Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Behind The Oval - The Creator commentary Track

Those of us who worked on The Dark Lord of The Oval Novella thought it might be fun to go into some of the behind the scenes things that helped form the story.

There were a lot of us involved over the year and a half it took to get the story done. There were all sorts of behind the scenes idea swapping going on. Sometimes between two people...sometimes more.

This is for us to reveal, pull back the curtain on those conversations So, for all of us involved...share away. Also, if anyone out there has any questions about the story, and why certain things happened the way they did, please ask.

Thanks for starting this Dev. I had a great time!

Except for that one time at the writer's retreat when Cobalt Kid tried to throttle me after a disagreement over plot points and later when Lard Lad peed on my pillows ... just for kicks.


I didn't get to jump in from the start and I remember I had to do some writing gymnastics to catch up and bring Peebs into the Fellowship.

A lot of things started well before the Novella was even launched.

During the Civil War and Red Bee Role Plays, I took Furball, an alt id I had created way back on the DC Message Boards, and changed him...pretty drastically. There were several reasons for that, first and foremost being that he was really a one note character. His relationship with Dev Em was never really explained. The friction between him and SharkLad was fun, but there needed to be more to it than just them hating each other (at least for me, not sure how Sharky himself felt about that.) During the beginnings of the Civil War thing, I threw out some ideas to Cobie regarding what I wanted to do with him.

Cobie was great to bounce these ideas off of, as he is a great motivator. Soon, I came up with that Furball was an ally of Cobies in the underside of the LMB universe. Doing things that were behind the scenes (at least up until that point) and he wholeheartedly loved the idea and was throwing in things of his own.

Changing Furball into Timberwolf (Cobie suggested that I just go with that name - which I am greatful for) started opening up a a lot of ideas. Cobie (and I believe Lardy as well - but they can confirm this) had the Oval story brewing for a while. Somehow, the metamorphosis of Furball into Timberwolf kickstarted them into getting that story rolling. Not the sole thing, but it helped...I think

As for Lon Talbot Em, his name came from Lon Chaney, who played The Wolfman (a nice nod to someone that has wolf in his new name. I decided to give him Talbot as a "middle" name in homage to the character that turned into the wolfman.

This was partially in keeping with the fact that Dev had been long established as an old television/movie fan. That and I had the seeds of an idea involving a certain finned team-mate.

Turning him into a Black Ops kind of guy was easy. Always loved that idea, and it made the character a lot more fun to write.

So basically, I got bored with Furball and wanted to do something different without creating a new character.

This ties into the Dark Oval in a lot of ways. His relationship with Hot Chick (aka Kalla) will be explored in a little while...and some things I talk about may even surprise some directly involved.

Re: Dev's death ... I remember being actually emotional when I was writing Peebs attempt to rescue Dev. too slow, too late.

I also remember nearly feeling Ameratsu and Juj's fear as Peebs basically commanded them in his attempt to rescue Dev against overwhelming odds.

I got a bit involved at times! HA!

This is not a "scene by scene" kind of thing. We need to junp around all over and talk about all kinds of things. I think that even those of us involved from the very beginning will be surprised at some of the revelations.

The couple times I got to write Kalla I really enjoyed them, some characters seem to write themselves and are easier for me (as a person with my own stuff inside) to find their voice.

Yeah. Writing those scenes was emotional for me as well. I knew pretty early on in the story that Dev was going to die. The how was in question for a while. Talking with Cobie and Lardy helped me come to some concrete ideas as to where and how that was going to happen.

...and to be clear, he is dead. The story may not be complete, as there are a lot of things to touch on regarding him and his family, but he really died.

It was really good working with someone so closely on that sequence Peebs. You brought things to the scenes that I had not thought of when forming it in my mind.

Man, there is a ton to talk about and I could go on and on...and actually probably will.

But one of the things to talk about first I guess is how it all started. Lardy and I have been throwing the basic idea around for years, with Lardy doing a lot of the heavy lifting in plotting out the Dark Oval itself. But we'd been holding off on it because mainly...we didn't want it to just be the two of us running the whole thing. A lot of past LMB stuff has been enormously Lardy / Cobie heavy (sometime with a +1 or +2 as when Rocky rounded out Omnia with us). So when Dev came back full blast to Legion World...and then dived in both feet first to LMB stuff, it was like the ultimate kick in the pants to both of us.

Bees, Bots and Despots cemented Dev's status as a major LMB plotter right now and it led to he, Lardy and myself doing a ton of behind the scenes planning for what was to come. I remember being in London in the Spring 2011 checking my phone constantly to see their latest thoughts.

Also a major player in getting the enthusiasm flowing was the return of Tempest to LW. Temp's return added another welcome layer to BBD, with a great love triangle between Tempest / Dev / Lardy, and Jonathan had really matured as a writer (and person--opening up in a big way to us). He would eventually become very busy in real life but maintained a steady communication to help ensure we handled Temp appropriately.

