LNH: Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #7.5 (or 2pi+1?): "The Cosmic Confusion Clusterfight"

[Jeanne Morningstar]

HUNGRY, HUNGRY SABERTOOTHS!
#7.5: "The Cosmic Confusion Clusterfight"
A Classic LNH tale of clarifications and conniptions, by Jeanne Morningstar

====

"Now hold on just a moment," said Jeanne Morningstar.

The cosmic entity Simplicity had just appeared in their apartment, 
trying to kill them for overcomplicating LNH plots, and then been 
interrupted by their old enemy, Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom from Liminals 
#3.5, ready to begin a senses-shattering cosmic slugfest for the ages!

"Why are we recapping the plot?" said Simplicity. "There's no one 
reading this who hasn't read the previous issues!"

"Bah! Surely you know the First Law of Shooter--every issue is someone's 
first!" said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom.

"These are Usenet posts," said Simplicity, "not comic books from the 
period when there were still spinner racks."

"Look," said Jeanne, retracting their demonic chainsword symbiote and 
returning to their regular form, "this cascade has a huge number of plot 
threads, and Simplicity, if you kill me now, those plot threads will 
still be unfinished and the whole thing will still be incredibly 
complicated. Just let me write an issue to resolve some of it, OK?"

"OK, fine. Fine," said Simplicity. "I will give you one chance to 
de-complicate this story. One chance." He put away his flaming sword and 
stood back.

"And you--" they said, turning to Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom--"I can't 
finish anything if you're pressuring me. We've been over this. And also, 
I could maybe use to slow down my writing pace a bit. There were a 
couple of important bits of previous issues I forgot because I wanted to 
get them out as quickly as possible."

"Such as?" said Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom.

"Well, for one thing 90s Comics Kid--that's the correct form of their 
name--was supposed to be nonbinary. That was an idea I had in the middle 
of the night when I was about to go to sleep that I forgot until the 
exact moment after I posted the issue. I didn't have a way to fit this 
into that issue, but they also have a morally-ambiguous counterpart 
called Theater Kid who comes from a similar timeline, except the only 
surviving comics were early 90s Vertigo comics."

"No!" said Simplicity. "No more alternate timeline counterparts!"

"Well, we don't know if they'll ever actually show up in a story." 
Simplicity nodded grimly. "Second, I didn't consciously realize this 
until, again, the moment after I posted the issue, but the reason the 
contingency plan Ultimate Ninja set up exists was so that the LNH could 
avoid a repeat of Infinite April. You know, when UN left and the entire 
thing just went down the tubes."

"Fair." Simplicity nodded. "This is the kind of storyline connection 
that actually simplifies things."

"Finally, I was kind of frustrated with myself for forgetting to credit 
wReam on the issue that was all about how important Ultimate Ninja as a 
character. This is why I should maybe sleep at some point."

"No! No more sleep! First you must--finish the story!" declaimed Dr. 
Dreaded Deadline Doom.

"OK, fine," said Jeanne. They sat back down and opened their laptop. 
They put their fingers on the keyboard and rehearsed the words they'd 
write. Nothing happened.

They stretched out. They rehearsed the words in their head again and 
worked up the resolution to write them.

Nothing happened.

Dr. Dreaded Deadline Doom raised his gauntlets and prepared to fire a 
blast of energy. He couldn't force it out.

"There's something in here!" said Simplicity. He reached out for his 
flaming sword.

"This must be the work of an enemy stand!" said Jeanne.

They were not alone in the room. There was a being--zey were wearing 
baggy clothing, with messy dark hair. Zey had bags under zeir bleary 
eyes, the eyes of someone who'd never been either to properly sleep or 
wake up for as long as the universe existed. It was hard to tell what 
gender zey were; zey seemed to be too tired to have a gender.

It was a presence that had been haunting them for a long time: Ennui of 
the Finishless, twin sibling of Enthusiasm.

Jeanne began to wrack their brains to figure out a clever strategy using 
the combined powers of everyone in the room to defeat Ennui.

"Begone sibling!" said a quiet yet resonant voice. "I must speak with 
these three."

Or a blatant deus ex machina, that could work too.

The figure who entered the room was dressed in a monk's robes and held a 
heavy gilded pen in eir hand. Only the vague outline of a face could be 
glimpsed beneath the robes. This could only be Editing, also of the 
Finishless, the being whose thankless task it was to stitch together an 
universe that ran on spur-of-the-moment creative inspiration into 
something vaguely resembling coherence.

"OK, fine," grumbled Ennui. Zey turned around and left the room. "I'll 
be back. Or maybe not." Zey shrugged.

"Now," said Editing, "this Writer is correct--"

"Hell yeah I am!" said Jeanne. Editing glared at them and they were silent.

"--this plot thread must be trimmed, so the cascade does not collapse 
under its own weight. You will leave this level of reality now."

"Never! Was I not promised a cosmic battle to shake the ages?" said Dr. 
Dreaded Deadline Doom.

"No," said Editing, and with a stroke of eir pen Dr. Dreaded Deadline 
Doom disappeared in a burst of Kirby-krackle.

"It'll take a lot more than that to get rid of me," said Simplicity, 
brandishing his sword.

"What are you even doing here?" said Editing. "By traveling into this 
layer of reality, did you not complicate the plot--breaking your own 
essential purpose."

Simplicity frowned (a somewhat hard thing to do without a face) and 
shook his fist. "Damn it! OK, fine."

And Simplicity followed the secret roads of time and space back out of 
Jeanne Morningstar's apartment.

He stood outside the 5-dimensional narrative map of the cascade (which 
resembled an elaborately arranged tangle of yarn) and narrowed his 
(nonexistent) eyes. There were still too many plot threads. Too many 
factions. Too many Ultimate Ninjas. Too many LNH universes, especially 
with all those Deep Omnilooniverse ones now. And--he thought back to the 
events of issue 3 and winced--too many cosmic beings. It would be 
better, in all honesty, if it were just him. This was something he'd 
thought for a long time. And maybe, with all the instability in reality 
around this storyline, he just might be able to manage it.

But he'd have to work within the plot threads that already existed 
rather than creating more new ones...

Of course. There was a faction on the board which shared his goals, 
which he would grant a portion of his power.

The 
LNH-Readers-Who-Are-Sick-To-Death-With-These-Damn-Neverending-Events-Liberation 
Front!

=====

Notes:

Well, I finally did write a short issue. Though even my short issues are 
pretty long.

Ennui was originally Drew's idea, hinted at in the Letters Page 
storyline of Kid Review. The Finishless were created by Scav and the 
LNHRWASTDWTDNELF by Arthur. Everything else in this issue was mine.