the story

I came up with the Reposing Force of the Great Lakes... largely as a joke, in mid-2021. The original concept was, essentially, "what if there were a bunch of cringefail superheroes with useless powers, and one of them was called Edible Woman and one of them had cheese powers, wouldn't that be so funny and lame haha"

I've been obsessed with this story for two years now. It's evolved quite a bit since then; I have two other books planned in the Reposing Force universe, countless worldbuilding lore documents saved, tons and tons of new characters created, dozens of images drawn, so on and so forth. This story is my magnum opus, my life's work, my fun little playground of fuckery, and I love it so very much.

A rough summary of what's going on here (more in-depth than the synopsis in the bottom right):

The Reposing Force of the Great Lakes is set in the fictional city of Knife's Edge, Michigan, which is home to the headquarters of the Reposing Force of the Great Lakes, a superhero collective tasked with protecting the Great Lakes region from any supernatural threats or metahumans misusing their powers. The Reposing Force is huge, and its heroes are treated like celebrities, as if they're above reproach. The Great Lakes Reposing Force is largely corrupt at the beginning of the story, preferring publicity and self-gain over the actual goal of helping citizens that the Force was founded with.

At the beginning of the story, metahuman Ivy White is on her way to a recruitment appointment, with the goal of becoming a member of the Reposing Force. She lives in her car, struggles with mental health issues, and generally views membership to the Force as a last resort attempt to improve her life. Ivy meets Kingsley Henneth and Rowan James during the interview; both of them have powers almost as unique as her own, and all three of them get embarrassingly rejected for having "useless and embarrassing powers". Kingsley and Rowan invite Ivy to stay with them after her car breaks down. At the same time, the leader of the Reposing Force, Graham Case, is making a deal with the queen of the demonic dimension Xulthea to trap his best friend, Soren's wife in the main city for eternity so she is unable to expose proof of an adulterous affair to the public.

After finding out what Graham had done, Soren, secretly an extremely powerful metahuman himself, believes his wife to be suffering in Xulthea, so he kidnaps the entire Reposing Force and tricks the queen of Xulthea into giving him free passage between Earth and the parts of Xulthea that are so unpredictably nightmarish that no one lives there. Trapping the Force in what is essentially endless psychological torture, in a realm that naturally must use their deepest fears against them, Soren tells Graham that he and his friends will remain there until his wife is freed. Meanwhile, his wife, Jessica, is unexpectedly bonding with the queen of Xulthea, perfectly safe, watching her husband destroy the city they both once loved.

It turns out Soren missed one member of the Reposing Force. Kira Ramos, the Force's second-in-command who was out of the country visiting family at the time of the kidnapping, returns to Knife's Edge a day later, and must pick up the pieces and retrieve her friends before any supervillain decides to wreak havoc in the city because of its lack of defense. She recruits Ivy and Ivy's new friends to save the Reposing Force, promising high ranking membership and immense fame if they can complete the task.