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

[Labster]

If Rob is Familia Serenity, what about Princess Kakyuu?  How about Familia Ozymandias?  After all, one ridiculous pun deserves another.

I dont get it?

Her planet is Kinmoku, or Kinmokusei -- which sounds like Kinsei (Venus) or Mokusei (Jupiter) but actually means means "orange osmanthus", a fragrant flower (osme + anthos).

[robkelk]

(Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”)
– Matsuo Basho (translation by Reginald Horace Blyth)

Here, I think this quote might be a bit long for a story title, but would make an excellent lead-in quote for a Hanagumi/Senshi crossover story.

[Labster]

Gee I can't imagine how you're going to work that quote in /s

Oh, and if y'all wanted to get me to watch Danmachi earlier, all you had to say is that season 2 is basically a shonen version of Revolutionary Girl Utena. I mean, even the giant spiral staircase up to a ritual fighting platform is there!

[robkelk]

Here's somebody for online gamers to game against.

Assuming we want to add her.

[robkelk]

Retconning proceeds...

"You're saying that we're all isekai characters." The way Misaka-san said that, it obviously wasn't a question.

Rob thought for a brief moment, then decided to treat it as a question and nodded. "Essentially, yes."

"And you're here to help us learn how to live in this world," Konori-san added.

Without hesitation, Rob replied, "Exactly. That's part of my job."

Saten-san commented, "Isekai cliche number one: meet a friendly native as soon as you arrive." Then she took a closer look at Rob and continued, "You obviously aren't going to give us powers, like Guru Clef, since everybody but me already has some. Are we here so you can use our powers, like Louise de la Vallière?"

Rob didn't mind the comparison to someone from Magic Knight Rayearth, but he actually grimaced at being compared to the lead female character from The Familiar of Zero. "Oh, Hell, no!"

They could all hear the disgust in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Saten-san said quietly after a moment while looking at the floor.

Rob sighed. "And I'm sorry for reacting that way. That was a completely valid question."

[robkelk]

We're going to have to have a Christmas Party story. In Atlanta. After the retconning. Because I just had an idea for it:

Everybody takes their seats for the Hanagumi's Christmas Revue - there are ten empty seats at the beginning of the show. At the end of the show, the theatre is at capacity - the Steel Angel Kurumi displacees arrive during the Christmas Revue, and nobody (including them) noticed until they applauded at the end of the show.

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, I like it.

[robkelk]

Something that has been percolating in my subconscious since this week's writers' talk has come to the surface. I don't know whether it's relevant to this story, but since planing for this story is what probably kicked it off...

The title card at the end of the original run of Quantum Leap said "Dr. Sam Becket never returned home".

Consider also a line from Stargate SG-1: "O'Neill with two Ls."

Two Leapers, and the Sam Beckett that we watched for five seasons isn't the one who never returned home?

[Labster]

So what, he got to come home and meet his cousin Kate at the family reunion?

[robkelk]

So what, he got to come home and meet his cousin Kate at the family reunion?

Only if the hold the reunion in a castle.

---

Here's a peek under the kimono for folks who don't have wiki access: The list of what still needs to be done before we can release the retconned introductory story.

1. Three more "whoops" scenes need to be written, featuring Washuu Hakubi, The War Doctor, and a "Scoobie" to be named later.
   
2. Between five and nine more residence-intro scenes need to be written, either because they never had introductory stories pre-retcon or to show that this story is not primarily about the SIs: The Masaki Residence featuring Garnett Iwasaki (September 7, 2016), Live Oak Manor featuring Jenny Everywhere (September 8, 2016), Black Lagoon featuring ... Rock? Dutch? (September 2016), Callahan's featuring Mike Callahan (September 7, 2016), Appartements Mont-Royal Sud featuring Cassiopée Bright (September 21, 2016), probably 7 Henrietta Street featuring Meg Deckard (September 2016), probably The Steeple featuring Heather Raven (September 2016), probably The Grimmlands featuring Salem (September 2016), and maybe The Old Dietmeier Place featuring Kris Wikstrom (2016).
   

As you can no doubt tell, we are widening the scope of the stories substantially. Some of what's listed here was only mentioned in passing before the retcon in relation to how it affected the SIs (for example, Washuu Hakubi's "whoops" scene started after the fact and was present only because her building manager was about to speak with her); some of this is new (for example,The War Doctor's "whoops" scene).

This project no longer "The SIs and their sidekicks", folks.

Also, this is not all of the retconning that still needs to take place. This is just the retconning that needs to take place before we start posting stories here again.

So, if you were hoping for something to read here before Labo(u)r Day, sorry. That isn't happening.

[robkelk]

Just looked at a map and realized we might want to move an opponent's base.

We had originally located AMALGAM in Indianapolis because it was equally (in)convenient to both the residence housing the Academy City espers and the residence housing the MITHRIL forces. Long-term logistics were irrelevant because they were going to be virtually wiped out in February 2017.

The only part of that paragraph that still applies is that the residence housing the Academy City espers hasn't moved. The MITHRIL forces are now in Philadelphia, and AMALGAM has no reason to be wiped out in one attack.