Sharky played a big part in BBD but was up front that his role would be sometimes limited. Still, he as always provided majorly awesome posts for BBD and LotO. Likewise, Rocky told us he'd be more limited than he had been in Omnia (where he stepped into the role of major LMB plotter in a if way) but still managed to come through in a big way. Abin & Faraway jumped in early on but real life stepped in and limited their posting unfortunately. Even though Ex proved again he's an awesome writer in BBD, he was in a rare slow posting period when we started (to our disappointment).

Oh, and Quis was awesome enough to let us "borrow" Helena Handbasket for the story which provided a fantastic main character.

So as we got started we used Lardy's larger Dark Oval set up he'd been crafting, the recent story lines from BBD and I plotted out the loose structure of LotO. But we weren't sure who else would be joining. So it was such an awesome surprise for Peebs to step up in a MAJOR way! Peebs of course has been posting in LMB storylines since 2005's "The Good, the Dark and the Dead", and was a really welcome addition in BBD; but in LotO he reached new heights!

And an even more surprising turn of events was after years of inactivity, IB came back to LW and jumped right in! And coincidently, I had plotted a major role for IB in the story so it was as if we'd planned it all along. IB and Peebs involvement was the same thing as Dev's in BBD--it just took things to a whole new level.

So with Lardy, Dev, Peebs, IB and myself we had the five major plotters with Rocky & Sharky having a steady, smaller yet critical role too. Eryk provided some additional editorial support too as some of the LotO plot points are almost 10 years old that he helped formulate years ago. Temp stayed involved peripherly. We also tried to tie up all of Abin and Dardens plots as best we could to what I believed would be to their liking (telling my co-authors I believed I could advocate their storylines on their behalf).

And you know what? It was the single most rewarding and best experience yet for me writing wise EVER in LMB history. I'm so pumped for what is next that I can't wait to get into it. I'm also thrilled Ex is involved in a major way, I'm hopeful Abin will continue to have a steady presence and I'm anxious to get Emily Sivana heavily involved in the plotting too.

But while what is coming has got me really excited, I can't wait for us to get into more detail on LotO itself in this thread!

I honestly thought you had planned the IB thing. Wonderful timing there for you.

IB and Peebs were wonderful additions to what was going on. They took the ball and ran with it when I know I was feeling creatively stunted towards the midway point.

What I loved is how we all took the approach of "let's have ___ interact with ____ and how would that go?" It led to so many surprising developments. And we never forced the tension but also never skirted around it. The personal interactions just felt so real!

Case in point: Lon and just about everyone. Lolita and Kalla. Lolita and Bat-Fem. Cobie and Peebs. IB and Temp.

Also, a willingness to resolve plots / character points and move on to the next phase. I saw Lardy doing this in a big way and decided it was time for me to finally do that with Cobie.

I really appreciate how everyone pretty much let everyone use their characters, and everyone really tried to write those characters in the character's voices.

When other people wrote Peebs I was so astonished by what they brought to the table. Even wrote him better than I did.

It was really educational from a writer's perspective ... and also really nice how generous everyone was.


........

I think we all had to push each other along at some point. There was some days ... where I just *had* nothing ... and was like ... "this is what I'm thinking but it seems not very good ... anyone else?"

and other times it was easy. or the story evolved on the page by itself almost.

Yes, I have so many ideas for different plots regarding Legion World. You guys focus a lot on big picture plots, and I've been responding with plots that deal with the small picture. I also enjoy creating worlds with different cultures and systems of government. I am kind of hoping to push the romantic rivalry between Sebastian and Kristoff as far as it can go. I look forward to what will happen next.

Well, damn! Where to start?

I guess starting with Lardy's loooooong story arc and how it became married to the Dark Oval is as good a place as any. This is gonna be a bit long, so I'll break it down into parts for separate posts:

LARDY PHASE ONE (Part One)

Basically, from pretty much the beginning, I've written Lard Lad as a tremendously flawed character. Though most LMBers drink, I made it clear that Lardy was an alcoholic and a womanizer and that maybe there was something terribly flawed about him that made him that way.

And early on, I foreshadowed that Lardy would actually turn evil someday. In fact, that was my ultimate plan for his destiny. In a series of stories I wrote that grew out of an early tagteam thread set in the LMB's darker future (our 5YL, if you will), I set out to tell that story. I very nearly completed the trilogy with the final chapter "Reign of the Dark Lard", which never got written because the old DCMBs started cracking down on fanfic.

The opening chapters of "Reign" got deleted by the DC moderator, and I never got around to rewriting it. When Legion World got solidified as our home, Cobie and I exchanged a series of PMs in which we started brainstorming "Reign" and were actually gonna do it as a Twovision. This never happened because, more and more, Cobie and I were excited about the LMB's present too much to worry about its far future too much.

But for a long time, "Reign" was gonna happen, and me and Cobie considered it and all the 5YG stuff IN-continuity. And we worked toward that stuff for a long time. Cobie was first shown to have healing powers and to be the last survivor of Grrgg in the 5YG continuity, for example. And there were some other status quo changes that were revealed in those stories that we had and have made happen in present-day stories, including some stuff that happened in LotO! (More on those later...)

