LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #98: FLAME WARS IV Part Five

[Drew Perron]

On 3/17/2019 5:16 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
> Can Constipated Man and Toilet Humor Man withstand
> the permission to be killed that their creator gave to Saxon?  Will
> Saxon show Constipated Man and Toilet Humor Man some mercy?  What
> will be the ultimate fate of Constipated Man and Toilet Humor Man?

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's gonna be shitty. o3o

>       The day didn't seem nearly as nice as it had when they were bringing
> Clarabelle to the hospital. [_The Continuing Misadventures of Miss
> Translation_ #10 -- Ed.]

See, this is what I'm saying

> A peel of thunder reverberated off of the buildings, sending a
> chill down the Blue Wave's spine. He knew this sort weather. It was the
> same sort as had swept over his own universe's Net.ropolis just before
> the storyline that ripped him from his proper world. Foreshadowing
> weather.

ooooooh, ahhhhh

>       Blue Wave noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under the
> seemingly abandoned receptionist's desk, and walked over to see whose
> they were. He found Fred the receptionist huddled in a ball. The
> receptionist looked up, and his eyes widened when he saw the Net.Hero.
> "Please don't hurt me!" he wailed, burying his head in his arms once more.

awwwww sweetie ;.;

>       "Fred?" Blue Wave knelt down beside the cowering receptionist.
> "Fred, I know I haven't been here long, but it's me, Blue Wave." He put
> a hand on Fred's shoulder, and the other man flinched but didn't move.
> "What's wrong?"

SWEETIE ;;;.;;;

> Something big was supposed to be going down.
>       "Something big *is* going down," Kid Recap said, standing in the
> doorway.
>       Blue Wave blinked. "How did you know--?"
>       "It's what I do."

<3 <3 <3

>       Cheesecake-Eater Lad was making himself busy in the kitchen,
> preparing some high energy cheesecake meals for the assembled net.heroes
> who were either coming back from being On Patrol or about to go on duty
> with the same. He was keeping busy. Perhaps too busy.

awwwww sweetie ;-;

>       "Listen CEL, how are you holding up?" the Indeterminate Avenger
> asked.
>       The was a pause. Fuzzy was willing to wager good money that
> Cheesecake-Eater Lad wasn't searching himself to find his feelings, but
> was trying to think of a way to describe how he felt that was civil.
> "I'm... feeling very irritated just at the moment," he said at last.

I know this feeling so hard.

>       "Yeah, but when Retcon Lad and Theory Man unHappened that nuclear
> attack, they stripped him of his ability to try that trick ever again.
> Each time we beat him, both his power and his reputation are belittled."
>       "Death by a thousand cuts," he observed.
>       "Something like that. In the end I expect it'll be something like
> in that movie where the villain is reduced to a barely effective threat
> who's too stupid to give up and retreat even though he's doomed."

Hopefully we can beat other bad guys that way.

> It's going to be important to try and walk the
> narrow line between righteous indignation and blind rage." She touched
> him fondly on the arm. "Trust the words of someone who's been there."
>       Cheesecake-Eater Lad had to work hard to suppress a grimace at that.
> For a very long time Fuzzy had been a very angry individual, and there
> were a number of people wondering why she hadn't succumbed to becoming a
> troll clone during the current crisis along with people like Frothing-At-
> The-Mouth Lad or Kid-Quickly-Irritated-By-Others. It was the type of
> scuttlebutt he heard a lot of working in the cafeteria, and now it set
> him wondering whether there was wisdom in her words.

Fuck yeah. <3

>       "Ultimate Ninja sent us down here to keep us out of the way," SWAA
> Girl explained. "He said he didn't want any of us screwing up and getting
> in his way."
>       Kid Recap shook his head. "It'll be hard to tell if OMAR starts to
> have any effect on him."

The background not-really-a-character version of UN is Weird.

>       True to form, the doctor got straight to the point with a bluntness
> that was excruciating. "I've heard that one of your team-mates was
> successful in reversing the troll creation process. We'd like to have a
> look at him down in sick bay. He may hold the key to saving the lives of
> everyone who's been infected, and Organic Lass is pretty sure we can
> discover how without vivisecting him."
>       "You see?" said Starts-Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid. "You
> *see*? I told you that Dr Bad-Bedside-Manner would want to start poking
> at the Normalizer."

Pffffff.

>       Meanwhile, at Fort Baxter, OMAR had caught some net.heroes and was
> -playing- with them.

Oh lord. D:

>       What really got at Mygag was the notion, the outright *slander*,
> that even in the twisted _Hell's Titans_ story arc he could have been so
> debased as to throw his lot in with the Cabbage Wielding Angel of Death.
> No. Forget it homeboy, that sort of thing wasn't *ever* going to happen.
>       And now here was the god-given opportunity of facing off against
> OMAR - a villain whose whole modus operandi was corrupting people. You
> can see where this is heading, can't you?

