Vinnie De Soth and the War of the Hells [The author would like to apologise to anyone not versed in Parodyverse history since this story won’t make any sense at all to them. Those who insist on being in on it are referred to Who's Who in the Parodyverse. The rest of you should just run far, far away now.] ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, let me get this straight,” sighed Vinnie de Soth. “Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises was contracted to deliver a birthday card. To Hell. Specifically to the bit of the infernal abyss ruled by your ex-delivery boy Nats. Except that region’s blockaded because he’s become the white sheep of the infernal hell-lords so the message got bounced to Comic-Book Limbo, where, since the card was the only thing that actually existed in a reality of deleted and forgotten concepts it became a votive object of excised members of the Apostate’s worship cult. That led to religious wars with wiped-from-reality Parody Cultists using refitted Disco Hitler zombies as shock troops who raided the card and carried it away to use in a ritual to break out into the Negativity Zone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right so far,” winced Amy Aston.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“However, the Negativity Zone had wards placed upon it by its Lord Anihillatus which meant that instead the occult energies were reflected back into the Nexus of Unreality, temporarily turning its guardian Crapsack into America’s Next Top Supermodel and leading to an entire mini-series where Fashion Accessory goes to war with Kim Kardashian. Meanwhile the occult-digitised greetings card sprayed its contents across the time/space continuum, provoking forty-second century resistance fighters to overthrow the tyrannical Wang the Conqueror and set him on his inevitable trek back to the current era to battle the Lair Legion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a little bit more complicated than that, but if you want to summarise…” conceded Al B. Harper.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“However, since that future has now been retconned the card was automatically transferred into both the to-do pile of the Destroyer of Worlds, where it was pulped under the weight of Lisa’s address book, and to the alert red-watch file of the Celestian Space Robots, prompting them to review their planetary destruction protocols for Earth and begin a cycle of organic cleansing that will remove all life on Earth sometime in the next 36 hours.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nearer twenty-four,” noted Miss Framlicker. “We’re filing an appeal.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And the ghost of the Lisa-crushed card gained sentience in the Amalgamated Deathrealms of the Retired Pantheons and resurrected the Byrne to try and blow up the moon again – why?”     Cody Harper shrugged. “Something to do?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something to do with a vast voidy thing floating towards the Parodyverse to get Liu Xi, I think,” Kara clarified. “I’d need to go check my notes. But anyway, the Moon Public Library put a stop to that. No jumped-up printed matter’s going to get the better of them.”     Vinnie rubbed his forehead. “Okay. That explains the infernal civil war, the restructuring of the Spawning Grounds of the Hero Feeders, the whole thing where Ham-Boy lost his pants on national television, the personification of Kink’s Pregnancy Gun into the new supervillain Unexpected Complication and Vizh’s subsequent difficulties, the unexpected stop of the Chronicler of Stories that resulted in that plague of black-coffee-drinking My Little Ponies and the consequent turf war with the steroidal Pokéballs, the sudden urge of several hundred thousand minor paranormal entities to decamp from Earth’s arcanosphere and Camellia of the Fey’s consequent difficulty in recruiting for her destruction-of-all-non-magical-earthforms plot, and possibly why I’m developing a splitting migraine. What it doesn’t explain is why you folks at EEE now want to shoot me through your dimensional portal at a moment when frankly I’d prefer to be laying down in a darkened room.”     The Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises staff smiled at the young jobbing occultist. It was like being surrounded by technically-minded wolves.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need someone with your unique skillset and character profile,” Al B. explained.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Knows about spooky stuff and is gullible,” Kara clarified helpfully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And is cheap,” Miss Framlicker added cautiously.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And expendable,” Kara continued.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, don’t help any more, sis,” Cody advised her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you need me to do?” Vinnie asked nervously. “And how cheap do I have to be.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not Kara cheap,” Cody assured him. “Just, y’know, save-the-world on a budget.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re making this sound complicated,” Amy interrupted impatiently. “All we need you to do, Vinnie, is to go and deliver the original card to its original destination. We’ve reconstructed Nats’ letter from across time and space and seventeen different dimensions and now all you have to do is take it to him and we’ll have fulfilled our contract.”     