Now that the shock of the day is done, it is fitting and proper to lift the veil, give credit where credit is due, and all that good stuff...

Transfigurations was TSAT's April Fool's Day prank for 2005. As such, it does not (nor did it ever) truly exist. Once Bard and Cubist decided to transform their webzine into an overtly Christian organ for the occasion, the obvious next step was to assemble a team, of as many overt Christians and sympathetic gentiles as we could, to share the blame -- sorry, that should have been "create suitable material". Had Bard (atheist) and Long (agnostic) elected to forge ahead without the other guys' willing and enthusiastic assistance... well, perhaps that should fall under the category of "things Man was not meant to know".

While we wanted the joke to incorporate to incorporate Christian concepts and imagery, at the same time we weren't interested in making Christianity itself into a joke. A bit of a dilemma, that. Our solution, arrived at after a bit of brainstorming: the First Church of Christ, Theriomorph. This Church is exactly as nonexistent as Transfigurations, which means that no matter how risible FCCT (or its doctrines...) may be, no real Christian need take offense. And for those Christians who took offense anyway, just because, we've got three words: Get an afterlife! If God doesn't have a sense of humor, how do you explain (a) the platypus, and (b) the gags He slipped into His unauthorized autobiography?

The Naked Souls shared-world guidelines are part of the gag. Frankly, we doubt anyone is ever going to actually write a Naked Souls tale -- but if anybody ever does feel like playing in this particular 'sandbox', TSAT will accept new stories in that setting just as readily as it does any other submissions.

As the saying goes, 'names were changed to protect the innocent'...

As well, we acknowledge the spiritual support of Chris O'Kane, aka Brother Christian Christian (who didn't actually do a whole heck of a lot, but came up with such a classic pseudonym that we wanted to mention it here anyway).

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