[OOC][PLOT][ARC 1] Planning for Season 1 - The Retcon

[robkelk]

Progress report.

Inquisitive Raven has started to take a larger role in the story planning.

Here's what still needs retconning, to a greater or lesser degree:

• The introductory story (needs a re-write to remove plot elements that we have been asked to remove, change building managers, and add a few new buildings)
  
• The story of displacees arriving at Gulfside Rest (needs a re-write to change building managers)
  
• "Halloween in Another World" (needs a partial re-write to remove plot elements that we have been asked to remove)
  
• "Reach for the Moon" (needs a partial re-write to explain what's going on more clearly)
  
• Mimete's arrival in the Metacontinuity (needs a partial re-write to remove plot elements that we have been asked to remove)
  
• The Rental Magica characters' arrival in the Metacontinuity (needs a minor updating of one scene)
  
• ITEM's arrival in the Metacontinuity and the Level 5 vs. Level 5 fight story (needs a partial re-write to remove plot elements that we have been asked to remove)
  

We've hammered down (or at least tacked down) a lot of dates and personalities, which was necessary for the "Halloween in Another World" story re-write.

We've removed some characters from the Metacontinuity because none of the active writers have stories to tell about them.

And there are some new stories that are waiting for at least the introductory story to be re-written before being published here.

[Labster]

Hey, if we have a Lita Misaka, and a Misaka Worst, can Misaka 13357 be Misaka Best?  Her name literally spells it out in High Leet.  (Misaka 8357 also has a claim to the name, but sadly Accelerator happened to her.)

EDIT: Oh, and speaking of naming, I just played A Summer's End, which is probably not going to get included here, but: according to it, at least in 1986, Hongkongers choosing English names was common. Wikipedia seems to agree. In story, one character chose her own name with help from a friend, while the other one got her English name from her father. So in theory, we'd have something like uh, [John] Li Xiao Ran (not official).

Except, and oh gosh why did I decide to go down this rabbit hole now, Cantonese doesn't seem to have a /ʃ/ sound. Okay, found this:
> [Because of older romanizations...] For instance, many names will be spelled with sh even though the "sh sound" (/ɕ/) is no longer used to pronounce the word.
And they seem to use a proper /l/ sound. Actually, is his name even Cantonese? Gaah, need more research.

Edit 2: Lei⁵ Siu² Long⁴. Of course.

[robkelk]

Hey, if we have a Lita Misaka, and a Misaka Worst, can Misaka 13357 be Misaka Best?  Her name literally spells it out in High Leet.  (Misaka 8357 also has a claim to the name, but sadly Accelerator happened to her.)

"Misaka Bess"? Sure, why not...

What?

"Best", not "Bess"?

Sure, why not?

[Labster]

Bess is 13355.

[robkelk]

Hm.  This might make Pensacola a destination for an excursion by the Bakuon!! girls.  Call it two weeks, maybe taking the old Route 9 instead of interstate 95 for the off-the-beaten path scenic route.  Might be a good story in there.  Maybe they're part of a combined road test/delivery run for his bike...

Heh.  Anyone want to ship Harley and Raimu (AKA "Stig-sempai")? <grin>

"She's a nice girl, but when we're alone I just can't get a word in edgewise!"

[Bob Schroeck]

Heh.

[robkelk]

Submitted for your approval: a help-wanted ad to start off each building's first story.

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some other language, some knowledge of property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person; contact us for the address.

(Hey, if I'm going to steal a format, I'll steal from something by one of the best. Ads in places where English is not the predominant language would replace that requirement with the local lingua franca. The "some other language" requirement can also be replaced; for Bob and me, it would be French.)

Then the building managers mention they were hired (describing the job interview with one of the Celestials or Demons if desired) and get dropped head-first into their residences. Most show up just before the first batch of displacees, but Garnett Iwasaki shows up after the Masaki residence has arrived and thus starts the Vancouver story in media res.

We discussed this during yesterday's writers' discussion... and we've made a change to it.

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some other language, some knowledge of property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person; contact us for the address.

Of course, this begs the question of who provides the health care. "Somebody licensed" would be nice, which lets out all the medical students among the displacees. Belldandy and Washuu-chan are busy with other things, so they can't be on-call for everybody 24x7.

The Steeple is lucky enough to have two magical healers in residence: Yuuno Scrya and Shamal. Similiarly, Blossom has Hotaru Tomoe in residence as of 2017.

Gulfside Rest has one of the better doctors in the displacees in residence: Simon Tam.

And if somebody desperately requires brain surgery, we know where to find Buckaroo Banzai.

But who provides medical care for everyone else?

[robkelk]

During yesterday's writers' chat, we decided that it might be a good idea to have the 2016 Christmas party at the Grand Imperial Theatre - let the Hanagumi put on a holiday revue.

It wouldn't be fair to them to make them entertain everybody all night... so who else gets to perform?

33-Stars, again? Hokago Tea Time? Michiru Kaioh and Mikoto Misaka in a violin duet? Athena Glory and Sarah Dupont is a singing duet? Anybody else who should obviously have fifteen minutes of stage fame?

