varnsworth (37.3%); Lisa Yarborough (33.3%); Ximena Calderon (13.3%); Sydney's choice (11.5%); Mindy McAdams (4.4%)

Poll 2b Sydney Dates Will as ...
Dorothy Harmon (26.4%); Sydney's choice (25.4%); Andrea Varnsworth (24.6%); Jenny Ashton (15.0%); Danielle Davis (8.6%)

Poll 2c Will Dates Sydney as
Same as the official results.

So what does this mean for sequels? Well, generally I am going to give first priority to the official results (however janky they seem to me), so here is the order in which branch sequels will (eventually) appear:

1. Sydney Dates Kirkham as ... --> Lisa Yarborough (official --> official)
2. Sydney Dates Will as --> Andrea Varnsworth (unofficial --> official)
3. Sydney Dates Kirkham as ... --> Andrea Varnsworth (official --> unofficial)
4. Sydney Dates Will as --> Dorothy Harmon (unofficial --> unofficial)
5. Will Dates Sydney as --> Preston Spinks (runners up in both official and unofficial polls)

These will be interspersed between commissions and other publishing runs, so it will be awhile before all of them appear.

As for GPs that were voted: If you voted GPs for a winning choice, either official or unofficial, you forfeit your GPs, which will be divided amongst readers who voted GPs for losing choices; unless no GPs were voted for losing choices, in which case winners will get their GPs back.