[OOC][PLOT] Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[Black Aeronaut]

Which begs the question, Why not change everything else to suit the visitors then?

It'd have to be within reason.  Things that either had been in the past or had a strong possibility of actually happening.

[robkelk]

Hmmmm....  But the canal system as it is now seems... anemic...

Okay, so here's a thought.  The fun part about the Metacontinuity is that given its very nature, it's pretty maleable.  So in reaction to their arrival, Venis is suddenly like as if none of the canals had ever been filled in, and that they've been meticulously preserved and maintained by the residences and local businesses.

And nobody thinks its strange at all, because it's always been that way... Nobody except the Building Managers.  

Thoughts?

I did put into my very first IC post a comment that IC-Rob thought his building had been torn down years ago.

(In our universe, that didn't happen - the row houses went up one block west. In the shared world ... well, that's just one way the worlds are different.)

Would the change benefit the story?

[Labster]

I suppose there is one continuity that could be merged to cause that:

In the urban fantasy / alternate history novel, California Bones (Tor Books, June 2014), by Greg van Eekhout, Abbot Kinney's Venetian experiment grew to encompass all of Los Angeles, taking the place of what might otherwise have become L.A.'s metropolitan roads, becoming part of a hydraulic empire overseen by an immortal William Mulholland.

LOL.  The author is obviously Dutch, as that sentence is the most Dutch thing I think I have ever read.  But of course L.A.'s topography and lack of fresh water prevents this.  One of the things that was most conspicuously absent in my visit to the Netherlands were hills, as I'm constantly using them to orient myself.  The hills are also conspicuously present in paintings by the Dutch Masters, who liked how they looked in Italian works.  When I was in Amsterdam, one of the locals told me that they had gone through the same process as Venice CA in the 60s and 70s, with people wanting to fill the canals in, and replace them with something useful like parking.  They got decently far, especially in shortening the Rokin.  But then it was stopped by historic preservationists in the 1980s.  Urban preservationists really only got going in L.A. in the late 1990s.

Which begs the question, Why not change everything else to suit the visitors then?

Um, because story needs conflict?

I guess I've never been entirely clear on the idea of the Metacontinuity.  I was thinking of it in terms of having characters drop into a base universe, which just happens to be the one our SIs live in.  I wasn't thinking of it in terms of having a second Japan appearing offshore of the first one (which is a thing that has been done before).  Or letting people arrive with all of the stuff they have in their normal life.  To me you take Washuu and put her in another dimension, and she can juryrig access to her extradimensional lab in 10 minutes.  But for most characters, those without magic or overtechnology on their persons, I felt like they were in on their own in a new world, only given a place to live.  Batman sounds fun, but wouldn't it be interesting to put him in a world without Wayne Industries, and see what he does with it?

I was thinking of Arrivals (I like this word better than visitors) might start changing the world themselves.  Sakura Kinomoto could probably, with The Earthy and The Copy, dig new canals in days, if not hours.  Freaking wizards.  (Or The Big and a giant shovel, but that sounds too embarrassing!)  But our protagonists should change things more like normal citizens.  Protagonists.... hmmmmm.

Hmmmm.

Can I borrow Cinder for a while?

[Black Aeronaut]

Honestly, I was just thinking that it would be one of those flags that lets the readers know that even though it does seem very VERY much like home... it's actually not quite.

And really, it's kind of a challenge to see if there is something in the area that IRL did or did not get done or got undone, and so here in the story flip it around to either the benefit or detriment of the characters.

I mean, take the idea with the CA-Venice Canals. Sure, on the surface, it looks like a good thing for the girls. But this would surely somewhat alter the 'bohemian' attitude of venice at least somewhat. And on top of that, there would be the chances for some culture clash, because while CA-Venice would indeed have gondolas - and perhaps more than one company at that - there is bound to be some friction when so many new faces show up on the scene all at once.

