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San Francisco was emptied by the Big One. Fault lines, ley lines, whatever. People could stand living with the risk of their building collapsing around them or a sudden magical geyser streaming down [NAME] Street. What they couldn't live with so well was seeing a perpetual shifting history. It's hard to navigate the layers when you're likely to walk into a building that wasn't there 100 years ago, or to follow a subway path to a station that was closed decades ago, only to find yourself barred in with the ghosts. Experts still come in from all around to figure out what caused the permanent shifting landscape, why it didn't settle down after the aftershocks, like most leyquakes do. Scavengers come in to try and make their fortunes, or to retrieve family heirlooms. Homeless too bewildered to find their way out and too poor for the government to care about. And then there are people like me.


Inspiration: Gorgeous, eerie composites. What would it be like to live in a world where this is what you actually saw? http://burritojustice.com/2012/08/29/ghosts-of-1906/
Story Potential: High.
Notes: This could be an awesome setting for an urban fantasy story, but I'd need to figure out what the plot actually was. Also, this would be a good place for a legally blind protagonist with limited vision. Not sure how well this would combine with other urban fantasy story ideas. Not sure how much I want to write an urban fantasy. But it could be quite good! Although there would be a shit-tonne of historical research. At least SF's history is pretty well-documented.
I always look for sharp edges and corners, things I could open my head up on, but part of the problem with unreal space is that what you see is not always there. I figure that's not a problem, not really. I don't care if other people see me carefully skirting empty space. I don't worry about looking like an idiot, and the unreal space vision is marked clearly on my identification, which usually keep away the cops and bughouse people, both the real and the unreal ones. The bigger problem is when something keeps me from seeing what *is* really there. It's not much of an issue, because people who don't see what's there tend to die a lot younger than those who see what isn't, but I'm one of the ten percent who have a mild enough bit of it that they survive. Also, my parents were the most paranoid people around. You've never seen childproofing until you've seen what they did to our house until I was twenty-five and had passed all the tests and vocational training and was officially emancipated and moved into a government apartment. I nearly died that first night, walking into a bathtub and slipping and hitting my head. Sheer luck I didn't drown while I was unconscious. I didn't tell my parents that part, but--


Inspiration: Thinking about childproofing.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I'm not sure where this one would go, but I felt myself getting more drawn in and interested the longer I wrote. Good character, if nothing else.

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penthius

January 2025

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