Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Notes on Legionnaire Heroes and Brad's Story

Now that Brad's Story is nearly over, I thought I'd give a little background on it and the Legion Mythos I created.

It started on the DC message boards in 1997. A group of gay Legion fans did a tag story featuring the Queen Team, and auxiliary of the Legion more interested in fashion than villains. I took the character of Lurking Queen but I was never really comfortable with it.

When we broke from the DC boards to form our own mailing list we tried writing more structured round-robin stories. I participated in one for Infinity Inc., while others wrote one for Titans West. The Infinity experience wasn't a pleasant one so I decided to go solo. I figured my problem with Lurking Queen had been that I couldn't relate to her so my new story would feature alter egos of me using my AOL screen names.

I was also very active on the All My Children message boards and very discouraged that they had dropped their gay story with Mike and Brad. So I decided to write a story featuring Tinwe Linto, my main name at the time, Proty II, the name I used on the DC message boards, and Brad Phillips, a character from All My Children. To round out the group I added Tab from the 5-year gap stories. Pluto and Big Scott were based on friends of mine from the Gay League but I wrote them out in the first chapter.

That was the plan, anyway. After a couple of chapters my best friend told me he wanted to know what happened in the alley with Mike, Big Scott, and Pluto so I wrote a chapter taking place at the Halloween Party. The party got bigger and longer and before I knew it, Michael's Story was the dominant thread and Brad's Story languished on the back burner.

And yes, I was a big Cerebus fan at the time so the titles were an homage to Jaka's Story. I published chapters as I wrote them and most of the time I had no idea where the story was going until I wrote it. Michael's Story was meant for a much smaller, all gay audience, and as such was a lot more sexually explicit. I was sharing Brad's story with a number of my female friends so the sex is very toned down in that one.

(Mizzy Butterbur, Cewalc, and Katahdin were all based on female friends. Continuity Queen was based on a Gay Leaguer, and the trolls were based on some unpleasant posters on the All My Children message boards.)

That's it for tonight. I have more I'd like to say, but it's getting late and I still have lots of other things I need to do before bed.

The Middle Earth connection.

When I first got an Internet account I wanted a Tolkien name. I discovered LOTR back in 1970 and became an instant Hobbit-freak. Over the next few years I devoured everything I could find about him. I've lost track of how many times I've read the trilogy and I've read all the posthumous books edited by his son, too. Anyway, I sure as heck didn't want to be Gandalf8765 and it seemed like all the more obvious names were taken. I always liked Thingol so I used one the archaic names for him from The Lost Tales: Tinwelint, or Tinwe Linto. It means "star light".

Of course, Tinwe dies in The Silmarilion but I haven't watched soaps and read comics all my life without knowing there are countless ways around that! I had my future boys show up in a time bubble to safe him while Tinwe's magical wife creates a lifeless construct for his people to find.

Now I had my characters, I just needed a story. I decided to use the classic Justice League plot where the heroes split into three groups and then reunite for the finale. I had each group go on a quest for something from their home universe. In Tinwe's case, that was a palantir and the obvious choices were the lost palantiri of the north. This allowed me to play with history a bit and use Strider's father, Arathorn as a major player. By having Ultra Boy save Arathorn from his historical "death" I was able to add him to my roster as well. I also got a chance to use the twins, Elladan and Elrohir. I love playing with Elves, especially twins.

I wound up trading Ultra Boy for Arathorn. There's a story behind that. These days I use the Kid Crowbar moniker, but I coined it for a friend of mine. The Kid Crowbar in the story is based on him, not me. He had a major crush on Ultra Boy (I love him too, but my crush has always been on Mon-el) so I threw my friend a bone by having Ultra Boy show up naked at his feet.

My friend never used the Kid Crowbar name, though, and when I found myself needing a new name, I took it and it's been my primary screen name ever since.

Proty, you put a lot more thought into your stories than I do

And it does show!