Vinnie frowned. “Didn’t your first attempt kind of… bounce? And fragment the letter across the Parodyverse, causing untold havoc?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s why we’re not sending ManMan,” Miss Framlicker explained. “Heck, if we were going to be that reckless we might as well catapult spiffy in there and be done with it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ve calculated that an occult-sensitive sentience could navigate the arcane barriers round Nats’ hell-realm with a 73.8% chance of success,” Al B. assured Vinnie. “You were very nearly our first choice.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Really?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, After Citizen Z, Tanner, Gunther, Sorceress, Urthula, Balefire, Vizh’s raven…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait a minute. Balefire’s not even in the Parodyverse any more!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And yet,” said Kara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We really need you to do this, Vinnie,” Dr Harper admitted. “We do have a contract to meet.”     Vinnie folded his arms. “You know what? No. Just no. I’m fed up of being the nice guy. Find some other patsy to toss through your weird science portal. I’m going home.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why?” wondered Kara. “I mean, you basically live alone in a cupboard, right? Just asking.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorcerers don’t care about material things,” the jobbing occultist answered defensively. “Really.”     Miss Framlicker looked a little uncomfortable. “Ye-es. I’m afraid Alaric’s right, Vincent. You see, when he says we’re under contract to deliver…”     Alarm bells went off in the acting sorcerer supreme’s head. “Not a contract written in blood, by any chance? Something involving intangible forfeits for failure to deliver?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nah, nothing like that,” scorned Cody. “Give me some credit for being able to read legalese. No, this is a bit more like… um… well it turns out that if we don’t deliver, Earth becomes the property of the Maladictean Empire.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The who now?”     Kara pointed to the galactic chart on the wall of EEE’s firehouse headquarters. “Don’t you even turn up to Hatman’s Lair Legion strategy briefings? You’ve heard of the Parody War, right? Big interplanetary thing that rocked the whole Parodyverse?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes. I was there. That was when I…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Save it for the flashback,” Kara advised. Vinnie would have objected except she had a very tight-fitting sci-fi jumpsuit with a zip down the front. Emphasis was on the down. “So when the Parody Master got taken out there was a power void. The Shee-Yar, the Skree, the Skunks weren’t any of them in a position to take advantage. So in Sector Alpha out here this planet rose to dominance. We call it Apokalyspe.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Dark Thugos’ homeworld,” Vinnie shuddered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. That’s where a New Pantheon’s rising,” Kara grumbled with the tones of one who had not been invited to a really cool party.     Cody pointed to Sector Beta. “Over here are a warrior race called the Chakauri. We don’t know much about them yet but apparently they’re very popular right now and they’re tight with Hoki, Ausgardian God of Bad Stuff. Donar’s on it.”     Miss Framlicker tapped Sector Gamma. “And here are the Maladicteans. They’ve risen from obscurity very quickly, through conquest and alliance – and because they have the last working Dimensional Dreadnaught, the Cruel Deceiver on their side.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Captain Kahn’s clearly found some other power source to replace its original Because-the-Parody-Master-Wants-It drives,” Al B. observed. “So the last planet-shattering mega-spaceship is on Team Maladictus.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So the Maladicteans seemed like a good thing,” Miss Framlicker went on. “They were keeping out the Trade Alliance, which isn’t as nice as their marketing might make them appear, holding back Apokalypsian and Chakauri aggression, and committing less reported inhuman rights abuses per billion population than any of the others. Ideal place for us to establish a subspace dimensional gate to.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In retrospect we should have had somebody other than Arnie J. Armbruster check the small print,” Amy Aston admitted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You sold them Earth?” Vinnie asked. “Can you legally do that?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In Maladictean law we can,” Cody winced.