Loved Mezzo discussion

Well, this is hardly new. I have stalled on it for a long time. But here it is anyway.

Long-time readers may be dimly aware that Mezzo aka Jana is a character I got to add to Whateley as a sort of award in a friendly competition long, long ago. Which does NOT make this story canon. I tried to make it canon-compatible, but everything related to Brazilian society, how the MCO works here (which will be shown on Chapter 3 or thereabouts, if I ever get to it) and such came exclusively from my own personal experiences, and not from the semi-mythical Canon Bible (which I have never seen). Babs and Diane (mainly) took Jana and made her their own; I created her but can not control her destiny, only to watch proudly as she flies away.

Oh... and some of the characters aren't 100% original. There are a few homages to fictional characters (although most of them will be pretty obscure for an U.S. reader) and at least one expy for a (rather well-known) real person.

Well, it is still a very interesting read and story for a character which was made canon, even if this version differs from the canon version. Never heard of Saci before, the theory about spirits being shaped by human and even animal beliefs seems sound if such things exist. I can't wait read to more, if you ever feel up to creating it.

I have been looking forward to this story for years, and so far you have not disappointed. I'll probably wait on the story to be more complete for a more thorough review.

Glad to see you found this; I was wanting a peek ever since you mentioned it.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the story. My personal suspicion is that if you were to submit the final product for conversion to an 'official' fanfic, TINCC would find someone to work with you for converting it to canon. Brazil is not turf which has been heavily covered in the Whateleyverse, so the amount of work required on home turf would likely be minimal.

The reposting seems to have given me a bit of motivation and the Mezzo story sorta got "unstuck."
Chapter 2 (titled "Pupil") is practically done -- I'll just let it sit a couple days before giving it a final going-over. It took me "just" 8 years or thereabouts...
I have finally settled on a rough timeline for events before actually getting to Whateley, too, which should help on Chapters 3 ("Castaway"), 4 ("Freak") and 5 ("Expatriate"). I have some of Chapter 3 done, a little bit of Chapter 4, and a fair bit of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 ("Student") is so far just a very rough outline; and I'm not even sure if there will be a separate Chapter 7, which I'm tentatively calling "Apprentice." I have no ideas at all beyond that point, which should cover most of Jana's first year at Whateley. If I can think of something to do with the 2006 Summer break, there might be a chapter 8. But no Chapter 9; if I ever delve on Jana's life after the Kimbas arrive in Whateley, it will be in a separate story, without the commitment to a continuous narrative.

While working on Chapter 2, I noticed something on Chapter 1 that might be taken for an anachronism -- a mention to The Devil Wears Prada, a 2006 movie in a 2004 scene. I wondered how I let that slip, I'm usually a bit obsessive about these things. Then I figured it out: it's not really an anachronism -- The scene happens in 2004, but the mention does not happen in dialogue, only in the narrative -- which is from the POV of Jana in 2006/2007, that is, after she has watched the movie.

After what, 8 years? Chapter 2 is finally up. And I have reasonable hopes for Chapter 3 not taking years...

I have to say well done. As some would say, it took perseverance to not give in or up. For many they could have deleted it. Said it wasn't worth the effort, but as I tell a son, there's actually no real effort in quitting. The real effort is going back to finish what what you started.



I do not mean this to sound patronizing.

I feel you are making excellent progress here, and hope that it doesn't take as long to get to the next chapter.

Very nice story. I'm looking forward to the next installment. Is Jana eventually going to get to Whateley or will she remain in Brazil?

konzill wrote: Very nice story. I'm looking forward to the next installment. Is Jana eventually going to get to Whateley or will she remain in Brazil?

Considering that while Sir Lee is not a Canon Author, Mezzo was created as a Canon character for a contest and shows up in a number of Faction 3 events, plus working in the kitchens at Whateley (mostly in the Phase stories), I would hope that Sir Lee would eventually get to the point of telling us how she gets to Whateley.

