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[OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
On the subject of Mitsuwa Marketplace, there is one about an hour from us in Edgewater, right on the Hudson across from Manhattan (at about 120th Street) and about 15 minutes away from Gundam Planet. If anyone cares to write anything about the New Brunswick group, this would be a fun excursion.
-- Bob

I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber.  I have been 
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
(04-30-2019, 07:22 PM)robkelk Wrote: Hmmmmm...

Brent, I don't want you thinking I'm asking you to do something here.

It's just that I had reason to look at LA on Google Maps (Q: "How reasonable would it be for Mimette Mimi to stay in Venice and work in Hollywood?" A: "Very, if she learns how to drive, and if she's going to live in LA, she'll need to learn.")... which tells me that, if you go a few blocks east on Venice Blvd from the Mitsuwa Marketplace, you'll find The Museum of Jurassic Technology. From the reviews, that sounds like someplace Tomo would take practically anybody who visits and asks to see a museum. And if the Ottawa crowd visits LA for more than a day, both Rob and Ami would ask about museums... (Usagi: "No! Not another museum!")

Assuming the reviews are accurate, Ami would be puzzled until she figured out what this is a museum of, while Rob would love every minute of it.

Shall we assume the reviews are accurate?

Really because it feels an awful lot like you're asking me to visit the museum in person. And I think that can be arranged. Big Grin
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Okay guys, who's not seen Avengers: End Game yet? Because I feel that, with the closing of that particular saga and the patch job I've done on the TNB Cosmology, we can go ahead and start to actually plan out the MCU integration.

Yea's and Nay's here. We'll start a dedicated thread for that shenanigans.
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Yea.
-- Bob

I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber.  I have been 
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Nay, but I'm so far behind in the franchise that you shouldn't wait for me.
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Haven't seen it yet but go ahead because I won't see Endgame until it comes out on dvd
Wolf wins every fight but the one where he dies, fangs locked around the throat of his opponent. 
Currently writing BROBd

RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Nay. I've seen 3 films total in the MCU, and like two episodes of Agents of SHIELD. Specifically, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Black Panther. Oh, and half an episode of Jessica Jones; watched up until I realized that it was really not my thing.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
we currently have the X-Men Evolution cast assigned to Windsor, but I don't think that causes any major conflicts with the MCU. The MCU doesn't have mutants (at least not beyond a vague hint in Winter Soldier), and Evolution didn't have many non-mutant capes. Logan may be surprised that the Cap he remembers fighting alongside isn't the same as the MCU Cap, but that's the only thing I can think of.
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Okay, looks like I'll be handling that more or less on my own. I'll do write-ups for them later, like sometime after I'm done with introing all my tenants.
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Pretty much why I wasn't enthused when you said you wanted a four color world. I really would have no way to participate. Mind you, you need to be careful when adding stuff like this to the story. The Marvel Universe is already a megacrossover with extensive canon and it's very opinionated about what sort of stories should be around it. The characters are powerful enough to dominate plots. And even if you "restrict" to the cinematic world, that's still twice as long as our other longest work (and with way less stock footage), hundreds of characters, and you still deal with the echoes of the comics in the movies anyway.

On my front, it's an entirely different problem. One of the things I liked about Cardcaptor Sakura is how the costumes change every battle, and I assumed that must have been a lot of work. I assumed right. I'm writing a battle scene for Sakura, which of course means a designing a new battle costume. Dammit, Mokona. This is not really a natural state for my brain, but I'm trying my best. My research reminded me that French sailor hats have a pompom on top, which I think agrees with Tomoyo's tastes.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Hey quick question that I don't think we've addressed yet. Are we taking in RWBY characters from before or after the fall of Beacon? Before or after they met Jinn? Actually the first question is the most important to me, as I'm more interested in the villains than the heroes for now. And I know we've picked characters out from different times too, but it's would be awfully weird to have Cinder trying to kill Ruby for what she did, and Ruby to be all like "Who are you? Do you know that Torchwick guy or something?
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Urgh.

I had this whole schpiel written out, and then my anxieties just had to come a-knocking.

Doesn't help that I just had a long and fairly stressful day with my car's cooling system on the fritz, trying to fix it*, and then working through the thunderstorms that came charging through the area. (It's not the storms themselves or even the driving conditions - it's watching out for the fucking idiots that think they're immortal or some bullshit.)

