Incidental Bits Thread #3

[robkelk]

Quoting from the first thread: "A thread for the stuff that can't ... and, in some cases, shouldn't ... support a story on its own, primarily to get the idea out of our heads so that we can come up with other ideas that we can use." Of course, one writer's silliness is another writer's plotbunny.

• Pre-retcon thread #1 is here.
  
• Pre-retcon and mid-retcon thread #2 is here.
  

---

One crossover that, as far as I know, nobody's planning on making yet:

My Apartment Manager Can't Be This Cute!

[Labster]

Yomi pulled her bike off of the beach path onto the grassy side, and over towards a pair of redheads.  One of them was practicing doing flips and handstands, but the other was just sitting and staring — not out to the ocean, but instead staring at a blank page in a spiral notepad.  "Still can't come up with the next act of the show?"

Mia sighed.

"That bad, eh?"

"What's the point of coming to another universe if the critics here already know the entire Kaleido Stage repetoire?"

Yomi thought about launching into a discussion of malleable continuity, but decided against it.  Mia had read her book, after all.  "I don't think there is a point, Mia."

Mia sighed again.  "You have any bright ideas for an act?"

"I don't know.  How about... 'The Burning Woman Hurling Through The Air With Dynamite In Her Hair Over Sharks And Spiky Objects, Caught By The Man Locked In The Cage'."

Mia declined, "Yeah, no, I don't think we're going to use that."

"Yeah, we did that already back in the Black Moon Circus," Vesta chimed in.  "Way too derivative."

Yomi and Mia both glared at Vesta.

"What, do I have something on my face?" she said defensively.

---

This scene is derivative of Matilda the Musical, at least in the name of the act.

[robkelk]

I have no place to use this, so feel free to steal it.

---

"Please surrender before I have to resort to violence." Tessa even asked politely.

"Oh, yeah? You and what army?"

At that point, the Tuatha de Danann surfaced in the nearby river.

"Will you settle for a navy?"

[robkelk]

"You say Shampoo not bound by laws of the Joketsuzoku now that she in this world. Shampoo say she and great-grandmother are last of the Joketsuzoku. Oh, and Mousse. That make it more-more important to keep old ways alive. Shampoo must marry airen. It matter of honor. Who care he not love Shampoo?"

'So much for that idea', Epsilon thought.

[Dartz]

I've been reading a very particular set of books lately.

------
It had been almost four years since our unceremonious arrival on Ancient Terra and my plan to escape from Amberley’s personal Emperor-hunting expeditions by fixing my personal flag to the noble cause of ensuring the safety and security of the free and democratic people of Ukraine in the face of the expected aggression of the despotic and Imperialist Russia was working beautifully.

Especially since there was no possible way the situation could devolve into a full-blown conflict. All the intelligence analysts and gleaners of the ‘news media’ assured that the armed forces of Russia had made none of the expected logistical buildups necessary to actually support a war effort and it really was all to be an exercise.

A one-year contract of service in the international brigades for myself and my aide seemed like the perfect solution to a lot of snowballing problems following our passing out from the L.É. (1).

Had I known on our arrival at Hostomel what I know now, maybe joining Amberley’s mission to the Death Zones of the Himalasian mountains might have been the safer option.


---

1: The Legion Étrangere, or French Foreign Legion, a military force of one of Ancient Terra’s nation states, with membership open to those joining under assumed identities.

[Bob Schroeck]

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Canada
Monday, September 12, 2016

Chris still hated Mondays.

Not quite as much as he had in the late 1990s -- none of the full-fledged, berserker rage, ''must kill'' kind of hate he'd had for them in his youth (he'd mellowed somewhat in twenty years or so, after all) -- but even though he didn't have to make an 8:30 staff meeting any more, he still woke up on the day after Sunday expecting the worst.

He wasn't usually disappointed.

Still, this particular Monday hadn't been too bad, and he'd gotten through to dinnertime without too much in the way of a disaster. With work done, the odds of something going wrong went way down, and he could relax somewhat. His cooking repertoire had expanded somewhat over the past twenty years, but he still had his favorites. Pasta was one of them, and he had begun preparing a batch to celebrate getting through the start of another week.

When the black-haired girl erupted from the steaming pot, he was seized by a profound sense of "someone's screwing with me." That, and deja vu.

After all, he'd written this scene in 1998.

At least she didn't fall on top of him, scream, and hammer him into unconsciousness.

But what she did next was almost as disturbing. As he backed off warily, she slowly touched down onto the floor in front of the range, then bowed to him. "Christopher Angel," Skuld said -- and he could almost hear the unspoken "nii-chan!" behind his name -- "Heaven has need of you."

---

A tribute to my one-time collaborator (on DW-5) Chris Angel and his self-insert works. He hasn't been on the forums (as "jpub") in well over four years, and was never an actual part of this project, so think of this as a "might have been" rather than a "might yet be".

[robkelk]

For some reason (I don't yet have a story to use the idea in), I'm thinking of a character, native to the Refuge timeline, who suddenly becomes able to use magic when various spellcasters show up in the reality. Now, is this character a reincarnation of a previous spellcaster, or does Merle Lynne simply have a suspiciously-apropos name?

[Bob Schroeck]

... and possibly a grudge against their parents for being excessively cute in their choice of baby names...

[robkelk]

"Sorry, Chibiusa, but I don't have time to help you with your homework right now. I have to finish this transplanted persons services report for Lord Phantomhive before 5pm."

[Labster]

“It’s decided: I’m going to become a Kaleido Starfish! Everyone will be so impressed with my tentacular performance that they’ll inkstall me as leader of the surface world!”

