Sandbox Discussions

[DanielH]

That's about what I was thinking too, but then I realized that our timekeeping doesn't quite work with that. If it were exactly 16 years, people would notice that the time was approximately 3 hours off. I suppose it could be 16 years, 3 hours or it could be 5844 days or something. There's no reason for it to exactly match up with the year. And if I analyze this more it becomes physics again.

This would mean that everybody born between February 29, 2084 and February 28, 2100 would get their superpowers a day after their birthday. But unless you have two days' worth of twins getting powers on March 1st, 2100, I don't see a way around that.

[Alicorn]

The world of Gemini has only had twin powers between some time not exactly specified in the 1950s and approximately early 2004 in any of the continuities where it has appeared, so I don't need to know this information right now XD

[DanielH]

That is why I chose 2100 instead of 1900.

I am not good at asking answerable questions right now. Instead I'll say that I'm glad the two Myth sections are meeting, although I wish that both May and Vivian had handled it differently. It wouldn't really be in character for May to be less suspicious now, though, however much it would help them both if she were.

[jalapeno_dude]

The world of Gemini has only had twin powers between some time not exactly specified in the 1950s and approximately early 2004 in any of the continuities where it has appeared, so I don't need to know this information right now XD

No, but (and I apologize but this is physics again) you do need to know how "year" is defined in "after sixteen years have passed for them". It is both trivially easy and potentially enlightening, for example, to test whether it means a calendar year or a single orbit around the sun (and even that definition is ambiguous), and this is something you don't need to wait for anomalous non-leap years to test. If it's the former, it's essentially certain that the cause of Gemini is something artificial (or at least something that knows about the details of human society). And then testing whether it takes calendar changes into account (leap seconds, in the simplest case) tells you whether this artificial process is actively monitoring the world.

And I'd think it would be similarly enlightening to know when the sixteen year period starts, i.e. the moment of birth for this purpose. Is it the time of birth of the first or second twin, or do they get their basics at slightly different times (this may have been answered in-thread)? What does "birth" mean? Delivery? Cutting the umbilical cord? Etc, etc.

[DanielH]

It is answered in thread that they get their powers at different times. For whatever definition they were using, Bella was born at 1:15 PM PDT, and got her basics at 1:15 PM MST (where Pacific Daylight Time happens to be the same time as Mountain Standard Time). Alli got her powers later, but forked before Bella teleported because it was easier to figure out what her thing was.

[Alicorn]

Birth means delivery.

[Marri]

Instead I'll say that I'm glad the two Myth sections are meeting, although I wish that both May and Vivian had handled it differently. It wouldn't really be in character for May to be less suspicious now, though, however much it would help them both if she were.

Yup xD Vivian says hi and that she totally agrees with you that it could have gone much better.

[Unbitwise]

(Myth sandbox)

May has a notebook in her lap. She opens it to a blank page and hands it over, with the pencil.

Vivian laughs to herself- the notebooks in her life are usually fiercely protected and locked with two layers of magic minimum-

A possibility: When Vivian gets home, she tells Isabella about May and Isabella finds the description interesting.

[DanielH]

I have feeling it'll go something like that (I thought it probable as soon as we learned Isabella was bi). Given that Isabella (any causal reason she doesn't go be Bella? What's the metacausal reason?) likes women, and that there was a planned Bell-Bell pairing in Incandescence, I'm fairly confident that's the plan. There's slight evidence against it with May either having to be at least bi, or gay and not out. Bells come in bi even if it's uncommon for them (I can't think of any Bells who are closeted, though, and if they exist I doubt they're modern Earth in a progressive country), so I still think the evidence points in that direction.

[Marri]

From my chat logs:

going by "Isabella" is not unheard of, if Vivian tries calling her Bella she'll take to it but it's not like "Mabel" where she seeks a nickname asap

Vivian already has nicknames for her, she's not likely to switch to Bella over love or sphinxette without prompting