...for good reason, as you'll see further down.





Sounds like she's not going to be happy.





But then she'll have to remind everyone else every 30 seconds.





In some cases though I'd have to find them first. In other cases, most of them so far, the changes I make are generally not liked, so I'm not confident about asking.





What's funny is, as an aside, I've been placing a few things carefully for some issues relates to these, should they come up. For instance:

- Faite's choice for Hatman: I fully expect that if poster-Jay returns, it's very likely, like an 8 out of 10 chance, that he'll just be stopping by to say that (like 90% of the posters who left here) he's concentrating on raising a family and career, and he's not "back". Like AG, he's always sort of taken ownership of his character Hatman. So I fully believe that if he decides to formally take leave of the board, his character will have to leave the Lair Legion and be shelved. I also believe the only reason it hasn't been yet is poster-Jay had in the back of his mind to visit here or email someone to say something but either hasn't gotten around to it, or doesn't know how to say it without feeling bad.

So I left the option - in a single scene, Hatman can take Faite's offer and give up his hat-power, retire, and as I believe is in true Hatman style, leave without saying goodbye to start his new life. It beats the other option, which Faite predicted - Hatman being killed first by the Carnifex. Though this might create good motivation for the always cool Psychic Samurai to lose her temper (more on that below) or Liu Xi to go rogue.

- And speaking of the Carnifex, in this latest arc I've posted, there's a new less self-aware android that SPUD seems to have developed. Since it's their job to be paranoid, it's quite likely they were designed both as a counter to the Lair Legion and to the Carnifex.

- Let's see if you can meet this challenge: Take a guess which things Faite nudged along to alter the present so the Carnifex and his bosses are easier to deal with in the future. There are three so far, and only one of them is obvious (one of them happened a long time ago).

Also thinly laid-out plots that I've scrapped or shelved in the last few months:

- Liu Xi "going rogue". Now she's a complicated person, so she wouldn't just go insane or fight the Lair Legion. Some kind of catalyst would have to convince her that standing idly by is no longer acceptable, and she would start using her power to take matters into her own hands. People would likely get hurt in the process, but only people who deserve it. Of course because of her sentimentality toward the LL, she'd always stay close enough to the curb to avoid having to fight them.

- Like I briefly mentioned above, some sort of major catalyst causing the Psychic Samurai to lose her temper. That doesn't sound like much until you realize that true to her name, she sees weaknesses in her foes - and because of her training, anger increases her focus dramatically. Which doesn't amount to that much when she's on the defense, but if she goes on the hunt, she becomes very dangerous.

For instance I thought it might be ironic if the professional hunter The Carnifex is shaken and worried because of this fairly weak relentless human who will hound him from the shadows and never let him be until she kills him. He'd have to worry about sleeping, drinking beverages and eating, or leaving his home. That's the kind of thing that may occur if he kills Hatman, or any of Chiaki's friends for that matter.

Or another possibility, since you mentioned the Lynchpin, what might happen if Akiko was killed, especially if it was a message to the rest of her organization. Chiaki might just go vigilante, and bodies would start piling up.

Anyway, the point is, I had a lot of radical ideas, but I've been shelving them as quickly as I've been making them up to avoid making too many waves. Those are the walls I have to work within.

An intriguing set up. Looking forward to finding out who sicced the Drop Bears on the prez (I'm thinking maybe Rupert Murdoch) and why Nats's bathroom is more fetid than usual.

I'm not sure if Liu Xi's going to be in this story, which I hope to keep relatively short with a minimal cast of one character per regular poster. On the other hand it's a natural comment for someone to make.







There are other techniques the other LL can use. Hatman could use his Thinking Cap. Dancer could improbably be reminded every minute. The Shoggoth's probably naturally immune because his thought processes are so alien anyway. The rest might have to rely on Hallie or simply have notes tied round their necks.







