Grimm's comment made me wonder how many posts I had put into the story so far compared with others. Since I find statistics interesting, I went through the story and counted the number of posts per writer:

It shouldn't be any surprise at all that Euro came in the lead with a whopping 24 posts.

I came in second at 20 posts so far, though Doc and I were neck-and-neck until recently.

Doc's count is 16.

Grimm is at 15.

Prometheus (counting Ozzy Baxter, of course) comes in at 13, but that's just because he hasn't posted as much recently -- he had a higher post count than anyone but Euro at one point.

Mxy comes in with 9 posts.

Cowgirl Jack is next with 5 posts (none recent -- I know she's busy with school and stuff).

Captain Sammitch has some catching up to do as he's at 4 posts so far.

Gooz has "phoned it in" with 3 posts (little acting-lingo for ya there [wink] ).

Sonhaven and our fearless (but absent) leader Danny both come in with 1 post each.

Not surprisingly, there haven't been any posts by Drax, Vengeance, Tobias Christopher, or Kristogar Velo (though it's not too late).

In realizing how much I've personally been writing during this story and a few others (such as issue #11 almost a year ago), and having been reading through all the TOMB stories while gathering info about Mandelovia, it struck me that I rarely posted anything in the old days. And when I did write, it tended to be very much focused on my own character rather than the group at large. I tended to do a lot more skimming of the stories back then rather than a careful reading, so I rarely felt comfortable enough to write other peoples' characters.

It's completely different now, though, as I've got a good handle (in comparison to the TOMB/MBL days) on the Hero Revolution Universe, having helped create much of it, and I know the team fairly well and am usually not afraid to use them if I have a reason to do so.

Which is why I'm really looking forward to the Christmas story. It should give our characters a chance to interact with each other in a casual setting rather than a battlefield. I hope to see more of a "family" atmosphere fostered in the team rather than a back-biting X-baby kind of group. The reason TOMB worked so well in the old days is because there were some really strong friendships between characters, something I think is generally lacking in Vanguard, though I do see potential for that to happen more often than it has. The old MBL was generally a failure, in my opinion, because there was little to hold the characters together other than a sense of "saving the world" (from a random assortment of humourously-dangerous characters). The MBL's membership seemed to constantly rotate and few friendships were allowed to evolve as they did in TOMB.

Vanguard, as we've written it, is much more like TOMB than the old MBL, but we haven't really had the chance to develop a stable cast of characters. I blame this partly on the constant action-oriented stories we've been doing over the last year, but it is mostly because the stories we've done have been moving too damn slowly to allow much to happen in the lives of the characters. Before the current issue, the stories were generally 3 or 4 months long and seemed to drag on aimlessly at times. I would honestly have liked to have time to develop more quality interaction between Chance and the other Vanguardians, but there were so very few opportunities to do so in the stories we've done over the last year. I think the ideal way to do these collaborative stories is to have each story run for about a month or so, but not much longer. In order to do this, though, people have to be able to move the story along in a forward direction when it gets "stuck in the mud," though this should always be done in a respectful way to other posters and their plans (unless they're holding the story up by being gone for a long time, such as a few weeks, in which case it's gotta move on anyway so the rest of us can continue writing).

Anyway, I'm just rambling here with some of my thoughts, since it's easier to just write it all out here than in the usual chat atmosphere. I hope the Christmas story becomes a vehicle not only for the writers to continue some of their own characters' subplots, but primarily for interaction between the members of the team themselves. Perhaps the tragedy of Chance's death could bring the team closer, and develop some unexpected friendships that didn't really exist much before. I'm interested in seeing how some characters view each other -- for instance, Grimm and Banshee, two VERY different individuals.

Part of the reason I want a "closer" team to be worked out (in a believable way) is that I want Axel to eventually join the team (a few stories down the road), but I can't see that he would ever want to if it was hostile to newcomers like him. I'm not saying that it necessarily is that way now, but I can't really imagine Axel becoming friends with any of the current Vanguardians, though friendships would be necessary for a boy like him to feel accepted, y'know?

Oh, and I think it would be worthwhile for each of us to mention exactly WHY our character is with the team. What're the reasons for this odd assortment of people to stick together in the first place? It would be good to mention this in the Secret Files thread to make it easier for others to write your characters, but it would be even BETTER if the character examined that question for himself (or herself) in the story itself. Could make for some good character development.

OK, it's almost 4 AM -- I'd better stop typing and get some sleep. [...rassamnfrackin...]