Here's a place to list assumptions that we've been making while applying retcons to the stories and background files, so that we can keep them straight -- or complain about them early in the process.


First: Based on The Big Raid, Tessa Testarossa is de facto leader of the displacees' assembled military forces. It's her job to coordinate cross-residence operations.

Second: It isn't her job to exercise oversight over such operations. That's Lord Phantomhive's job.

Third: With a different residence manager in charge in Pensacola, the political climate there is less reactionary. It can still be conservative, but not to the "undo everything the last administration did" reactionary levels being displayed in the Politics forum here.

Fourth: With the MITHRIL forces - especially the two Whispered - being in a different residence from the TSAB forces, Leonard never had any reason to target Nanoha and Fate (so they are and have always been okay), and thus Haruka and Michiru never crossed the line (so they were never banished from Blossom). Leonard still approached Haruka and Michiru, but that's solely because they were part of The Big Raid.


Anything seem off-kilter? Anything obvious that's been missed?

Just what it says on the tin.

There's going to be quite a bit getting shuffled around here, but I have no idea where to start.  Good thing we haven't done too much yet. 

So here we are!

In our conversation after I made my decision to leave TNB, it looks like some of the biggest changes are going to be in the Halloween Story, which will likely be a total rewrite, as well as the complete removal of the residences in San Antonio as there will be no one who feels up to the task of writing that setting but me.

Which means we're gonna have to shuffle some displacees around.

We're letting Inquisitive Raven have first dibs on the Lyrical Nanoha characters.  Regardless of if she wants to write them or not, they'll likely be placed into that NPC residence so as to be used as open characters.

The Evangelion Crew will all likely go to Douglas Gardens, as it is canonical that Rei, Asuka, and Shinji are all talented young musicians.  And given what they went through, all of them, probably even Asuka, too, will likely appreciate being in an environment that's nowhere nearly as "exciting" as Tokyo-III was.

Having Misato, Kaji, and Ritsuko around over there will probably be for the best, anyhow.  Someone has to ride herd on the Gorillaz, after all, and they'll need someone with extensive medical knowledge to handle some of the absurd injuries they're bound to incur.  (Except for Noodle, but Noodle is just plain bad-ass like that.)

Hotaru and Setsuna can probably arrive with Haruka and Michiru.  Setsuna being comatose throughout Season 1 will make these two understandably twitchy, secretive, and prone to falling back into bad habits.  Bonus points if it becomes something Hotaru scolds them for, which will have a hell of a lot more impact coming from her than if such a scolding came from Usagi.

The FMP crew...  No idea.  This could be a chance to include the Tuatha de Danaan - life is always so much better with a stealth amphibious assault submarine.  Maybe somewhere in LA?  San Diego?  Or how about the Puget Sound?

No, wait.  Throw them in with the Hanagumi.  Kohbu are about the same scale as Arm Slaves, after all.  They'll fit right in~.  (Seriously.  Imagine Teletha butting heads with Li Koran over Magic vs Lambda Driver.)

Tenchi and Company...  No idea for sure, either.  But the Puget Sound seems like a better fit for them.  Plenty of room, similar climate to Okayama (but no snow during Winter).  The Serenity and her crew will probably need to go with them, because Washu's Lab is the only thing we got that can accommodate a ship like that.

The Puella Magi...  It might be better to place them with the Lyrical Nanoha contingent.  If nothing else, the TSAB people might be able to come up with a stop-gap measure for dealing with corruption in soul gems.

Not gonna cover the characters from RWBY because we haven't really done much with them.  Except for a name-drop in one of Rob's stories that was gonna get axed anyhow because I hadn't brought them in yet.  Also there was the Night at Callahan's recap, but that was gonna get rewritten anyhow.

That's all I can think of - I hope I'm not forgetting anyone.

In order to help avoid confusion over what I'm claiming as exclusively mine and what I'm leaving to be free to use in TNB, I'm making this thread as a sort of sorting pile.

It will also be useful in that any old material we find that we meant to include, but simply forgot to because we lost track of it, can be reposted here for inclusion on the TNB wiki.

Thing is, I don't want this to be an acrimonious affair.  I'm already hurting enough as is, and I know I'm not going to gain anything by making this any more difficult than it must be.  And I think it would probably be very helpful (and safer) if there is some record of me stating clearly what I would be keeping for myself, and what will be left behind.  Hence, this thread, which has the helpfully suggested title of "Parting Gifts", meant in an unironic, non-sarcastic way.

