[OOC][PLOT] The Fifth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[Bob Schroeck]

Fortunately BA posted the working link over in Hangar 13; I've added it to his message.

[Black Aeronaut]

Argh!!! *Insert sulfurous sailor cursing here*

Okay, it's fixed now.

[Labster]

I'm feeling well enough now to even consider writing again.  It was kind of like a flu in the end, but the symptoms started really slowly and each day got worse for like 10 days.  I am now hopped up on prednisone so the cough is coming down. 

Now I have to remember what the heck I was working on back before vacation.  I get to have the same experience for work too.  Weeks off, forgot everything, and easily distractible right after Labor Day, it will be just like back-to-school days for me.  Except I seem to have gained one employee under my supervision in my time off.  So maybe I'm the teacher this time.

I guess I should watch BA's new anime find. I was feeling bad enough not to want to watch anything substantial, and especially not anything that would make me laugh/cough.  

Not just those Sora and Marion though

Of course not!  You need Rosetta, too!

And maybe Nadia

[robkelk]

...
Now I have to remember what the heck I was working on back before vacation.
...

IIRC, something about Cinder. At least that's where your posted snippets were heading.

Although I could use a reaction shot for my story where Mimi ended up being duplicated... (And I could use reaction shots for the same scene from BA and Rajvik as well.)

[robkelk]

Still trying to figure out what in the green gables you want to do in Halifax.

Something that was discussed in a couple of PMs - BA, Bob and I are the only three in on it so far. Give it a week.

Ahhhh, that.  Pretty sure you guys will like that.

It's up.

(With a couple of minor edits from what the pre-readers saw. We all missed the one-room suites that I had said were in the building... but that was caught and fixed before posting.)

EDIT: And here's something for folks with wiki access.

[robkelk]

This stupid crack-pairing idea lodged in my head while I was looking for art for the new-to-the-setting characters, and made me glad the Nerima Wrecking Crew is nowhere near L.A.

He's a human who turns into a duck when splashed with cold water.
She's a duck who turns into a human with a special necklace.
They fight crime!

[Mamorien]

This stupid crack-pairing idea lodged in my head while I was looking for art for the new-to-the-setting characters, and made me glad the Nerima Wrecking Crew is nowhere near L.A.

He's a human who turns into a duck when splashed with cold water.
She's a duck who turns into a human with a special necklace.
They fight crime!

I never knew I needed this. I don't even really follow either of those fandoms. And yet, it's chef-kiss perfection.

[Dartz]

The ultimate quack pairing.

...I'll get my coat for that.

[Rajvik]

give me a direct link Rob, and i'll read and react, mentally i'm working on something for the halloween party, being my usual semi-antisocial self and getting somewhat called out by Mao on it, could use some help there by her author

[robkelk]

give me a direct link Rob, and i'll read and react, mentally i'm working on something for the halloween party, being my usual semi-antisocial self and getting somewhat called out by Mao on it, could use some help there by her author

This post ends with the scene, but you need to read the entire post for the context.

BA's responsible for Mao...

[Rajvik]

Reacted to Rob

[robkelk]

Thanks. It's on the wiki now, along with more draft story text.

[robkelk]

And I've advanced the posted story to another point where input from other writers is needed.

Who goes and gets lunch, and who stays with the Mimis when they get dressed-down? Which won't be an actual dressing-down, because Rob doesn't have it in him to be that nasty, especially after being calmed down by Ben and Hyouga. But that's what everybody's expecting... including Rob.

Of course Usagi stands with her new friends. Accelerator will stay, too, but only for Mimi Misaka's sake. The others at Blossom are smart enough to realize the girls don't want to be embarassed in front of their friends. (Besides, the Misaka Sisters can tap into Mimi's mind through their mindlink.)

[Rajvik]

Im fairly sure out of mine only me Mal and Misato would stick around, its a leadership thing.

Added another reaction by the way.

[Black Aeronaut]

Ben will want to stick around.  Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate will probably be using their devices to eavesdrop - they're very curious to see how Ben handles this so they know what to expect later on down the line.

Ben will be having a very empathic response to Mimi.  Unlike with Fate, this isn't a matter of abuse per se.  Rather, it's the whole thing where suddenly your world is crashing down around your ears and everything seems to have gone wrong.

And really, for Mimi, it has.

Once she was a normal girl who somehow got roped into being a horrible and spiteful villain - which was all the more terrifying because all that horribleness came from her - it just got amplified.

And now she's woken up from one nightmare into an all new one where absolutely everything she's ever known has just been upended - she feels very much that the proverbial rug was yanked out from under her.

When nothing at all is familiar to you, you'd be desperate to have something that is familiar.  Hypothesis: Mimi subconsciously chose this so she'd have someone who understands her completely so she wouldn't feel so alone.