It's kinda like when I was working as a delivery driver and suddenly we get four new drivers out of nowhere. Suddenly my take at the end of the night isn't quite what it used to be. (It's just a hypothetical, but there have been a few drivers that really hacked me off for taking absolutely ridiculous two- or three-bag runs just so they can have more money at the end of the night.)

ETA:
OOOHHHH. I can make it so Kelly AFB never got the ax! Lots more commerce, but also a helluva lot more military presence to tiptoe around.

[robkelk]

...
Hmmmm.

Can I borrow Cinder for a while?

Wait, what - you actually want to advance the overall plot?

More seriously, I have no objection.

[Dartz]

""David! David! We're your biggest fans. Can we get your autograph!"

"What? Who do you think I am."

"You're David Tennant..... Oh, I'm sorry mate, you look just like him. "

"Tell me. Who is David Tennant?"

"He's an actor. He was the tenth doctor....."

"Da..."

"...and Barty Crouch Junior in the Harry Potter film...."

"Da...."

"And who ellse?"

"Kilgrave. In Jessica Jones..."

"Da...., the bus is here."

"Go play with the traffic girl. Now youi, you're going to tell me everything you know about Kilgrave and Jessica Jones."

----------------

...... Okay, maybe that's just a bit too dark. But only for the sheer amusement of him meeting probably the 6 people on the planet who would look at him as 'Why are we supposed to do that anyway', and walk off?

[robkelk]

......  Okay, maybe that's just a bit too dark. But only for the sheer amusement of him meeting probably the 6 people on the planet who would look at him as 'Why are we supposed to do that anyway', and walk off?

Hmmmmm... Mikoto Misaka canonically cannot be mind-controlled by the most powerful mind controller in Academy City - her electrokinesis protects her brain at a cellular level. Want to do a two-residence team-up, with everybody else at my SI's residence being mind-controlled and only the folks at your residence able to set things right?

Assuming BA doesn't think this is too dark, that is.

[Dartz]

IIRC, Kilgraves power was a result of a viral infection, rather than outright telekinises. That could have interesting implications - since it's basically why I thought it wouldn't work on the girls, beyond them being artificial.

Is there anyone among the academy group that'd be immune to diseases? Someone who doesn't normally get the limelight. (I have the series, I haven't actually had the chance to watch the series). Makoto would be a dangerous opponent - except for Positronic Data - or am I clutching at straws?

I also messed with the idea of the girls getting noticed by the wider BGC fandom because they are public in the way nobody else is..... in a sort of 'You're ripping this off'..... 'No, we really are them'

[robkelk]

Ah.

No, nobody in my SI's apartment building is immune to infection... unless Washuu-chan put something in the nanobots she injected into my SI.

[Dartz]

It's your call which option happens

If 33-Stars either gets taken to Canada as a support act for another band - or someone takes a holiday.

[Labster]

Well, it's too dark for my tastes, I'll tell you that much.  I watched one episode of Jessica Jones, and decided I couldn't watch any more.  This might be because I just had a friend describe to me in detail what it was like to be married to an abusive husband.  I dunno.  But I am having a visceral reaction to the idea, which is unusual, so I'm gonna stay out of this one.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, just on a cursory pass over on the summary for season 1 episode 1 of Jessica Jones, I can readily say that Killgrave is the sort of baddie we want to save for Season 2 of There's Nothing Better.

Having someone like Killgrave running around this early on would be too much of a red flag for Ciel and Sebastian to ignore, and would react with great prudence. But in the 2nd Season there is going to be far too much going on for Killgrave to be noticed easily.

The only way I'd tolerate having Killgrave this early on is if he immediately gets shut down - as though to say how little Lord Phantomhive is going to tolerate anyone blatantly messing with things. He can then be a recurring character later on after he finagles an escape from whatever hole Lord Phantomhive stuffs him into.

One other thing. Since people are supposed to be showing up grouped together in their respective 'cliques', one wonders where the rest of the USS Enterprise-D Bridge Crew is at...