But eventually, while we still love those ideas, we decided that, like the Adult Legion stories were eventually dealt with, we wouldn't be handcuffed by all those things unfolding exactly as they were shown in those 5YL stories. We would pay homage to them occasionally, but they were no longer THE future of the LMB.

But all this provides the broad context to Lardy's larger story arc. And next time, we'll get down to the nitty-gritty of what I now consider "Phase One" of Lard Lad's story, of which "Lord of the Oval" is the climax....

well before Power Boy's time.

I think people being "all in" with their characters really made a huge difference in the story ... thinking of Lard Lad and Cobalt Kid's stories.

Dev Em killed his character!

and Peebs grew up, becoming less of a wish fulfillment character and an actor in the story. I always imagined him as a back burner, big watch dog type of supporting character.

and IB really brought the entire LMB into the story. So glad he came back for the LOTO!

I get the feeling that his story his coming still.

When the whole thing first started to come together...I figured Kalla was using Lon and was going to betray the LMB by the end. This was at the very beginning.

You know, I don't think Kalla was ever using Lon, but at one point, she was definitely going to betray the LMB in some way before it was over. (In fact, at one point I was fairly sure she was going to BLOW UP Earth-4!) But thecharacter herself had other ideas, and she "told" me she was on a path to redemption instead!

Still, the character is also "telling" me that her wicked ways may not be totally behind her. I guess we'll see....

I know Lon was treading a fine line with her early in their relationship. He loved her, but I think if it came down to it, he would have done what was necessary to save as many people as he could (her included if possible.) If the whole thing were to start now though, he is in a much different place.

We'll see what happens with these two as time goes on. At some point, they took on a life of their own more than any of my other characters.

I kept expecting Kalla to betray the LMB, which comes across in the almost outright hostility between Cobie and Kalla throughout Book 1. But it was when I started to concoct Lolita's plan to save E4 that I realized there was a perfect opening for Kalla to *not* betray them, and actually help them. And even though Kalla isn't "my" character, it just felt so right that I knew it would happen.

Btw, I always fought for E4's happy ending! I knew that was the way E4 should end.

I remember writing the first post where half the Fellowship meets the Losers for the first time. That was the moment where I knew we could pull this off. It was so surreal to get to that point. I kept thinking Lardy must be flipping out to an even greater degree!

Then their was Gear.

Created to give me a character to play with among the losers. Had the idea of him being Jon Em from Earth 4. In trying to figure out what I wanted to do with him, I knew I wanted to play on the tech edge I had started with Dev's son in the LMB proper. Then it hit me to make him a Cable like character...but one that actually succeeded in doing what he came back in time to do...thus erasing his reality and leaving him stranded.

Was really glad that Lardy agreed to let me get involved in his playground in regards to Clarks demise. Given my penchant of putting my characters through hell whenever I can, having him send the person he considers his best friend out to his death (against his own father at that) just was too juicy to pass up. Lardy was more than willing to let me leech onto his story beat there.

It also gave me something to do with the Evil Dev Em. Which was fun as hell to play with as well. More on him later.

Kalla's a very edgy character, so edgy, in fact, that you can't ever feel too comfortable with her! For those who don't know, Kalla originated in the first novella in this format, Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis . Midway through, Kalla emerged as a red herring for the true identity of the mysterious Bat-Fem character who played a part in the story. I created Kalla for that purpose and to provide a link to what Lardy did behind the scenes of INVASION! to help end that conflict. Kalla turned out to be a terrorist/zealot who was a major threat at the end of that story. She's directly responsible for the death of the first Bat-Fem and for the deaths of many Legion World citizens who were collateral damage in the conflict.

She survived the conflict and would evolve into a major LMBverse character spanning important roles in Omnia, "Smoke & Mirrors" (a Onevision of mine), BBD and LotO (plus a pretty big cameo in another Onevision of mine, "The Covenant").

I think I was always gonna reuse Kalla after Omnia, but it was Cobie's enthusiasm for the character that made it happen for me sooner, I think. (He even featured her in a scene in one of his Onevisions in a jailbreak sequence, which was her first post-Omnia appearance! Was it "Psionic Spear" or "Horn of Undoing", Des?)

Yeah, that was definitely the right call in hindsight. We ended up having Daroon and Zerox to torture instead!

It WAS surreal! Des and I had cooked up the E4 idea during Omnia, and it took YEARS to pay off, but it was SOOOO damn worth the wait!

Confession: The E4 sequence is my favorite part of LotO by far!

I really was super enthusiastic about Kalla after Omnia! As I've told Lardy, it was her description of wearing her wedding dress during the final battle that caused her to click into place for me. I couldn't wait to show her in the jailbreak I planned in my onevision "Horn of Undoing" soon after, encouraging Lardy to use her again so I could free her.

What's interesting is that for a few years I was pretty burned out on LMB stories. I think I just overdid it. But when we started really cooking again in 2011, Lardy has the Hot Chick character ready to go, and he revealed to me he was thinking of several people she could be, and among them was Kalla. I just knew he was on to something special.

