I guess the real questions are whether this story was born out of inspiration or desperation, and if it's going to be continued or if the "ending" of it is ironic (i.e. it becomes yet another unfinished story when everything ends).

And are you finishing it or is this prompting others to take a shot?

From my perspective, I haven't been able to come up with a *compelling* story. I have stories in progress, but for every one of them I take a second look and wonder: Is this compelling enough to bring people back to comment and write stuff? So far that second critical look has been shelving a lot of stuff.

As soon as I find the right inspiration - unless it's too late - I'll try to put up a central storyline of my own, in the absence of any other.

Well, as Kirk noted, it's a very meta-textual kind of tale, but when your characters are at least semi-aware of the nature of their universe it's hard for these kinds of stories not to be.




I'm not sure I *want* to write the last of it, even though I know exactly what happens. The main point of the story is to put off that point as long as possible, while also acknowledging that perhaps some closure has been earned by these characters.

For me, the most important line is Visionary's preference to believe that everyone is exactly where he left them, and that he will go back to them... or rather, that we the readers will go back to them, at least. As Lisa noted, this isn't the story where Visionary dies. He did that long before this story. This is a jump to some far flung future.

Of course, if the Hooded Hood should bring about the end of everything in a story tomorrow, well... I think of it like the argument from "Inherit the Wind". How much time passed between the destruction of everything we use to measure time and the onset of Nothing taking over? What's it even matter if there's nobody left to mark time?





I have a bunch of "starts" on my computer, many of which haven't been posted. We'll see if they make it in. In the meantime, I'm giving myself an opening to clear out some unfinished business and bring some closure on more than a decade with characters I care about.

In the back of my mind I always had that Chad & Ronnie were the last people around but that's just me & this is your story.

What Would Have Been


Kambyon the Kruel was going to beat the crap out of the Carnifex, who then would have left Earth after what he was looking for: IAGOS (short for Infernal Analytical Game Operating System), sort of a sentient Mother Box Expy with the memories of the Apocalyptsian Torture God Torkamahda, showed up. The two would have set off to find Kambyon’s Signature Weapon, the Power Pugil, in the Skree space ship they hijacked, only to have a comet thrown at them by a vengeful Carnifex. An injured and amnesiac Kambyon would have been captured by the Wiiponeers of Qwiird, and forced to fight in their gladiatorial games until IAGOS saved him. Then Kambyon would have been attacked by the Sisters Sanguine, servants of Dark Thugos who get stronger the more they bleed (no menstrual jokes, please) in addition to being two of his old girlfriends. After that he would have gone to the Home World of the Est’B Uy’B, a race of tentacled mollusks who outfitted half the known universe with their technology. Kambyon’s purpose for traveling there was to claim his Power Pugil, which the Est”B Uy’B were using to supply energy to their vast empire. After taking the Pugil and causing an intergalactic economic collapse he would have been made a victim of a virus created by Professor Pandemonium (another Newer God) that would have made him mortal and far less monstrous in appearance.. I think the plan then was to have him meet Shazara Pel, fight off a variety of assassins (including if I could work him in Squibb) out to claim a bounty set on him by the Est’B Uy’B, reunite with his hated brother Nymrod of New Eden, and ultimately travel to the Home of Retired Gods (that place Woopsa the Rakasha runs) to find his mother Hel-El who was the Death Goddess of whatever the Parodyverse versions of the Daxxamites were called (Maxellians?). She would have given him the location of a powerful starship called “Naglfar” which he would have tried to use to conquer Apocalyspe. But wait! It turned out his father Dark Thugos was behind Kambyon’s entire ordeal to this point. He uses nano machines to return Kambyon’s divinity and control him, gaining access to “Naglfar” and use it as the lead ship in his fleet to attack the Silver Armada that protects The Font, the source of all Creativity in the Parodyverse. Thugos wanted to enter the Font and speak the Anti Plot Expression (which he had hidden in the mind of one Killer Shrike), thus assuming its role in the Parodyverse and reshaping it in his own nightmarish image. Fortunately reality would be saved by an alliance of all the alien races Kambyon had screwed over, Prosody (the Metron like guy in the floating space chair), Shrike, and Amy Aston, with the latter two totally having done it at some point during their involvement in the story, probably while cruising around the universe in the aforementioned space chair. As for Kambyon, he would atone in part for his crimes by using his Power Pugil to reform our sun after Thugos caused it to prematurely super nova with a device called the Star Burster in order to keep the heroes of Earth out of his hair while he made his big play. Anyway, everything would end with Kambyon trapped in the center of the sun with only the word of the Hooded Hood that by keeping humanity alive he would be ultimately responsible for Thugos’s downfall.

I've never come close to working out plot as intricate as that...at best I have a few vague ideas to aim for. It's a shame we didn't get to read the full story, because that plot summary was very cool.

The PV is the only place that I've really ever posted my writing. I tried a few other things a few years back nothing came of those things. I wouldn't really know where to post my stories if the PV went away. I could maybe take my writing elsewhere (maybe my blog) but that might take some backtracking (having to explain some back history, explain who people are, etc.) & rewriting (editing out characters & concept I don't own: The Lair Legion, Parodipolis, etc.)

I think I'm trying to post interesting things with what I'm doing with Ham-Boy at the moment & I'd like that I'd be able to finish off what I've started. Not just with HB but with my other characters, too. If I'd ever get around to doing all that stuff, I don't know.

Honestly, I'd prefer no one write a part two. The infinite "to be continued." It's the perfect ending.

Always leave 'em hanging.

Considering that "Happiness" has been left hanging for 12 years now, I'm not sure I'd take bets on whether this gets finished.