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.