. . . which feels weird, because I'm so used to finding forgotten details in archived spin-offs, I never expect anything I've written to contain anything unique!

In my interlude "Because We Like You", I wrote the following in describing the Nursery:

The walls of both the hallways and the social area were plastered with papers. Some were posters, or other official imagery from various canons, but the majority was fanart. Drawings ranged from crayon scribbles to impressively neat sketches and paintings. Fanfiction and poems were in multiple locations, clustered around quietly vibrating wall-mounted devices with soft lights, which Vania assumed to be short-range creativity shields.

I didn't put much thought into the actual mechanics behind them, since Creativity Shielding is such an abstract concept, and because it would have derailed the actual story. I also kept the description intentionally vague, since I didn't want to step on the toes of potential future developments in how the shields were portrayed. Which is the point we've reached, it seems!

So, yeah. If my presentation of the concept is useful to you, Lily, you're welcome to use it, but if not, you're welcome to disregard it and come up with something else. I would be happy to edit that scene of mine to make it match up to whatever develops!

—doctorlit has gone so long without writing, he remembered he had written that scene, but not whether he had published the story yet or not

Since, as you say, creativity shields haven't really been deployed in the field before (my memory is that they're mainly used on Fanfic Land, around HQ, and on the works of authors who say no fanfic - honestly I'm not sure there's evidence for a device at all), why not make it highly experimental? Or, possibly even better - why not make them experimental?

The Department of Analytical Science has no doubt been working on trying to invent a functioning portable Creativity Shield since their inception. DAS-DAMP are probably the driving force behind it - they wrote about HQ's version before the department was even formed - but you know they're all trying to make their own version. The chemists think they've found a glitter-opaque gas, the astronomers want to use starsong (they're a mystic and a white hole, they get a bit strange), and even the archaeologists have been digging through records of Conan Doyle and Cervantes to figure out how they did it.

So my... suggestion? Offer? ... is that I lend you as much of DAS as you want to borrow, to bring every version they have into the field and try to set it up. They would (or could) need as much or as little help as you'd wish, depending entirely on what you wanted to write. (You could of course add more DAS agents if you needed them - and perhaps assign Bill and Lori a division? ^_^)

~

The Sunflower Official folded his fronds and gave off a distinct impression of a glower. Another Tangled Webs incident could be disastrous for the modern PPC. We need that Creativity Shield. Do I make myself clear?

The Thistle shifted uncomfortable. Sir, all our prototypes are, well, prototypes! I can't guarantee their stability in the field-

Don't be such a worrywart, the Flowering Leek chided, nudging her co-department-head in the stem. Ow, prickles; you really ought to shave those.

No. What? No. The Thistle turned to offer a pseudo-frown of his own. And I've told you before, science isn't like other disciplines - it doesn't work just because you want it to.

Flowers. The SO leant forward across his desk. I don't want to hear about your problems. I want you to fix them. He paused for a humanoid heartbeat. So go fix.

hS

Can we call that thing the My Immortal of the 2020s now? Also (looks warily at other China-oriented canons)