Yeah, I have a general outline of events up to Spring 2006; how she has a magical accident, how her powers go wonky, when and how she gets to Whateley, how the Magic staff diagnoses the issue and her situation slowly improves, how she gets a job in the kitchen... not the hard part is to actually write it. There are parts that I have very clear that I have written ahead of time, but others... not so much.

Parts of it are timeline issues -- for instance, I haven't decided yet if she will manage to get out of the 2005 Fall Term Combat Finals, partly because there's no canon info about them so I would have to create them from whole cloth (Spring 2006 finals are known to be a "get an unconscious victim from an island surrounded by sharks" or something like that, if memory doesn't fail me). Anyway, in order to get her out of the Finals, I have to delay her breakthrough at least to November, and that affects the rest of the story.

I like the story so far. Loved the design concept of the costume.

I think its a little random for someone where she lives to go all the way up to New England to Whateley. Charge slightly dodged that issue by having a relative there and needing asylum from her country, but it was still kind of a stretch.

shadeofred wrote: I like the story so far. Loved the design concept of the costume.

I think its a little random for someone where she lives to go all the way up to New England to Whateley. Charge slightly dodged that issue by having a relative there and needing asylum from her country, but it was still kind of a stretch.

As far as I understand it Whately is the only such school in the World. (yes mutant numbers are really supposed to be that low). They can and do get students from everywhere. And we already have Canon characters from Europe and Asia. Heck we have a minor canon character who is from Tibet. And all things considered I think it might be easier to get to the USA from Brazil then it is to get there from Tibet.

shadeofred wrote: I like the story so far. Loved the design concept of the costume.

I think its a little random for someone where she lives to go all the way up to New England to Whateley. Charge slightly dodged that issue by having a relative there and needing asylum from her country, but it was still kind of a stretch.

Well, it IS canon that Whateley is the premier place for mutant education in the entire world, and there are lots of international students.

But you are right in that, insofar as her powers and personal situation have been shown in these first two chapters, there isn't a pressing need to send her to Whateley: she has a good family situation, goes to a good school, is under little danger of being chased by a lynch mob, and two fairly good tutors. So something will have to happen to change all that... that's the main point of Chapter 3. If you don't mind spoilers, you can check the Mezzo entry at the wiki -- there is a general explanation of what is going to happen.

So I read the Wiki entry and Now I really want to see the rest of this story get written.

Though really I'm faceing the same barrier in my own fanfiction efforts. I know where I'm starting and I know where I'm ending up. But I only have a vauge notion of what happens in between. And actually geting it down to this scene followed by this scene etc is proving hard, let alone actually writing the scenes.

On her powers, couldn't she get a permanently bipedal state if she chose her 'animal' half to be 'human', or a simian... Or perhaps a bear or something else that can be bipedal?

Or half-Sidhe or something??

Oh, she's done cat and squirrel... Hadn't read that far...

She can get bipedal forms, and does use them for things like going to classes or hanging around in Whitman. She can assume a half-simian form, but she really, really dislikes it -- because it looks ugly. It's the "Uncanny Valley" thing, basically. So, while convenient in some contexts (like some types of combat situations), it's not a form that she uses in her free time.