... Likely trying very hard to blend in somewhere not far away, and wondering where the hell Data got to...

[robkelk]

I'm willing to wait for a while before introducing Kilgrave. Dartz, it was your idea to begin with, so you should have a say in this decision.

As for the NextGen bridge crew - how did they get here? Is there a starship in orbit, did a runabout fall through a wormhole and crash someplace, was there a transporter (or holodeck) malfunction, did Q wave his hand, or something else? Answering this will tell us what resources they have available to them.

---

As for my apartment, I have a definite idea for what happens next, but it involves the Halloween party that should be taking place a few days after my characters' most recent story.

Spoilered so that casual readers won't immediately see the upcoming plot:

Spoiler

Usagi is in a bit of a funk, because she misses her family and friends... and Mamoru. Especially Mamoru. Everybody else convinces her to attend the party anyway - they even choose her costume for her. (need a costume idea here) Meanwhile, HAL9000 has tracked down Mamoru, Chibi-Usa, Luna, and Artemis, and has let SI-Rob know. Si-Rob contacts SI-Black Aeronaut, the two of us invite Mamoru &c to the party, and strongly suggest he wear a particular costume. (need a costume idea here - it has to be in a set with Usagi's costume) The idea is to let them meet at the party and see how long it takes for them to realize who each other are. Of course, they recognize each other immediately. Cue them dancing through the night to the music of 33-Stars.

Meanwhile, SI-Rob discovers that despite the filters on the apartment's internet connection, the Railgun girls have discovered and read online copies/translations of the "Certain Magical Index" novels. (This was hinted at in my most recent side-story, when Kazaki was shown to be using wi-fi hotspots and had casually mentioned the existence of the novels to Rin.) Thus, everybody knows about what SI-Rob, Mikoto, Usagi, and Washuu-chan were trying to keep secret about Academy City. Kuroko's reaction to the Mikoto Sisters is not what everyone expects - they may be Mikoto's clones, but only onee-sama is onee-sama so Kuroko won't be chasing after any of them.

.

And that pretty much uses up my stack of story ideas, except for a little something about the tanto Makoto got as a trophy for defeating that Predator. But that's a story for much later.

[Black Aeronaut]

I'm willing to wait for a while before introducing Kilgrave. Dartz, it was your idea to begin with, so you should have a say in this decision.

As for the NextGen bridge crew - how did they get here? Is there a starship in orbit, did a runabout fall through a wormhole and crash someplace, was there a transporter (or holodeck) malfunction, did Q wave his hand, or something else? Answering this will tell us what resources they have available to them.

They got there pretty much the same way everyone else has.

I'm not sure why everyone feels there must be a 'vehicle' of some kind to get them there, but I guess I may not have been too clear about that part.

The thing is they simply appear somewhere, away from prying eyes and usually in the dead of night.  Now, so as not to torpedo everyone's work so far, I'd be willing to say that their perceived arrivals are simply a little trick by the Goddesses to make the transit itself a little less... jarring.  But that, and trying to space out these appearances to manageable times and locales, is about all they can do for the matter.

Up util Season 2, anyhow.  That will be when we start having entire fleets showing up, both in the sea and among the stars, and then later on towards the end of Season 2, entire freakin' interstellar empires.  Yes, the Metacontinuity is gonna be a HAPPENING place. 

That said, one of the Season 2 elements I would like to has showing up from the get-go would be the actual Galaxy Express 999, complete with the Conductor and Claire, and passengers-for-life and adventurers Tetsuo and Maetel.  This would provide much needed interstellar transportation for those who don't have such and can't bum a ride off someone else.

As for your plans, Rob....  Heeee....

Spoiler

How about we do the costumes from the Eternal Ball that Gareth trapped Sarah in during the events of the movie, Labyrinth?  

[robkelk]

As for your plans, Rob....  Heeee....

