LNH: The Core LNH #5.75: "Basic Politeness Gone Mad!" Epilogue

[Drew Perron]

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      .:'                                     |
|   Issue Five Point Seven Five:     _ :'_  "Basic Politeness Gone Mad" Part 9 |
|                                 .'`_'-'_``.                                  |
|------------------------------   ',._THE_.-'    ------------------------------|
|********************************   :CORE:   **********************************|
|------------------------------   ;'`_LNH_`-;    ------------------------------|
|                                  '._.-._.'                                   |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

                    #5.75: "Basic Politeness Gone Mad!" Epilogue
                                      ----
    Non-Binary sat on the overstuffed recliner in the Legion TV room. The Core
LNH was arrayed on the couches, and everyone was sharing an Ultra Supreme pie
from the Pizza Pit.
    WikiBoy took a sip of orange soda. "The Lurking spoke to me - or, sort of,
left gaps in the conversation that sounded like words. It said you never really
knew it."
    Non-Binary nodded, halfway through their fourth slice - it turned out going
cosmic took a lot out of you. "Yeah. I figured I just needed to bring Discourse,
and Lurking was the opposite of that, so I kinda ignored it."
    "You never learned how to balance Discourse and Lurking," said Hell Catalyst,
dipping a breadstick in marinara. "Speaking and listening."
    "Um..." said WikiBoy hesitantly. "It also told me what you weren't speaking
about. Why you reset everyone's pronouns. But, uh, that's your business and I
don't, won't say if you don't want, heh heh."
    "...heh." Non-Binary shook their head. "I mean, I think everybody's guessed,
I'm non-binary. As in gender."
    Six people nodded. "...*ohh*," said Miss Social-Cues.
    "You could have just said," said Painful Pun Person. "We've been getting a
lot of members like that since Drew and Jeanne came out."
    Non-Binary sighed. "I was pushing Lester so hard because I was hoping I'd get
to use my pronouns without having to kick up a fuss. But I guess I kicked up the
biggest fuss of all."
    "Don't worry about it, du-- er, you," said Skunk Girl. "Um, what are your
pronouns, then? They and them and such?"
    PC Person shook PC Person's head. "My pronouns, um, the ones I've been thinking
about using... Asterself. They're, um, I made them up myself. I'll use them in a
sentence, um..." PC Person ahemed. "Aster fought the giant monster, and I fought
it with aster. The victory was asters and mine, and aster took care of the cleanup
asterself."
    The Core LNH applauded! "Nice!" said Kid Enthusiastic.
    "It'll take a bit to memorize, but so did zip codes, and at least these mean
something," said Golden Man.
    "So," said Painful Pun Person, "are you going to keep calling yourself Non-
Binary, go back to being PC Person, go on a road trip around America to find
yourself?"
    Aster sat back. "Well... it's definitely time for a new identity. I'm hoping
I can learn to balance Lurking and Discourse, learn how to use these powers to
really help people and push things forward..." Aster sat up. "And become... the
Social Justice Defender!"
    The Core LNH applauded again! "Double nice!" said Kid Enthusiastic.
    "So, fearless leader," said Skunk Girl, "was the first mission of the Core
LNH everything you'd hoped for?"
    "Well, I don't know what Fearless Leader would think," said Kid Enthusiastic,
grinning, "but I had a lot of fun, and isn't that what really matters?"
    "Er, no," said Golden Man. "What matters is helping people."
    "And we did that too!!" Kid E leapt up in the air for a high-five, and 
everybody
except Miss Social-Cues high-fived back! "Good job, Core LNH!"
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Author's Note: The Alien Internet of Hwuau is based on the WOW! Signal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal Naturally, the theory that it's a
dropped packet from an immensely powerful hyperspace Internet has not yet caught
on in the scientific community.

Drew "and there it is!" Nilium