The reason for the frequent emphasis on her centaur form is... well... Babs showed her as a centaur on her first appearance (although she was a catgirl on her second canon appearance), and Diane apparently liked it and had her as a centaur in Crystal Hall.
I basically retconned it into her background; The justification I found is that, simply stated, the centaur form is the one that best meets the job requirements:
- Mobile (so forget about mermaid form)
- Dexterous hands (so forget forms like bats who have weird hands)
- Taste buds similar to a baseline human (so forget cats, who don't taste sweet, or obligate carnivores, or obligate vegetarians, or other animals like pandas or koalas with odd diets...) -- wait, you say, shouldn't centaurs be obligate vegetarians? Not if you check your Greek mythology, no.
- Keep required kitchen sanitary requirements, meaning *don't touch food with your feet* (so forget avian forms) and *don't shed hair on the food.* (so forget anything with hairy hands, arms and faces. Yes, she could wear long gloves, long sleeves and a face mask... but would you WANT to, in her place?)
Admittedly, the horse bulk is an annoyance, but not so much as you would expect -- given the size of the meals they routinely make and the general Whateley accessibility requirements to deal with oversized students and wheelchair access, the Crystal Hall kitchen is surprisingly spacious. The time they had to use the smaller kitchen during Crystal Hall renovations was a different matter, though.
Having to wear "horse-pants" to cover the horse half for sanitary reasons is a bother... but the alternatives are worse.

The other reason she doesn't use a "permanent" bipedal form is that she needs to practice and exercise her transformation; not only it's the only major power she has now, but it's also essential if she wants to ever regain her human form and full magical powers. The transformation is done by temporarily suspending the botched spell that originally turned her into a mermaid, and giving it a different animal template when she lets the enchantment "snap back." The magical staff theorize that when she gets strong enough to keep the spell "suspended" for a sizable time, they might be able to help her untangle it.

Strikes me that Mezzo should be aiming for a satyr like form for in the kitchen. She's have less Pants issues, though she likely would get some lewd comments.

She tried it. She tried a lot of forms. It says something that the form with the least issues was the centaur one. (By the way, if I ever get to that chapter, there might be a montage sequence of her trying forms for kitchen work and why each one didn't work out)

Where are you stuck on, if you don't mind me asking?

Hmmm... mainly on the botched spell itself. I mean, I know what I want it to be, but I'm having trouble setting up the situation so she gets desperate enough to do this crazy thing. I'm of two minds about the date, too. There are two long weekends that are good candidates, but each of them impacts the setup in a different way.

I have actually written a number of post-botched-spell scenes, including the trip to Whateley.

How does each date change things?

Well, one of them happens in a full moon, so strong tides help with the setup for an accident at sea (the place I'm planning for this event has strong tidal currents as a major hazard) -- but it is sorta the wrong point in the timeline, requiring some adjustments I haven't figured out yet. The other one is at a better point at the timeline, but is a quarter moon, that is, weak tides... less believable for a strong swimmer like Jana to become desperate.

And yes, I am that obsessive with details.

Could you do a sudden storm? Or a weather controller villain??

I guess I could do the first, the second wouldn't fit the mood of the story... I actually was caught in a storm like that when I was a kid, it turned from dead calm to winds like, I don't know, maybe 80km/h in a matter of minutes, so I know very well how it can go. The problem is, Jana's spirit, the Saci, is an air spirit (he is said to live inside whirlwinds); even as a novice, she should be able to control and use the wind, or at least shield herself, to some degree. She has no special magical aptitude to deal with a sea current, so she would have to really stretch her magical abilities to save herself -- which will have consequences.

Also, I want to play the card of her becoming a bit too smug about her new powers, and placing herself in a predictably dangerous situation due to overconfidence in her abilities and typical adolescent recklessness. This will not only nerf something like 99% of her magical powers and define her new power, it will also be her big wakeup call that the world is not a nice and friendly place.

Air Spirit... Allow Generation of Air underwater? Increased breathing ability, even underwater? Able to carry a air bubble underwater??

Not what's usually depicted for an air spirit, no. But even if it was... it wouldn't help.

The problem is not breathing; Jana is a strong swimmer, she can stay on the surface for long periods, specially if she has anything at all to help her float (and she would have).

The main problem is to keep from being dragged 10 nautical miles offshore by the strong currents. No Bubblehead Charm will save you from that.

All I've got now, is somehow using air / wind powers to enhance her swimming, like as a propulsion method or something.

Either that, or abandon swimming altogether, and try to fly...

Or stick to underwater travel?? She's gotta go mermaid at some point... Is it just a form change, or can she get gills so she can breathe water??