Spoiler

How about we do the costumes from the Eternal Ball that Gareth trapped Sarah in during the events of the movie, Labyrinth?  

Oooh, I like. Let's do that!

I'll be too busy to write anything for the rest of this calendar month, so that gives everybody else two weeks to catch up to me...

[Dartz]

I amn't sure we can ever get to season 2. At the rate I work I'm still doing the intro to the first episode of season one.

I liked Kilgrave as an idea because, he's completely impotent against the girls to his galling surprise and - at least re-using a lot of my YT2032 notes - the girls have somewhat similar ability, and have used it. It has also backfired on them. He's a natural opposite to the girls - and he hasn't learned the sudo command yet, so his orders for a sandwich go unfulfilled.

33-Stars is still just an amateur band that is punching above their weight for the point their in in their careers. They're a metal band - but they're also covering some pretty esoteric things in a 'metal' format, according to the requests from youtube.

In this case, Meg is not the house manager. Data is.

[Labster]

/me starts humming "Magic Dance" for reasons that are completely unrelated to spoilers.

My next group is arriving on a vehicle too, but it kind of stretches the definitions of both of "magic" and "vehicle".  I've been using fey as psychopomps (for lack of a better word), because I'm assuming they better than most will feel the instability in the multiverse, and know the ways across it to the island of stability.  So that includes characters like Cait Sìth, Elias Ainsworth, Chiyo-chichi, and eventually Akari Mizunashi.  There's no reason to think that the goddesses are the only players in interdimensional transport.  Why not throw Oberon and Titania in the mix too?

And also, as a writer, "they just appear" seems a little deus ex machina to me, and while it's an acceptable unicorn in the garden, it's more interesting to me to have some sort of cause and effect.  Team Cardcaptor is just going to show up in Los Angeles, with no vehicle.  But they were probably doing something magical at the time that weakened the fabric of their home universe, and once I figure out what that is, I'm planning on that being something of a "cause".  Just a way of changing "and they appear" to "therefore they appear".

I'll try to post very soon, but my dayjob has been really busy the last two weeks.  Microsoft is a pretty demanding client -- not in a bad way, but more in forcing us to deal with the problems we should have fixed years ago.  And I need to make sure that I don't get too far ahead of my own story.  I have chapter 1 published, 3 and 4 are ready, but chapter 2 has a lot of holes, and just places where I need to decide if showing is too boring, and I need to tell instead.  It's hard, because sometimes nothing wants to come out, and then other times I'll start writing a scene, and more unplanned scenes naturally flow from the way the first one turned out.  Farce is my favorite genre, so I gotta ride the jokes to see if the bloom into something better (or mercilessly cut them if they're useless).

Oh, and if anyone can come up with an excuse for why Cinder Fall would visit and cause trouble in Venice/Santa Monica/West L.A., let me know.  I only have the barest hint of an idea, but I do need her presence for the undines.

[robkelk]

That said, one of the Season 2 elements I would like to has showing up from the get-go would be the actual Galaxy Express 999, complete with the Conductor and Claire, and passengers-for-life and adventurers Tetsuo and Maetel.  This would provide much needed interstellar transportation for those who don't have such and can't bum a ride off someone else.

I skipped over this because I expected Labster to comment on it. He did mention in-story that the Galaxy Express was the train that brought the Aria girls to the Metacontinuity. If we're going to have the 999, let's use it to good effect in the stories.

(And why stop at one train? I'm currently re-reading Raising Steam as my go-to-sleep book, and it's becoming my personal head-canon that - to use Bob's terms from the Drunkard's Walk - Iron Girder is the Discworld's incarnation of the Power that in another universe is the Starlight Express.)

[Labster]

Oh, forgot to comment on it. I was thinking of using Starlight Express too, because why not have another weird train. If we want to have Tetsuro and Maetel, then maybe I need to retcon which engine brought the Aria cast in. Though it should probably be an engine from the age of steam, just to get that retro feel. Hard to get that from a diesel. Possibly I should use the 888 instead?