I'll try again later, but until then...

Can you explain how the Four Color Theorem applies here? I poked around online and all I saw was just stuff about mathematics and geopolitical maps, so I'm missing something there. Probably will want to thwack myself over the head with a Louisville Slugger afterwards.

* Oh boy was this ever an experience. Went to the pick-and-pull to get a replacement radiator fan for my car. First one seemed to work, but it only actually had one (and only one) working stator coil and by sheer chance started up when my car did. I didn't figure this out until middle of lunch shift when the car's AC goes out and the engine starts to overheat. Went back to the pick-and-pull between lunch and dinner for an exchange - they won't let me bring a battery pack into the yard, so I can't test the fan motors out there. Instead I have to pull one, bring it out to my car, connect jumpers between the terminals on the fan and my battery, and hope that it works. If not? Go back in, tell them that one's no good, and go and find another one to start the process over again. I went through two more duds before I finally found one that works! I even went and swapped the fans themselves - the older versions had a very nice turbine-style fan while the newer ones were basic straight-edge five blade fans. Swapped the turbine from a non-working motor onto the motor that did work. NICE airflow now! But good LORD the hassle I had to go through... orz...
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Oh, sorry, the four colors are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. I was implying comic book characters/superheroes.

Not sure why they wouldn't let you bring a battery in, that seems pretty dumb. Like you're gonna switch it for a better battery or something?
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Oh, that's easy. Sheer levels of stupidity so astounding they're right out of that film, Idiocracy.

They had a case just a couple of weeks ago where someone brought in a battery to the cash wrap to test a fan before they checked out. Idiots were holding the thing upright while they connected the leads, and one of them had his fingers right inside the fan shroud. No word if they were able to reattach his fingers or not.

My method is a lot more intelligent. Use a booster pack with an on/off switch and ffs leave the damn fan shroud on the ground!
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Okay, attempt number two here...

Labster, Dartz, I would like to apologize to you guys.  Because really, we should be handling this a bit more like Fenspace where every author has the freedom to do their own thing.

I think the problem that I myself have been having with this is that this has been my brainchild for more than ten years.  And when you've had an idea in your head for that long, it's kinda hard to let other people come into the sand box and do other things.

And really, the more I think about it, the more it would fit with the Metacontinuity that I have in mind - the Basic Idea that the people in the area have an influence over how the world develops in their area.

For example, if Dartz really wants a more gritty environment to juxtapose against the existential angst of someone who is so many contradictions that they don't know how to fit in anywhere, then that's what Dartz should be able to write.

And if Brent wants an easy-going environment where he can just write slice-of-life fun times and shenanigans, then that's what Brent should be able to write.

The thing is, I actually would like this to be something where there's a bit of everything for everyone.  And in order to do that, everyone must be allowed to do their own thing.  Just because I'm throwing in everything including the kitchen sink shouldn't obligate the other writers to do nothing but high-octane action and FEELS the way I have.

Thoughts, anyone?
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
The one thing that bugged me early on in the setting was when I went to the trouble of trying to create an interesting early problem to solve - a mark gets pushed too far and stabs Lou - and it's handwaved away in the next post by the application of a deus ex machina from another series. I guess I've been sour since then but it just sort of boiled over recently.

You can have some really interesting problems in Fenspace. Handwavium lets you have the interesting problems - it doesn't make them go away. That's not fun. It sounds rediculous to call Fenspace more grounded - but it sort of is. There's more consensus and care and it seemed more collaborative. And the egregious stuff was quickly quashed (The Adamantine Rapier. Or stealing the Intrepid.)

Your society has a War. Your Society gains the followup consequences. Veterans being one among them. What do they do? (It's a struggle)
Gender-Bender biomods are common. What happens when you get one? (Support groups for that too! And everyone's different)
You have a common engine core that runs on uranium, what happens when it gets tinkered with. (A blue flash and a nasty surprise)
You tinker with nuclear materials and accidentally discover how to make a nuclear weapon. What next? (A final understanding of Oppenheimers quote)
Why would somebody really want a nuclear weapon in space? (Because it's valuable to terrorists who will pay a lot of money to give a city some canned sunshine)
What's the real existential threat? (Freaking the mundanes. For the most part they're happy playing cultural imperialist - for fear they'll spark an actual imperial effort they'll loose)
What happens when you're the same person you were ten years ago, and your partner changes? (The relationship ends - but not with any acrimony)

It's not gritty to push a ball and have it hit something and then more balls go skittering around. It's just normal.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Dartz gets it. The problem is that sticky settings like Tenchi Muyo and MCU and DCU and Ranma have a tendency to make all crossover plots look like them, which makes writing other kinds of plots more difficult.

