Lush is obviously struggling today. But I am not complaining. In fact I admire the heroic efforts behind the scenes to keep our beloved site up. For some reason in my head, I picture Lush HQ as a mostly steam-powered operation. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the building, a small but determined group of muscled, sweaty, grimy, shirtless men are shoveling coal in a desperate attempt to keep the boilers hot. (Boilers take coal, right? Or is it water? But nobody shovels water...anyway) A grizzled, vaguely foreign man named Scotty is shouting with an accent into the intercom: "We're givin' her all we can, but I don't know how much more she can take!" An angry male voice responds over the intercom: "Damn it, Scotty! I need more power! Two new stories just went live, and it's Valentines Day! We have a CONTEST going on for Christ's sake!" "I'll do what I can, Captain, but I'm not a miracle worker, eh*..." At that moment there is a loud hiss of escaping steam followed by alarm bells. More shirtless men** rush off, presumably to shovel more coal. Scotty bellows some technical-sounding orders to his men--"Shut down the oscillator! Ignite the compression coils! Use that other stuff on the thingy over there!" After a few harrowing moments, it finally looks like Lush has everything under control, but just then, a heavily armed raiding party from Literotica shows up and launches a surprise attack on Lush HQ! The Literotica leader, Cling-On Khan, roars at the gates: "A POETRY contest?!? For Valentines Day?!? You are WEAK Lush! Your empire is about to fall...to ME! HahahaHA!!" Turning to his raiders, he shouts, "Launch the hardcore torpedoes and fire the watersports beam!"
That's all I have in my head. I hope everything turns out OK. I could really use a scotch right now...
* Scotty is Canadian, if you have to know, all right! If you have a problem with that, get your own damn imagination.
** If equal opportunity is important to you in this context, you could substitute half of the men for muscled, sweaty, grimy, shirtless women. I'd be fine with that.