[Black Aeronaut]

I amn't sure we can ever get to season 2.  At the rate I work I'm still doing the intro  to the first episode of season one.

I liked Kilgrave as an idea because, he's completely impotent against the girls to his galling surprise and - at least re-using a lot of my YT2032 notes - the girls have somewhat similar ability, and have used it. It has also backfired on them. He's a natural opposite to the girls - and he hasn't learned the sudo command yet, so his orders for a sandwich go unfulfilled.

33-Stars is still just an amateur band that is punching above their weight for the point their in in their careers. They're a metal band - but they're also covering some pretty esoteric things in a 'metal' format, according to the requests from youtube.

In this case, Meg is not the house manager. Data is.

My primary issue with Killgrave is that, just from a brief extrapolation, once he determines that the girls of 33-Stars are beyond his ability to control, he'll simply move on to greener pastures.  Which means he'd go someplace like London or New York and set up shop.  Even with an ability to control people's thoughts and emotions, you don't get to being someone like Killgrave by acting on whims.  It's nice, sure, but it doesn't pay the bills, so to speak.  So even if the girls do pique his interest, they'll be written off as "something to deal with later".

And he would.  Because since the girls cannot be controlled by him, that presents a potential threat should they become hostile towards him for whatever reason.  So, at a later time he will either work at co-opting them through other means (you don't get into the business of mind controlling people without learning how to exert other means of leverage, both of the honey and vinegar varieties) or simply having them killed in a manner untraceable back to him.

Or am I mistaken in my assessment of his character?

/me starts humming "Magic Dance" for reasons that are completely unrelated to spoilers.

My next group is arriving on a vehicle too, but it kind of stretches the definitions of both of "magic" and "vehicle".  I've been using fey as psychopomps (for lack of a better word), because I'm assuming they better than most will feel the instability in the multiverse, and know the ways across it to the island of stability.  So that includes characters like Cait Sìth, Elias Ainsworth, Chiyo-chichi, and eventually Akari Mizunashi.  There's no reason to think that the goddesses are the only players in interdimensional transport.  Why not throw Oberon and Titania in the mix too?

And also, as a writer, "they just appear" seems a little deus ex machina to me, and while it's an acceptable unicorn in the garden, it's more interesting to me to have some sort of cause and effect.  Team Cardcaptor is just going to show up in Los Angeles, with no vehicle.  But they were probably doing something magical at the time that weakened the fabric of their home universe, and once I figure out what that is, I'm planning on that being something of a "cause".  Just a way of changing "and they appear" to "therefore they appear".

I'll try to post very soon, but my dayjob has been really busy the last two weeks.  Microsoft is a pretty demanding client -- not in a bad way, but more in forcing us to deal with the problems we should have fixed years ago.  And I need to make sure that I don't get too far ahead of my own story.  I have chapter 1 published, 3 and 4 are ready, but chapter 2 has a lot of holes, and just places where I need to decide if showing is too boring, and I need to tell instead.  It's hard, because sometimes nothing wants to come out, and then other times I'll start writing a scene, and more unplanned scenes naturally flow from the way the first one turned out.  Farce is my favorite genre, so I gotta ride the jokes to see if the bloom into something better (or mercilessly cut them if they're useless).

Oh, and if anyone can come up with an excuse for why Cinder Fall would visit and cause trouble in Venice/Santa Monica/West L.A., let me know.  I only have the barest hint of an idea, but I do need her presence for the undines.

Okay, let's tackle this in order...

I love the idea of 'psychopomps'.  Feel free to use them, but float them by me first.  You guys are gonna be throwing a lot of stuff into the pot I'm not familiar and I'd like to have a cursory look at these guys first.  Just a short one-paragraph blurb about the character you want to use as a psychopomp and why you think they're a good fit for the job.