Quote:I think the problem that I myself have been having with this is that this has been my brainchild for more than ten years. And when you've had an idea in your head for that long, it's kinda hard to let other people come into the sand box and do other things.
I dated a girl like that once. It didn't work out quite how I expected it to when we finally dated.

Quote: And if Brent wants an easy-going environment where he can just write slice-of-life fun times and shenanigans, then that's what Brent should be able to write.
I know what you're saying but a couple of posts back I'm talking about bringing RWBY villians in, who are generally people for whom Bad Horse would offer credentials to the Evil League of Evil. RWBY Chibi notwithstanding. This encounter will be traumatic, to say the least. But for this to happen at all, it's kind of important that Tenchi not show up with the Light Hawk Wings, you know? Where I'm going is like this: Scenes in The Shire are absolutely essential for providing context to scenes in Mordor. Scenes hiding behind bushes spying on dates in Azubu provide emotional weight to those at the D Point.

Incidentally, I'd pull them out post-Beacon. Not sure if later than that is better, but I do love Calavera's style. At least I need to know what costume Cinder is wearing and what powers she has.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Some random, half-considered thoughts while I sort out what I'm really thinking...



Did Washuu Break the Internet? Did the walls between realities start to crumble on their own? Did a bunch of Random Near-Omnipotent Beings decide to toss settings into a blender and hit puree?

Yes. And No.

None of us are N-dimensional beings where N>4 (or 3, if you don't count Time). We cannot know the correct answer.

(10-08-2018, 01:55 PM)robkelk Wrote: "That's close enough, considering what humans are able to understand," Skuld replied. "The actuality is different, but the analogy is sound."

Rob nodded. "I expect everything that I sense you doing here is just an analogy that I can grasp."

Skuld turned to Urd. "See! He gets it! I knew he was the right person to call on for help!"



Fenspace is big enough that we can write a multitude of different kinds of stories. The stories there are about the entirety of F&SF fandom plus related groups.

There's Nothing Better has a smaller canvas, despite potentially having a larger cast. By design, the stories here are about the self-insert characters, whatever form they might be in. (Stories about the displacees are Lower Deck Episodes, even when the displacees are characters like Tenchi, Sakura, or Usagi). We've dropped from "millions of people" to "fewer than a dozen people", and that limits the stories that we can tell.



Have we finished introducing the supporting characters that we want in the stories?

Are we ready to advance the plot?

Those are not necessarily mutually-exclusive. And, right now at least, each writer can have different answers to them - which might be adding to the frustration.



Yeah, there's a difference between "a 40-year-old dating a 20-year-old" and "a 30-year-old dating a 10-year-old", even though the age difference is identical. Sure, Charlie Chaplin married an 18-year-old when he was 55, but she was old enough to have gone through puberty.
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
And here's a copy of the current (as of posting) version of this wiki page, so everybody can have a shot at hashing it out.



= Rough Outline of the Overall Plot =


''This page was last updated by {{REVISIONUSER}} on {{REVISIONYEAR}}-{{REVISIONMONTH}}-{{REVISIONDAY2}}.''

All Arcs. All Discussion, no Story. This is a "living document" and a draft document - feel free to add to it!

This is the broadest of broad outlines for where we're going with the entire series of stories called ''{{SITENAME}}''. As people add to it, we will have a better idea of where we're going.

