LNH: Liminals #3.5

[Drew Perron]

On 9/4/2018 5:17 PM, Jeanne Morningstar wrote:
> [The cover is a homage to Brave and the Bold 124. A cloaked iron-masked figure 
> is pointing a gun at Masterplan Lad, who is typing on a laptop. Somehow, we can 
> see an image in the text of Jeanne Morningstar themself, the author, tied down 
> and being menaced by a sharpened pendulum. "Finish the issue, Masterplan Lad!" 
> says the masked figure, "Or I'll finish your writer!"]

*God* I love dramatic-scene covers. Especially ones with speech bubbles on them. 
<3.<3

> Jeanne Morningstar, writer of the Liminals was sitting in the library one day. 
> "Looks like another nice day of reading comics and not writing my dissertation," 
> they said.

I just love how honest this line is. X3

> Then a wave of Bronze Age Marvel-brand angst (never leave home 
> without it!)

The-- PAIN!

> Suddenly, a cloaked figure in a riveted iron mask appeared in a FOOMF of smoke! 
> "Enough procrastination! It has been over a  year since the last issue of 
> Liminals! You must finish the next issue--or die! So decrees Dr. Dreaded 
> Deadline Doom!"

Dr. Triple-D!

> "Fool! You weren't working on your dissertation! You were writing erotic 
> fanfiction!"

heeheeheehee :3

> "Fic-blocked again," they muttered to themself.

That's so good X3

> Suddenly finds themself strapped 
> to a table inside of a giant clock. Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom pointed upward to 
> the swinging, suspiciously sharp pendulum. "If you do not finish this issue by 
> the end of the week, then this pendulum will finish YOU!"

Oh mood

> "Well this is just fantastic," said Jeanne. "I wonder if this ever happens to 
> George R.R. Martin."

Oh, every time. He just ends up swapping out with one of his characters - why do 
you think so many keep dying?

> Normally they would ask Drew or their friends on discord

^#^

>  "Everyone keeps putting pressure on me, that's the
> problem. Including me. I can't finish things if there's not pressure on me and I 
> can't finish things if there is pressure on me.

#relatable

> All right! I'll have to summon my 
> own characters and get them to finish the issue for me. I know the last time 
> something like that happened it didn't end well, but I'm more mature now and 
> anyway that was a RACCafe story and I'm not even supposed to be referring to 
> that." [See RACCCafe: Writefail, and uh, never mind--ed.]

*CACKLES FIENDISHLY* I love how honestly silly this is.

> "Uh, I think it is," said Victoria. " There were a lot of different things she 
> wanted to say, most of them angry, but she was distracted by the situation her 
> Writer was in. "This seems kind of um. Private," said Victoria.

*giggles goofily*

> "No, no, no I've been captured by a supervillain!" said Jeanne.

Yes, because your kinky fantasies *never* involve that~

> "Ah, clever, clever," said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom. "but not clever enough! 
> You will never conquer the Dreaded Deadline Doom!"
> 
> "I thought you WANTED them to finish the issue," said Alice.
> 
> "..." said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom.

X3

> "Folks, this is amazing," said Manga Girl. "We can write your own issue!" said 
> Manga Girl. "We can do literally anything!" She looked at Victoria. You can make 
> out with Kristen Stewart!"
> 
> "But--I have a girlfriend!"
> 
> "...I'd be OK with that, I have to admit," said Alice.

Oh mood.

> "Let me handle this," said Masterplan Lad. He put his hands on the laptop. He 
> tapped his fingers and waited for something to come out. Nothing did.

Oh mood.

> "Look," said Alice. "I have a lot of experience bullshitting on college papers, 
> and this is just like that. It doesn't matter if it's any good, it just has to 
> be done."

YEAH! That's the LNH spirit!!

> "OK!" said Manga Girl. She started typing furiously "Once upon a time, there 
> were four cool net.heroes who did cool stuff, and they met some morally 
> ambiguous hot people and had some makeouts, and there were some subplots and 
> probably some stuff exploded and they were happy but also sad, or maybe they 
> were sad but also happy. The end!"

...okay so, we do need a slightly different definition of "done".

> "OK, let me try this," said Alice.  "Ahem." She typed. "One day, Alice and 
> Victoria were making out intensely on the couch..."
> 
> "Uh," said Victoria, "let's not get into too much detail about this, there are 
> other people around." She blushed.

:3

> "OK. And then suddenly a giant robot attacked! Alice transformed into her 
> rec.arts.manga fan verse form, a Transformer who could change into a Veritech. 

Yessssss

> She readied her missiles which blasted the robot in an Itano circus and--"

I love this story

> "What kind of robot? What's its history? What's its name. What's its motivation? 
> What's its connection to the overall metaplot?"
> 
> "Can we please not do the metaplot this time?" said Victoria.

Haha. <#<

> "But you can't have a really cool story without having really cool villains!" 
> said Manga Girl.
> 
> "OK, that's a point," said Alice. "It's... A MegaMicroMac and its motivations 
> are um... It's mad over price increases in comics."

PERFECT. I find this villain very relatable. I too am simultaneously a small 
version of a large thing and a large version of a small thing.

> "She's right!" said Alice. She hastily wrote: "Suddenly the missile hitting the 
> robot opened a dimensional rift or something that led to the Infinite Library!" 

That is also the LNH spirit.

