LNH: Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #6pi III: "The Search for Plot"

[Jeanne Morningstar]

HUNGRY, HUNGRY SABERTOOTHS!
#6pi III: "The Search for Plot"
A classic LNH tale with a really obvious title joke by Jeanne Morningstar

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Masterplan Lad opened his eyes. He was on the moon, and Chaos Theory was 
lounging in midair beside him in a 
"draw-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls" pose.

"What am I doing here?" he asked. He rubbed his eyes. "Wasn't I supposed 
to have, er... Where on my personal timeline is this exactly?"

Chaos Theory shrugged.

"I'm undergoing important character development in my own series, you 
know. [see Liminals #4 to... 10 probably????] You can't pull me out of 
it willy-nilly."

"Sure I can, silly," said Chaos Theory. They patted MPL on the shoulder. 
"It's good character development, and trust me--it'll be rough in parts, 
but you'll be a lot cuter when you come out the other side. But right 
now, I need your help to pull this weird story together. It's gone off 
in a ton of directions."

"If *you're* the one trying to repair things, they must be bad."

"I wouldn't say bad. Just... really a lot." They smiled, somehow, 
without a face. "But there's a serious narrative problem, and I wanted 
to talk about it. See, right now we're still fielding a lot of Real 
World issues and the anxiety is warping this story."

Masterplan Lad nodded. "I don't know what to say. We don't have a lot of 
control over the Real World. Even the larger, well-known works of art 
don't--the Kurt Vonnegut statement about the Vietnam War and artists 
comes to mind--and the LNH today is a work read by a group of people you 
can number on one hand, maybe two. I've certainly been thinking about 
Legion of Occult Heroes #4--which, just to recap for the sake of 
readers, had the Legion die because of events in the Real World they 
couldn't affect. My Writer reread Legion of Occult Heroes because they 
were convinced for a period of three days that the internet was going to 
die because of a satellite collision, and so they wanted to prepare 
themselves. In case you're wondering how they're doing."

"Oh. Ouch."

Masterplan Lad nodded. "Then again, LNH has been a major source of 
happiness in their life right now, which is why they've been writing 
such an absolutely ridiculous amount of it, along with your Writer. I 
know that LNH was a major part of how they came to terms with their 
gender and sexuality, and developed some of their most significant 
relationships, and that helped them to reexamine their understanding of 
the world. So LNH did have an impact on the Real World, however small."

"Yeah," said Chaos Theory, "I guess you're right."

"I've put a lot of thought into the question of what stories are exactly 
for, for obvious reasons. In the ancient days of life on Earth, when the 
sabertooths roamed--but not the dinosaurs, just to be clear--when people 
huddled together around the fire in the winter nights, they told 
stories. From their fears, desires and ways of life, they invented gods 
and heroes. They did it to bind themselves together, to imagine 
something beyond the fear they faced. In many ways they haven't changed. 
I don't know that art can save the world, but it can remind us of 
something true--whether it's hopeful, or painful, or silly, or er, 
erotic, or all those things--and that's something we need. It can give 
us a place to stand, a hand to help us out of the pit, or a brick to 
throw, as need be. A small flame for the cold of winter's night."

Chaos Theory was silent. They clapped their hands together. The sound 
carried on the moon by the force of comic book narrative convention. 
"Wow," they said. "That was good. I love when you get poetic. You're 
really, really hot."

"Oh. Thank you." He blushed.

"There's just one problem... You brought up the sabertooths but you 
didn't say they were 'Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths.' You were so close to 
a title drop. So close."

MPL frowned and tapped their umbrella. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I can't help being ridiculous, sweetie. That's what I am. But I was 
thinking--as good as that speech was... how the heck are we going to get 
*this* story there?"

"I haven't the slightest idea, to tell the truth. I suppose we'll have 
to figure out what the state of the plot is right now." He looked down 
at the plot threads looped around Net.ropolis on the Earth and scrunched 
his nose. "Goodness, that's quite a tangle."

"Yeah. A real slobberknocker-de-do," said Chaos Theory. "Let's try 
concentrating on one of those at a time. Maybe move in a bit closer..."

Masterplan Lad moved in his perspective in for a moment, taking in the 
LNHers struggling with quarantine stress, the Brotherhoods preparing to 
strike, the giant monsters rampating about and the various people who 
would fight them, and saw they all came together in one place.

"Well, I don't know *how* it's all going to end, not just yet, but I do 
know *where* it's all going to end. The same place the RACCelestial 
Madonna pageant was held [cf Retcon Hour], where Constellation ascended 
[Constellation #36]. The Net.ropolis Bandshell."

They sat together on top of the bandshell, watching the plot flow back 
and forth and waited for the end.

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Masterplan Lad: Jeanne Morningstar
Chaos Theory: Drew Nilium
Constellation: Dave Van Domelen