A thread for when y'all think of an interesting power effect, but don't have a song in mind to connect it to, or the song you thought of is already earmarked for something else.

In this case speciofically, it was My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark by Fall Out Boy, one that I proposed a complicated multi-factor investigation effect for some time ago and Bob said he already had something simpler to use with it. Reminded of the power effect I'd thought up then, I also came up with something simpler for it - retrocogition with the amount and clarity of information gained not depending on time or strong emotion in the moment, but rather by how much effort was put into keeping whatever Doug is trying to find out about hidden. (by which I mean that a drive by shooting or terror bombing would give him almost nothing, while a meticulously planned locked-room mystery or conspiracy theory government cover-up would be immediately revealed, to the most minor details like the mastermind's favored brand of tooth paste and how well they slept the night before.) It could go with just about any song related to finding out secrets, really, but I'm hoping someone will pipe up with a perfect match since nothing is springing to my mind.

Other cool power suggestions are of course welcome as well.

Star Trek Original Series to "Common People" by William Shatner

previous thread:

Dogbertcarroll has updated his fic "Foxy Lady", where instead of summoning her Vampire alternate, Willow and Anya summoned a group of Pokegirls (that are analogs to various Sunnydale ladies)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13140019/14/Foxy-Lady

EDIT:
Rewired Saga (original Cyberpunk style story set in Australia)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...t-89730074

Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 11, 2016
8:03am ET


"Rob-san, who else is here?"

Rob looked at Usagi. "There's just the two of us in this room, Usagi-san. And if you aren't going to be late for your first day of school here, there should only be one person in this room."

"Oh! Leaving now! Bye!"

Rob waited until she was gone, made sure he was alone (confirmed; both Ami and Mii had morning classes), went to his office and logged onto the managers' board.

ROB_DONALDSON> Is anyone else online?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Hi there, Rob!
ROB_DONALDSON> What are *you* doing on this board? I thought this was building managers only.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Did you really think you could keep me out?
ROB_DONALDSON> No, I thought you'd be bored here. Does the sexiest building manager in Funtom Canada know you've hacked her account?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> I didn't hack Garnett's account.
ROB_DONALDSON> Oh, good.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> I hacked yours, cloned it, and renamed the clone.
ROB_DONALDSON> Shit.
HELPBOT> Language!
ROB_DONALDSON> Sorry.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Aren't you supposed to be taking care of your tenants right now?
ROB_DONALDSON> Just sent them all off to school. Usagi wants to know who else is enjoying the hospitality of the building managers.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> I don't mind if you tell them about us.
ROB_DONALDSON> All of you, or just the Masaki household?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Good point. Just the Masaki household for now.
ROB_DONALDSON> As long as I've got your attention
WASHUU_HAKUBI> I don't hand out toys to everybody who asks, you know.
ROB_DONALDSON> I know. I also know you'd probably want to run some scans on the Sailor Senshi, and we need a doctor on call.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Sailor Senshi? As in Silver Millennium?
ROB_DONALDSON> The same, or rather their reincarnations.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Give me ten minutes to pack, and I'll be right there.
ROB_DONALDSON> They're on a bus, going to school. And so are the girls from Academy City.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Academy City? Not The Queen, I hope.
ROB_DONALDSON> Ugh. No, not The Queen. Railgun. And her friends from Judgment branch 177. How do you know about them?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Skuld suggested I read the novels.
ROB_DONALDSON> Skuld? *The* Skuld?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Belldandy's sister, yeah.
.
WASHUU_HAKUBI> Hey, are you still there?
ROB_DONALDSON> Is she the sysop here?
WASHUU_HAKUBI> I think so, yeah.
ROB_DONALDSON> I've talked with Skuld-sama...
WASHUU_HAKUBI> "Sama"? Okay, I'm coming over in five minutes. You need to talk to somebody face-to-face before you get lost in that sensawunder you're feeling.

Finally gave up and just put this here.

Just spent as  long trying to find the right place for this post as it took me to read the article linked below a couple of times, I thought there was a section for copyright, but  didn't find it, so just stuck it in general chatter.


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/be...p-creators


I was over at EFF and came across a report that "Wizards of the Coast" may revoke or change the  OGL or "open gaming license" for Dungeon and Dragons.