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if we’d only known that we could have go so much more,” complained Kara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But, we were able to renegotiate with their Tyrant Emperor,” Miss Framlicker went on brightly. “He agreed it was all a misunderstanding and confirmed he would cancel the deal if we just did a couple of little errands for him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we got him the weird metal he wanted out of the dimension of Corposant Fire and dropped a deep void buoy into the Transdimensional Vortex. Then all we had to do was send a birthday card to Nats and we were out,” Amy concluded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you never asked why an alien dictator – who actually describes himself as a Tyrant Emperor, by the way – might want to send a greetings message to Bill Reed?” Vinnie checked.     The EEE staff looked at each other uncomfortably. “Er, actually we did,” admitted Miss Framlicker. “We, um, identified the Tyrant Emperor all right, in the end.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Check the return address on the back of the envelope, dude,” warned Cody Harper.     Vinnie turned the simple card around and read: “Return to I. Winkelweald, Herringcarp Asylum, Upstate Gothametropolis, Earth, Parodyverse Prime. But… isn’t that the original name of…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded Hood!” supplied Kara. “And nobody here even thought to try offering me up to be his consort!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sis, you’re slutty,” Cody conceded, “but that guy has dated Lisa!”     Vinnie ignored the subsequent sibling slanging match and stared at the envelope. “So why does the Hood want to send Nats birthday greetings?”     Dr Harper took the question with considerable enthusiasm. “I’ve been asking the same thing myself. Of course, causing the origin of Wang the Conqueror, redeploying the Celestians, shifting the moon four inches to the left, wrecking Camellia’s plans, restructuring Comic-Book Limbo and the Amalgamated Deathlands, arranging for spiffy’s girlfriend to get pregnant, or embossing Ham-Boy on prime-time national television might have been what he was after, but with the cowled crime czar who can be sure? Sometimes he can be a little sneaky.”     Vinnie swallowed hard. “And you want me to go to hell to find out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes please,” agreed Amy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are quite a few entities in that area who aren’t very fond of me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s different here?” wondered Kara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And it’s Hallowe’en. This is my busy time.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you won’t mind penalty clauses for later delivery,” Miss Framlicker suggested.     Vinnie sighed again. “I’ll need fifteen percent on top of my standard rate,” he insisted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Basic standard rate and we won’t deduct the costs of the dimensional transit,” Miss F countered. “Or the coffee you just drank.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay.” Vinnie surrendered. “Before anything though, can anyone loan me a cigarette lighter?”     Amy handed one over. She didn’t smoke. She just liked fire.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is a no smoking environment,” Cody cautioned. “Except for dad’s equipment, of course.”     Vinnie flicked the lighter and set fire to the card.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey!” objected Amy. She raced to get a fire extinguisher.     It was too late. The envelope and its contents were ashes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There you go,” Vinnie told EEE. “That letter’s gone straight to hell.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hold it folks,” Al B. halted his family and colleagues as they mobbed Vinnie de Soth. “Vin might have a point there. After all, he’s a major occult figure and the letter was properly addressed. I think he might have managed a conceptual delivery. Let me just develop an entirely new method of trans-cognitive meta-textual data to Platonic paradigm interface translation algorithm and I’ll be able to tell. So if gamma is the fundamental tangibility coefficient…”     Miss Framlicker turned crossly on Vinnie. “Now see what you’ve done? ManMan will be weeks scrubbing the calculations off the walls, floors and ceilings!”     Cody came to Vinnie’s rescue. “Hey, the dude did what we asked. Maybe even tossed a curve at the Hooded Hood. No way he foresaw that outcome, right? Right? Guys…?”     Vinnie went home. ***          Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bill?” frowned Uhunalura Amalandriana Excelsior!, Nats’ live-in sex princess, “Did you put this extra clause into the proposed truce treaty with Belaziel, Lord of the Moral Wastes and Vesperine, Lady of Torments? Only I can’t think how else it just slipped in there?”     Nats wandered over to look over his copy of the document that would prevent hell-wide warfare that might spill over into all the planes of the Parodyverse. “That’s not mine!” he objected. “It’s not even my handwriting! Who’d put such a thing in like that?”     Uhuna read the text out loud. “Best wishes for a happy time. Bill, isn’t saying something like that a mortal insult to a Demon Lord? Where could it possibly come from?”     On the borders of Nats’ kingdom the alarum bells started to ring.     The War of the Hells had just begun. *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2012 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2012 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