[Bob Schroeck]

You know HTT will volunteer, as will Wakaba Girls -- and you've already covered OnNaGumi in the other thread.

As for anyone else... maybe this is the point to integrate the Hong Kong Cavaliers more tightly into the displacee community?

Gorillaz? (Oh, and I was amusing myself yesterday by imagining HTT performing "Feel Good, Inc." And wondering if Noodle would hang out with the other older Japanese girls.)

Eddie Wilson?

(And does this mean we have another album for the Sessions?)

[robkelk]

I was looking at the wiki page for AMALGAM, and I realized that there's a hole in our infrastructure.

Rouge or dangerous AIs get locked up in Warehouse 13. Where do we put rouge or dangerous flesh-type displacees?

If we just shoot them, somebody's going to notice the bodies -- this is a deconstruction, after all. (Besides, we might want them alive for a later story down the line.) So I'm thinking we need a residence to lock them up in.

Something based on Portmeirion, perhaps? (But not located in Wales. Stick it on an island somewhere, maybe.) And have the building managers take turns being in charge, for verisimilitude? (Or leave that to the professionals on Hild's staff?)

And if we do this, what happens when (not if) they escape?

[Labster]

Rouge or dangerous AIs get locked up in Warehouse 13. Where do we put rouge or dangerous flesh-type displacees?

I'm pretty sure singers in 33-Stars wear rouge occasionally, too.

Who are you thinking of, actually?  I'm having trouble of thinking of people who meet this definition.  Largo, Lore, Replicator!Carter?  Fiction doesn't have a whole lot of evil human-form robots.  Well, there's the Cylons, but that's complicated too.

[robkelk]

D'oh! "Rouge Angles of Satin" strikes again.

Rogue humans, not rouge. And I'm thinking of people like Leonard Testarossa - the ones who, if caught by a law-enforcement agency, would be put on trial.

[Norgarth]

D'oh! "Rouge Angles of Satin" strikes again.

Rogue humans, not rouge. And I'm thinking of people like Leonard Testarossa - the ones who, if caught by a law-enforcement agency, would be put on trial.

Or Cinder Fall if she were to be captured.

Or hell, someone like Michael Voorhees or a Dr No from James Bond. 

Not Sure if Harry Mayborne (SG-1) would count, he is fairly patriotic, he just is willing to do really underhanded things to 'help' America.

[robkelk]

Hang on. Wait a moment. Fridge Logic time.

Having the displacees responsible for locking up displacees only makes sense if the displacees are a law unto themselves.

But this story is a deconstruction. We're supposed to be applying real-world rules to this sort of situation, just like we're supposed to be applying them to everything else in the setting.

So we shouldn't have a penal colony or a prison - we should be letting the police and the courts deal with this sort of situation.

... the ones who, if caught by a law-enforcement agency, would be put on trial.

Although the corollary to that is we can't keep the displacees secret from the authorities once we need the authorities to step in.

Remind me, please: Why were we keeping the displacees secret from the authorities, again?

[Labster]

We're only keeping it secret so they don't think we're crazy. Also, some of us will engage in vigilante behavior, and want to keep that secret as well. (As I've commented before, there's no way anyone sane would give police powers to twelve-year-olds.) In America, at least, involving police increases the chances of people getting killed, and everywhere for displacees not of the local ethnicity.

Real supermax prisons do a lot better at keeping folks in than, say, Arkham Asylum. At some point we need to help set up antimagic around these places, so that people can't get out.

There is one major case where our displacees will want to act as police and judge and jury: in making a new love and justice system to punish people in the name of the Moon Kingdom.

[Norgarth]

additional issues of 'leaving it to the police'

- The police are unlikely to be prepared or able to handle abnormal abilities.
- If you were to find the joker wandering around, do you want to have to wait until after he commits mass murder and hope the cops can catch him?  Or lock him up ahead of time? 
- Past crimes in their native continuities aren't going to be enough for them to be locked up in the Metacontinuity (different juristditictions, even if the authorities believe they really are said character and not some loony playing dress up)
-depending on how the villains commit their crimes, the investigators may not be able to find the evidence, or understand what it means when they do find it, which would make arresting and convicting them difficult.

[robkelk]

And, hey, I'm discovering stuff that I bought (or got for free) years ago and had forgotten about - including a Ford 9N tractor with trailer that could reasonably have been forgotten in a barn at the Old Deitmeier Place. Cue Team RWBY and three-quarters of Team JNPR wondering what the heck it is, and Jaune casually hopping onto it and starting it up. Or not starting it up, because the gas tank's empty.

I like that idea... there's a story there.

I also found a nice little "wood chopping" set - axe, stump, split and unsplit logs - that Jaune could use to get firewood ready for the winter.

And now I'm thinking that Eleanor might end up mentioning "that nice John boy who does all the chores" to Kris where some of the others can overhear her... and Kris letting Jaune know about The Waltons before Nora and Pyrrha start teasing him by calling him "Jaune-boy".

