LNH: The Liminals #2

[Drew Perron]

On 5/3/2017 8:21 PM, Adrian McClure wrote:
<snip>
> She was dressed in civilian clothes of course--a black tank-top that
> said "no one knows I'm a lesbian." Her hair was in a sharp bob and she
> wore black lipstick.

STYLE.

> Her name was Victoria Arden, otherwise known as Forsaken Lass of the
> Legion of Net.Heroes. Her girlfriend, Alice, called her "Vic," but she
> was the only one allowed to do that.

Which doesn't mean that Chaos Theory wouldn't anyway. (Or try, anyway. 
Yeesh, her power would probably actually work on them. @.@)

> She'd built a new
> family for herself with the Liminals, and that helped her a little,
> but not enough. There was an overwhelming emptiness where her self was
> supposed to be.

nuuuuu trauma and depression ;.;

> She had
> reasoned that the secrets of her past must be somewhere in the
> Infinite Library, which contained every book that does, did or could
> exist. There was just one problem--the Library was missing. When she'd
> gone there she'd found the entrance to it, the marble archway flanked
> by winged lions with glasses reading books, opened up onto a blank
> stone wall. "Don't ask me," one of the statues had said, "I just work
> here." It had yawned and stretched out its legs and gone back to
> turning the pages of its stone book.

Character-focused metaplot!

> Masterplan Lad could have done it if he still had the power of the
> Knights Temporal behind him, but that was long gone.

As seen in-- wait, we still haven't written that yet ^^; *scribble scribble*

> No. She had a specific mission here. She was here to fight a god.

Okay, first, drink seventeen One-Hour Energies, then go to the parking 
lot and astrally project...

> The worst thing about the LNH is
> that she felt like she *almost* belonged. A version of her had been
> part of this, been involved in all the crossovers and in-jokes, but
> she couldn't remember that person at all.

oh noooooo ;.; Must hug

> "Disco." Most people who heard that would laugh. They hadn't lost
> their entire world to Flipseid, the Net.God of Disco, like Fearless
> Leader had. Or been sent on a mission to strike back at him after his
> attack on Earth and been wiped out of existence along with their whole
> team by the Discomega Effect, surviving only because of a freak of
> metafiction, like Victoria.
>
> And that was why, when she'd been dancing and starting to talk with
> people and actually enjoy it a bit, and "Staying Alive" had come on,
> she'd frozen up and then quietly left.

a.) oh no this is Too Real
b.) This is why trigger warnings, even for goofy stuff, are important.

> I felt the mission should go to you, since you know
> what's at stake. I know it's difficult, sometimes, to survive. If the
> ones who make it out alive are the lucky ones, we don't always feel
> like it. But what we can do is make sure what happened to us never
> happens to anyone else."

This is a really Strong interpersonal relationship

> And somewhere in
> her heart of hearts she wanted to be that beautiful and that adored,
> even though the idea of being noticed by everyone terrified her.

Relatable.

> It was the same feeling
> she'd had, a world away, when she'd met Exciting Leather Strap-On
> Lass. [In Looniverse Y #14, not 15 as the previous issue
> said--Footnote Girl, who is maybe not old enough to be reading this,
> oh dear.]

Heeheehee

> Long ago there was a war between the gods of creativity and freedom,
> and the gods of repression and exploitation. The evil gods won.

It's funny, because we kind of back-stumbled into this powerful and dark 
thing in the middle of our silly goofy universe. @-@

> It didn't matter. She knew she was face to face with evil. She
> recognized the woman immediately. This was Slickshiver--a Net.God who
> had clashed with Seyfert, one of the most powerful of the LNHers.

WOO :D

> She felt a harsh wrenching, as they were no longer in the world. This
> was room with no door or window, with swirling rainbow patterns on the
> walls. Victoria touched the wall, the patterns shifted, making a
> bell-like tone. Everything's giving off a subtle vibration, the white
> plastic table and chair. I was almost like the room is made out of
> music. On the table was another telltale mark of the Net.Gods--an
> alien device covered in labyrinthine turnings of circuitry, a Beat
> Box.

Aaaaaa. So cool

> "Well, it's an old story--I used to be a nobody, and Flipseid promised
> to make me somebody. I was one of the lowest of the lowlies, and he
> drafted me to join the Club Bangers."
>
> They were Flipseid's disposable shock troops. All the ones anyone knew
> about had been male. Was that why she'd reached out to
> Victoria--because she'd seen something in common between them?

Ohhhh nice :D

> "Flipseid promised to make me gorgeous and glamorous. To make me shine
> like a star. All I had to give him in return was--you guessed it--my
> soul. I handed it over in a silver platter. And I didn't question it a
> bit. Sometimes I stayed up late and cried because I was missing
> something but I didn't know what it was and I didn't care.

ohhhhhhh ;.; Yes good jeez. You usually don't get a sense of what 
"losing one's soul" is.