== Technical Matters ==
* '''Voice:''' Third-person present in the main thread. Sidestories are encouraged but not required to be consistent.
* '''Point of View:''' The SI of the author writing the scene is the standard point of view character, unless he or she isn't present in the scene. (We have date-and-place headers on the stories to help identify the point of view.)
* '''Pacing:''' To be determined. Arc 1 has a relatively slow pace so that characters can be introduced and developed past the point of cardboard cutouts. Arc 2 will have a faster pace as combat and conflict become more common. Arc 3 is probably going to be slower than Arc 2 but faster than Arc 1. Arc 4 is likely to have the fastest pace of all. Sidestories and After Story tales have the pacing required by their plots and genres.
* '''Tone:''' Tricky, in that each contributing writer has a different idea of what stories they want to tell. Overall, ''{{SITENAME}}'' is a deconstruction of the Self-Insert, so tones used in SI works are preferred. However, the setting is neither a dystopia nor a utopia, so tones commonly used in those types of works are discouraged. Ultimately, we're aiming for a relatively happy ending - the Big Bad is defeated and nobody dies gratuitously, but nobody goes back to their old lives, either - so the ''overall'' tone should be upbeat but not shiny-perfect.
* '''Description:''' As needed to develop the plot and characters. [[att:Show, Don't Tell|Show, Don't Tell]]... unless you have to tell in order to show.

== The 100,000-foot View ==
[[Washuu Hakubi|Washuu]] Breaks the <s>Internet</s> Multiverse. Everybody's being copied into a single universe so that the Goddesses can fix the rest of the multiverse.

[[Salem]] thinks the gods screwed things up once again, and she can do a much better job than them. So she decides to replace them, and if she can't do that, then destroy everything just to prove them wrong.

The SIs start out by making sure the (other) displacees have a place to live, and eventually end up leading the defense of all reality against Salem's plots (and anything else that goes wrong - the Goddesses are too busy to fix everything).

== Plot Arc 1: Arrivals ==
''The Yggdrasil/Nidhog system has crashed, locking the entire multiverse down into stasis and creating a new universe where everything is being dumped - The Metacontinuity. But can our SI-Heroes help stymie the encroaching chaos so the Goddesses can repair the damage?''

Important plot points:
* Characters start showing up.
* Places start showing up (e.g. Callahan's)
* Fights take place, but not with any organization.
* SIs and displacees start getting power-ups.
* People find out about the displacees, with all the social upheaval that brings.

Important events:
* '''September 7, 2016:''' ''[[Washuu Hakubi|Washuu]] Breaks the <s>Internet</s> Multiverse.'' People start getting dumped into the Metacontinuity, beginning with various ''Tenchi Muyo!'' characters. The Goddesses and Demons have their hands full, and start making plans for other displacees.
* '''September 9, 2016:''' Characters from other fictons start appearing in the Metacontinuity: ''A Certain Scientific Railgun'', ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''Wreck-It Ralph'', ''Portal'', and others.
* '''September 11, 2016:''' Characters from ''Aria'' and ''Sailor Moon'' appear in the Metacontinuity. They are the first to not appear directly where they will be living.
* '''September 26, 2016:''' The first recorded non-human spacecraft appears in the Solar System.
* '''September 28, 2016:''' The first recorded cross-ficton battle: Sailor Jupiter fights a Predator.
* '''October 31, 2016:''' The first recorded event that involves all displacees: [[The 2016 Halloween Party]].
* '''December 21, 2016:''' [[Donaldson en Kazakiri|The first recorded character powerups]] - Hyoga Kazakiri and Rob Donaldson. ''(expect this line to be changed once the Halloween Party is completely written)''

== Plot Arc 2: Crisis on Infinite Earths ==
''Heroes, villains, and everything in between are appearing in Metacontinuity in rapid succession. Nations are established and epic wars are fought. But can peace be attained with so much chaos?''

Important plot points:
* Entire cities, countries, and planets start showing up.
* Salem starts organizing her attempts to bring everything down in flames. Fights start having some strategic and tactical thinking behind them.
* Kyubey is somehow convinced that entropy is still something that needs to be countered - never mind that the very existence of Washuu and Belldandy prove otherwise - and throws in with Salem.
* Displacees work out who speaks for Earth on the Galactic stage.

Important events:
* [[The Academy City Job]] happens early in Arc 2 - possibly the very first thing that happens in this arc.
* Starbase 1 appears. While a borrowed science ship looks for (and finds) The Monolith in Tycho crater, Moonbase Alpha shows up. Europa is declared off-limits.

== Plot Arc 3: Good News Bad News ==
''It seems that things are looking up. Metacontinuity is stabilizing, but signs of a deeper concern are lurking in the background. Villainous elements have been mysteriously disappearing and that cannot be an actual good thing.''

