OOC: Location, location, what-the-hell, location

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

Okay, question for admin-types, and it's not a criticism. Just an observation that's been bugging me since the day Fandom High got pegged as being part of Alexandria, Virginia.

Alexandria is next to the Potomoc River. Right outside Washington D.C., which is on the Chesapeake Bay. Not the ocean. It's pretty far inland, actually. About 80 miles.

I don't know why FH got named as being in Alexandria, but for it to be an island off the coast of Virginia-- one with a causeway that (according to the maps we've been drawing) runs north-south, it has to be further south and east than Alexandria.

Two solutions suggest themselves:

1) Being part of Alexandria is a legal bizarreness that we'll just accept as a hold-over from Colonial or whatever times. It's Fandom's mailing address. It's got nothing to do with geography.

2) It's nowhere near Alexandria. And we should change the address.

Either way? An island the size of FH can't fit into the middle of the Bay near Alexandria. And since we don't have the Capital Beltway on the horizon, so I assume we are still off the coast.

This might be a good spot for us. Either east and south of Chincoteague, or south and maybe east of Kiptopeke along HWY13 (Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel), or we could be southeast of Virginia Beach or Norfolk.

Yeah, we're a magic island, we don't have to obey the laws of physics or cartography. Except we've been driving off the island and going other places, and yes, my OCD is showing: I'd like to know distances. I know this is not any kind of priority, I'm just asking for opinions, or ideas.

Comments

[aka-vala.livejournal.com]

I don't know why FH got named as being in Alexandria,

Because that's where TP lived for a few weeks before a) she moved and b) she had to drop out of the game.

;)

*pats her poor OCD Trill*

[soldtoarmenians]

I vote for the legal bizarreness, esp. having grown up in the land of Unincorporation where my mailing address was one town though we were outside its city limits, we were served by the police and fire departments from a completely different town...


Yes, I'm still awake shut up stupid computer

[drgrissom.livejournal.com]

I know I have been using Alexandria as a base point for distances (relative to DC) etc. though since pretty much the beginning of the game, and there have been other plots that occurred just over on to the mainland that have referenced the area, and even established NPC locations. (Mostly hospitals... and insert your joke here :)

It's only a problem because this game adheres to real time so strongly, and therefore (for example) a location move would mean Grissom is possession of some pretty high speed transportation I wasn't aware he had.

We've also all been ignoring all the fun side effects of being in the ocean as well, if we want to move to like, Virginia Beach.

I personally would vote for 'it's a magical island, that doesn't actually exist, somewhere in a big river or body of water near Alexandria' and just keep it at that.

Because I'll then spend an afternoon looking up old posts and trying to figure out how I can explain away stuff. Which is just... sad, I realize.

[janet_fraiser]

Your OCD totally rules, you realize this, right?

[12parseckessel.livejournal.com]

I've been operating as if we COULD see DC, or at least its lights across the ocean.

I kind of think that it's incorporated with Alexandria, but is actually 25-30 miles away, like Belton is part of Kansas City, but 25 miles out from Downtown proper.

[chasingangela]

I think of it as being where the real Roosevelt Island is. Which is closer to Arlington, VA, than Alexandria (and is apparently, randomly, considered part of D.C.), but Arlington was Alexandria County until the early 20th century anyhow. The size and lack of car-accessibility fit, and I can handwave the beach.

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Okay, that's fair.

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! *reads* Heh, this would work, wouldn't it? Except for the open ocean bit, and I guess we can hand-wave that and, like you said, the beach into 'magic'.

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

I've been using Alexandria too, but it was going to get more intensive soon, which is why I wanted to check. Heh. I mean, really, it's only an hour off if we go farther east, mostly, but... yeah, duelling OCDs. Hee!

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

It absolutely works -- as well as anything near D.C. will, anyhow -- and it's one of my favorite places to boot. And it *has* a beach, even, it's just a teensy rocky river beach where people take their dogs. So it's totally minor magic handwaving.

[stickittotheme.livejournal.com]

The official answer, as you can see multiple people have multiple ideas?

*Handwavey* It works. We'll be putting up a post later that basically says there is a lot of inconsistency in people's visions of the school, island, etcetera.

I wish we could standardize it all, but we're gonna end up retconning ourselves. Which is bad. Cause that's against our own rules, and we'd have to chew ourselves out.

...not that we've not done that before, erm...

Also, I'd point out that the school's position was not determined by the current (third generation) admins, as well. We're not responsible for the weirdness of that.

Me?

I blame Rory Gilmore.

[sharon-valerii.livejournal.com]

Steal a page from the Subreality Cafe's book: Everyone envisions it differently, and no one sees it the same, and it's because it exists sideways from reality... Or something like that.