[robkelk]

There's a band and a '80s-era anime both named after a series of children's books, the name of which translates into English as "Belle and Sebastian".

Now, I see a name like that and wonder what two of the Celestial very-higher-ups in Refuge did to have a story to themselves...

[robkelk]

"What's with the title 'Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon'? We aren't hogosha, we're senshi. 'Pretty Warrior Sailor Moon' is a more accurate translation."

[robkelk]

“It’s decided: I’m going to become a Kaleido Starfish! Everyone will be so impressed with my tentacular performance that they’ll inkstall me as leader of the surface world!”

Will she think to ask for a star's salary, or will Kalos simply pay her scale?

[robkelk]

"Grant me the power to bring the world revolution!"

"Did somebody call me?" Sailor Saturn asked.

[Dartz]

I'm sure there'll be some finely costumed superheros who'll show up to stop 'em anyway.

That's what superheroes do - preserve the status quo, no matter how injust.

[robkelk]

Just discovered a local business that's been in business since 2014, and is reasonably close to Blossom.

---

"Your website does say that members are allowed to throw their own weapons."

"It does, but we expected people to bring in knives or axes. That's a rose."

[robkelk]

Inspired by a discussion that Inquisitive Raven and I had during a writers' chat.

---

"Shouldn't that be 'Weiche Stütze', not 'Weichstütze'? 'Weich' is an adjective in German."

"But I'm not speaking German," Hayate replied. "I'm speaking Belkan."

[robkelk]

Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
October 12, 2016


Rob walked into the common room to hear Minako say, "Not a Brazilian, I hope."

"By now, I really should know better than to ask, but what are you talking about?"

"Oh, hi, Rob! Usagi's new job in the primate pen at the zoo."

He couldn't figure out what she meant. "There's no zoo in Ottawa."

"Ami said she's waxing gibbons," Minako pointed at her friend, who was equally confused.

He was finally enlightened. "Ami, by any chance did you say, 'The Moon is waxing gibbous'?"

[Dartz]

That's actually painful.


.... then again, I immediately starting thinking of puns involvong bare-arsed seafarers so - you know......

[robkelk]

"A can?" Kurz asked in disbelief. "Stop thinking so small. This is a ballistic missile submarine. Tessa's going to open a 55-gallon drum of whoop-ass!"

[robkelk]

A little something for when we start doing archaeological digs on the Moon:

---

Ami reached over Yuuno's shoulder and took the device from the corpse's hand.

"Hey! You can't just take something from a dig!"

"Why not? It's mine."

Yuuno blinked in surprise. "Is this...?" he started, motioning toward the body.

"Yes, that's me. How did I die?"

[Bob Schroeck]

Ooh, I like. I wonder if I should have Doug comment that he's probably buried at least one of the girls' former incarnations.

[Dartz]

Lemme fiddle with that. I have a sense of humour so black it has a Schwarz child radius

----

"So how did she die?" asked Usagi,

Yuuno looked up from the bones just long enough "You don't want to know," he said.

Usagi pouted. "But I love watching True Crime series on television. And it can't be any worse than some of those. Why, there was this one time where they locked this girl in a basement and...."

"OK." Yuuno interrupted her, taking a breath. He sat back on his own heels, giving himself a moment to compose his thoughts and wonder what it was about women and brutal homicides.

"The left leg and lower right arm were disassociated from the remains." He pointed to a another cordened off area, about ten meters away. "We found them over there." Another archaeologist was busy cataloging them.

"Ow," said Usagi.

Yuuno nodded "She broke her back, pelvis, several ribs, and this fracture on the jaw here." He beckoned her in close to the bleached remains. "You can actually see where claws tore into the bone, here, here and here."

Usagi loomed in.

"Ooohh"

"Anyway, none of that would've killed her immediately. From the position of the bones and how it looks like she tried to protect herself I'd say she was still alive and conscious when they burned her body."

"Ow," said Usagi, again.

"I don't know who she was - most of the uniform is burned."

Usagi stared down at the remains, with grim intensity. The bones stared back up at her through empty eye sockets. Something inside her stirred - a vague familiarity. Yuuno - seeing she'd zoned out, busied himself brushing layers of regolith from between bleached bones. Her fingers - what remained on them, still held on to to a sliver object, the size of a zippo lighter but infinitely more ornate. Even after centuries, it hadn't tarnished.

Ami reached over Yuuno's shoulder and took the device from the corpse's cold dead hand.

Usagi 'eeped' in shock, the spell on her broken by Ami's sudden intrusion.

"Hey!" Yuuno snapped. "You can't just take something from a dig!"

"Why not?" said Ami. "It's mine."

Yuuno blinked in surprise. "Is this...?" he started, motioning toward the body.

"Yes, that's me. How did I die?"

Usagi's face lit up, her mouth snapping open ready to reveal the goriest of details. Yunno's hands smothered the words before they could emerge.

"Quickly." he blurted out. "Very quickly. Almost painless in fact. Just poof and gone. Probably never even realised it happened."

"Ah," Ami nodded, looking down at the device in her hand.

Usagi steamed, face already turning a bright cherry red.

[robkelk]

"He reminds me of my sempai," Makoto Kino said as she watched Ryouga Hibiki head toward the road.

"He does?"

"Yeah -- he's clueless and he's walking away from me."

[robkelk]

"Have you seen some of the fanfiction about us?"

"I assume you found the lemons."

"Is that what they're called? Anyway. Why would anybody think I'd ever do that?" She pointed at one of the windows on her screen. "Or this? Or this? Or... actually, that one looks interesting."

"And anatomically impossible."

"Oh... Drat."