Good luck figuring out a solution! Hope I helped, at least a little bit.

Well, one of them happens in a full moon, so strong tides help with the setup for an accident at sea (the place I'm planning for this event has strong tidal currents as a major hazard) -- but it is sorta the wrong point in the timeline,

Do the regulations enforced by the Brazilian Navy include a requirement for boat crew and passengers to have personal flotation devices? Unless she's been deliberately stupid, staying afloat won't be an issue of getting tired.

Sir Lee wrote: The main problem is to keep from being dragged 10 nautical miles offshore by the strong currents. No Bubblehead Charm will save you from that.

If the air spirit can blow her perpendicular to the rip current, that could limit how far out she ends up. At São Paulo's latitude the water will be warm, and many species of shark appreciate that.

Going by the annual mean surface currents (Figure 2, risky proposition, that), once out of the rip, the normal currents should push her to the northeast.

The other one is at a better point at the timeline, but is a quarter moon, that is, weak tides... less believable for a strong swimmer like Jana to become desperate.

As you said, a sudden storm (There're good reasons this isn't called the Pacific Ocean), natural or not, could blow in. After being lost overboard, or having the boat capsize, and then being storm-tossed for a while, almost anybody would get desperate. Washing ashore at Ilha de Alcatrazes might convince even an invincible teen that she might be in dire straits.

Since she herself has no magical spells yet for manipulating water, would it be possible for her to call a water spirit or denizen to bargain with it for a way out? Or, maybe a marine entity just happened to be in the area as well. ("What? Do I look like I have storms and currents at my beck and call? Well ... if the reason were good enough, maybe something could be worked out. Do you have Visa, or MasterCard?")


Jana: "Help! There's no way I can swim all the way back to shore."

Ursula: "Have I got a spell for you, sweetie." (And a son I need to marry off before he eats me out of house and home) "Just do this, and this, and this, swallow this, don't chew on that if you value your tastebuds ... Voilà! Instant mermaid! Have I still got it, or what?"

later ...

Jana: "How do I undo the spell? I followed the instructions, twice; I even had the Saci help."

Ursula: "You had the what help? You didn't say anything about being mixed up with one of those! Looks like some unforseen interactions there. Oh well. If you're ever back this way again, and of legal marrying age, there's someone I'd like you to meet" (Oy vey, the things we do for the kids! What do we get in return? Maybe they'll call. Me? I should be so lucky.)

null0trooper wrote: Do the regulations enforced by the Brazilian Navy include a requirement for boat crew and passengers to have personal flotation devices? Unless she's been deliberately stupid, staying afloat won't be an issue of getting tired.

Yes, but... (a) Brazilians are not really known for following the rules to the letter, and (b) she's not going to be in a boat. But yes, she will be wearing a PFD. She's not that reckless and stupid. As I mentioned before, breathing is not going to be the problem; swimming against the tide is. I'm basing her incident on something that happened to a couple acquaintances of mine... they were sailing a dinghy, lost the rudder (and consequently control of the boat) and were dragged to high sea. They were incredibly lucky to be rescued by a merchant ship. Jana's situation will be somewhat worse because she won't be in a dinghy.

null0trooper wrote: If the air spirit can blow her perpendicular to the rip current, that could limit how far out she ends up. At São Paulo's latitude the water will be warm, and many species of shark appreciate that.

Air spirits can't do much when you are 80% under the water surface. As for the water being "warm..." well, it's not Cape Cod, but depending on the time of the year it can be quite cool, even in a wetsuit. And if you are dragged far enough offshore, you get....

null0trooper wrote: Going by the annual mean surface currents (Figure 2, risky proposition, that), once out of the rip, the normal currents should push her to the northeast.