Ohhhhhh lord. ^^;;;;

> and saw OMAR playing with Constipated Man and Toilet Humor Man.
>      He was playing Trivial Pursuit.
>      The two captured Legionnaires where kneeling on the floor with their
> arms bound behind their backs, and two trollified guard pointing guns at
> the back of their heads. OMAR was reading questions from cards out of the
> Trivial Pursuit box. The rules of the game were quite simple: the first
> of them to get an answer wrong would be shot through the head.

Well, that'd be enough to get *me* into Super Blazing Angry Mode.

>       Oh yes. Mygag's mind. Mygag was one of those annoying people who
> had a single-minded willpower that - under the right circumstances - made
> him all but immune to succumbing to OMAR's powers. 'All but' was the
> important qualifier here. Underneath Mygag's burning self-righteousness
> OMAR could feel a core of self-loathing that was... interesting. He
> decided that it would be worth his effort to simply crush the net.heroe's
> will, just to rub Mygag's face in the fact that he could.

Ay yi yi, these limited people with their limited sadism and their incredibly 
boring monofocus on defensive thinking. Boring boring boring.

>       What was worse - far, far worse by many orders of magnitude - was
> Mygag's self-realisation that what OMAR offered was *power*; and that
> part of himself, that part which had given itself over into the servitude
> of the Cabbage Wielder, wanted OMAR and the power very, very much.

Oof. x.x

> And frankly,
> the day that CGuy couldn't dodge gun fire was the day he stopped listing
> his superpowers as 'cinematic martial arts'. The attack outside had been
> an inconvenience that had merely slowed them down considerably.

Heeheehee

>       Nevertheless, Mygag had already hoisted up Constipated Man and torn
> away unconscious hero's pants. Now he shoved his burning trident under
> CM's rectum. The resulting explosion was as spectacular as it was gory.
>       OMAR rolled on the floor, laughing hysterically. Oh, that had been
> *great*.

Uff. :/ Not super into that

>       He was still laughing right up until the point that Limp-Asparagus
> Lad grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him into the air with a grip
> that was only a smidgin away from crushing his windpipe.

--but at least the catharsis comes quickly.

> the World's Most Boring Mutant Net.Hero was currently white
> knuckled and glaring at the alien flamer with a look of anger that was
> frankly terrifying - and only partly because it was on the face of
> probably the last person you would have thought would wear it. "You have
> done more than enough damage for one day," said Limp-Asparagus Lad in a
> quiet, forceful voice.

I can feel this so hard. <3 <3 <3 I connect to LALad. X3

>       "You creatures have no idea the sort of damage you do, have you?"
> Limp-Asparagus Lad demanded in what could only be described as outright
> menace. His grip on OMAR's throat tightened, if such a thing was
> possible. "Using people. Making them think in cliches. Turning them
> *into* cliches. Politicians are more than self-important manipulators
> of public opinion. Lawyers are more hidebound purveyors of restrictions
> who are more interested in rules than in justice. And *they," he said,
> sweeping his free hand in a shockingly extravagant gesture to indicate
> the poor dead soldiers of Fort Baxter, "are more than psychotic killing
> machines who are so dehumanised by their training that they go to sleep
> each night masturbating to the fantasy of shooting people's faces off!"

YES!!!!!!!

>       OMAR had hoped for the same, but was quickly realising that he
> wasn't going to get it. He could tell that the Legionnaire was wound up
> into a rage, but what amazed the alien was that the net.hero was still
> rational and in control of himself. His mind was a solid wall of
> indignation, and there was no hope for the net.god to pry his way in.

"Boring" by neurotypical standards isn't weak. It can be absurdly strong.

>       This did not impress Limp-Asparagus Lad in the slightest. He simply
> made a half turn, using OMAR as a shield and letting the net.god take
> the trident in the back. OMAR's eyes bugged out in pain, but he continued
> to struggle.

DAMN.

And then OMAR still manages to beat them all up, and then...

>       Catalyst Lass nodded, and spotted Lenny sitting beside the remains
> of Chinese Guy; just watching. Her attention was dragged back by the
> cries of, "Hey, stop him!" Catalyst Lass turned and was just in time to
> see Mygag run himself through with his trident, puncturing his armour
> and performing sepuku.
> 
> 
>                      "There's two kinds of super heroes, Steck. Those
>                       who die horribly... and those who haven't died yet."
>                            - Rick Jones, in _Captain Marvel_ vol.3 no.35

SERIOUSLY, this is... well it's pretty Early '00s @.@; Back when they realized 
that bleakness can be a useful emotional tone... but, as ever, Market Forces 
decided that therefore, it should be *the* emotional tone - not one of a 
palette, but everything, because people were interested in its possibilities, 
and therefore it was the most profitable, and therefore it was solely and wholly 
important.

And that's clearly not what Saxon and Jamie are doing - that's not either of 
their styles, and it seems like both of them are interested in playing with 
bleakness as one tool in their palette, and contrasting it with stuff like 
Special Bonding Boy. But the level to which this Goes Hard on joyless sadism and 
the loss of happiness is, um... reminiscent. @-@ And I'm enjoying a lot of the 
aspects of this mini, but it's still a bit hard. X3

Drew "glad that era's over" Perron