> "All right." Victoria. "Ahem. The library was huge, huger than the mind could 
> concieve. The shelves went up forever and down forever and there were more books 
> than Victoria could concieve in her life. She was utterly in awe. Somewhere in 
> here is the secret of all the knowledge in the universe, but most importantly 
> there was her own life, her own past. Fear walked across her skin like a spider. 
> After all this time, did she really want to know the truth?"
> 
> "Hey, that's good," said Manga Girl. Masterplan Lad nodded and smiled slightly. 
> Alice gazed lovingly at her.

VICTORIA IS GREAT AND EVERYONE SHOULD LOVE HER.

> "The bannister of the twisting spiral staircase were covered in gold. They shone 
> like lambent--"
> 
> "Er, we don't need quite that much description," said Masterplan Lad.
> 
> Victoria growled. She wrote "Everything was very impressive and evocative but it 
> was beyond the human facility of description and SOME PEOPLE want to get done as 
> quickly as possible rather than really savoring the writing.

Heeheeheehee

> They walked up the 
> stairs and reached the shelf: biographies. There was her own book. She pulled it 
> out and--"
> 
> She stopped. They all stared at each other. "Do any of you know how to finish 
> this?" she said.
> 
> "Ah... no, sorry," said Alice.
> 
> "Er, no," said Masterplan Lad.

Oh mood.

> "OK," said Manga Girl. "I've got this. It said HA! THIS IS A TRAP! They weren't 
> in the Infinite Library, they were in an evil WERE-LIBRARY! It was a full moon 
> so it was transforming into a wolf and they were inside it! Awooo, said the 
> library! [A/n: Awooooooooooo!]"

Were-library best villain

> "Griffin McElroy must be really excited right now," said Victoria.

I'm not sure if this is a vore reference or.

> "I don't swoon," said Masterplan Lad. "Do I look like the kind of person who 
> swoons!"
> 
> "You totally swoon." Victoria patted him on the shoulder.

He absolutely does.

> "'I played Snow White, remember?' said Kristen Stewart," added Masterplan Lad. 
> "I can use my fairy tale heroine powers to summon a woodcutter.'
> 
> "Oh hey, that's good," said Manga Girl.

Collaborative storytelling! :D

> hen Kristen Stewart picked 
> them all up in her arms [a/n she's really strong] and they all swooned and she 
> took them off to the LNHQ and they--"

*ahem*

> "Started playing Ticket to Ride," added Masterplan Lad.

There we go.

> He typed out the final words "'The End.' Well. That's an issue."
> 
> He printed it out and handed it to Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom. The villain looked 
> it over and narrowed his eyes under the grim riveted mask. "UNACCEPTABLE!" he 
> shouted and vaporized it immediately.

*gasp* How dare you! >:o Curse you, personification of perfectionism!

> "Enough!" said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom. "Dreaded Deadline Doombots, destroy 
> them!" Alice transformed back into a robot, and there was a fight scene that was 
> pretty much just like the one we had earlier.

Very good.
> Masterplan Lad knew they didn't have a hope of facing Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom 
> on their own. There was only one power that could stop it--something that might 
> be even more dangerous, but it was all they had. He closed his eyes, 
> concentrated, held out his plot device, and in a cloud of thick brimstone there 
> appeared--
> 
> THE DISSERTATION DEMON!

X3 X3 X3

> Manga Girl ripped 
> off the Writer's manacles, picked them up and prepared to dash, but she was 
> knocked over by the ghosts of all her Writer's unfinished stories! There they 
> were in all their ghastly unlife--Just Imagine, Ultimate Mercenary v20, the 
> Spoon of Destiny, Death of Trophy Wife, WikiLull, Terra Alter, Chicks in Space, 
> Star Crossed, and President Evil, along with countless fanfics and novel attempts.

Oh no like half of those are also miiiiiiine

> "Why don't you start a new story?" said Manga Girl. "Then you can get out of here."
> 
> "I can't get away from all these projects just by starting a new one!"
> 
> Suddenly, a teaser appeared!

EXTREMELY MOOD. Incidentally, keep a look out later this week for Burst Beetle 
Tweseveny #1!

> BEFORE THE CRY.SIG...
> BEFORE THE 501 BLUES...
> BEFORE THE COSMIC PLOT DEVICE CAPER...
> AFTER THAT STUFF WITH THE DORFS IN LNH V2 #50...
> THE TRUE STORY OF HOW IT ALL BEGAN
> 
> LNH: RETCON YEAR

Also, very looking forward to this. :D

> "OK, that's a wrap," said Edwina the Ultimate Editor, on loan from Writer's 
> Block Person. She strode into the room. "Everyone can go home. We're done now."
> 
> "But--" said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom.
> 
> "We're done now."

Haha, that's *so* her... *goes off to work on a project* >#>

> The Liminals appeared right back where they'd been: playing the game of Ticket 
> to RIde with Kristen Stewart and the cyborg Tin Woodman. I'll try not to think 
> too hard about the implications of this, thought Masterplan Lad.

:D Wonderful. Excellent continuity-fuckery.

> #4 is a very feelings-y issue that was tied into things I was dealing with in 
> the Real World, so I didn't feel up to writing it for a while. This issue is 
> firmly in "write something pointless to get over the Writer's Block" mode.

Yessssss. <3

Drew "working on some of that, you'll see it soon" Perron