Kalla and Lon's romance and characterization, because of how natural and unexpected it was, is a high point for LMB stories. It makes me optimistic we can have more relationships sprout up in the next round of stories .

I threw out the first volley that lead to Lon/Kalla without discussing anything with Dev. I just started having her flirt with him in BBD, and he had Lon reciprocate! I think it was a point where she was giving him a lift with her flight powers that it started. It really seemed a natural in hindsight.

When I decided to make Hot Chick turn out to be Kalla, I didn't know where it would go. I think I played with her possibly continuing the kind of sadistic/sexual/oneupsmanship/mutual self-loathing thing she'd had with Lardy, but I'm glad I didn't go there! Why? 1) Being in a relationship with your own alt isn't as fun as it sounds! 2) It left the door open to the great triangle with Dev and Tempest. 3) Lon/Kalla!

BTW, now that Lardy/Tempest ended tragically in LotO, Lardy's lookin' fer love, again! [hint, hint]

Gonna post and read more later, but just some things off the top of my head -

This was an awesome story and I'm so thrilled Cobie got me involved (thanks much!!) I agree, it was major awesome timing when you messaged me as I think IB was just about to be introed into the story - or had just been. I remember Book 1 was reaching its climax, and I told myself I'd read through it before posting anything so I wouldn't hurt the flow. It was awesome and I remember eing unable to pull myself away from the PC while reading it. Finally got myself involved in Book 2.

I really enjoyed introducing Blaze. We'd been seeing each other by the time Book 1 was ending, and I started writing him in in snippets in Book 2 but couldn't involve him until IB got back to WW. I really liked Book 3 because IB was able to spin off and do his own thing in the WW arena. My Book 2 posts were mainly to add flavor, but IB was limited to mostly one-on-one combat roles. Glad Cobie suggested letting IB take a bigger role!

And I really enjoyed collaborating with Dev over the Angdar/Kinetix relationship. Zoe has always been a great character, and bringing her into the LMB was a lot of fun. Then, in one post I had IB divert Zoe to Angdar because Blaze was getting jealous... and bam! Both Zoe and Angdar benefited a lot from their "relationship".

I really enjoyed how Blaze / IB added a sense of romance, melodrama and humor to Book 3. It gave a great human element to anchor the characters in light of the very grandiose scenario(s) they were in!

Yep. It was her giving him a lift and calling him Fuzzy. Seemed like the kind of gal Lon would like (hot woman in a bikini.) Plus, looking back, I think he knew right away who it was and decided to do what he could to keep an eye on her.

I had no idea what would eventually become of their relationship...hell, I have no idea where they are going to end up, but I guarantee it'll be one hell of a ride getting there with those two. Will he keep her grounded, or will she push him towards an even darker edge.

I have plans for him, but he keeps doing things differently than I thought he would.

Next up will be the story behind Kar Em.

First, I gotta say that this was an IMMENSELY enjoyable experience. Everyone had great synergy while we were bouncing ideas off each other, and I love how we took things and ran with them - such as Angdar/Kinetix, IB being the sort of "little brother" of the group, and the insertion of tons and tons of characters into the plot. Another example was Peebz inserting the Drinking Buddies, and us having the LMB leaders on Weber's World be wary of their battle lust.

Re bringing in the entire LMB, I just got to thinking that:

a) there are a whole bunch of characters in the rich LMB history, as evidenced by Cobie's History of the LMB

b) this is such an epic large-scale battle

so... I just threw everyone I could in, after checking with Cobie and Lardy on the statuses of some of these characters. Some past fics, like some Exnihil did, were a good source for the powers of some of them. For example, XBen's ability to teleport small things and Crymsun's ability to turn things red. And it was fun combining some of their powers, like Vee's ability to shrink things added to Xben's teleportation. Or using Crymsun to power up Raging Bull.

Funny, but I always thought the Power boy character, being a New God, would be a somewhat serious type who loved battle. The character really did mature in LOTO though...

and thanks As i said in an earlier post, the LMB just has so many outrageous and fun characters - some of my favorite posts were ones where lesser-used ones stole the scene, like rickshaw shooting a zombie in the head, Anita Cocktail and Calm Yo Tits beating up some bugs, the return/involvement of Goon Boy, any scene with Satan Claws Cramer, Chips Ahoy Boy teaming up with Cookie Monstress, Awkward Pause Boy and Quislet making some politicians shut up... Aw man

And yeah, IB and Blaze's stories are far from over. In the past, IB has always been a semi-reluctant hero, afraid to really grow into his full potential. His losing his earring in Book 2 (or was it Book 3?) was a major turning point for him. That's why IB went berserk when he thought Blaze died; Blaze is his anchor. Blaze is the only one IB really feels "gets" him totally, and vice versa. And they have a lot more to learn about their powers and about each other...

Re Earth-4, I loved it. You could sense how affected the Losers/SMB were by all that had happened. They were just hanging on to hope... I cheered when the evil Rockhopper and company got beaten.