Black Aeronaut: "To put this into perspective, my idea was that Season 3 is supposed to be like the series of events in the ''Star Wars'' universe that take place between ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and ''Return of the Jedi''. Sure, one could skip over it, but they're missing out on a lot of content between the two movies."

== Plot Arc 4: Apocalypse Everywhere ==
''Salem, Kyubey, and the rest of her minions trigger an apocalyptic event that winds up triggering apocalypse scenarios throughout the multiverse. Can this systematic annihilation of all life in all universes be stopped?''

== After Story - Tales of the Metacontinuity ==
''Short stories or series about life in the Metacontinuity after the 'Metastability'.''

== WHAT WE HAVEN'T DECIDED YET ==
* When do people discover they aren't going "home"?
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
I think everything I had planned sort of went out the window. September to October is a much shorter time period than I thought. For some reason I had January or February 2016 in mind.

That way there's time enough for the Stars to get settles and 'active' to the point where they could conceive of spending a month in the Democratic Peoples Federal Republic of the United States.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Yeah, fighting the schedule something that is happening to me, too.  Trying to combine a show with intentionally deliberate pacing like Aria with major life changes happening in six weeks is a bit difficult to balance.  I'm at a point now where the CCS group is showing up about 10 days before Halloween, taking 5 of those days as a vacation across the country, and somehow Tomoyo is finishing ten or more costumes in that time.  Something needs to give.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Dartz, there's no need to throw everything out the window - we're still in Arc 1, even at January 2017. That's four-five months guaranteed, not two, and more if people need it. However, this means BA and I need to slow the pace we've set for powering up our characters, and everybody needs to write more slice-of-life stories.

Halloween costumes... yeah, it's not practical for Tomoyo to make them all, at least not for the first year. Let's let Tomoyo make the costumes for Sakura's group and Akari (since that one's plot-relevant), and everybody else gets to find their costumes elsewhere. (...thinks... ah!) There are plenty of other costumers out there who are willing to take orders, and HAL no doubt can find them all. That brings Tomoyo's workload down to four costumes in 10 days (Sakura, Shaoran, Tomoyo, and Akari) - not impossible, especially if she starts Sakura's and her own with half-made outfits that otherwise would have become battle costumes for Sakura, and finishes the last costume on the train. (The only one I've specified she made for the Ottawa crowd was Rei Hino's, and I know "Hatsune Miko" costumes are available off-the-rack from internet shops. The only difficult one for my group is Usagi's... and, since it's a combination with Mamoru's and he's in San Antonio at the time, Sasami can sweet-talk Washuu into making them both, right?) EDIT: And now the story says Rei got her costume from the internet, except for the microphone which Kazari built for her.
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Quote:There are plenty of other costumers out there who are willing to take orders
...carefully avoiding any place called "Ethan's"...
-- Bob

I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber.  I have been 
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
The upside of most of the costumes I chose were that Disney Princess costumes can be bought off the rack, which is like 4 of the 6 undines.  Although Tomoyo did make the mermaid's seashell bra... in 10 minutes.  Bra + shell + hot glue gun.  Which I looked up on the internet, of course.  No wonder Google still thinks I'm a 25 year old woman.

(05-05-2019, 09:46 AM)robkelk Wrote: Some random, half-considered thoughts while I sort out what I'm really thinking...



Did Washuu Break the Internet? Did the walls between realities start to crumble on their own? Did a bunch of Random Near-Omnipotent Beings decide to toss settings into a blender and hit puree?

Yes. And No.

None of us are N-dimensional beings where N>4 (or 3, if you don't count Time). We cannot know the correct answer.
Some of our characters might get a little closer to the truth than others.  I think I can probably dash out something of an explanation of metafictionality by crossing over Fakir from Princess Tutu with The OA.  That is, if I hate you guys enough to include that much mind screw.

(05-05-2019, 09:46 AM)robkelk Wrote: Fenspace is big enough that we can write a multitude of different kinds of stories. The stories there are about the entirety of F&SF fandom plus related groups.

