[OOC][PLOT] Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[Labster]

I have read some Douglas Adams, but lately I've been thinking more about Dirk Gently, and the "everything is connected!!1" angle.  He's a master of having things happen that seem like total non-sequiturs, but once you have enough knowledge of the story, you realize they were logical conclusions of the plot.  Sort of like quantum physics, in that once you learn enough particle physics starts making more sense, but it's still freaking weird anyway.  Also I'm kinda mad that show got cancelled.

No, I meant I used a 999 without Tetsuro and Maetel on board, and a more feline conductor.  So if someone want's to use those characters, that either means they have to pop on board later, or I should have used a different train like the 888.  I was mainly commenting that I couldn't use 444.

Don't get too excited, I'm not working on any software that any Windows end user will get to use, we're selling a service to Microsoft HR.

So far I'm restricting my psychopomps to 6-foot-tall cats.  (Perhaps I will let Harvey be one, too.)  Cait Sìth is on wikipedia, but in Aria he's a patron spirit of Neo Venezia leads Akari into some supernatural situations.  Only Akari and her cat seem to be able to meet him.  Chiyo-chichi, or Chiyo's father, is a giant cat who mainly appears in Sakaki's dreams, and thus may or may not be real.  If real, he's got a pretty weird personality.  He's one of only 3 male characters with speaking lines in Azumanga Daioh.  Finally Oberon is the faerie king of lore and is definitely on Wikipedia, and his wife Titania is too, but she's Shakespeare's invention.  I'm likely to use the interpretation of them from The Ancient Magus' Bride, but The Sandman is also tempting.  And, as fey, just as usable.

I can't think of a better word than psychopomp, as it really just means guide of souls.  Maybe just guide is better.  Or character guide, lol nope.  Dimensional guide.  Spacetime witch?  I was just thinking about how all of the Gunnerkrigg Court psychopomps wouldn't be useful guides in my meaning, as they deal with death and all, but Coyote and Jones would be.

And uh, I needed Cinder to cause a little undue attention.  It's uh...

Spoiler

So you all are right, the canals in Venice are somewhat anemic compared to Venezia.  Increasing them back to their historical range would make things a little more hospitable for my undines.  Though Marina del Rey is also available for tours.

So in my approach to writing, I try to not change too much.  I'm ok with fudging weather or even moon phases for drama.  If things are getting in my way, it's a challenge to be solved -- in slice of life, you gotta really look for conflict-like things.  I write by just poking at my environment with questions until something shakes out.  How does it look?  Who wants to talk?  How does it work?  Those kind of questions.

The idea went like this.  Because of <TBD> Cinder Fall comes to visit Venice and ends up lighting a bunch of stuff on fire.  All very pro forma, mu ha ha etc.  The only characters I got capable of doing anything are Sakura and Shaoran.  Shaoran is wind/lightning magic, so not very effective against the Fall Maiden*, except as a fighter.  Sakura tries to fight the fire with Watery, but this is also not very effective because Cinder's mastery over her element is just better than Sakura.   Watery is just enough to keep Cinder from harming them, but not from stopping the neighborhood from getting ruined.

Then Sakura remembers something ( I or $undine ) said about the way the canals used to run through this neighborhood.  Sakura uses Earthy with Return, to restore the canals to the way they used to be.  (Have I mentioned how broken Sakura's powers are?)  It's super effective, and water rushes in place of the streets of downtown Venice.  With this much water, they can finally suppress the fire attack.  "Cinder doesn't want to get her hair wet because she just got it done or something, so she runs away."  (Stop narrating, Tomo!)  Sakura passes out before getting to return things to normal, and hey, Venice has more canals now.  Something about gas explosions weakening the canal infill, and definitely not magic on the news.

But here's the hell of it that we're all gonna discovers late in the game: everyone is actually a copy.  Once the multiverse resumes normal operations we find that everyone isn't simply snapping back into their home realities.  This strange place that is getting stranger all the time is home now, whether everyone likes it or not.

Cool.  This means Copy Copy Reso can make copies at Copy RÈSO's Copy Copy Shop.