>>Patchouli's arrival was actually -less- troublesome than I was
>>expecting!
>
>Her entrance was a little more extreme as first drafted, but I had a
>hard time convincing myself that the witches could ever welcome
>her to the castle if she started out by causing substantial damage
>and/or actual injury, and that wouldn't have worked out, so I toned it
>back a bit.

That is fair; the Witches of the JSAF are a very good bunch, and willing to forgive quite a lot, but that definitely doesn't extend to people who hurt their own. Especially on purpose.

>>"If anyone asks, you never see me do this." Was starting to wonder
>>when G would be forced to pull out the "obviously futuristic tech" for
>>emergency use. A good use for it, at least, so there's that.
>
>He's done it once before, back in GG2, but the only witness that time
>was Meiling. This was the first time he had to do in front of anyone
>who was not a fellow time traveler.

Ah, right I'd forgotten about that one. But I -was- more thinking of "in sight of someone for whom that would be a -thing-". Meiling was traveling with the Doctor after all; that kind of "no one's supposed to see me/us do this" is a daily occurrence after all.

>>I wasn't expecting Patchouli to have been (I'm guessing) the
>>mentioned-but-unnamed daughter of Remilia the Elder's old friend
>>Lucrezia Sapere.
>
>Granddaughter, but yes. There have been a few hints (most notably,
>sapere is Italian for "to know"), so it has amused me a bit
>over the last little while to watch people walk straight past it and
>speculate that Patchy might be one of the witches from the 10th of
>Floréal, or Marthe the dairymaid, or what have you. :)

Hah! I guessed without properly going back to read that bit, but thinking about it, the apparent age of Signora Sapere should've been a bit of a tip-off. As for guesses...It was way too unlikely to be a witch from 10th of Floréal, given how Remilia reacted to actually meeting one in Paris, and saying Marthe's mother "put a stop to it" did rather seem more final than her being Patchy later on would suggest.