There's Nothing Better has a smaller canvas, despite potentially having a larger cast. By design, the stories here are about the self-insert characters, whatever form they might be in. (Stories about the displacees are Lower Deck Episodes, even when the displacees are characters like Tenchi, Sakura, or Usagi). We've dropped from "millions of people" to "fewer than a dozen people", and that limits the stories that we can tell.
Honestly I was not exactly planning on the SI being a main character, but rather being a POV character.  I don't think we have this one on ATT, but the closest I see is Supporting Protagonist + Audience Surrogate.  But the idea is that there's some world that is already happening, and this character gets thrown in, in medias res, which is an awful lot like real life can be.  Noah Wylie's Dr. Carter in ER or Harry Kim in ST:V.  Maybe Kagome in Inuyasha qualifies as well.  They're not really privileged above any other character, but they give the audience someone to follow.

I seriously considered writing in Fenspace, but the problem is that I'm just not one of the fen.  I've never gone to an entertainment convention.  The perspective is very much not me.  Whenever I see a celebrity, my first instinct is to leave them alone so they can enjoy their day like a normal person.

(05-05-2019, 09:46 AM)robkelk Wrote: Have we finished introducing the supporting characters that we want in the stories?

Are we ready to advance the plot?

Those are not necessarily mutually-exclusive. And, right now at least, each writer can have different answers to them - which might be adding to the frustration.

Ugh... no.  I mean, off the top of my head there's everyone from Ai yori Aoshi and Princess Tutu, and maybe a couple-a teachers, not to mention basically all the villains.  Look at UF, I don't think this set ever closes.

Advancing the plot is fine, though.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
RE: [OOC][PLOT] The Fourth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
(05-05-2019, 12:53 AM)Labster Wrote: Dartz gets it.  The problem is that sticky settings like Tenchi Muyo and MCU and DCU and Ranma have a tendency to make all crossover plots look like them, which makes writing other kinds of plots more difficult.

.... *Sighs*

Okay. Fuck it.

I'm gonna be straight up with you guys here.

I have been tempted several times to go home, and take this ball with me, because of stuff like this, here.

I thought it would be a fun project. But every time I think we're getting somewhere, this or something else happens, and I have trouble coping because I feel like anything I do just blows up in my face - like last time when I had trouble communicating why having Ben make a social faux pas that makes everyone angry at him is most emphatically not a good idea. (It would require a whole story unto itself.)

So, this is how it is.

I've got a lot on my plate right now. I've got my first appointment with the Neurosurgery Department, which is probably going to be where I will need to determine the direction the rest of my life takes. I'm behind on my rent, as usual, because my car has an intermittent electrical issue in the ignition system that is gonna be a fucking pain in the ass to figure out, and may or may not be complicated by a slowly dying fuel pump. I really should be looking at registering for classes here, but I'm not because I'm pretty sure I'm on academic probation now, and I don't want to fuck myself again by taking classes that I can't spare the mental bandwidth for because I'm worrying over other shit and/or too depressed to bother going.

You want to know how fucked up my existence is? My brother in the Marines has bought ANOTHER CAR for me - this time a 2013 VW Jetta. Guess what happened not even one day after he bought it? He managed to mix up first gear and reverse and fucked up a Corvette. And not just any Corvette. It happened to belong to the Driving Safety Coordinator of his base.

The only good thing was that he was paranoid and over-insured the Jetta with $100,000 for property damage. But because of the accident, he won't be able to transfer ownership of the vehicle for SIX MONTHS.

And we already bought a plane ticket for me to come over there and drive it back.

That is how fucked up shit is for me right now - that even when other people try to help me, that effort gets fucked up even before anything falls to me!

I don't need this being a worry in the back of my mind. But unfortunately, my ADHD+Aspie brain doesn't play nice with me. It likes to throw shit like this, along with whatever the hell else it wants to, into the forefront of my mind whenever it can get away with it. And then Anxiety comes long to spew vitriol over the whole thing and set it on fire.

I don't need this.

I really don't.

Here are your options:

One.
We stay the course. It's all fine and well to critique something and say that it's going to be hard to do. But instead of just leaving it at that, how about we try and come up with solutions instead of just problems to keep us from thinking of solutions?

Two.
You guys go ahead and bow out. Rob and I will just go ahead and redo this whole thing with just two apartment managers and go from there.

Three.
I put an end to this because it is really bad for my mental well-being.

I don't like Option Three, and I don't really think Option One is gonna happen.

I apologize if anyone feels like they just got their head bitten off, but this is just the sad reality of things for me. And as I've already said, I don't need this.

Please, figure out what you guys are gonna do.

I'm gonna try and sleep this off, and hopefully be awake in time tomorrow to make my appointment.


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