I imagined his creation as anything but serious ... I thought he was a guy who had seen it all, since he'd been around for hundreds of years ... so he didn't take much seriously ... and he was content just to be around these amusing and exciting humans, and let them do what they wanted.

Anyway, I imagined him as pretty hedonistic. rather than serious. Making him fun to write since he was impulsive ... however ... hundreds of years of experiences and smarts came out ... over the course of the LOTO (and maybe Power Boy IS a serious person ... but he was certainly on vacation for a long time.)

anyway, I think during his term as leader he should be able to somehow reach a mature compromise between cold distance and hedonistic aloofness that allows him to be more human, flexible yet serious. We will see if it happens during his Rimbor trip.

I suppose his sense of humor has always been biting or dark. rather than jovial.

Kar Em. I created him because as I was fleshing out who Lon was, and where he came from, irt occurred to me that I never had really touched on Dev Em's parents much...if at all.

I figured that his mom was evil for whatever reason, and that his dad was an old Military type. This gave me the opportunity to have someone that could have taught Lon a lot of what he knows, and give Dev a reason for his own espionage background.

He wasn't really meant as anything more than a one off that I could use during the Twovision I did with Sharky explaining their shared history. That whole experience was a blast and Sharky was really great with his support and ideas in fleshing out that Dev's mom and Sharky's 'mom' were sisters. Sisters that competed in genetic engineering, and Shark Lad and Timberwolf were their greatest creations. It also gave us an actual reason for the two of them to be constantly at each others throats. Making the cousins of a sort made their interactions from that point on even more fun.

When Oval started and things started to get moving, I brought Kar into the story when Lardy's kids were in danger. It seemed to me that even as Dev was getting someone (Loser Lad) out to protect them, Ambassador Mirenna Helen would have people she could call on as well Knowing how much Lardy meant to Cobie, she pulled a few strings to get Kar (whom I cleared with Cobie as being an old ally of hers, and eventually Faraway Lad as well) This gave Kar an immediate sense of history within the LMB universe. Faraway was great with taking Kar and using him as an ally of his and they interacted as if they had known each other for years.

My initial intention was to have Kar Em die at some point during the story. Then I decided that having Dev himself die was a more juicy plot point. Giving the grizzled old war veteran feeling that maybe he hadn't done enough for his boys. Between Dev dying and Lon leaving for what was the enemy camp until this battle gave me a lot of ideas for writing.

In the long run, Kar Em gives me more interesting story ideas alive than dead. Not to say that those could not have been achieved if Dev was still alive, but that in and of itself opens up a lot of thoughts in my mind.

Basically, Kar Em, was a character created to fulfill a minor purpose yet became a much more interesting character than I would have ever thought.

The family dynamic in the House of Em is both interesting and refreshing. Majority of the LMB characters' families are never mentioned, after all.

Re new characters, I always have a hard time creating them without using a real-life person as a template. My only other originals, Spelling Bee, Truant Officer Ralph and Nurse Tina, are heavily based on some real life people. The rest are reimaginings of existing fictional characters, like Petty Officer Marvin, Kinetix and Kairos.

Re Marvin, I remember creating him way back for an LMB tag team thread. I wanted a Brood because the idea of having a vicious Brood be all silly felt hilarious. Then when I realized I'd named him Marvin, and he was an alien, I transformed him to look like Marvin the Martian. Maybe I should firmly establish that he can alternate between forms...

I had originally hoped to play a much larger role in this story, but life sometimes prevents us from doing all we would like. Still, I'm glad I was able to make some contributions and explore both Rocky and the Evil Emperor a bit more.

The question of why the Emperor went evil had always intrigued me, since he seemed to be exactly like Rocky in every other respect. It would be an oversimplification to say that he became a villain because he didn't get a puppy, but the divergence from Rocky's path--that the Terran ambassador had given Rocky a dog as a gift, but that, in his world, the Emperor was slighted was the part of the puzzle that was missing. I'm a firm believer that dogs are beneficial to one's mental health, and Hyvvie, named, of course, for my own beloved wonder beagle, has certainly shown himself a stabilizing presence in Rocky's life.

Rocky's defeat of the Emperor and his cronies raises a question: What happens now that he has absorbed their powers? Rocky has vowed that he will not use them, but has already shown himself willing to do so in an emergency. His sparkling eyes are, of course, reminiscent of Gary Mitchell in the second Star Trek pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

I was also very glad to see the return of Rockhopper Lass, a character I originally created as a one-off to show Rocky's heroic place being taken by his sister on that world, but who seems to have become a beloved and popular character in her own right.

It was a wonderful experience collaborating with these guys. Again, I wish I could have contributed more.

Adelie has turned into one of my favorite characters in LMB lore! Rocky was extremely gracious in letting me essentially take her off the canvass for years as I struggled with the story called "The Covenant", which frequently went into hiatuses as I suffered writer's block. Finishing "The Covenant" was a crucial domino to fall and make "Oval" finally possible.

