REVIEWS: End Of Month Reviews #98 - February 2012 [Spoilers]

[Lalo Martins]

What Andrew said. In fact, *everything* Andrew said, pretty much.

On Saturday, April 14, 2012 9:23:21 AM UTC+2, Andrew Perron wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:41:50 +0000 (UTC), Saxon Brenton wrote:
> 
> >      And the people she's hunting down are...  Well, they seem to be 
> > some of Lalo's New Misfits characters from his LNH classic maxiseries 
> > _58.5_ in the late noughties.  On a purely technical level I find this 
> > interesting, since pretty much all of the major characters are imports 
> > from the LNH classic setting - but I haven't been paying enough 
> > attention to the backhistory discussions on the lnh-authors mailing 
> > list to know which ones (if any) have been transported across from the 
> > original setting, and which ones are their LNH20 counterparts.
> 
> I believe they're all LNH20 counterparts; Lalo seems very much into
> Adaptation Distilling them down to their basic concepts, and importing the
> classic versions would run counter to that - especially as we still haven't
> found out what happens to them in the end.

Word. Those are counterparts; those are not counterparts of the *whole* team to begin with; there's at least one character that's dead and is going to stay dead in the Looniverse; so it's pretty diverged too. And the “counterpartness” will also have some major differences; for one thing, none of those characters has any ties with any other LNH20 characters not belonging to me, which was a huge part of the original conceit for Acra Flight.

So Danny is now no longer the former sidekick of Contraption Man, although you could maybe argue he's more or less the LNH20 counterpart of Contraption Man himself, if you like arguing, which I guess many of us do.

Howie was of course an inch from being a sparrow rather than a kiwi, glad we sorted that out in time. I made a small nod to this aborted change in the story: his assumed name in the comune is “Harry Sparrow”, which was going to be his new name if he had switched species (and a homage to Blink).

There's a bit of a cruel-ish self-joke about my inability to finish 58.5 there, as you refer to, “we still haven't found out what happens to them in the end”. In the LNH20 version, we don't know what happened to them *in the beginning*. So there's this big event that the two versions more or less share, but neither version has been explained. Maybe some day... :-P

BTW the Looniverse versions are still around. I'll put them in a somewhat special case of usability:

1. You can use any of them that are alive by the time of the last posted 58.5, except Fan Boy, Sammy, and Whino Lad, which are reserved.
2. But you have to either ask me privately what happens to them in the end, or email me your story before you post so I can let you know whether it contradicts my version of history. That's only so far as the unposted remainder of 58.5; the plans I had for them *after* that are officially cancelled, so from the point they disappear, they're up for grabs.
3. However, if you want to post a story set in the Infinite April period, and specifically before the Incident, by all means go ahead without asking me. Just try to figure out which issues are chronologically close and check for inconsistencies. I have a timeline in a text file if you want.


> > This creates an interesting question.  Is Pantra's playfulness (and, yes,
> > cruelty) an innate and standalone personality trait, or an act to cover 
> > her inability to focus?
> 
> I would say: both.  I'm not quite as forgetful as I sometimes act... but
> I'm still pretty dang forgetful, and the honestly of the one helps cover
> over the occasional duplicity of the other.

I think our vision is that it's independent, although connected in a way: in the sense that she's been scolded again and again for the playfulness and especially the cruelty, but (a) she doesn't care and (b) by the time she notices she's doing it, it's usually too late to stop.

Also one thing Frost said in that issue (IIRC): nobody is quite sure if she's *unable* to focus/remember, or maybe she just can't be bothered. There's some strong indications towards the latter, because she can be pretty persistent when she wants to, holding on to a single activity for oh wow is that a squirrel? Whee! Brb

-- Lalo “have to run for a meeting now — yes, Saturday afternoon” Martins
-- btw really really really trying to have either a Menace or a Spoon of Destiny this month, can't very well miss the anniversary can I?