The Life and Times of a Regular Visionary

For those who have been away from the board for, oh... seven years or so, a few things may seem a bit different. So I thought I might post a little refresher on Visionary and the cast of characters that surround him.

Vizh himself remains a nice guy who could maybe stand to be a little quicker on the uptake. A good day for him would be one filled with friends, crullers, television and no chance of death by disintegration ray, interplanetary war or NTU-repaired appliance. Unfortunately, he doesn't get many "good" days. After his wife left the Parodyverse forever in an effort to thwart the villainous Apostate, Visionary lived alone in a low level state of depression. Things changed when the mild-mannered waitress at his favorite coffee shop (who, unbeknownst to him, happened to secretly be his Lair Legion teammate Dancer) bequeathed him with guardianship of her little sister, the teenage delinquent Kerry, on the grounds that Vizh was just the kind of stable influence she needed in her life. Plus, he was clueless enough to accept the job. Prone to good-naturedly acting out in random incidents of arson and other playful bids for attention, Kerry moved in with Vizh and kept his life from getting too ploddingly dull.

“So…” a young voice with an slight Irish accent asked from behind them. “Who's the doofus that I’m staying with until my sis gets back?”

Visionary turned to find a dark-haired teenage girl standing in the doorway surrounded by dozens of enthralled, hulking, teenage boys. “Um… Kerry?” he hazarded to guess.

“That must be the right doofus, guys” she observed, jerking her thumb in his direction. One by one the boys shouldered into the coffee bar and deposited a piece of luggage in front of hisbarstool . “Thanks… you’re all so sweet” she said as she flashed a blinding smile at them. “Oh, yeah… Guys, this is… Vasectomy or something. Vasectomy, this is the starting line-up of the CentralParodiopolis High Trojans. I met them when their equipment shed mysteriously caught fire.”

“Um… that’s Visionary… actually. Visionary.” He chewed his lip thoughtfully. “And you’re Kerry? Kerry Shepherdson? Sister to mild-mannered Sarah Shepherdson?”

“Yep. Oh, hey… I gave the guys here your cel phone number so they could reach me day or night. That’s not going to be a problem, is it? I like to be available… You know, for whatever might… come up.” She winked at the grinning boys as they filed out.

“Um… yeah” Fleabot noted succinctly. “Well, Vizh, you’re probably right. How much trouble could one teenage girl be? I think I’m going to leave you two to get acquainted” The little robot offered as he fled towards the door. “I, um… have a bus to catch.”

Visionary was left sitting alone behind a mound of luggage with a hopeless look on his face.

Kerry looked him up and down. “So do you have a car, or are you totally useless?”

Okay, so there was maybe an adjustment period. And lots of minor burn wounds. But Kerry and Vizh would eventually work out a sort of stable familial relationship. Of course, there were still the minor burn wounds, but teenagers are hormonal types after all. And it didn't help that Visionary was put in charge of the Lair Legion Juniors training program, where he played Prof. Xavier to Kerry and other teens, including Donar's enthusiastic-about-smiting son Harlagaz, Mr. Epitome's super-intelligent border collie Glory, Hamboy (with the power to create processed meats), Fashion Accessory (modeled after Sersi, but only having the power to molecularly control other's fashions) and spiffy who was forced to retake the training course as part of a plea bargain. I believe Lisa was instumental in getting Vizh that teaching job. She was always helpful that way.

In any event, it almost certainly wasn't the student's fault that Visionary's condo burned to the ground. Honest.

So while there were some setbacks in his life, things weren't all bad... It was decided that Vizh needed to get out more and get back into the dating pool. The Lair's artificial intelligence, Hallie, was nursing a crush on him and asked him out on the pretense of needing "practice" for a real date. Through a series of misunderstandings due to the helpful advice of Kerry, Sarah and others, Visionary misread the clear signals of Hallie's interest and missed out on a chance for a good thing...

Kerry’s scowl turned thoughtful. “Okay, now I *know* something is up…” She peered at him intently. “You’re all… I don’t know… satisfied with yourself. Oh my god…” she suddenly said with a hint of revulsion. “You got lucky,didn’t you?”

“What?!” Visionary sputtered, shocked. “No… I… What? Who taught you… Now see here, young lady… I… Okay, I had a date.” he finally sighed. “But it was completely innocent… hardly anything happened.”

“Hardly anything?” Kerry demanded. “Hardly? I thought your rule was it could progress to hand-holding only after the third date, pending a full background check and a physical by theNTU Medical Scanometer and Deli Slicer!” she noted sarcastically. She folded her arms across her chest. “And here you went and rode the wild moose with some cheap slut the moment I’m out of the house.”

“Rode the…? Hey!” Visionary wasn’t sure what that meant, but he figured it wasn’t slang for some Canadian adventure sport. “She wasn’t a cheap slut!”