> "Then someone played another song for me... It changed me. Made me
> feel all the things I was scared to feel. You know They Might Be
> Giants, right? They have a lot of songs about working in shitty jobs.
> Whenever I did missions for Flipseid, I kept getting Put Your Hand
> Inside the Puppet Head stuck in her head. And it had a real feeling
> and meaning which was missing from her own work--so I ran away to make
> her own music.

Ohhhhh frick yes. This is a consequence of that story which I didn't 
expect. :3 :3 :3 I had intended her to be a recurring villain, but this 
is *much* cooler.

> The music changed accordingly, grown hard, fast, aggressive. But
> somehow it strengthened Victoria as she followed Sickshiver, giving
> her more control over her movements, keeping her from slipping into
> the sword's power.
>
> None of the others seemed to see them. "You're on a different level of
> reality," said Slickshiver. "You're dancing with the gods now, baby."

SO COOL AAAA. <3

> Another Club Banger stepped through, bearing a Beat Box. The dancers
> couldn't see him, but instinctively moved away from him. He lay it on
> the floor and an image appeared in the air.  A towering figure, it
> skin grooved like vinyl.

I love how powerful you make the *presence*, even without the physical 
body. Man.

> Every bone in her body told Victoria she had to run. She did not.

SO COOL.

> "Very well then. You shall see that there is no escape." A wall of
> text appeared beside Flipseid--the contract.
>
> Victoria drew her sword, and pointed into it. She opened the hungry
> mouth of the void within her. The contract was gone, like a puff of
> vapor, as if it had never been.

YES. :D :D :D <3 <3 <3

> A sharp silence filled the room. And from somewhere far away, Flipseid
> laughed and clapped his hands. "Clever, clever, clever! I'll let you
> dance a little longer."

gaaaaaaah. Man. @-@ The tension, breaking.

> Slickshiver slowly rose up into the air, sparkles swirling around her
> like a cloud of fireflies, faster and faster. Everyone began to dance
> again, overtaken by joy, including Victoria. She found herself dancing
> with a girl she didn't know, laughing at a joke neither of them
> understood. She was part of the mass of people moving in the harmony
> of flesh.Stayin' Alive was playing again, but this time it didn't make
> her feel scared or trapped. It made her feel, well, alive.

Awwwwwww! <3 <3 <3 An explosion of positive energy! The best way to end 
a conflict!

> But once more she looked up. Slickshiver blew her a kiss. A puff of
> light rose from her lips, expanding into a cloud of glitter which
> anointed Victoria's face and hair. And then she was gone.

ahhhhhhh. <3

> In time she made her way back to the LNHQ and knocked the door
> to her and Alice's room. They shared a room because felt panicky when
> she slept alone, even though they still hadn't "really" slept together
> yet.

Awwwwww <3 Good helpful girlfriend

> Alice had probably been staying up late binge-watching The Librarians.
> She opened the door and her jaw dropped. It must have been a shock to
> see Victoria covered in glitter and laughing.

^.^ <3

> "Long story." She grabbed Alice's hand and entwined her fingers in them.
> "Uh... are you drunk?"
>
> "Not exactly."
>
> "That's usually a yes or no thing."

Yeah, but you *do* live in the Looniverse. :3

> "Oh, I'm not ready to sleep yet." She felt her heart stop. This, she
> knew, was the time. She giggled and whispered in Victoria's ear:
>
> "I'm ready."
>
> "You sure?" Alice's eyes were wide open. Suddenly it was she, usually
> the one who took charge and pushed things forward, who was hesitant.
>
> "Oh yeah." Victoria wrapped her arms around Alice and pulled her into a kiss.
>
> And then they joined together in the dance.

Heeheeheehee :3

> "You're just going to let her get away like that, my lord?" said the
> lackey by his side.
>
> He laughed a grim earthquake laugh. "Let her feel the illusion of
> escape. It will be all the more delicious when she finds she was never
> free.

Feh! More like she was *always* free, you clod >:I

> And as for Victoria... Her punishment has not ended. After all,
> she is in the hands of a power far more dangerous than mine..."

Dun dun dunnnn...

> This issue wound up being a lot more intense and dramatic. This is one
> of only two LNH series that are active right now, so I'm trying to
> work in as many different styles of LNH as I can.

This one's closer to Legion of Occult Heroes, Alt.Riders, and the more 
emotionally intense parts of Dvandom Force.

> The next two issues
> (spotlighting Manga Girl and Net.Access, will be back to more more
> comedy-adventure. After that, the series will probably veer all over
> the place like a drunken roller coaster.

Heck yeah! :D

Drew "rollercoastering was also one of the fun parts about Dvandom 
Force" Perron