This might only be of interest to Bob, but the article in the link above has some good discussion of copyright and fair use in terms of Role Playing Games.

hmelton

The webcomic The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon has updated after a 2.5 year hiatus:

http://fancyadventures.com/

October 1, 2016
7:00 pm ET / 6:00 pm CT / 3:00 pm PT


The teleconference app that Washuu had written for everybody connected to the weekly meeting. Rob was the second-last to connect, followed only by Cassiopée. "It looks like everybody's online now. So, what happened while Mako-chan, Rui-chan, and I were out of town this week?" Rob asked, innocently.

After a moment, Brent replied, "I got a new batch of residents in my building. You might know their names: Chiyo-chan, Tomo, Yomi, Sakaki, Kagura, Osaka, and Kaorin."

"Do you want to trade? You'll know my boarders, too: Ranma, Akane, Ukyo ... Soun, Gen...ma, Nabiki, -"

"Hang on a minute, Epsilon," Rob interrupted. "Is anybody else getting a lag on the conference?"

After a moment, Harley answered, "Only from you, Rob."

"Be right back." Rob muted the conference and turned to Kazari. "Why is the network lagging?"

Kazari logged into the firewall and checked the activity logs. After a moment, she looked at Ruiko, who was concentrating on her own laptop in the corner of the building's common room. "Saten-san, do you really need to download files in the common room? We set up your apartment's connection so you can download them faster there."

"Sorry," Ruiko answered. "Do you mind if I let it finish? The download - Asahi Sakurai's new single - is almost done. No, it is done now."

Rob sighed. "Please don't start another download until after we've finished the teleconference. At least not in the common room."

"Okay... Sheesh, you're acting like I did something unusual," she muttered as she plugged her headphones into her laptop and started listening to her downloads.

At the same time, Rob turned back to his laptop and took the conference off mute, to hear Brent offering "I'll take girl Ranma, but you can keep boy Ranma."

"Sorry about that," Rob said to announce his presence. "Problem solved."

"Welcome back. Did anything interesting happen to your group while you were away?"

Rob laughed at Garnett's question. "Does a Predator showing up count as interesting?"

"What? Where?"

"Do we need to scramble?"

"No need, Raven; Sailor Jupiter took care of it. As for where, Brent, two-and-a-half degrees of latitude north of Ottawa, give or take a few minutes."

Nobody said anything for a moment. The silence was finally broken by Harley. "This job isn't as safe as we thought it was."

"Our tenants aren't as safe as we thought they were, either," Bob added.

"I'll ask Washuu-chan to put something together," announced Garnett. "We can't rely on these conference calls any more to stay up to date with what's going on."

"Good idea," Bob agreed.

"Make it something that we can install easily, and Uiharu-kun and I can come help set it up," Rob offered. Kazari waved at the screen at the mention of her name.

"That's kind of you. You're treating us all as good neighbors, even though we're separated in real life."

"Well, sure, why not?" Rob stopped and thought. "Wait a minute. '[[Asahi Sakurai]]'?"

"Who?" asked Brent.

"The singer whose music Rui-chan was downloading, that caused the conference to lag here."

"Oh, right," Bob replied. "You were on mute when I mentioned we got a group of tenants this week, too. How did you know her name?"

"I've seen Comic Party. But that's not important right now. Anybody have anything else that we all need to know?"

There was a moment of silence, then Brent replied, "I think today's Belldandy's birthday."

"Has anybody actually met Belldandy yet?" asked Harley.

"Peg and I have," answered Bob.

"So have I," added Cassiopée.

"How about one of you send her a message, then?" Rob suggested. "Let her know we're thinking of her, too."

"Yes, somebody else do that, please," added Epsilon.

"I'll do it," offered Cassiopée.

"Thanks. Anybody else have anything to add?" After a moment with no replies, Garnett continued, "Then I'll let everyone know when Washuu has something for us. Talk to you next week!"

"Good-bye!"

"Talk to you later!"

"Be seeing you!"

Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 1, 2016
7:25am ET

Saturdays weren't school days in Canada. (Not that she was attending school yet.) But bad habits were easy to get into and hard to break, so she got up anyway.

Heading toward the common room, she noticed Konori-sempai knocking on Tsukino-san's door. "If you want breakfast before we go downtown, you'd better get up and dressed soon, Usagi-san!"