You have, like Danny Blaine, a real talent for prose amongst your characters - they speak with individual voices and so are great fun to read and follow.

I also like splitting up groups and having a big finale at the end, but somehow one of my characters always seems to get hurt, tortured or killed along the way - and I'm more of a 'keep 'em dead' kind of girl, so the finale is not quite as large as initially planned for (and there's a metaphor for life if ever I read one )

I've been a fan of scifi for years and years but only recently began to appreciate fantasy - I must admit I found LOTR to be too much trouble - it wasn't exciting enough for me. I liked all the concepts as such just found the characters to be dreadful. sorry

It's nice to read fantasy characters with individual personalities. IMO apart from Terry Pratchett, some David Eddings and ONE peirs Anthony book (A spell for chameleon)I haven't found any well written convincing character led fantasy stories. I'm quite sure there are hundreds out there though so if you can suggest any it would be appreciated!

Please keep writing for us Proty, your unique stories are great!

Thanks for the comments! Some others have said similar things and it's great for me to hear because one of the reasons I never pursued writing after high school was because my dialogue always sounded so false to my ears. If it's really gotten better than I can only assume that it's because of all the different people I've met since then who have taught me something about life.

I like a lot of Fantasy but it seems I rarely have time to read these days. Here's a few of my favorites, though.

After Tolkien, the two authors who take up the most room on my shelves are Michael Moorcock and Roger Zelazny. The two deal with similar themes, namely the eternal battle between Order and Chaos.

Moorcock is most famous for his Eternal Champion Cycle, where the same soul is constantly reborn into different universes to fight for one side or the other. Sometimes he knows it, other times he's clueless. Elric of Melnibone is the most recognizable of his Champions.

Zelazny is best known for the Amber series but I've never read an bad story by him. My short story, "Nine Gymnasts in Spandex" was inspired by his "Nine Princes in Amber.

Not in the same class at all but still a favorite of mine is Katherine Kurtz. Her stories are set in an alternate middle ages where the Church is prosecuting "mutants" with psy powers that seem like magic. She's also co-writer of The Adept series, which takes place in modern-day Scotland and deals with mystical "lodges" fighting the battle of good and evil.

David Duncan is another prolific author. I thought his Man of His Word series was one of the funniest adventures I've read in a long time.

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is really SF, but it's SF set so far in the future that it feels like Fantasy. His prose is absolutely delicious.

I just bought an Omnibus collection of Evangeline Walton's Mabinogian Quartet. I read the books years ago and liked them but lost my copies. I'm interested in rereading them. They're reworkings of ancient Welsh myths.

Ellen Kushner is co-writer of Swordpoint and its Sequel, Fall of Kings. Both are very thoughtful swashbucklers featuring gay characters.

Guy Gavriel Kay also uses gay characters in Tigana. His recent books are really historicals that are Fantasy only because the countries never really existed.

Then of course there are the other Old Masters: Mervyn Peake, whose Titus Groan and Gormenghast are a true masterpiece; H.P. Lovecraft, who is normally considered a horror writer but who wrote some lovely Dunsanian fantasies; Lord Dunsany himself, who perfected the art of the short story; and William Morris, best known for his wallpapers and book design, he also reinvented the medieval romance.

Finally, even though she doesn't really count because her stuff is all Science Fiction, my favorite author of the moment is Connie Willis. She blends tragedy and comedy together so effortlessly you think you are reading a true story with real people.

I'm sure I'll think of ten more as soon as I click Add Reply, but that's enough for now.

Actually, I've read the Guy Gavriel Kay Tigana books and they were alright - I liked the story of the mosaicist anyway. I can't remember which one that was now.

Actually, that reminds me me he also wrote the Fionawar series which had its moments.

Couldn't relate to Moorcock though, I found there just wasn't enough meat to his work.

I might give Katherine Kutz a try next - see how she deals with bonnie Scotland.

Thanks for taking the time to make this list Proty.

Bx

No problem! I love talking books. Especially ones I've read!