Oddly enough your timely post dovetails nicely with a side story I've had on the back burner for a couple of weeks. Shen Rae's sister comes to visit, but seems to be keeping secrets about why. I guess a looming galactic war might explain it pretty well, or at least part of it.

So I assume that recap was the plot to the last 100 issues of Untold Tales? You're getting quite literal with that title, it seems. I do think that Vinnie should have gotten some kind of hazard pay for listening to all of that alone... it can't be healthy to try and wrap your mind around it all. Still, nice to see him handle things in his own personal style.

Now about that pregnancy...


In any event, I hope everyone is having a Happy Halloween! I have survived Hurricane Sandy unscathed, although about 60 miles south of here they got around 2-3 feet of snow out of it. I'm not sure how my old stomping grounds in Annapolis fared either. Here, it just rained a lot.

No big plans for Halloween myself... the local trick or treating and other festivities were delayed until the weekend because of the remnants of the storm, so it's pretty much just a Wednesday around here. Maybe I'll listen to some appropriate music to set a spooky mood.

Regardless, it was fun to dip back into the craziness of the Parodyverse!

Smashing stuff. I was going for a more detailed reply but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your viewpoint) my tea has arrived.

So, I wll simply give you a grim warning about what happens if you let a pony drink coffee, Mythbusters style:

http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1824681/Mythbusters/

(And for those who are still not insane, we have the Mythbusters introduction, with a few slight alterations...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ZEHa_j-4M

(Not as good as the Top Gear one, but amusing, none the less).

A couple of years back, when I was still doing Untold Tales and there were more active board participants, I was setting up a complicated story arc that included some outer-space and extradimensional stuff such as the Rise of the New Panteon of Evil, the return of the Void Spectre, civil war in Faerie, and war in hell. With dwindling regulars and some unpleasantness I didn't think it possible to continue, but those plots are still floating there in the "freeze-frame" continuity that seems to have gripped the Parodyverse thereafter. So it's nice to dig back sometimes and remember that I had ideas on how to drive forward stories I wanted to tell.

I am tempted to do a later issue that explains where I'd have taken things had the PVB not petered to near-domancy. I was just working up to some quite major stuff with a new team when most of the posters went AWOL. At the same time Shrike turned unpleasant again, making me uncomfortable utilising his cast.

Given dwindling responses and mounting pressure of other work I "parked" the writing part way through #349, though the HH Homepage actually even lists the intended chapter titles up to #350 and my plots were drawn up past #360 (which, given the way my stories tend to proliferate, meant I was good to go as far as #380 easy).

I do have one major story that I full intend to finish when the mood takes me, and that's the Herringcarp Gothic serial. I'd have done it this Hallowe'en but I didn't get the run up time to get into a dark enough mental place.




Yes?




I can't imagine how it must be to live somewhere where even your home is threatened with destruction by random weather phenomenon.




Nobody dares trick or treat to my house. In the twenty-four years I've been here I think one group made it all the way to the front door.




Indeed.

Ha! Well, they still have some more ponies to test with... I'm sure Twilight would point out that they need a control group at least... and they really should try an espresso when Pinkie reenters the atmosphere.


I'm ready for the 3rd season to start in a couple of weeks, with a new big bad to start the season, and the promise of more Discord to come.

I also understand the first issue of the My Little Pony comic coming out later in November had pre-orders of over 90,000 issues as of early October, which would have put it at #4 on the monthly sales chart for September (the most recent one available) had it been released that month.

I know, I hate to have plotlines wasted but at the same time I can't really justify the amount of time it takes to work on this stuff when interest is so low. Still, I know I'd certainly be intrigued to hear where things were going.







I definitely want the end of that one! I need to know what became of poor Wangmundo, after all.








You know what? Ignorance is bliss.





Well, it's certainly a freak storm to effect this area, and really the Midatlantic doesn't often have to deal with hurricanes either. Florida, of course, gets them every year.





Nobody dares approach old man Watson's place. You should hear the rumors about that guy.

And fun it was. The EEE crew back together again after all this time. And making fun with Vinnie. What could be better!

Kara is taking after her mother more every day. Be afraid.

But...what happens next?

I did actually click in here yesterday my time in a bit of nostalgic 'it's Halloween and that means a PVB story from the Hooded Hood' reflection...so I am now more than chuffed to see it actually occurred! YAY! Any chance you could keep it going?

PS: Happy Halloween from me everyone.

Attachments

halloween.jpg (640 x 480)

It seemed past time we looked in on the most dysfunctional workplace in the Parodyverse.




It's good to have someone who can make the bitchy comments.




Within 24 hours the Celestians end all life on Earth.




I'm not adverse to following up on some of the plotlines mentioned - see the correspondence thread with Vizh - but the torpor of the board makes it difficult. PVB stories really work best when there's an interactive zeitgeist.




And may your All Hallows Day be hallowed.

As I recall, the main strands I was working on were the Rise of the New Pantheon, Camellia's plot to destroy all non-magical life on Earth, the Hood's forthcoming galactic politics plot, and the origin of Citizen Z.







I'll get back to it. I find it easier to write horror when I'm happier, for some reason.







Until the bump starts to show.