---

*something something "what were you thinking!?"*

"She didn't want to be alone," said Ben, his voice cutting through the conversation despite his soft tone.

"What?"

"Think about it," said Ben.  "It's just like my SI in Being You is Suffering.  Your entire life has been ruined, you feel powerless and alone, and then suddenly you find yourself in a world that completely invalidates everything you believe in.  Who better to commiserate with than yourself?  Sure, being able to pursue both options at the same time sounds like good motivation on the surface... But this goes beyond a simple desire to have your cake and eat it, too.  You don't do something that desperate unless you really are that desperate."

---

And then later on, one of her is bound to corner Ben...

I'll PM it to you and see what you think first.

[robkelk]

Ben will want to stick around.  Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate will probably be using their devices to eavesdrop - they're very curious to see how Ben handles this so they know what to expect later on down the line.

Ben will be having a very empathic response to Mimi.  Unlike with Fate, this isn't a matter of abuse per se.  Rather, it's the whole thing where suddenly your world is crashing down around your ears and everything seems to have gone wrong.

And really, for Mimi, it has.

Once she was a normal girl who somehow got roped into being a horrible and spiteful villain - which was all the more terrifying because all that horribleness came from her - it just got amplified.

And now she's woken up from one nightmare into an all new one where absolutely everything she's ever known has just been upended - she feels very much that the proverbial rug was yanked out from under her.

When nothing at all is familiar to you, you'd be desperate to have something that is familiar.  Hypothesis: Mimi subconsciously chose this so she'd have someone who understands her completely so she wouldn't feel so alone.

Always good to have a Watsonian explanation to go along with the Doylist one (which is "Brent and Rob wanted to write the same character"). Especially one that opens up storytelling possibilities.

*something something "what were you thinking!?"*

"She didn't want to be alone," said Ben, his voice cutting through the conversation despite his soft tone.

"What?"

"Think about it," said Ben.  "It's just like my SI in Being You is Suffering.  Your entire life has been ruined, you feel powerless and alone, and then suddenly you find yourself in a world that completely invalidates everything you believe in.  Who better to commiserate with than yourself?  Sure, being able to pursue both options at the same time sounds like good motivation on the surface... But this goes beyond a simple desire to have your cake and eat it, too.  You don't do something that desperate unless you really are that desperate."

Which immediately takes the wind out of Rob's sails.

"You're right. Mimi, we can't have this discussion now - I'm still angry. Go get lunch. I'll be along in a few minutes."

And then later on, one of her is bound to corner Ben...

I'll PM it to you and see what you think first.

I like it. But I may play with it a bit to make it both Mimis who corner Ben - they're still essentially the same person on the first day of being twinned, after all.

[Black Aeronaut]

Ben will want to stick around.  Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate will probably be using their devices to eavesdrop - they're very curious to see how Ben handles this so they know what to expect later on down the line.

Ben will be having a very empathic response to Mimi.  Unlike with Fate, this isn't a matter of abuse per se.  Rather, it's the whole thing where suddenly your world is crashing down around your ears and everything seems to have gone wrong.

And really, for Mimi, it has.

Once she was a normal girl who somehow got roped into being a horrible and spiteful villain - which was all the more terrifying because all that horribleness came from her - it just got amplified.

And now she's woken up from one nightmare into an all new one where absolutely everything she's ever known has just been upended - she feels very much that the proverbial rug was yanked out from under her.

When nothing at all is familiar to you, you'd be desperate to have something that is familiar.  Hypothesis: Mimi subconsciously chose this so she'd have someone who understands her completely so she wouldn't feel so alone.

Always good to have a Watsonian explanation to go along with the Doylist one (which is "Brent and Rob wanted to write the same character"). Especially one that opens up storytelling possibilities.

*something something "what were you thinking!?"*

"She didn't want to be alone," said Ben, his voice cutting through the conversation despite his soft tone.

"What?"

"Think about it," said Ben.  "It's just like my SI in Being You is Suffering.  Your entire life has been ruined, you feel powerless and alone, and then suddenly you find yourself in a world that completely invalidates everything you believe in.  Who better to commiserate with than yourself?  Sure, being able to pursue both options at the same time sounds like good motivation on the surface... But this goes beyond a simple desire to have your cake and eat it, too.  You don't do something that desperate unless you really are that desperate."

Which immediately takes the wind out of Rob's sails.

"You're right. Mimi, we can't have this discussion now - I'm still angry. Go get lunch. I'll be along in a few minutes."

And then later on, one of her is bound to corner Ben...

I'll PM it to you and see what you think first.

I like it. But I may play with it a bit to make it both Mimis who corner Ben - they're still essentially the same person on the first day of being twinned, after all.

Glad you like it. 