In any case I ran my ideas for Adelie by Rocky fairly frequently, and he gave me his blessing every time. I like to think that I added some things to her character but always stayed true to the core of who she is.

I feel the same way with Helena Handbasket and how Quislet, Esq. both collaborated with me on the character and let me run with my own ideas for her.

Helena and Adelie will always be special characters for me, and I hope to see both continue as great characters in LMB lore.

The above shows just how awesome we are at collaborating here. We're willing to cast our egos aside and work with each other to bring out the best in our characters and our ideas.

The LMB-verse is now chock full of excellent, memorable characters. It's just amazing.

Great idea for a thread... I love all of this behind the scenes stuff...

For my part, I did my best to keep up with everything you guys were doing but ultimately realized I had to take a backseat and settle for just the occasional post... loved seeing SharkLad used by other posters... the development of his relationship with Lolita was certainly something special... with lots of remaining potential...

A staggering achievement, everyone!

Sharky's bits were easily among the funniest in the whole series! I think we'll have to follow up on his almost shooting his teeth at IB for telling Lolita that sharks pee through their skin

Sharky's posts were great! key even. exactly what the story needed.

human, funny, and fun in the midst of a story that could sometimes be dark dark and dark.

One thing I really love about the LMB (which mirrors the Legion), is how every character works so well together. And there's such rich opportunity for combining powers and skills into killer tactics in battle, such as:

Crymsun's power to turn anything red becoming a power up for Raging Bull;

Vee shrinking things so that Xben can teleport them (with his limit being objects the size of a grain of sand);

Awkward Pause Boy using his powers to quite the UP ambassadors down so Quislet. Esq. could negotiate with them.

There are no useless powers in the LMB-verse

I don't have nearly as much to add with this as I faded out when school picked up. I know that I was surprised at the duration of the entire epic. And for me, it was an epic, because I left and when I came back I had to read like 17 pages, it took me weeks with everything going on. Luckily it was so well done that I enjoyed it.

I knew that I wanted to use this as a gateway to get Tempest more solidified as a character and let go of all the other alts that I had on this account. I feel like that was achieved. A lot of that comes from everyone keeping her involved in their posts.
I also have to thanks everyone for letting me write Mala's end, when the idea of her was put out there, I knew I wanted to write it. When I did write it, I had no time. There was a lot going on, but I really wanted to get that bit in there. I contacted Kat/White Raven and talked about her character and I got under way.
I introduced a new character that was supposed to further explored, but time was not on my side with this. I would love to continue on with it when I get the chance.

As for the love triangle, I always had it in my mind that there is no relationship for Tempest until she resolves her emotions with Cobie. The way I wrote it, all her past relationships have been a dream, so how do you deal with a dream guy made real? I honestly think she needs wet-nap whenever she sees him (regardless if she would admit it). Therefore, any thing with Dev and Lardy would just be play and any real feelings would amount to more a friendship for her.

I really wanted to explore something with her and Timber, I felt that he would be the guy to get her past Cobie (as he's got Cru). Again, time doesn't permit these things, so I never brought them up.

IB and Power made me want to gush every time I read there posts. I was always like, "DAMN, where was I when they wrote that!" I always want to contribute with what they were doing because it linked so well with how I wanted Tempest's story to progress. Again, everyone else did a great job of keeping her involved for me.

Temp, I hope you are okay with how Temp/Lardy ended. I outlined the general arc their story would take to you via PM, and you gave your approval.

Basically, I played it like Lardy and Temp were in love and that they had to sacrifice it (and what would've been a glorious future together) to have even a shot at taking out Pornis. That scene I wrote in the aftermath where it's clear they would never be together again was one of my favorite pieces I wrote in the whole thing.

Anyhow, as you said, you couldn't be there for most of it, so it played out how it played out. And with that relationship over and effectively undone, you're free to pursue Temp's story any way you want to. I certainly hope you'll be pack for more!

P.S. Cobie and Crujectra broke up!!

They broke up!!! NOOOOOOOO.

I'm really glad you liked how we wrote Tempest, Temp! She's such a regal, capable, strong character and she reminds me a lot of some very strong women I know in real life. She's a treat to right, and you did an awesome job of creating her.

Sheesh, really, hussies.

I really liked the ending, one, it gives us this final beat to that storyline, we know that is never going to be a place we can go and I think finite aspect is beautiful.

I would love to come back, I just have so much on my plate, I am thankful for this opportunity to post this post.



Thank you, Tempest is definitely really dear to me and she has a lot to go throw, I just wish I wrote it and she was through it already.

We'll definitely be waiting for your to write that story. It'll be beautiful!

Love having your thoughts, Temp! When you finally are able to have some free time, I'd def love to write / Roleplay the "Temp dealing with Cobie issues". There's a TON to work with there.

This conversation hits on a major point which is that romance played such a great role in this story. From the epic, tragic romance of Lardy / Temp, to the surprise reconnection of Dev and his wife, to the Lolita / Sharky relationship and worries about Cobie, to Cobie and Crujeckie's painful gradual break-up, to the surprise major falling in love of Lon and Kalla, to the lightning hot new romance of Blaze and Ibby--and all the sidebars and issues of each. References to Rocky's past romances (Blaine and Lardy), Temp and Cobie's former "marriage", Helena's reunion with Seth Gaterra....it was just epic in the range of romantic emotions.