The way I would like to work it out is simple - beings of suitable capability are literally being contracted by the Yggdrasil/Nidhogg alliance to be ferrymen for these lost souls.  They're every bit as much as caught up in this mess as well, it's just that they can actually do things to help ease the workload.

As for the deus ex machina feel to the characters showing up...  Well, the explanation is simple enough.  Read much of Douglas Adams?  Familiar with the term 'Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure'?  Pretty much that, only in reverse.

Okay, some more clarification.  The Metacontinuity is kinda like a partition in the Yggdrasil specifically set aside as a sort of 'dump file' space where the technicians can drop off some faulty or strange bit of coding so it can be examined in detail.  And it functions pretty much as such in the event that some unforeseen error crops up.  Except this wasn't an ordinary error by any stretch.

The entire Yggdrasil/Nidhogg system completely crashed.

Reality has actually stopped altogether, like a computer that has simply locked up in the middle of what you were doing without even the courtesy of a BSOD.  And that dump file?  It's a bigun.  It's the entire multiverse, and it's being crammed into the dump file space.

But here's the hell of it that we're all gonna discovers late in the game: everyone is actually a copy.  Once the multiverse resumes normal operations we find that everyone isn't simply snapping back into their home realities.  This strange place that is getting stranger all the time is home now, whether everyone likes it or not.

And here I go off on a tangent...

It won't be so bad for a lot of people.  For example, in regards to the Tenchi group, the Empire of Jyurai will eventually be showing up again.  And so will the Masaki estate itself in Okayama.  But it will be right on the edges of Tokyo-3.  And the United Federation of Planets  would very dearly like to speak with the Empire of Jyurai about working out a mutually beneficial arrangement while also repelling the invasion of the Gamilons.  And a bunch of rag-tag ships claiming that Earth is their 13th Colony has just shown up on their doorstep with a race of genocidal machine intelligences hot on their heels isn't doing anyone any favors in the short term.  And the matter with the Galactic Empire is a worrying one - suddenly Humans at long last have a homeworld, and Vader's flagship, The Executor, showing up in Sol System, ostensibly to assist with the defense against the invaders, is not allaying any fears.  But to Vader's credit, they are helping.  For now.

Eh-herm.  yeah.  ANYWHO... So that's the reason why they suddenly just 'appear'.  It's because they quite literally spring into existence on the spot.

So, Microsoft is cracking the whip, and in a much justifiable manner?  Well now.  This is rather welcome news.  I'm actually heartened to hear that they're now genuinely focusing on fixing things rather than just cranking out software.

Don't worry too much, things are at a snail's pace for now.  Especially for me.  I should really be in bed right now, trying to get my sleep schedule back to something that will let me put in more hours working the job.

As for Cinder...

...Why not just have that be the place where she shows up with her cronies?  Hers can be a group that simply slipped through the cracks, and they strike me as being wary and savvy enough to get by without arousing any undue attention.

That said, one of the Season 2 elements I would like to has showing up from the get-go would be the actual Galaxy Express 999, complete with the Conductor and Claire, and passengers-for-life and adventurers Tetsuo and Maetel.  This would provide much needed interstellar transportation for those who don't have such and can't bum a ride off someone else.

I skipped over this because I expected Labster to comment on it. He did mention in-story that the Galaxy Express was the train that brought the Aria girls to the Metacontinuity. If we're going to have the 999, let's use it to good effect in the stories.

(And why stop at one train? I'm currently re-reading Raising Steam as my go-to-sleep book, and it's becoming my personal head-canon that - to use Bob's terms from the Drunkard's Walk - Iron Girder is the Discworld's incarnation of the Power that in another universe is the Starlight Express.)

Oh, by all means, give us ALL THE TRAINS. 

Oh, forgot to comment on it.  I was thinking of using Starlight Express too, because why not have another weird train.  If we want to have Tetsuro and Maetel, then maybe I need to retcon which engine brought the Aria cast in.  Though it should probably be an engine from the age of steam, just to get that retro feel.  Hard to get that from a diesel.  Possibly I should use the 888 instead?

