>(Also, my eye initially parsed what she's holding as a toothbrush,
>which gave me the slightly epic image of Alice's morning routine
>involving just sort of standing there half-asleep while a squadron of
>dolls squares everything away. :) There's definitely art like that running around, 563238 on Danbooru for example (not linking because it's mildly NSFW)
>I have to admit, one of the things that really clicks for me about
>this franchise is that Victorian Children's Literature aesthetic a lot
>of the Western characters have.
This is a result of one of the genius things ZUN has done that makes the series so memorable- for all that he can't draw very well, he's extremely talented at designing characters. Everyone is very cute, but also very unique- Flandre isn't even the only red-eyed blonde with red hair decorations in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but you can still distinguish her from Rumia just by her decorations.
"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."