Some Final Notes

I don't know how many of you watch soaps but a common term among soap fans is SORAS, or Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. The most common example of this is when some 5-year-old kid goes off to soccer camp and comes back a month later as a high school senior. There's also an opposite effect that occurs when characters don't age or get younger. The most obvious example here is Erica Kane, who should be in her fifties but is still only 38. So Brad, a soap character on All My Children, visited a locale used on One Life to Live and met characters from Dark Shadows. In the process he gained the Soapstone, a device I created to explain the SORAS effect.

I also used Brad to move a couple of characters to Pine Valley. Mon-el got de-aged to infancy and then grew up again on Earth ABC, the adopted child of the Cobbs. They named him Bob, he became a door-to-door brush salesmen with a penchant for plaid.

Meanwhile, back in the Gay League, the writers of the Titans West story had introduced a STAR Labs Security Guard named Ken. I'm pretty sure the character was based on me since I was already well-known for my SMBD fetishes. They made Security Guard Ken into a villain. He was a pedophile, a blackmailer, and a crook. I wasn't very happy with that so I wrote him out of that story and sent him to Pine Valley as well. I also changed his name to Ben.

I mentioned above that I'm a big fan of Moorcock. He used Hearst Castle as the setting for a couple of parties in the Jerry Cornelius stories so it seemed fitting I make it the new Legion HQ. I've been there three times so I'm pretty familiar with the place and figured I could write about it easily.

And that's about it for Brad's Story. I went back to it later and wrote the first sequel, Krypto's Story: Dogtime.

It picks up a few weeks later. Brad and Tinwe have become lovers, as have Tab and Superboy. Superboy is troubled by bad dreams about his dog, Krypto. Tinwe, Arathorn, Proty, Vorm, and Superboy travel to Earth 1 where they meet Comet and Streaky. After that the time bubble takes them to the 30th Century where they recruit Comet Queen. Comet Queen has the same effect on Superhorse as a Comet and becomes human whenever she's present.

They finally return to Smallville where Krypto is imprisoned by Lex Luthor, who's using him as bait to trap Superboy. Lex's plan works and he turns Clark into his submissive bottom boy. Luckily the rest of the Legion is there to rescue him. Only by the time he's freed, Superboy has decided that he really LIKES being Lex's submissive bottom boy. Lex joins the team, along with Pete Ross and Lana Lang, who are both SORASed to legal age.

Pete becomes Spider Boy and Lana is Insect Queen. Lana and Comet Queen becomes Lovers and now that Superboy has chosen Lex, Pete takes Clark's place in Tab's bed. Arathorn takes a liking to Bronco Bill and the two archers compare shafts.

I did something different with this story and each chapter had a Ragtime parody at the beginning. Unfortunately it's way too rude and contains graphic SMBD sex so I can't post it here.

The sequel to Krypto's Story was Jo's Story. It takes place on a sheep ranch in the Sierras in 1898. Jo has become Kid Crowbar's lover in the intervening months but their rustic idyll is shattered when they're interrupted by Bat Lash, the Trigger Twins, and Kid's friend, the OK Kid. There's a posse of Pinkerton Agents after the OK Kid and things look grim until Tinwe, Brad, Bronco Bill, Proty, and Streaky show up. They defeat the posse and Kid Crowbar, the OK Kid, Jo, Bart Lash, and the Trigger Twins travel back to Hearst Ranch with the others.

Again, this story has way too many sex scenes to publish here. I will say, however, that once Kid Crowbar learns about Jo's Ultra powers they explore new Ultra abilities that Jo never dreamed of using.

Anyway, during all of this Michael's Story was marching to it's conclusion when Brad would return to Pine Valley. I call that The Last Mikey Story, and I think I can post that one, although I'll need to edit out some gratuitous sex scenes. It features Mordru, Mysa, and the TRUE, never-before-told story of what happened in Dimension QK-51.

Give me a day or two and I'll post that one in a new thread.