I thought the 999 was a coal-steamer though.  *Double-checks*  Yep, sure is.  Not a drop of diesel there.

[Labster]

I have read some Douglas Adams, but lately I've been thinking more about Dirk Gently, and the "everything is connected!!1" angle.  He's a master of having things happen that seem like total non-sequiturs, but once you have enough knowledge of the story, you realize they were logical conclusions of the plot.  Sort of like quantum physics, in that once you learn enough particle physics starts making more sense, but it's still freaking weird anyway.  Also I'm kinda mad that show got cancelled.

No, I meant I used a 999 without Tetsuro and Maetel on board, and a more feline conductor.  So if someone want's to use those characters, that either means they have to pop on board later, or I should have used a different train like the 888.  I was mainly commenting that I couldn't use 444.

Don't get too excited, I'm not working on any software that any Windows end user will get to use, we're selling a service to Microsoft HR.

So far I'm restricting my psychopomps to 6-foot-tall cats.  (Perhaps I will let Harvey be one, too.)  Cait Sìth is on wikipedia, but in Aria he's a patron spirit of Neo Venezia leads Akari into some supernatural situations.  Only Akari and her cat seem to be able to meet him.  Chiyo-chichi, or Chiyo's father, is a giant cat who mainly appears in Sakaki's dreams, and thus may or may not be real.  If real, he's got a pretty weird personality.  He's one of only 3 male characters with speaking lines in Azumanga Daioh.  Finally Oberon is the faerie king of lore and is definitely on Wikipedia, and his wife Titania is too, but she's Shakespeare's invention.  I'm likely to use the interpretation of them from The Ancient Magus' Bride, but The Sandman is also tempting.  And, as fey, just as usable.

I can't think of a better word than psychopomp, as it really just means guide of souls.  Maybe just guide is better.  Or character guide, lol nope.  Dimensional guide.  Spacetime witch?  I was just thinking about how all of the Gunnerkrigg Court psychopomps wouldn't be useful guides in my meaning, as they deal with death and all, but Coyote and Jones would be.

And uh, I needed Cinder to cause a little undue attention.  It's uh...

Spoiler

So you all are right, the canals in Venice are somewhat anemic compared to Venezia.  Increasing them back to their historical range would make things a little more hospitable for my undines.  Though Marina del Rey is also available for tours.

So in my approach to writing, I try to not change too much.  I'm ok with fudging weather or even moon phases for drama.  If things are getting in my way, it's a challenge to be solved -- in slice of life, you gotta really look for conflict-like things.  I write by just poking at my environment with questions until something shakes out.  How does it look?  Who wants to talk?  How does it work?  Those kind of questions.

The idea went like this.  Because of <TBD> Cinder Fall comes to visit Venice and ends up lighting a bunch of stuff on fire.  All very pro forma, mu ha ha etc.  The only characters I got capable of doing anything are Sakura and Shaoran.  Shaoran is wind/lightning magic, so not very effective against the Fall Maiden*, except as a fighter.  Sakura tries to fight the fire with Watery, but this is also not very effective because Cinder's mastery over her element is just better than Sakura.   Watery is just enough to keep Cinder from harming them, but not from stopping the neighborhood from getting ruined.

Then Sakura remembers something ( I or $undine ) said about the way the canals used to run through this neighborhood.  Sakura uses Earthy with Return, to restore the canals to the way they used to be.  (Have I mentioned how broken Sakura's powers are?)  It's super effective, and water rushes in place of the streets of downtown Venice.  With this much water, they can finally suppress the fire attack.  "Cinder doesn't want to get her hair wet because she just got it done or something, so she runs away."  (Stop narrating, Tomo!)  Sakura passes out before getting to return things to normal, and hey, Venice has more canals now.  Something about gas explosions weakening the canal infill, and definitely not magic on the news.