“Oh, so how much did she cost?” Kerry pressed. “So that’s where the money goes. Now I suddenly see why I can’t have a measly $400 to buy that micro skirt and bustier outfit, or why the clerk down at Victoria’s Secret confiscated and chopped up all your credit cards. I swear, if itweren ’t for my sister, I’d have no revealing underwear at all. All so you can get a Hugh Grant down in the Waterfront district every time I leave the house!”

“Hugh? …What underwear? Wait, which credit c… I… you…” There was way too much information in that little outburst to know where to start. “She was not a hooker!” he finally managed, trying to keep to the subject at hand before his brain completely shut down. “She is a very dear friend and it was all very sweet!”

Kerry was about to retort, but then a look of recognition flashed across her face, causing her to relax back into her seat. “Ooooh…” she said with a slight laugh. “The pity date. Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“I did say so! Wait… I mean… It wasn’t a pity date!” Visionary growled, then paused. “Um… what did you mean, the pity date?”

Kerry shrugged and stirred her milkshake again. “Lisa and Yo and others have all been talking about how mopey you’ve been since…” she bit her lip and cast him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. “Well, anyway… you’ve been down for a long while. They said it’s way past time someone got you out of the dork cave. Personally, I think it’s disgusting… especially if it went so far as boinking…” She glanced up at him. “So who was it? Oh god… tell me itwasn’t Yo. No, you know what? Don’t tell me at all… I don’t want to have to face her with the mental image of… Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!”

Through an escalating series of misunderstandings that included the rest of the team believing that Visionary and Lisa were secretly an item behind everyone's backs, the opportunity for a romance with the holographic Hallie definitely hit some snags. Admittedly, it probably wasn't helped out by the arrival of 9 sensual, green-skinned, alien pleasure slaves from the planet Caph that were staying with Vizh. Naturally, like any good hero, he refused to take advantage of them and worked tirelessly to convince them to forgo slavery and embrace freedom. And, this being America, "Freedom" means "Buying Things".

“What about this one, Master?” Sayaana asked, spinning around to show off the latest suit. “It is said to enhance cleavage… does it do an acceptable job?”

“Does this one please you, Master?” Losiira inquired, looking over her shoulder at him. “The merchant slave called it a ‘Brazillian micro’…”

Luuma poked her head out of the curtained booth. “Will the new master appreciate the look of what is called a ‘french cut’ or a ‘string’ styling more, Master?”

“Are you certain we shouldn’t be acquiring suitable clothing in that store owned by the clandestine merchant Victoria?” Philaana asked pleadingly. “The television box said that she features garments that can cause wonders...”

“Are you unwell, Master?” Miiri asked with concern from within a stunning white crocheted bikini. “Your legs are crossed most tightly, your face is an even more unhealthy shade of pink, and you seem to be studying the pattern in the rug with unusual interest…”

“Fine, fine…” Visionary assured her with a choked voice. “I, um… don’t think you need further enhancement, Sayaana… honest. It’s quite lovely on you, Losiira… ah… perhaps with a nice wrap, though? And, um… definitely with a top of some sort… That’s not quite what I meant when I suggested a sensible one piece. I’m not sure you need to worry too much about theShoggoth’s preferences, Luuma… you should be selecting based on comfort. And coverage. Coverage, then comfort. And yes, I’m quite sure Philaana … in fact…” He coughed and tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Have, uh… have any of you given any more thought to my first suggestion of ‘The Gap’? They have a very nice sweatshirt collection in this week…”

“But we have so many other options still to try at this merchant, master!” Miiri gestured with enthusiasm towards the contents of Radd’s Surf Shop. “No one has ever let us pick out our own clothes before, and the choices of colors and materials and styles… We simply must model as many for you as possible… as long as the merchant chattel do not mind.”

“Whatever” the manager, Janet, noted with a shrug from behind the cash register. “He’s renting the store out by the hour, and paying us double wages, plus commission” she noted with a nod towards the growing pile of suits that the women had been piling on the counter for purchase whenever Visionary had shown the slightest approval towards them. “And it’s not like November is our biggest month usually.”

“Dude…” stockboy Ted noted with an enthusiastic thumbs up, standing by just in case any of the Caphans might suddenly need his opinion as well. “I, like, so used to be a Donar fan… but now, hands down… you’re totally the man!”

“Hey, you know what you might like?” salesgirl Kelly asked Deeela, catching the Caphans’ enthusiasm. She went to a whole different rack of suits in the store, and nine pairs of curious eyes trained on her. “You’ll love these… On our planet, we call this a ‘thong’!”

Visionary let out a very unmasterful whimper and went back to studying the carpet.

Of them all, the one who took to it most enthusiastically was Miiri, who took the opportunity freedom provided to, um... thank Visionary. Enthusiastically.

Ah... did I mention these women were Ian's idea? Because they were. Honest. I hardly had anything to do with this part.

Tomorrow: Our recap of Vizh's life continues as our hero gets his heart crushed, some new siblings and a new home, all in the same story....

Post By Visionary with a recap of his recent history, for new and returning readers Thu Mar 15, 2007 at 12:44:35 am EDT	Subject The Life and Times of a Regular Visionary

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