I also don't want to be seen as some horse's ass of a man-child for just dropping everything and running.  I *will* do my part to help ensure a smooth transition to the new normal, up to and including suggesting ideas to cover up the bald spots that the removal of my content is going to create.

That said, let's get started with the basics.

Labster and I talked last night/this morning.

I've come to the decision that I'm not mentally healthy enough for something like this.  I seem to have control issues that center around how I've had so much taken away from me by other people all throughout my life.

Yes, I'm admitting it.  I'm a fucking control freak.

But I'm not saying that to ask forgiveness or anything as such, because I know that's not how real life works.  Real life doesn't want forgiveness.  It wants penance.  So instead, I'm only saying this so you understand why I've come to this decision.

I'll be leaving the project.  You guys get to own it now and do as you please.

But I don't want my character involved, even in a past-tense.  None of the stories I wrote will exist anymore.  The San Antonio residence can still exist.  But it will be a different person there, with different stories, and maybe even different residents because I know some people wanted to call dibs on others.

That's my condition.  You will have to come up with another character, maybe even more than one, to take Benjamin's place, and then retcon everything else.  No, not even filing the serial numbers off will suffice.  It has to be someone else entirely who behaves entirely different from me.

I don't even want any writing credit.  I don't want any association with this anymore because it's caused me to hurt that much.

I know you think I'm being immature, but consider this: I haven't been able to do the setting much justice with my character because I've been making him a Mary Sue.  So it's better that you have a character that is "perfectly imperfect" in his place instead.  Even if my writing has a certain style and energy that others seem to appreciate, it doesn't make up for the fact that I wrote Benjamin like that.  And apparently I'm incapable of separating myself from the SI.

Personally, I thought that was part of what made it so good.  I'm eccentric in that I like to believe that in all reality, somewhere out there is this other version of me.  And part of why I was able to hit everyone so hard in the feels is because I was able to associate that closely with my self-insert and convey the things I feel through him.

But I guess that's only good enough if most of all the other characters hate you.  Which really hurts when you associate that closely with your SI and you don't know any other way of doing it.

Please don't make this any harder on me than it is.  This is going to be like killing part of myself, and not in a healthy way.  And as things are right now?  I have too much to do, and not enough time.  And I'd rather get this done as quickly as possible.

Somebody on /r/WritingPrompt fed me a straight line...  For those that don't know, this is a part of reddit where a poster presents a prompt and responders write a short story answering the prompt. The prompt in question was "
[WP] You are a superhero whose powers are based on the music you are listening to. Rock can make you stronger, classical makes you smarter, etc. One day, you're fighting your toughest villain yet, and you are forced to use your "forbidden" playlist." (link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/...e_based_on)

I could not resist leaving a pointer to the Drunkard's Walk page ?

Since I was the one who suggested in the first place that they be added to the Metacontinuity, and since I was the only one who had posted to the wiki anything about them, and since I was the one who came up with how to integrate them into the storyline and had my basic story outline approved without dissent at the weekly writers' chat on May 11, I thought I didn't need to actually come out and say this.

But it looks like I do.


As per the rules of this writing collective, I call "dibs" on the Social Welfare Agency from Gunslinger Girl.


Hands off until I've completed their already-approved plotline, please.

Full report at americandragnet.org. Summary story on The Register.

From the Executive Summary of the report:

• ICE has scanned the driver’s license photos of 1 in 3 adults.
  
• ICE has access to the driver’s license data of 3 in 4 adults.
  
• ICE tracks the movements of drivers in cities home to 3 in 4 adults.
  
• ICE could locate 3 in 4 adults through their utility records.
  

So obvious that it's probably been used and I just forgot, TBH. If not, where might it be from and/or to? Dukes of Hazard would be a humorously literal interpretation of wheels in the sky, but really doesn't match in any other way.

My Winter Coat is pretty relaxed.  It's a song about a winter coat, and it seems like a joke song, except it just keeps going on and on, and eventually you admit that the musician must really love her coat.

As a power song, it's eight and a half minutes, which is long enough to do something useful.  Protection from cold is obvious, but I was thinking it might be protection from the elements more generally.  "It's like walking around in your bed all day," after all.  Plus I can just see Doug ready to head across the Sahara, and summoning up a parka.  "Now I'm ready!"  I assume that he could give the conjured coat to others too... it is a coat.