Although having both of them corner Ben at once...  The phrase, "Oh crap they're multiplying!" comes to mind.  Ben won't actually say it, buuuu~uuuut... 

[robkelk]

Okay - more story is up.

I know how to handle the lunch scene. (Although any additional reactions to the comment about Mimi playing with herself would be appreciated.)

Skating... Who can skate?

• Ottawa: It's canon that Makoto's an excellent skater and Usagi picked up the skill quickly. There's no reason to believe the other Senshi can't skate, but there's also no reason to believe they're as good as Usagi, let alone Makoto. Official art shows Ruiko isn't as comfortable on skates as Mikoto, Kuroko, and Kazari are. Accelerator can cheat and control his own balance vector. Mii's a martial artist, so she should be able to at least keep her balance after the first few tries. Rob can barely balance, if he has to - but he's driving the van. Kamijo and Index... will stay at home with Maika, thank you.
  
• L.A.: It's canon that Tomoyo's an excellent skater, and Sakura picked up the skill quickly. Sharoan can skate after a fashion. (Assuming the Kaleido Star folks have arrived, Sora can skate rings around Tomoyo and Makoto at the same time.) No data for the others.
  
• Montreal, Pensacola, San Antonio: No data.
  

[Rajvik]

Low likelihood for the Pensacola crew, NGE was stuck in an eternal summer and with the exception of the Tams, I doubt anyone of the Serenity's crew ever had the chance to learn.

And don't look to me either, I can roller skate, but the only thing I've ever done with ice is drive on it or put it in drinks

[Black Aeronaut]

There's a few roller rinks here in SA, but the main action on ice is the local ice hockey team. They're not in the NHL, but it's still a professional team. That said, Ben doesn't know how, but he's game for it.

Sousuke probably won't know how, but with Tessa being a Bostonite and Kaname having spent a few years in NYC, I'm sure they'll coach him along just fine.

Tenchi... Not sure. I don't know if it gets cold enough in Okayama for the lake to freeze. Just for fun, though, lets say that all his ladies know how.... But for even more fun, let's have it that Mihoshi, despite being a klutz, looks like an absolute angel on the ice because her homeworld regularly has those kinds of winters.

Fate strikes me as the sort of person that would know how (and therefore, Alicia as well), and if Nanoha doesn't know, then she'd pick it up quickly enough - she's born from some very graceful people.

[Black Aeronaut]

Addendum: teleportation magic is something they have in MGLN-verse. It's just not commonly used in close-combat because it takes a moment - even if a short one - to run the calculations.

The data they collect, however, can go towards building a short-range teleport spell that can be cast in a split-second.

Additionally, we also decided that one of Ben's upgrades would be a fast, short-range teleport thanks to his Masser Assimilation.

We can have it that it's something that's not quite ready to go yet. The Assimilation wouldn't have been a perfect one - Ben's physical makeup is more like he's had the Masser's cells incorporated among his own. This would give him the basic self-defense ability of the Masser's. In order to be able to use the teleport ability, though, Ben needs to be more like Ryoko - a true synthesis of the two beings. (Of course, Ben won't be anywhere nearly as powerful - after all, Ryoko is literally Washu's daughter, so she had her mother's potential as a starting point.)

It would take a few treatments in Washu's lab. They could do it all at once, but it's felt that it should be done in stages so Ben doesn't go around ripping doors out of their frames by mistake.

[Labster]

Finally read that last section of the story #10.  It's really good.  Good explanation of Moon Healing power -- it kind of reminds me of my own theological questions on what Heaven is like.

Just to prove that I haven't abandoned you all, here's a bit of a story I've been working on.  I actually got the idea from Rob about a month ago while I was on vacation -- if we're going to talk about her so much, she really needs a backstory.  And uh, then I went a little off the deep end.

Brent wandered into the common room of Aria House, currently occupied by three people: Tomo and Yomi partaking of the latest library acquisitions, and Akari typing away at her computer.

She was having a bit of writer's block at coming up with the next topic for her blog post, and had sought out a different atmosphere than her room, to maybe get a different perspective on writing.  It wasn't working.  She sighed, and opened up her email for a distraction.

Brent asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing.  I just can't come up with anything to write about today."

"It's okay, you don't have to write.  It's just for fun, right?"

"Actually, we get some of our best customers through the website.  It's not like Neo Venezia, where undines are a part of local life.  We have to make our own following, and our own traditions here.  It's really very exciting!"

"Oh, well, keep at it then.  You must be doing something right," Brent offered.

Her computer made a small ding sound, that of new email arriving.  "Oh, cool.  We got another interview request.  Someone from from the newspaper named Minkao Jinguuji wants to do a story on Aria Company."

"Oh my God, you're going to be interviewed by Minkao Jinguuji?"  Tomo jumped on the couch, then over the back of it, and rushed over to the table where Akari was set up.