...to the Current of Brazil, which is the one you mention that pushes northeast along the coast. Thing is, it comes from Antarctica... and it's several degrees colder than the coastal waters. It's easy to notice the transition, because the water changes from green to blue. Being caught in it is not a good thing. But it does not hug the coast that closely; it's several miles offshore, out of sight from dry land except at a few places like Cabo Frio (which gets its name from it). But in São Paulo, it's far enough from the coast that Jana will reach her do-or-die decision point before reaching it.

null0trooper wrote: As you said, a sudden storm (There're good reasons this isn't called the Pacific Ocean), natural or not, could blow in. After being lost overboard, or having the boat capsize, and then being storm-tossed for a while, almost anybody would get desperate. Washing ashore at Ilha de Alcatrazes might convince even an invincible teen that she might be in dire straits.

Just to mention that "Pacific" ocean is a ridiculous misnomer -- it's quite stormy. And Alcatrazes is not the worst place to wash ashore... for one thing, there's a scientific station there, so a fair chance of being rescued. Queimada Grande , on the other hand, might be worse than jumping back into the sea.

null0trooper wrote: Since she herself has no magical spells yet for manipulating water, would it be possible for her to call a water spirit or denizen to bargain with it for a way out? Or, maybe a marine entity just happened to be in the area as well. ("What? Do I look like I have storms and currents at my beck and call? Well ... if the reason were good enough, maybe something could be worked out. Do you have Visa, or MasterCard?")

Well, yeah, she might have attempted that if she was an advanced summoner, but she's a novice -- where's she going to build a summoning circle? And there are probably a few other things she might have tried if she had thought about them. But she was scared, and that's the best she could come up.

null0trooper wrote: Jana: "Help! There's no way I can swim all the way back to shore."

Ursula: "Have I got a spell for you, sweetie." (And a son I need to marry off before he eats me out of house and home) "Just do this, and this, and this, swallow this, don't chew on that if you value your tastebuds ... Voilà! Instant mermaid! Have I still got it, or what?"

later ...

Jana: "How do I undo the spell? I followed the instructions, twice; I even had the Saci help."

Ursula: "You had the what help? You didn't say anything about being mixed up with one of those! Looks like some unforseen interactions there. Oh well. If you're ever back this way again, and of legal marrying age, there's someone I'd like you to meet" (Oy vey, the things we do for the kids! What do we get in return? Maybe they'll call. Me? I should be so lucky.)

Sir Lee wrote: Queimada Grande , on the other hand, might be worse than jumping back into the sea.

That particular island is a whole lot of hells to the no.

null0trooper wrote:

Sir Lee wrote: Queimada Grande , on the other hand, might be worse than jumping back into the sea.

That particular island is a whole lot of hells to the no.

Ah. Snakes galore. Not good.

How about meeting a science vessel, if you can get her to that island?

Or using a Seer to get Jana rescued? Or set something happening in the area that finds / captures Jana?? ... There's many ways for her to get out, the problem is finding one that gives the results you want. *shrugs*

She won't get that far before self-rescueing. I have been in danger situations at sea; you DON'T wait until you lose sight of the coast before trying to do something. If you wait too long, the chances of anybody finding you are slim to none. Jana is an experienced surfer, she knows that much.

She also knows that the correct tactic is not to fight the current, but to first swim sideways to get out of it. Only it won't help much if the current is too fast and wide; by the time you get out of the main stream, you will be too far from shore.

So, IIRC, the problem was that you need to give her a mermaid form.

Now we know that there are super-tiny spirits... She could gather a lot of those fish spirits into a bigger fish and get a mermaid-y form that way?

Had some thoughts about making her a Force-maker so she could actually mash them into a bigger fish, but she ends up burning out that bit so she doesn't become too OP.

But, her power / spell works on physical proximity to a physical animal? Or it screws up by trying to applying to an astral spirit instead of a real animal, or something...

The mechanics of the transformation is not the problem -- that was basically the first thing I decided about the character, before stuff like name, ethnicity, age...