I'm lucky there since I created quite a significant proportion of PV cast (over half the characters including villains that appear in Untold Tales were introduced by me) so that gives me plenty of leeway to play with. One reason I encourage posters to develop their own supporting ensembles and their own situations is that it allows them more creative freedom than having to continually reset things to status quo ante.










If I had more time to guarantee my own level of activity on the board I'd chase some people up as I have done before. However at the moment I'm using a lot of my "free time" to write things for publication (i.e things I'll get paid for) so I'm not really confident of my ability to sustain such a regular PV input. One reason I've always refrained from selling my fiction output is to keep that as a hobby without this pressure to work on commercial material. Now I've got the problem of balancing hobby writing with "work" writing and I'm not able to handle both very well.

Work-wise I'd like to complete a trilogy of short novels in the next three months. The first is done. The second is 8500 words off completion. The third isn't started. Fortuately I'm ahead of schedule on my contributions to four planned anthologies; those short stories are already turned in. The Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective anthology apparently sold fairly well (the bestselling book the little publishing house Cornerstone have ever had in their ten years existence, so they're keen for a vol 2) so it makes sense to write things for them while they're keen to publish them.




I think we need to give Jay a little more leeway.




It's a bit like SHIELD expecting that their anti-Thor measures will work.

I'm always a bit sceptical about the law enforcement agencies having tech that can actually take down Hero X. If the government has a secret weapon that can take down Superman why didn't they deploy it against Doomsday or Bizarro?




I don't think I can meet that challenge. My eye's been off the ball with the PV for the last year what with one thing and another. I don't have the overview I once had.







That's an interesting plotline but potentially destructive to the character.




This is where supporting cast really come in handy, both as a motivator for rage and as a means of "talking the hero down".




I'm not sure the Carnifex works well in that role. It'd probably only work of she could breach his impregnible tower or find a way of destroying his indestructible person. Then the story stops being about Chiaki and becomes the resolution to the Carnifex story.




I'd avoid doing anything too bad to Vizh's beloved Akiko.

If you're looking at some kind of trigger to justify a Chiaki rampage why not tie it to her protection of the St Jude's Orphanage? A suitably nasty threat to the children there might be a good motivation, if she has to go "dark" to do what's neccessary to save them. We've never really mapped the orphanage's children or cast (except that Mac Fleetwood's an occasional chaplain, G-Eyed's girlfriend Beth used to teach there but doesn't now, and Champagne is a secret contributor of funds). We don't even know the name of the orphanage's director.




That's the consequences of a shared universe. I guess the Marvel and DC creators must feel the same way sometime.

Fantastically fun stuff. The pacing was excellent - and if you intended the drop bear reference to have me laughing out loud well it worked.

I particularly enjoyed the scenes dealing with the LL'ers responding to the call for action (Dancer, Librarian, MS and Visionary).

Very much looking forward to the next part and finding out what nefarious villain is responsible for this.

Al B.

Then wherever she is, she won't be happy when she hears about it.





I'm curious if Anna would be affected at all. The one factor (besides physical construction) that differs her from humans a lot is that she chooses her memories to keep. At the same time, though, it may be that Hallie only has a memory advantage because she stores hers elsewhere, away from the Drop Bears' influence, and Anna's memories are just as prone to corruption.





I did that. Unfortunately when I use my own cast, readership drops to near zero. It's probably my own fault for placing them in unexplored corners of the Parodyverse where they don't usually affect the Lair Legion unless they come in direct contact with them.





Makes sense to do paying work first. I'd say you're both lucky and brave at this point - because new professional writers sometimes are either slapped with, or afraid of being slapped with, contractual gag orders that prevent them from associating with any non-pro writers. So you're lucky you still can visit and read.








He's got the leeway, but I'm trying to cover the bases.

Why? Because historically, posters with high-profile characters who stop visiting the board one day stop by, read a few things, and choose one of two things: Either to hand the character off to the care of the writers here officially, or realize they don't recognize the character anymore, and ask for its retirement. For the moment, we now have both covered.