Does anybody mind if I move AMALGAM's base from Indiana to upstate New York, to put them back between the residence housing the Academy City espers and the residence housing the MITHRIL forces?

[Bob Schroeck]

I have no objections.

[Labster]

Phew. GenCon is now safe!

[Mamorien]

Meetways, a handy-dandy tool for finding what's halfway between two points (and, particularly, what convenient amenities like hotels and restaurants are located at that midpoint), says the midpoint between Philly and Ottawa is in Preble, which I'd never heard of before. My mom would be relieved to know it's well to the west of her native Schenectady, but not so relieved that it's about 15-20 miles south of Syracuse, which happens to be her alma mater (class of '60, alongside the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Carly Simon). Just putting it out there.

[robkelk]

The problem is that there's nothing in Preble for AMALGAM to leverage. At least Syracuse has a train station (and thus has rail lines).

[robkelk]

The problem is that there's nothing in Preble for AMALGAM to leverage. At least Syracuse has a train station (and thus has rail lines).

Just found a great place for them in Syracuse - in real life a big empty lot, right on a freight line... and right next door to the local Triple-A baseball stadium. MITHRIL's not about to risk bombing that.

EDIT: Just plotted noteworthy locations on a map. The markers for AMALGAM, the baseball stadium, and the Amtrak station overlap with each other. <montgomery-burns>Excellent.</montgomery-burns>

[Labster]

There's another candidate for how the multiverse got messed up.  This particular Oglaf strip is SFW, the site in general is very much NSFW.

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah. The Large Birdron Collider.

[robkelk]

Retconning continues...

"Until then, I have to ask you to treat the reasoning as if it's ineffable."

"I don't have a choice, do I? I'd sure like to take the ineffable and eff it."

"I'll take that as a desire to understand."

"Thank you, Milady Belldandy."

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah.  The Large Birdron Collider.

And it occurs to me two days later that the Large Hadron Collider could be a proximal cause, what with all the panicked end-of-world talk when they were first spinning it up.

[Labster]

I am trying to write, but I'm at the part where I need to watch anime to write the next scenes.  I finished Risky Safety, and it was pretty good desu no.  I think we can continue the tradition of Brent just phoning in his application, with the celestials just sending any old angel and demon to vet him desu no.

Tenchi Muyo takes a bit more time.  Most of the characters are pretty simple, with Mihoshi being perhaps the simplest -- which is why I remembered her well enough to write her a decade after last seeing the anime.  On the other hand, there's Washuu.  A woman of science, who in her first appearance prays to the gods.  She has known love, heartache, loss, and hope.  She's estranged from her children, and doesn't quite know how to connect, but chooses to present herself as a child.  Even as a genius, she's still subject to limits from social class and gender.  Oh, and have I mentioned she's a fully-incarnated goddess?  Honestly I would not be surprised if Washuu found herself involved in a cycle of Rose Duels at some point in the past.

Anyway how Washuu reacts to Skuld, and how Skuld reacts to her, both of these is going to take a bit of subtlety.

[Bob Schroeck]

Unfortunately I didn't get anything done over the weekend -- I was really hoping to flesh out Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Touring as well as the other opening scenes I'd volunteered for, but I was on call for work for all of Saturday and most of Sunday, and didn't have enough time at any point to really get myself into the right headspace. And we have a friend coming in from Boston tonight who we're spending all day with tomorrow... I suspect I won't have anything to show for the last week come Wednesday.

[robkelk]

I managed to get some work in, but not on the introductory story. But it was retconning work for the most part.

And I'm going to need to write three new stories because of a single retcon... Here's the first scene of the first story:

Kemptville, ON, Canada
October 30, 2016


"The seas are restless today."

It was an odd comment, considering the speaker was over a hundred kilometers from the Great Lakes, and even farther from any of the Seven Seas. But her girlfriend knew that she was speaking metaphorically.

"Should we be expecting an attack?"

"I don't believe so. This is something... different."

"Something new?"

The room was quiet for a moment. "No, this is something I've felt before, but not often. This is more of a ebb or swell than a storm."

That brought a smile to her girlfriend's face. "So it's a change. Anything to relieve the boredom of this town."

[Inquisitive Raven]

I started rewatching A's. Right out of the gate, Nanoha mentions, not her age, but what year of school she's in. The dub translates it to "third grade." And Fate joins her class on returning to Earth. So yeah, if they're starting at Masterman right away, they'll need to skip a grade (I'm assuming after A's, they'd be in 4th grade otherwise, but I really don't know how much to trust the dub or how closely the Japanese school system parallels that of the US).

[robkelk]

I remember hearing about this on Under the Influence a few years back, so I'm inclined to take it at face value.

What I'm wondering now is who ends up turning one of the tractors at The Old Dietmeier Place into a souped-up speedster. It isn't as if a group of a dozen late-teens who design their own firearms don't have sufficient mechanical skills to overtune a tractor, after all. They might need Jaune to explain how a tractor works first, but they could do it.