Tales of the Parodyverse >> View Post
Post By
HH
In Reply To
Visionary

Subj: I needed almost all the eggs in one basket.
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 08:19:52 pm EDT
Reply Subj: All sorts of surprises in this one, including some welcome additions to the cast!
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:37:58 pm EDT


> Well, that worked out... er, sort of. Assuming we're not all now someplace that's burning with radioactive fire, then I guess this chapter had a happier ending than the last one. I suppose we also have to assume that Danny can swim, otherwise that was a whole lot of trouble 'rescuing' him for naught.

If it's any help, as soon as the tide turns there'll be a lighthouse for him to swim to.

> And don't think those kids aren't in a whole lot of trouble. My parents always took a dim view on drugging hippopotomuses, and I feel obligated to pass that lesson on. There will be a lot of work involved in making up for this little caper.

Now I'm really looking forward to the tie-in.

> Still, I have less of a problem with the three young-uns being able to pull this off than I would have had with the Purveyors. To me, it's akin to the President's daughter stealing a top secret file off his desk... She'd be the most likely one to get away with it. Somebody off the street who doesn't belong there, or even worse somebody that is specifically being guarded against, well... that's embarrassing.

I spend a lot of time trying to balance various things in my Parodyverse writing. Whimsy versus drama is one of them. Making sure various characters get due respect is another.

I'm keen that the LL don't look like unprofessional idiots, so I don't want to make their security a joke. On the other hand, Beth von Zemo is supposed to be one of the most dangerous of the team's foes, and one that knows them like no other, so I want to give due regard to that. The Purveyors are supposed to be the most dangerous career supoervillains around.

Therefore I decided that on this occasion, Beth would have her back door, the Purveyors could use it, but having them steal Danny wasn't a narrtively satisfying solution. In mitigation, Al B. worked out how Beth did the trick and he can plug similar holes in future. In fact the Lair Mansion might be a whole lot harder to just jump into for everybody. Al B's working on a way to divert all teleportation and the like to the poulty room.

As to Mags and Griff and co. pulling the heist, I needed culprits who were unlikely to get booted off the team for their actions or to leave team-mates with a sense of betrayal. And I confess, when I started the mystery I hadn't expected it to get this long and complicated or for people to get so invested in it. Hence the denouement was perhaps an anticlimax for some since the story had evolved into something more epic than I'd originally envisaged.

> Clever way to work Icy back into things. (Note to other readers: Ian told me of the twins involvement after I wrote my first post-Danny-escape installment, but he didn't share the details of how it was done exactly.) I picked up on the possibility when you first mentioned the wet footprints and ran through my mind who the kids might enlist for help. So while I solved that bit of the mystery, I still haven't figured out why Greye was so tight lipped about what was happening to the defenses.

I'm impressed you worked out as much as you did.

> And Dancer is back in town! Or, at least, she was. Wonder where she and Liu Xi were spirited off to. But Mumphrey and Sam are back as well! Um... okay, same deal, though possibly not disappeared to the same place.

I decided to see what happened when we cleared the Earth of all the usual "go to" people who cope with metahuman problems.

> In any event, if we've all disappeared to Hatty's land where the women wear furry bikini's, then things are looking up! Until we learn how it's all going to kill us, certainly.

You think just the women wear furry bikinis?

> Fun stuff! I'm intrigued by the mysterious possibilities for another round of robins.

I'm suffering from cascading guilt about hijacking the fun round robin you and Dancer started, but now I'm rolling I've decided to play out another couple of scenarios I've wanted to cover for a while. One of them is the "world without superheroes" riff we discussed with Nats back when he wanted an all-new Lair Legion. Next issue he finally gets it.