Hatman isn't the only one in danger of that - we also have Dancer (who nearly permanently moved away in-story already once) and Kerry as well. And, of course, and character too similar in name to ones owned by Marvel or D.C.





It's the first rule of government spending. Show something expensive, or lose the funding.





This is more of a government funded endeavor, weapons development like Anna was - only they consider Anna a failure because she wouldn't accept command.





So far, Faite gave Hatman that choice, which might just save him from the Carnifex' blade - or at the very least, now Hatman is warned that a "hunter" is out to kill him first. Long ago, she gave Liu Xi Xian something that at the very least can keep the universe from being destroyed in extreme cases (or possible cause it). And the simplest and most subtle one, that she and the Hooded Hood may be working on the same page with certain things at the moment.





It would have to be done in a way so Liu Xi's justifications are *very* hard to argue with. Which is why it hasn't been done yet.





The problem is, Chiaki is very hard to push to anger. She's very zen, and becomes more focused under pressure, but hasn't really become angry yet. She has been cornered once, and focused it inward, but hasn't lashed out.





Chiaki can have incredible focus when she's angered - she might not bother to try to get into the tower, just content that she can mess with anything that comes in or out. Or at least giving him the impression that she can. In her opinion, eventually everything has a chink in the armor, and opportunity inevitably presents itself.

The funny thing about that is, I'm not entirely sure if the Carnifex would be annoyed or impressed that someone's relentlessly hunting and stalking him.








I would just wait until the Lynchpin kills her for me. It may be inevitable.





I do remember that Hatman threatened that he was protecting the orphanage.








Probably.

> Fantastically fun stuff. The pacing was excellent - and if you intended the drop bear reference to have me laughing out loud well it worked.

Excellent.

I particularly enjoyed the scenes dealing with the LL'ers responding to the call for action (Dancer, Librarian, MS and Visionary).

It seemed appropriate to show the team coming together. it was just a matter of finding an interesting (and brief) way of doing so.

Very much looking forward to the next part and finding out what nefarious villain is responsible for this.

Part two's now in the shops.

I'd say you could play it either way and it's still interesting - she's immune because she's sophisticated or she's not immune because she's so human.







I think you overestimate the pull of the LL core. After all, I'd say the thing you;ve written which has drwn the most positive comment of late is the Shen Rae/cosmic stuff, which doesn't touch on much of the "core" PV at all.

I've found that readers here seem to enjoy seeing new bits of the PV mapped as much as they enjoy revisitng the familiar ones. In my time at the PVB I've introduced plenty of planets and hidden cities and Paradopolis neighbourhoods that have since become familiar places. Maybe you should work on the next set?




They'd have to give me a good deal more money than they have before they get a say in the rest of my life.

[


I'm still hoping Shep will surface. At some point when I've more time I'll check on Jay too.

The risks as a writer though is if Anna isn't either affected, or on her own somewhere, she ends up taking the position of leader by default. While the Lair Legion has short-term memory problems and wanders aimlessly she would be forced to keep them on track.





I'm going to have to write more of them, but I had to leave some time for the whole trade with Caph situation to simmer for a while. Even so, the *last* time I did a story with Shen Rae, it wasn't nearly as popular. So either it's coincidence or it's growing on people, I'm not sure.





I'm still working on how the forest thing will go. I might exaggerate it into a tropical jungle for some better special effects.





Noted.

I think the LL are coping professionally enough under a heightened weirdness scenario - at least I hope they are since I'm trying to write them that way. It's not their first heightened weirdness.







I think there's often excitement generated by the "here's something or somewhere you haven't been before" vibe. That said, Shen Rae's now reached the "consolidation" phase of her life as a literary creation. We've been told or shown things about her, her supporting cast, and her regular situation. Now we need to be shown it all again, to fix it in readers minds so that they remember it.







Well effected.