But here's the hell of it that we're all gonna discovers late in the game: everyone is actually a copy.  Once the multiverse resumes normal operations we find that everyone isn't simply snapping back into their home realities.  This strange place that is getting stranger all the time is home now, whether everyone likes it or not.

Cool.  This means Copy Copy Reso can make copies at Copy RÈSO's Copy Copy Shop.

[Dartz]

Why not This bad boy. A source of locomotion of memetic distinction....

[Black Aeronaut]

Why not This bad boy. A source of locomotion of memetic distinction....

I'll see you and raise you by this utter monster....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvan...d_class_T1

And I mean it.  These things were the epitome of the phrase 'Super Beast'.

See, here's the funny thing.  While Union Pacific's Big Boy locomotives were, in theory, the most powerful ever built in the USA (and most likely the world for that matter) with their total tractive effort never having been maxed out, the PRR's T1 was never pushed to see how fast they could REALLY go in any official capacity.  And there are unconfirmed reports of these things clocking in as fast as 140mph... And that is WITH A FULLY LOADED TRAIN.  It's theorized that with some relatively minor improvements and better steel in a few key components... Well!  There's no telling how fast these things could have gone....

....Or is there? 

There is an incredibly ambitious group of railway engineers, steam locomotive operators, and highly knowledgeable historians in what is now known as the Pennsylvania Railroad T1 Steam Locomotive Trust that has undertaken the utterly herculaneum effort of building a genuine production model T1-class locomotive.  It will be the 53rd of its long-extinct kind and numbered PRR 5550.  They have already sourced an existing correct model tender to restore, and they've already begun on the locomotive itself by casting the main drivers.

Their ultimate goal?  To go for the World Steam Locomotive Speed Record, currently held by the LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard at 126mph.  And if the PRR T1's really were clocking in over 140mph with a full load, then that might just actually happen!

[Labster]

I seem to have written myself into a corner, albeit a minor one. I was thinking about having some undines portage a their first boat, and then have a romantic gondola trip afterwards. A gondola is just a big canoe, right? Six undines and me can lift that thing into the water easy, right? Well, Wikipedia helpfully notes that gondole weigh 1500 pounds each (700kg mass), and now I'm wondering if it's even possible. Keep in mind that these women spend half their waking hours pushing water with an oar, so upper body strength should be available for them.

I'm wondering which possibility makes more sense:
* Haha no, you have a boat trailer for a reason, use it (c'mon, what do you do if it doesn't float?)
* Everyone can lift it not too hard
* We do actually lift it down, but everyone realizes it was a stupid idea after the fact.
* Magic gondola is in fact plausible here, but I'd rather not.

I don't have a really good sense of carrying capacity outside of reading the Pathfinder SRD, which suggests it's barely possible if we're all ~13 Str. We could drag it down to the canal, but we still gotta lift it off the trailer.

In a related but-not-really question -- are the Phantomhives natives of this dimension? Could my SI learn of Ciel through fiction? Could some of my people from other universes know of him though fiction?

[robkelk]

I see that 1500lbs is the weight of a cow, or of one-and-a-half concert grand pianos.

I also know that we're limited to 35kg per person when moving gear in the datacentre, for safety reasons. (We might be able to lift more, but we can't move around with more.)

So...

• "Haha no, you have a boat trailer for a reason, use it (c'mon, what do you do if it doesn't float?)" - sounds good to me.
  
• "Everyone can lift it not too hard" - I doubt it, unless you have 20 people.
  
• "We do actually lift it down, but everyone realizes it was a stupid idea after the fact." - maybe, and I'd expect a pulled muscle or two.
  
• "Magic gondola is in fact plausible here, but I'd rather not." - yeah, let's not get Washuu-chan to do everything.
  

EDIT: Would Sakura be able to lift a gondola with The Float? (Which assumes anime CCS, since that Card doesn't exist in the manga.)