The thing that I keep waffling on is how exactly to place her in the situation where she has to resort to this. I mean, I have to have a not-ridiculously-contrived way to have her alone, in deep water, being dragged offshore by the current and with no expectation of rescue. Basically, I need her to do something rather stupid in a "teenagers will do dumb shit" way an then it goes spectacularly wrong, ten times worse than she considered possible.

Also, when -- it's a comparatively smaller issue, but I want to have it late enough for her to have learned enough magic to even attempt such a thing, but early enough that she can still make Whateley in time for Fall term, despite all the insane red tape that Brazil is notorious for. Should be a long weekend, the main options are Easter (March 27 2005, some schools give the whole week off a la Spring Break), April 21 (Brazilian holiday, fell on a Thursday in 2005, many people will cut the Friday for a four-day weekend) and Corpus Christi (May 26, also a Thursday, municipal holiday in São Paulo). May 1st (International Worker's Day) is not an option, it fell on a Sunday.

This is her first use of the animal transformation-y thing, right? You can't have her use the mermaid transformation, get stuck, then have to try and use it again, to leave it...

And can't have her exert herself by trying to Whirlwind Travel and get herself lost, where she can't do that anymore since some of her Wiz levels are locked down?

Can't have her in a sailboat / hanggliding / or something, maneuvering it with Saci wind powers, loses control and stuff?

I was going for windsurfing accident, tries to swim back, figures she can't, tries the transformation spell out of desperation... and later finds out she can't turn back.

(Eventually the Whateley magical staff figure out the nature of the problem, that it will take a long time to solve, but in the meanwhile there are a few workarounds -- namely, turning into "other animal hybrids" -- she can use to improve her quality of life.)

Main problem is how to get rid of the board -- an experienced surfer like her should be able to paddle it back pretty quickly after ditching the sail, much faster than she could swim, so as long as she has the board, there's no reason to resort to magic. I'm thinking of making it a hollow board -- these aren't common and tend to be expensive, but she got it as a gift from her teacher who used to be a windsurfing aficionado in his youth, so he might have splurged in one. The problem with hollow boards? They aren't unsinkable like foam-core boards are (OTOH, any water that gets in them through small cracks and such drains easily, instead of getting semi-permanently captured into the foam).

Perhaps after a spill that breaks her leg strap (if she's wearing one), she gets frustrated, and decides to be clever and use the Saci whirlwind to drive it towards her, only to drive it farther away.

Or perhaps the Saci spirit itself decides to do it as a prank, but the Saci overestimates his host's patience and pushes it away too many times - rather than her transforming out of need, she does it because she's tired and frustrated that the spirit is messing with her.

It's a little contrived, but no overly so.

On a side note, seeing how the Saci is known for smoking a pipe, maybe you could convince one of the canon authors to have Mezzo join Hippy and Alyss on their smoke breaks. Maybe have them also joined by an avatar who has a ghede spirit - though the cigar thing is specifically associated with Papa Ghede and Baron Samedi, I think (and maybe Maman Brigitte too - perhaps another new MTF changeling? I can see that as a cause of friction with Damballah, Wakanda, and possibly Mokele'...).

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Maybe have them also joined by an avatar who has a ghede spirit - though the cigar thing is specifically associated with Papa Ghede and Baron Samedi, I think (and maybe Maman Brigitte too - perhaps another new MTF changeling? I can see that as a cause of friction with Damballah, Wakanda, and possibly Mokele'...).

As I understand it, the Baron and his family don't rule over tobacco, though they do enjoy it. They also are known for drinking, swearing, lewd dancing, and ribaldry: reminders that they represent the Dead and are thus beyond all mortal rules and punishments. They might be too lively for Alyss and Anosha to handle!

One of the younger ghede might find a reason to seek out an avatar; as entities they're stabilized by following a template backed by active belief. The more powerful Lwa might empower an avatar as a paladin instead of trying to cram themselves into a mortal's hallow.