Being born and raised in a country where an old stone house is the next best thing to a castle I find it difficult to recognise that there are some places where the weather can blow down buildings.







The house has a slightly spooky aspect at the front, with the stained glass windows around the door and the big stone archway. It had a reputation amongst the local kids for being haunted before we moved in. A long succession of odd Hallowe'en parties didn't help.

Did you deliberately touch on as many characters and plots as you could?

I have the Season 1 DVD on pre-order, and also what looks like a partial release of Season 3 (at least the first two episodes of it).

I really need to get a life...

I didn't originally set out to do that kind of story, but once I realised the letter was from the Hooded Hood, things got... complicated.

I don't know... that seems like a lot of effort. Unless, of course, there's somewhere you can simply order one online.

The War of the Hells
Infernal


Cartwright ran, pterosaur bile still streaming down his face, their hysterical chatter close behind. His weapons were lost, the battle was lost.

The sound of wingbeats faded. A great chill spread across him. This was it. The silent attack was the worst; the pterosaurs had repositioned and could now glide in for the final blow. He prepared for the sharp stink of wing-leather and his own intestines. His only chance was the deep shell-hole ahead.

He hurled himself over the rim of the crater, tumbled down the concavity and flattened himself into the stagnant sulphurous water collecting in the bottom. Three shadows flicked low overhead, shrieking their indignation at the loss of their prey. He waited, waited until he was sure the pterosaurs had turned their dagger-beaks toward some other unfortunate. Cartwright raised himself on hands and knees. He vomited twice into the pool. When finally he lifted his head it met a wavering flintlock pistol.

The shell-hole held another soldier, lying slumped at the opposite end. This one was bloody, mud-streaked and burned, but Cartwright recognised the skunk-pelt and birch-bark uniform; an officer in his own regiment. He made a hasty salute.

The pistol fell away. “At ease,” croaked the officer. “What’s our position, Private?”

“It’s not good, sir.” Cartwright scooped a handful of water to his eyes and rubbed away the last of the bile. He crawled a little up the slope and peered over the edge. “We’re west of the slurry furnace. About a mile south of the guano ridge. Don’t see any of ours.” The plains of Hell’s eastern fringe stretched into the distance. Straggling bands of the Damned clashed feebly amidst smoke and sludge.

The officer swigged heavily from a canteen, hesitated, then took what looked like the last mouthful. He brushed dorbeetles off his shattered kneecaps and let out a rattling sigh. “What did you do, Private? Before all this?”

Cartwright slithered back down to join him. “Telemarketing, sir.”

The officer nodded, satisfied. “Regretting it?”

“Bitterly, sir. I gather that’s the general idea.”

This region of Hell was the province of the Minor Counts, quiet fiefdoms holding the Slightly Damned. No mass-murderers or idolators here, no heretics or traitors; no-one truly evil, just those who had made themselves unwelcome in any other branch of the afterlife.

Even here, a great conceptual distance from the Inner Circles, the War of the Hells had made itself felt. Cartwright’s own regiment, the Rueful Irregulars, had been raised from the Dark Province of Petty Mithering to face aggression from neighbouring Nether Ghasterton. At noon they had taken heavy fire from the Armoured Accordionists, but the line held. They had repulsed the People Who Say Nucular. The Irregulars’ fortitude had bought time for the 666th Infomercial Scriptwriters to mount their lumbering war-porcupines and enter the fray. And then came the pterosaurs.

Cartwright lay back in the shell-hole, lost in thoughts of the pre-afterlife. Through his back and shoulders he felt the throb of distant bombardment. Above him, dark clouds were gathering. He failed to notice one of them was moving into the wind. Beneath it hung a tiny speck.


*


Otto, Minor Count of Petty Mithering, peered down over the balcony of Count Glubrub’s airborne pleasure pagoda. Through an antique brass telescope he could make out knots of the Slightly Damned dragging their battered bodies across the pock-marked mudflats far below, each clutching his Bohemian earspoon or ichor-stained coal shovel. Canned laughter operators clashed with parking attendants. Fruitarians took arms against the creators of the Furby.

Otto collapsed the telescope and turned to face his host. “Fabulous contraption you’ve got here.”

Count Glubrub of Nether Ghasterton waved a claw. “What, this old thing?”

“Indeed. It’s so stable. And surprisingly quiet. Blowflies, you say?”