When we plan our next round, its important to not lose sight of this.

Very much agree. not just the romances, but all the relationships - Lardy and Cobie being the best of friends, the strong "LW Founders" alliance, Lolita and Zhiya, the surprise reveal of who Bat-Fem is, the young new batch of LMBers (Angdar, Kinetix, Kairos, Marvin), the "old guard" of the LMB (Loser, Pov, etc.)... It all makes the LMB work so well.

I think at some point I'll want to do more with Earth-4, maybe a One- or Two-vision or so. Again, Earth-4 was my absolute favorite part of the whole story. I'll certainly want to revisit Bat-Fem and all the surviving Losers. If I can find a way to tie-in Seth and Helena as well, then all the better.

And, thanks, Temp---I know it was more of an epic and tragic love story with Lardy and Temp than what you intended, but I'm glad you approve. That scene where the two have a "last dance" is special to me. Kind of my "silent" issue where I'm challenged to convey everything without any dialogue. If I were to choose any single post I did in that story to somehow exhibit my writing as a sample, that would be the one.

That post gave me the chills, Lardy. It was so poignant. I can still feel the hurt and sadness at remembering the love and just not feeling it anymore. Brrrrrr.

Well, that's certainly what it was meant to do, Ibby. I appreciate the compliment.

One of your best posts, definitely. The build-up was great, and that final moment as the two walked away was perfect. Even though we knew it was coming, it packed a bigger wallop than we thought it would.

What I'd really love to recapture is the roleplay romance that helped inspire the writing of Oval in the first place. As the Red Bee roleplay was rocking and rolling, the interplay between the different posters was just plain fun. And that was even more heightened in the brief transition from the roleplay to the novella, as highlighted by the Bachannalia just before. Which was hilarious yet chalk full of powerful moments for Lardy, Tempest and Dev, and to a lesser degree the rest of us.

I think in a way (and all in hindsight) that losing Tempest was a necessary part of Lardy's penance for all of the bad things he had done. For him to move on to a new phase in his life, Lardy would need to pay for it. Yes, he lost his eye to Pornis and would spend an undisclosed length of time in prison (in a tale to hopefully be told some day) but here, he lost not only a great love of his life but also the perfect future that was shown to come with it.

As for recapturing that synergy that wrought some great roleplay romance, it was something that wasn't planned. It all just happened without any planning. It made for some awesome, unplanned scenes where one of us threw something out and others reacted. Idon't think that if it was all pre-planned that it would've been nearly as exciting and enjoyable.

Yeah, I agree on that. Especially the attractions / romance angles, which all kind of naturally just happened.

Since doing "action sequences" in a roleplay is the most boring / lamest part, so much depends on the interactions and dialogues of the characters. There needs to be misunderstandings, romance, tension and other cool bits to really make it work. And not knowing beforehand what the poster you're talking to is going to say is essential to keeping it interesting.

The action parts are my favorite! I like coming up with cool ways or tricks for people to use their powers or fight moves!

Well, I enjoy them when we write them out Novella style. But when its a poster battling another poster, that gets old pretty fast.

ohhh sorry. yes of course.



We had some coordinated one's that last time *we* fought the Red Bee though.

It can get difficult doing battles via roleplay, especially since each poster will want to be the most creative/successful at using his or her powers.

Sometimes I think I made my Invisible Brainiac character too powerful! He can cast visual illusions, turn invisible, fire incredibly powerful lasers, move at light speed, and split into seven identical beings. It can be a challenge thinking of ways to challenge him.

RP style always starts off so well, then everyone starts trying to post on top of each other and it gets too messy. That's why the battle sequences always seem horrid in our RP. Other sites have rules for RP and they tend to have beautiful battle sequences. Our Novella was nice because there wasn't posting pressure that can come in the MMB storylines.

We really even don't romance, we just always need to remember that anything we write will be useless if forget that our characters are people. The fantasy can overtake us, but grounding our characters in humanity keeps them entertaining. Working on any sort of relationship in these stories allows for quality.

IB, as for power, I can speak to the fact that I was pretty much told at one point to scale down my character. To this day it's the reason I never make an effort of returning full time as a poster. So I get your fear. Just know that other people have created characters that are pretty much omnipotent, so a light user should be ok, we've reality warping on this board last time I checked so you should be fine.

I agree with you on the difficulties of battle and romance in RP. It takes a LOT of coordination to pull that off well, unlike with the Novella where we can plan carefully beforehand.

Thanks for the comments on power, Temp I don't think your character is too powerful at all - magicians tend to be thought of as omnipotent, but part of their charm is the unpredictability and versatility. With IB, I guess he's just a little bit too creative at using his light powers (but it's so much fun to write him, because if I had those powers in real life I'd do that too!)