That was the other reason she was already up and dressed - they were going to go see another museum today. If they had time, they might see two. Donaldson-san thought it was better than getting a broad overview of Canadian history out of a textbook.

As Konori-sempai kept knocking, Kuroko sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. How was somebody like Tsukino-san supposed to become the ruler of her world?

Nishinomiya, Japan
May 16, 2006 (local date)
10:44 PM (local time)

The observers watched silently from their outside vantage point, surveying the empty city cloaked in starless darkness within the bubble that encapsulated it. For those with the ability to see it properly, the bubble held more than just the city that seemed to fill it – it mapped onto a much larger space-time, one from which the city was drawn.

Someone with the proper range of knowledge and experience might have found a deep and disturbing similarity between its relationship to the larger universe from which it had been spawned, and that of a voodoo doll or other item of sympathetic magic to its linked target. What was done to the one, would be done to the other.

The observers were quite aware of this similarity. Indeed, it was precisely why they were observing it.

That, and its inhabitants.

Two of them appeared to be ordinary humans, not quite fully grown, one male, one female. The rest were not humans, though they were, loosely speaking, humanoid. Towering figures of translucent blue light, they strode through the darkness-enshrouded city and lashed out at it as though disgusted and angered by its very existence. With each blow a building crumbled and its neighbors shuddered; even the very fabric of space-time seemed to strain and crack under their force.

The two humans were watching this from a vantage point which was by no definition of the word safe, although it was safer by comparison to the immediate vicinity of the giants of light. The female was enthralled by the sight of the city's destruction, her eyes wide and her grin wider. The male was agitated and all but panic-stricken.

"She's definitely contributing to the greater problem," one of the observers noted.

"Yes," replied another. "But unlike most of the other affected timelines, we've been able to isolate and insulate this timeline and its parallels."

"Parallels?" Another of the observers spoke up. "How many are we talking about?"

The second sighed. "Too many. But fortunately they're clustered into a tight skein, and we can affect all of them with measures applied to the skein as a whole."

"And they're all evincing this kind of radical disruption?" asked the first.

"Unfortunately, yes. And some of it spilled out of the skein before we sequestered it. In some – most – of them the principal players were poised for displacement." The second observer paused for a moment before continuing. "Shall we let an averaged waveform of the potential displacees collapse into the Refuge timeline?"

"No!" The first observer's vehemence was unexpected, and the others flinched at it. "The last thing we need is a version of her loose there – she'd completely destroy what makes it a safe haven for the others."

"Filter her out of the refugee pattern," a fourth spoke up. "Just let the others through so that we might preserve them, at least."

"That would be pointless," said a fifth observer. "I've just run the scenario through several million simulations. Almost all her variants will inevitably figure out how to come after them and do so, for reasons ranging from ego to loyalty to simple loneliness, and in the process of breaking the quarantine on the skein they will exacerbate the problem beyond our ability to contain."

"And what would happen when a nigh-infinite number of her variants all converge on Refuge, only to find a single set of her companions?" asked the third.

"Thankfully, that's not a problem," the fifth replied. "The simulations show that all those wave functions would also collapse into a single instance upon entry to the timeline."

The third frowned. "And if that instance of her doesn't match the instance of her companions which manifested in Refuge, we're back to the original problem. No, we can't let them enter. It's cruel, but necessary."

The first nodded slowly. "I am inclined to agree. Are there any objections?"

There were none.

"Then let us go," the first said, "and seal the skein behind us."

"It still troubles me to leave them to their fate," the fourth said softly as they walled off the doomed timelines and began their return.

"Fortunately, they are not alone," the first confided. "One of our own has chosen to incarnate in all the timelines of the skein. And he has no small experience with watching over godling children. Suzumiya Haruhi in all her many variations can have no better guide, guard and friend than Kyôn Khryseos."

(01-02-2023, 09:36 AM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: Oh yeah, I meant to drop a post on the board that all the Sherlock Holmes stuff is now public domain. Thanks for the link!

Also, I'll note that a year from now, Steamboat Willie is due to go into the public domain, too. In the past, whenever Steamboat Willie has even got a whiff of the public domain Disney has pulled out all the stops and gotten extensions of copyright duration rammed through Congress. It will be interesting to see if they do it again this year.

But that's a topic for another thread, in a different section of the board.