LNH: Easily-Discovered Man #58

[Drew Nilium]

On 5/9/21 10:40 AM, EDMLite wrote:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Doused with microwave radiation, Theodore
>     Wong gained the ability to glow and be detected
>     at great distances by anyone with a Geiger counter.
>     Forced to retire, Wong has left former sidekick Lite
>     to continue his battle against the forces of corruption,
>     chaos and common sense, and to carry on the legacy of
>     the fabulous EASILY-DISCOVERED MAN.

FUCK YEAH HE HAS!

>      Blount reluctantly agrees to restore Lite’s lost memory --
> but warns him that the experience, much like Facebook, will cause
> him to relive the events of his past while being powerless to change
> them.

heeheehee

> Decorum requires that we point out that because this story takes
> place as part of a long-since concluded cross-over (Beige Countdown)
> its events are set in the year 2007.   What might our characters be
> doing if they lived in the current golden age of peace and prosperity
> that is 2021?  Let’s pause for just a moment to answer that question...

heeheheehee yeah :D

>       “You’re still on mute,” she noted.
> 
>       “Right,” I sighed, clicking on the part of my screen that showed
> a little red icon with a crossed-out microphone -- a symbol that,
> a little over a year and a half ago, I would only have associated
> with people who really, really didn’t like Larry King.

Heeheehee

>       “I mean that there’s this worldwide crisis, which half the
> population has responded to by putting on masks and behaving
> as well, heroes, in order to protect others,” she said.  “The
> other half has cited actual ideals like liberty and individual
> rights in order to selfishly run around doing whatever they
> want, just like a comic book villain would do.”

hahahaha oh god it's true @-@

>       “Now hold on a minute,” said the onscreen image of a tiny
> cartoon astronaut with Substitute Lad’s voice.

X3

>       “Sorry.  When I put this on,” I said, taking out a small
> cotton mask with the letters “DON’T PANIC” emblazoned across
> the front, “I’m not doing it because I’m a hero.  I’m not even
> really doing it to protect other people, although that’s what I
> always tell them.  I’m doing it because I’m scared.  And those
> people on the other side, the ones without the masks… if they
> were being honest, they’d say they were doing what they’re doing
> because they’re scared, too.”

Mmmmmm. Yeah, it's true. @.@

>       “Good,” said Cynical Lass.  “A world in which people
> like Alex Jones don’t deserve to be continually punched in
> the face is a world I don’t want to live in.”

Legiiiiiiiit

>       “But there’s more to being a hero than wearing a mask,”
> I said, looking down at the glowing Easily-Discovered Man mask
> in my hand.  “There’s got to be.”

Dun dun dunnnn....

>       In case you’re wondering, time travel within your own
> lifespan is a lot like the state of Net.braska, in that once
> you’ve gone through it you realize why more people don’t.  Parts
> of it are, of course, almost achingly beautiful, but there are
> many, many other parts that make you wince, and the whole process
> is both long and frustrating enough to leave you with a gnawing,
> numbing sense of regret, especially if you have stopped at more
> than one Cracker Barrel along the way.

I love these metaphors, holy heck

> 
>       If you don’t believe me (and here I’m talking about time
> travel, and not Net.braska, which through the efforts of the
> U.S. legacy air carriers is only marginally more difficult to visit
> than the distant past)

hahaha x-x;

> think about the last time one of your
> favorite social media sites decided to remind you of
> something that happened several years ago.  “Remember
> this?” it said, below a picture of you with a truly
> regrettable haircut, or in the throes of a passionate
> relationship with someone whose departure would later lead
> to six months’ worth of hard drinking and bad poetry, or
> with a former best friend you haven’t spoken to since the
> last decent Star Wars film, or wearing a Coldplay shirt.

I've stopped using Facebook, but I still use Tumblr, which does the same thing 
by occasionally bringing inane fandom discourse from 2011 back up.

> I
> already had a pretty good idea who had killed the Waffle Queen,
> and how.  What I couldn’t figure out was why.

Oooooh. :o

   The police had found
> her body, dressed for a night on the town, in the dining room of
> her apartment.  The table was set for two, and none of her guards
> were around.
<snip>
> After
> finding some unusual blood patterns on her dining room mirror,
> the investigators came to the not unreasonable conclusion that
> someone with the ability to control reflective surfaces -- a
> profile that unfortunately fit my friend Aurora Jones, the Screen
> Saver -- had committed the murder [as told in Easily-Discovered Man
> #50 -- Footnote Girl].  And since the Waffle Queen had pretty
> publicly screwed over Aurora with one of her schemes, it wasn’t
> long before they’d issued a warrant for her arrest.