“About a billion, give or take. It was sourcing all the horsehair that was tricky. And the - ” He pointed upwards to the cloud of flies, then mimed tying a tiny knot. “Of course, that was before all this War nonsense. Can’t get the staff now.”

Count Otto shrugged his vestigial wings. “We’re all feeling the pinch, old man. On which note: what did Phlegmphleck and Avarizz make of your plan?”

Glubrub the Depraved rose from his chaise longue and rolled up his sleeves. On a tastefully-proportioned torture bench stood a crystal fishtank. “Fancy an octopus?”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“Me too,” said Glubrub, unbuckling his codpiece.

Count Otto swirled the wine in his goblet. “Phlegmphleck. Avarizz. Are they in or out?”

“Very much in. Same problem as our territories. With all the - hurgh - the excitement in the Inner Circles, their own Slightly Damned just don't attract the - umph - the investment. Old Avarizz had to lay off three-quarters of his tormentors last week. You can imagine how he took that. Urrgh.”

“But that’s what makes your plan such a good one. Our own little phoney war. Give the Slightly Damned the tools to torment one another for a while. And when do we expect their realms to join in?”

“Tomorrow. Daybreak. Phlegmphleck has used-car salesmen fording the Swamp of Vexation. Avarizz will send someone to outflank them, we’ll respond in kind, and the pterosaurs will ensure no one realm gains a meaningful advantage.” There was a final rubbery squelch and a soft splash. “And once it all calms down in the Inner Circles, we make the treaty public and our four realms return to their original borders.” Glubrub raised his goblet and drank deep.

Count Otto shook his head in wonder. “You’re a piece of work, Glubby.”

Glubrub grinned. “That means a lot, coming from you.” His face clouded. “Does this wine taste funny to you?”

“Not at all,” said Otto the Treacherous, pouring his own goblet discreetly into space. “Not at all.”

Such a wonderful job of fleshing out a pair of scenes from the Hell War. I quite like the description of the conflict among the Slightly Damned. I also quite like the lack of description about the Octopus. I really appreciate that, actually.

Obviously, the full epic account of the story must be a true masterpiece!

I've been uncomfortable using his cast for years now.

And I don't know why posters suddenly went AWOL, but I kind of feel like I share the blame for it. I've been exploring new writing styles, and in doing so my stories started to get longer, meaning they take longer to post. And I've been getting less and less brave with making changes to PVB chars, which means I've been posting stories that not many people here read. So I guess I haven't exactly been solving the problem.





I need to stop writing so many stories at once, and just finish one or two of them.





Easy to fix. Watch the American election coverage.





It's all about preparation. You get about 5 days' notice to make sure you have enough food and water. And most of those storms only cause minor inconvenience for a few days - a really powerful one is extremely rare. Sandy was not very powerful at all, it just hit an area that was not prepared for it. And to be honest, New Englanders are stubborn and think they know better, which means they didn't bother to prepare.

Feel a bit sorry for Cartwright, but then I remember he was a telemarketer and thus got what he deserved.

and... octopus.

Fans dubbed this background pony "Dr. Whooves" long ago (he normally doesn't have the scarf, but was given the name for his hourglass cutie mark and messy brown hair), and Hasbro has run with it on various bits of official merchandise. They had to drop the W to just "Dr. Hooves" in order to trademark it, but his official trading card does say that he's generally in charge of all things "timey-wimey", which I gather is a quote from the Doctor.

The first issue did indeed have a hilarious number of variant covers. I, of course, ordered a Derpy one.

I've held for a long time that a shared community of this kind needs at least eight active posters who'll read and respond to everything. Without that feedback the unique selling points of such a place are lost. We've been below that number for quite some time and the momemuntum can't carry on forever.

I don't think you should feel to blame. People's lives change and they move on. Internet posting is a young man's game, or at least a single man's game. Many writers founder in their calling when they're overwhelmed with the more urgent demands of work and family. Communities like the PVB have their time and then folks move on.

That said, there's clearly a lot of affection for the old place from some alumni, and even a vague intention from some to return some day. I don't think it's time to sell up and walk away unless the costs of maintainance become prohibitive in time or cash. I'm always pleased to review whatever collaborators here present, however intermittently that might be. This site is still my homepage.