[Bob Schroeck]

<two thumbs up> We must do this.

I'm also envisioning Jaune actually getting the truck working, everyone in RWBY and JNPR climb in, either front seat or bed, and they drive into town, only for Jaune to get pulled over and asked for his license...

[robkelk]

The Ford 9N is a tractor... but worry not, I also re-discovered a 1930s-era pickup in my collection. (And a WWII jeep, and a stagecoach. And enough motorcycles to keep even Harley happy.)

Maybe old man Dietmeier was a collector?

[Bob Schroeck]

The barn is, right now, absolutely undefined in terms of size. It can be as big as is reasonable to hold whatever you want to put in it. We can even have it be like some barns I've seen in the Shenandoah Valley that have a tall stone foundation providing a "basement" with access on one side, and the "ground floor" access on the other side. (Like this barn, for example.) And we can use the "basement" for vehicles, both before and after remodeling.

[Labster]

You need to be careful with adding space to an undefined barn, because adding to an undefined value just means its still undefined.

I started watching Danmachi and ended up binging the whole first season.  Note that for me, binge watching doesn't mean I really liked it, it means that I'm interested but not enough happened and I'm trying to get to the actual plot of the show.  I have a really mixed impression.

Impression follows...

The animation is outstanding; the music is passable, I guess.  The writing system is English and not too hard to read, but looks plausibly foreign at first glance. Are we doing yet another show where the hero is inexplicably shy around women?  I guess it was amusing that when caught peeping on the girls bathing, only one of them didn't want to be seen in the nude by Bell -- and Hestia was more upset that the other girls were nude than that he was peeping.  From the art I saw before watching the show, I was expecting Hestia to be more sexy and flirtatious, but she turned out to be the goddess of imouto instead, which is fine.  Still no idea how that ribbon stays up, but I've been wondering that for years.

Lililuca's backstory is really good and dramatic, and maybe next we can investigate her fami... no, we're going to fight an attack-on-Titan instead. The scene in the end where everyone works together to defeat the goliath monster is really cool.  But, like, it's also worse than the same scene at the end of Kemono Friends where everyone defeats the giant cerulean — that one has more drama, Serval doing her "nya-nya-nya-nya-nya" attack, and straight up clever strategy.

The setting seems interesting at first glance -- descended gods setting up heroes in a bog-standard dungeon.  But it's also really cliche, and doesn't seem to do much with that cliche.  I'm not surprised by almost everything that happens.  Are the gods messing with the humans for their own entertainment?  Of course they are, they're Greek gods, that's what they do.  We never get a good impression of what familias are like, because your main perspective characters are all atypical familia.

But it's a great story about how someone from a modest background with only a minor patron can aspire to greatness.  Oh wait, haha, never mind, he's identified as Zeus' grandson in the last 5 minutes.  Okay, to be fair, this is pretty Greek.  But now it makes even less sense that he's not out seducing all the girls (and swans) who want his cock!

The idea of divine familia seems useful to our story, and the dungeon monsters seem remarkably close to creatures of grimm from Remnant.  But the characters all seem a little too thin to realistically use in our story.  Does it get better?

I'm also watching another anime, but I'll comment a little more when I finish desu no.

[robkelk]

You need to be careful with adding space to an undefined barn, because adding to an undefined value just means its still undefined.

Does it make a difference if you consider it to be a container?

I started watching Danmachi ...

The idea of divine familia seems useful to our story, and the dungeon monsters seem remarkably close to creatures of grimm from Remnant.  But the characters all seem a little too thin to realistically use in our story.  Does it get better?

It gets better, once they admit in the second season that there's more to the city than just the dungeon. And then there's season three, where they question a setting axiom. (On the other hand, Bel just can't figure out that there's two sexes, no matter what he goes through... although that does lead him into to a couple of problems.)

[robkelk]

Possible definition for the barn (since I already have this one): 14-century Tithe Barn.

Overkill for most farms, but at 400 acres, the old Deitmeier Place isn't most farms.

[Bob Schroeck]

Well.

I expect at least a couple someones in the Lake Wobegon area will think the Deitmeiers were trying to build a cathedral if that's on the property. Yeesh.

It's more than a bit medieval, but it does have a certain Scandinavian feel to it...

[Labster]

That barn is way too big. But on the other hand, imagine the training team RWBY could get in there.

You need to be careful with adding space to an undefined barn, because adding to an undefined value just means its still undefined.

Does it make a difference if you consider it to be a container?

Actually, it does, because that means we still have an address for the barn.  7756 County Road 9, to be exact.

I started watching Danmachi ...

The idea of divine familia seems useful to our story, and the dungeon monsters seem remarkably close to creatures of grimm from Remnant.  But the characters all seem a little too thin to realistically use in our story.  Does it get better?

It gets better, once they admit in the second season that there's more to the city than just the dungeon. And then there's season three, where they question a setting axiom. (On the other hand, Bel just can't figure out that there's two sexes, no matter what he goes through... although that does lead him into to a couple of problems.)

Yeah, actually, it did get better right away in the second season.  Weird.