>Two questions unanswered: How good of a home pizza chef is G
>(especially without, one assumes, specialized equipment?)

Pretty good, if I do say so myself. Specialized equipment's not particularly required, as far as I'm concerned; he's probably just baking them in cast-iron frying pans. That's how I do it in real life.

>And are the
>Scarlet sisters right-thinking sentient beings who enjoy pizza, or
>heathens who deny its inarguable tastiness?

Flandre thinks it's the bee's knees. Remilia thinks it's a bit unrefined, but tasty—but then, that's Liberion food for you. :)

>> " People don't accept creatures like us any more; they haven't for a long time.
>> If we showed ourselves, they would only turn on us. They'd see us as no better
>> than the Neuroi." She shook her head. "We're better off apart from them."
>
>This was a curveball after the opening of the letter shown in the bit
>above the title. Well played.

Well, she wrote it, but she hadn't decided whether to send it yet. Most of the middle of this act is about her making that decision; even when she took the letter with her, she hadn't decided whether she would actually mail it.

(We'll get to see what was in it soon.)

>> "Well. It appears Flandre's adolescence proceeds apace."
>
>You know, I could've sworn Remilia just chided her sister for being
>'deliberately obtuse'. Perhaps this is a side effect of her not having
>someone around to boldly challenge her in quite some time.

That, and it's a way of trying to save a little bit of face in the aftermath of having been chewed out by her little sister in front of the rest of the household. Remilia's pretty level-headed, but she's not good at processing embarrassment, and it was made all the worse in this case because she knew Flan was mostly right.

>(It was a funny line, and I know she starts to see Flandre's actual
>point shortly afterward, but still.)

I like to think she saw it at the time, it just took her a little while to acknowledge it out loud.

>> "I know, little sister. I know. We'll figure it out. Just... be patient
>> with me." Leaning back to catch her sister's eye, Remilia gave her a
>> self-deprecating little smile. "I'm old now, and set in my ways."
>
>Well, at least they know how to move past the spats quickly. Lingering
>resentment can be a common symptom of being siblings sometimes, I
>should probably have more faith in the Scarlet sisters.

This was the first proper fight (as opposed to clashes between crazy person and caretaker) they've had since 1520, and I think it shocked them both—made them realize they don't want their relationship to be that.

>> Remilia nodded. "Yes. The weather is fine tonight; I should like to fly
>> up to Ribeauvillé and see these witches of Benjamin's for myself."
>
>Flandre isn't the only impulsive sister, at least once prodded a bit,
>I see.

Nope. :)

(If you cornered Remilia about that, she'd blame the full moon. And she'd have a point, it does tend to make every aspect of her personality a bit... bigger.)

>> "You smell nice," Erica mumbled. "Roses and... candle smoke?
>> Where've you been?"
>
>Probably a stroke of luck for G that Erica was apparently tired enough
>to not really recall not getting an answer the next morning.

Yeah, he'd have had a hard time coming up with a plausible answer. The obvious one, that it was from the place where he waited for Shirley, wouldn't hold because she saw him waiting outdoors. :)

>> Erica's eyes went wide. "You're engaged?!" she squeaked. "Why haven't you
>> brought her here? We need to meet her! You can't get married without the
>> approval of the whole wing! Those are the rules I just made up!"
>
>This makes me wonder how well Flandre would get along with Erica, that
>could be dangerous.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to Flan interacting with the crew. I've already written one such scene, and it's burning a hole in my drafts folder now.

(Also, that Erica line is one of my favorites. :)

>That forum banter cleaned up rather nicely into an actual scene, and
>the witches' reactions to everything were deeply amusing to read.
>Though they handle it with a bit less boggle than I might have
>expected actually, I guess a side effect of the inherent oddity of
>their lives, and the inherent oddity of G's existence in their lives
>to boot.

Yeah, they've seen some shit. When you spend your days using magic powers and advanced technology to fight alien robot monsters, your WTF threshold moves. (Also, they're all still pretty tired from the day before, which takes the edge off their reactions a little.)