Oh wow. I forgot all these details. X3

> She was expecting
> something else that night -- she’d literally let her guard
> down, had dressed up and made herself vulnerable in a way I’d
> never seen her (and I’d even gone on a triple date with her,
> on an especially weird evening I usually chose not to remember)
> [way back in Easily-Discovered Man #25 -- Footnote Girl].

I love that issue. X3

> Whoever had attacked her,whoever had killed was someone she
> trusted completely, someone she had looked forward to seeing.
> Aurora didn’t fit the picture, and neither did my prime suspect.

*Fascinating*!

> Much like the modern
> Republican party, I’d recently been forced to acknowledge that the
> past I thought I remembered wasn’t really what had happened at all.

Have they, tho @-@

> In my case, I thought Easily-Discovered Man and I had ended up back
> in the great city of Net.ropolis just after we helped bring down a
> dimension of pure, middle-management evil called the Pocket
> Bureaucracy (which means the Prof and I had wandered about being
> confused and making jokes while Sig.Lad and his friends did all
> the actual down-bringing) [in Easily-Discovered Man #10 --
> Footnote Girl].

heeheehee :3 I love that issue too!

>       In actual fact, the explosion that destroyed the Pocket
> Bureaucracy had sent us hurtling through space and time to Mount
> Roosevelt, Ohio -- which makes sense, since Mount Roosevelt is
> the kind of Midwestern small town that could cause Time itself
> to stop, look around, and wonder what in the world it was doing
> with its life.

X3

> He --
> me -- mostly stood gawping at the unnaturally fresh air, the smell
> of fresh, wet clover and the total lack of garbage, graffiti or
> any other perfectly natural signs of urban decay in the
> bucolic scene before us.
> 
>       My sixteen-year-old self had a lot to learn.

#relatable

>       “Prof?” he/I said.  “I don’t think we’re in Kan.sys any…
> Actually, I take that back.  It’s entirely possible we might be in
> Kan.sys.”

X3

>       “Unlikely, my stalwart supporter in the never-ending battle
> against crime and injustice,” Easily-Discovered Man said.
> “Behold yonder hills of verdant green -- a topographic detail one
> does not readily encounter on the Great Plains.”

I love how he talks.

>       She was sitting -- I swear I am not making this up -- on a
> bale of hay, dressed in a plaid button-down shirt and the kind
> of denim cutoff shorts my dad referred to as “Daisy Dukes.”  My
> eighteen-year-old self immediately recognized her as a younger
> version of the woman who would someday become the Waffle Queen.

Holy shit. :o

>       My sixteen-year-old self didn’t know any of this, of course.
> My sixteen-year-old self, I realized to my growing horror, thought
> she was kind of cute.

X3 <3 <3 <3

>       That got her attention.  “You’re Easily-Discovered Man?
> _The_… Oh, Dad is going to want to hear about this,” she said,
> pushing herself off the bale of hay, landing gracefully, and
> then sprinting in the direction of a large white clapboard farmhouse.

...oh no I just remembered who her dad is @-@;;;;

> And doesn’t something about that girl seem familiar?”
> 
>       “Now that you mention it,” the Prof said, “I do see
> something of a young Shirley Temple about her.”

X3

> For after all it was just moments ago, as you
> and I reckon, that you and I were trapped in a dying universe,
> doing battle with that most resourceful of reprobates, the
> dread Deathstocker, whose power allowed him to requisition
> any article or armament he might need in order to vanquish his…”
> 
>       “And who appears to be walking towards us with the girl
> we just met,” I said, as the villain in question and the girl who
> was most probably his daughter strode toward us across the field.

Welp X3

>       “Well, well,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, with
> the girl -- his daughter -- grinning by his side.  “Easily-Discovered
> Man and Easily-Discovered Man Lite, after all these years.
> I truly believed you had been destroyed, along with everyone
> and everything I’d ever known.”
> 
>       “About that…” I began, but he cut me off by throwing his
> arms around both of us in a hug.
> 
>       “It’s so good to see you at last,” Deathstocker said, in a
> voice rich with emotion.  “Welcome home.”

!!!! :o :o :o :D :D :D <3 <3 <3

this is rad!!!!!!!

>       NEXT ISSUE: Is it wrong to have a crush on your
> arch-nemesis?

NEVER.

> Is it wrong to believe the past can be changed
> when you know it’s impossible?

NEVER!

> Is it wrong to hope that the next
> episode might be published before another year goes by?

NEV-- well, I hope not.

>       SPECIAL THANKS: To Perry and Graham for recommending that I
> get back to this and to Apocalypso for inspiration.

Awwwww. :> <3 <3 <3 Thanks guys!

Drew "eeeeeeeeee <3" Nilium