"Sure, I guess?"  Akari thought that Tomo was making a bigger deal of it than normal.

"You're really hitting the big time now!"

"Wait, who?" Brent asked.

Yomi clarified, "Minkao Jinguuji, you know, from Hard Press?"

"Is that like a talk show?"

Tomo held out her hand in front of Brent expectantly.  "I'm going to need you to surrender your otaku card now."

"Geez, okay.  So I don't know about one little manga."

Tomo gasped.

"Um, Hard Press is kind of a big deal." Yomi explained.  "You've really never heard of it?"  Brent shook his head.  "Akari, can you search the web for Minkao Jinguuji?"

"Hahi!"

Leaning over Akari's shoulder, Yomi corrected, "No– not Minako.  Pretty common typo."

"I don't think this is what you're looking for, Yomi-san."

She read down the page, and didn't find anything for the manga, or the anime, or even the live-action movies.  Not even a single image.  "What the heck, it's all bylines."

"Does that mean she's native to this universe?  Wow!  Best dimensional jump ever!" Tomo concluded.

"Is she native though?"  Yomi perused the search results on the holographic screen hovering above the physical screen.  "I'm not seeing anything older than October here."

"And why is she taking on a feature story like the gondoliers here?"

"An early-career fluff piece?" Yomi posited.

"Or maybe she's onto us."

"Yes.  That makes sense."

Brent noticed Akari's slack jaw and blank expression.  "Hey, don't look at me, I have no idea either."

Yomi turned to Brent and explained, "She knows the undines are from another universe."

Tomo added dramatically, "And she's going to blow the story wide open."

"That doesn't sound good for us." Brent shuddered.

Yomi shook her head, "She probably won't do that to us.  Remember Ryosuke.  And the Green Dragons."

"What about the Ibis incident?"

"That was just early installment weirdness."

To Akari, Brent mumbled, "Do we always sound this weird when discussing fiction?"

"Um, yes?" she returned sheepishly.

Tomo countered, "That just means that early-career Minkao would do anything to succeed.  We could be dealing with the young, win-at-any-cost version before she matured."

Brent covered his eyes with his right hand.

Hard Press is a josei manga classic that just doesn't happen to exist in our universe -- in fact, it's absence is one of the reasons the josei genre isn't quite as big as it should be.  Well, relative to other Earths.

Minkao Jinguuji was born into a life of privilege, the daughter of a Japanese father and a Hong Kong socialite mother who married to cement a business alliance.  As heiress to the fortune, her future was all but assured.

Until one day, it wasn't.  Disgraced and despairing, her parents took their own lives rather than suffer the humiliation of trial and imprisonment.  That's what the official investigation concluded, anyway.  But Minkao-chan, she knew better.

Sent away to live with a distant relative in the country, with nothing remaining of her life of luxury, she swore that one day, she would uncover the truth of what happened to her family, and those who did this to her.  But not as a member of the useless police -- but by becoming Japan's greatest reporter.

Her entry to the journalism industry is another series of hard knocks for Minkao, but eventually she learns that she doesn't just deserve her place atop the news -- she has to earn every byline.  She makes fast friends, but can't quite open herself up to love -- she's too driven to her goals, to the level of an unhealthy obsession.  And every story is one step closer, one step deeper, into the dark world of the yakuza, triads, and zaibatsu politics that ruined her family.

I'm not really sure what Minkao looks like.  She's pretty, of course.  Probably blonde and wears a upon her head a ... blue ribbon, lol.  Sort of a mashup of Chitose Fujinomiya and Nanami Kiryuu in her adolescence, being forced to give up that attitude by real life, and moving towards Sumire Iwaya and possibly Saeko Nogami.  With a little of Bob's version of Lisa Vanette thrown in for flavor.

[Black Aeronaut]

*Tilts his head*

.... Wait, so what brought this on?

It's not that I disapprove, it's just that I don't remember anything about this and it's kinda driving me nuts now.

Otherwise, I like it. It'll make for a good WTF? for people to puzzle over. "So wait. Now we have someone from a fictional work that was in a fictional work? How frakin' meta are we gonna get here!?"

[robkelk]

Minkao

Y'know, you could have just corrected my typos... (There were only two left on the wiki - they're gone now.)

Anyway.

Not blonde, redhead. With hair clips on both sides of her face. Looks cute, but tough as nails in her own way. In another universe, doesn't have the "ao" at the end of her name.

"So wait. Now we have someone from a fictional work that was in a fictional work? How frakin' meta are we gonna get here!?"

"Let's Gekigang-In!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Omg.... freakin Mink the Dragon-Half!?

If she sprouts a tail, wings, and horns and then demands to know why, Ben is gonna tell her that it’s all your guys’ fault.