I've often wondered where you're going with the multiple selves, IB. There's a lot of possibility for that to end up being tragic for IB, whether via serious psychological damage, or perhaps one of the "selves" grows too independent of the others, and since it can become a being of pure light, finds away to separate permanently (therefore becoming the ultimate nemesis of IB)? There's a lot of potential to really screw up IB's life!

I've been having the 7 IBs become less distinct over time, as IB has become more accepting of himself. They used to be a mouthpiece for him to express opinions, desires and reactions that would have been frowned upon back home.

I do have some thoughts on where this can lead, but Blaze will kill me if I do anything to permanently mess up the happy status quo I've reached for us in the LMB verse, Cobie

I am curious to have a trial of Lardy!

Power Boy as the judge would be tres interesting.

... or the defense. CK would be the obvious defense choice though.

maybe Lardy goes on trial in front of the UP Supreme Court and Peebz (as LMBP Leader) is just one judge.

.... a Wazzo type could be the prosecution or mean ... master of ceremonies judge.

My take on Peebz is that he'd prefer to be the defense, but as LMB leader would be forced to act as judge (or else inhibit himself). Idk, that's just how I read the character

that's what i was thinking ... especially since he sort of looks up to cobalt kid and lardy.

it would be part of his awkward relationship he has as seeing himself as the leader with responsibilities rather than the awesome care free supporting big brother/guard dog I created him as.

Awesome, lots of drama potential!It sure would be interesting to see how that story plays out.

You know, I may just be up to morphing the still-untold 'Lardy in prison' story into this! There were some things that Dev and I were originally going to do for that story that were shifted around somewhat and made us try to reconfigure the story. That has proven to be a difficult process. But if you two and Cobie and Dev want to jam on this story, it sounds like a great idea!

What say you guys?

let's jam.

I'm up for it.

I can think of some characters to use in it. Kar Em comes to mind as someone who might shoehorn his way into this.

At some point I had wanted to do a post that completed the Tempest/Dev story. Give it its proper perspective.

Things did not turn out the way I wanted for that, which I think is good...because just like real life, sometimes there are bot always neat little endings to things. I also think that Tempest said a lot of what I had wanted to about their relationship in the latest story that was put up.

I knew there were some things that Tempest also wanted to explore with Timberwolf that just never materialized. Maybe someday those things will be touched on...real life intrudes sometimes though.

Another collaboration that got derailed was the whole Daroon story. While (thanks to Cobie and Lardy) it got wrapped up in a good fashion, real life took Faraway out of the mix, and left me with some doubts as to how to finish up what we had started. I even have some things I am going to get back to from that whole thing...repercussions down the line from what happened...and what we think we saw.

Angdar/Kinetix

These two...it all started as a throwaway line by Ibby trying to get her to stop following him around and dumping her on Angdar. I forget if it was Obby or myself that decided to have them mess with Ibby's mind a little. Then they actually became a couple.

I looked at them this way...they are young, in pretty much perfect shape, and have been thrown into a life/death situation with the war. So of course they got together...

The big question is whether they will stay together or not. Who knows.

As a side note, Ibby and I lept flirting with the idea, and having the characters flirt with each other...which led to Angdar being revealed as bisexual. Also alluding to a get together between him and the radiant couple.

There was an intense amount of odd reactions and emotions between Tempest and Dev, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that I was talking to Lardy about his relationship with her. I didn't want to stop Temp and Dev from having a thing, but I didn't want to make her a slut. So something completely different came out it, and it does need to be polished off.

On the flip side, Dev's dead, Lardy and her are now completely off limits, so, for Temp, she has nothing else to do but move on.

I'm definitely in for any story!

I remember it was you, Dev, who suggested we actually have Ang and Kinetix get together at least for the duration of the story. I thought it would be a good idea so the IB-Blaze romance could continue to blossom in-story, and we had a lot of fun having these two couples get all mixed up.

Re Ang + IB + Blaze, I can't remember who suggested that Ang would be bi, I think it was you. But I also remember suggesting the funny business with the 3, because your description of Ang fits exactly the type of guys Blaze crushes on in real life. (One of the types, anyway :p)

Re Lardy, I'm sure IB, as Chief of Security, should have something to say on the matter. I don't think I'll be able to involve myself too heavily in that though; I still have my Onevision to finish off (I'm only halfway through plotwise, and it's my goal to cram every sovereign country in our 21st century Earth into the story - I have over 100 to go!!) but I'm up for contributing where it makes sense.

I'm always busy, but I will contribute to the best of my ability.

(I feel, if we were a show, there would be opening credits with all of you, and I'm the special guest star because I make sporadic appearances)

Yeah there were several (you, Faraway, Abin, Rocky, Lucy & Sharky) who contributed sporadically, but all of you added valuable pieces to the puzzle. "Special" guest stars, indeed!

The final product was our combined output, and taking away even one of us would have made it all the poorer

Dev was such a big part of this. He was a great writer and collaborator. I want to bump this up in his honor.

Seems like an appropriate time for a bump. Abin and Dev were major players in this wonderful collaboration...