Regarding your work, I think you're right to shift the focus away from characters whose posters no longer have an active stake in shared stories, towards a Jason-verse of your own. Your natural tendencies to introduce shocking turnarounds and sudden changes is best suited to an environment and characters you can fully control. No-one can justifiably accuse you of abusing characters that you have created (except in a narrative sense, where they can be abused as dramatically as possible). I think your stories and style have matured; too much Parodyverse pandering would now water them down and weaken them.







I keep telling writers that the ability to finish stories is one of the key literary skills - or disciplines. And it feels so good!







I gather from the news that this has now been resolved.







One of my correspondents had around 70 longboxes of silver age comic books in a hired storage space in New York. The floods got them. He isn't insured.

If you do write it, I'll try to follow the lead if I have time, It's the least I can do - maybe the sudden increased volume of material will draw some people in. Maybe.





That viewpoint might have to change anyway, since these days unless a message board had a specialized purpose (such as for a specific game, or tech support) you're extremely lucky if you have 8 regulars. Each board at Comicboards has maybe 2 or 3.





I don't know - I think there was a time when people get married and/or a job and give up the internet in exchange, but I don't think this is that time. Instead, I think we're losing to an exchange of time. Facebook and social networks like it are drawing more attention because of the promise of *daily* and centralized entertainment (most of the time here there's nothing to do), and because a lot of people have narcissistic tendencies. They can write something on Facebook or Blogger, and say this is *my* place and *my* audience, and I don't have to share it with anyone. And if people want to see my writing talent, they will have to come here and "friend" me so I can see exactly how many people read my stuff.

I admit it's tempting as a writer, but I personally don't like it as much because the noise-to-signal ratio is high. You post a good story, and nobody cares because a distant relative got a promotion today, or one of your friends started a hotbutton political discussion.

I think people know about the noise-to-signal thing, but don't care because if they have to struggle for attention, they believe it's better to struggle on their own territory. How many people have you seen posting here, or at other message boards, with nothing more than "I posted at my blog/facebook, come read it"?

Alao, ironically, I believe eventually Facebook will get greedy and either start premium subscriptions like Linkedin, and nag you all the time, or they'll use some obnoxious and invasive ads, and then we might see a slight resurgence in message boards. Maybe not this one, but some.





It's hosted in the same space as Powermad Software, Eek! Studio, and a few others, so the cost of maintenance is incrementally small. The software I designed is a little out of date now, but proves to be strong and resilient, and doesn't really need maintenance.





During the long absence of an "offical" path for the PV, I have actually been tempted to restructure the entire Lair Legion and secondary cast, several times, in order to accomodate people who have left and didn't want their names or characters to be used. I didn't complete it because it would have involved adding a lot of characters that need a back-story, and I never got that far. You have seen bits and pieces in alternate stories or similar.

Here was one such crazy idea:

The Lair Legion collapses because Hatman retires, Donar returns home, and CrazySugarFreakBoy has disappeared without explanation (and of course the Librarian is dead). The newer members are heartbroken that it's having to shut down, but they don't really want to give up. Unfortunately, none of them have either the funding nor the skill to take over. Yuki Shiro refuses the leadership role because she's angry about the collapse. Sir Mumphrey provides some counsel, but his age is catching up with him, and his mind is starting to go.

Vinnie and Liu Xi prove themselves to be heroes here. They organize a new group that basically have an intervention at the Psychic Samurai's home and ask her to take over the leadership. They need someone who can find funding, and who is charismatic enough to argue with the authorities, etc.

The new members would have been a strange group, too. A new alien member who's Shen Rae's sister and came just for the purpose of joining; an android similar to Anna, but this time designed specifically for the Lair Legion by Dr. Lia Anne Paul; Vinne and Liu Xi, Visionary, and Yuki as senior members; the entire cast of Juniors as full-time members; Dark Thugos, who lost both his cosmic office and his planet to revolution and democracy; Faite, who is still underage but provides cosmic direction for the team; and Samantha Wilton, who is also underage, but now the Keeper of the Chronometer, and already one of the world's greatest detectives. Lara Night joins the team as a part-time member, still trying to hold back from dedicating herself.

I can turn that into a full writeup if you want. It's short a few more male characters I'd have to develop from scratch though, which is what I meant above about needing some new ones.





I understand why that's so complicated - it's actually having an ending that's difficult. I do have one, just haven't gotten there yet.





See, in Florida I would never put paper items in a ground-floor storage unit. That's just asking for trouble, even from a nasty thunderstorm.