>I am somewhat surprised Trude didn't blush to the point of combustion
>by the end.

I suspect she was when she uttered the third and final "Hartmann—!", but she was off-camera by then. :)

>> Gryphon chuckled and finished tying his shoe. "Indeed. I'm even a count!"
>
>I forgot about the (mostly honorary though with Kaiser Fritz who can
>tell) enobling G received until now. The question is, when Remilia was
>being dramatic about her own, did -he- forget, not want to tempt fate
>and possible vampiric irritation, or just save it as an ace in the
>hole in case of emergency?

Heheh, didn't have it yet in TTW. That decree came a couple days after he got back to St-Ulrich from his first spell at SDM. Time travel!

>Is Minna the only witch likely to have mojo radar, or just the most
>sensitive?

Quite a few witches have at least a rudimentary threat assessment sense, particularly veterans like the 501st, but Minna's is the most sensitive by a long stretch, since it ties directly into her magical specialty. The others have to concentrate to get a read on something like that; hers is always on, at a low level. Although, that said, Mio would probably have seen something surprising if she'd thought to take a look at Remi with her witch eye, too.

>Also, always a good idea to not poke the bear, especially when it
>seems happy. Though I don't think Remilia's temper is quite that
>Mercurial.

It isn't, and she wouldn't have done anything violent even if they had somehow managed to actually offend her, but still, you don't want to be getting off on the wrong foot.

>> Remilia gave her a serene smile and replied with perfect unconcern, "Yes,
>> Major Schnaufer. I am a vampire."
>> Heidemarie, her query short-circuited, blinked. "Ah."
>
>This might tie into my previous question, or might just be keen
>observational skills, but how did Heidemarie know to ask?

Having been tagged with the "vampire" label for most of her life, Heidemarie's read a lot more of the lore on the subject than most people of her era. She thought they were extinct, but she at least knew they used to be real. As such, she picked up on clues the others missed. One example is the fact that bat familiar witches' wings don't manifest that way, which Francie Whittle also noticed because she's obsessed with propulsion and maneuver magic, but she didn't know what the alternative interpretation was.

TLDR: If anybody in that room was going to spot an actual vampire without being told, it was going to be Heidemarie W. "The Vampire" Schnaufer. :)

>> (Initial introduction of Remilia to the 501st witches in living room not quoted for some, rapidly failing, semblance of brevity.)

Semblance of brevity?! Who needs that?

>Watching Remilia work a room makes one see one possible source for
>tales of vampires having the ability to dominate minds and charm
>people into being dinner. No sense that any supernatural shenanigans
>were going on here, other than her existing, mind you, just I can see
>where a myth might be born.

Yep!

She probably does have a Charisma modifier on, because of the full moon, although not on a "supernatural mind control" level—just that she's feeling good and it's got her especially on her game.

>Also, this group seems to take the whole 'vampires are real yo' thing
>even more in stride. The 501st are quite the resilient and flexible
>lot.

I grappled with that bit a little, thinking it might be going a little too smoothly, but ultimately I figured y'know, "no what that's impossible" has been done to death. What if they just... rolled with it?

(Also, Francie's reaction in particular is kind of a callback to her learning that the rocket man is real, which just happened a few days before. When it comes to this castle, is there anything that can't happen here? :)

What I'm taking away from this is that I needed to narrate these parts a bit better, which is totally fair. I had a lot of pieces on the board (and I totally missed out Witolda Urbanowicz and Wojtek! They must already have been asleep).

>> "Benjamin, mon amour, tu essaies de me faire peur à mort?!” Remilia demanded.
>
>I speak no French, and didn't think to Google translate, but the
>writing in this scene left no doubt about the message being delivered
>here.

It's in the annotations, but for the record, "Benjamin, my love, are you trying to scare me to death?!" (Geoff provided this line. :)

>Though it is amusing that an ageless, nearly immortal vampire
>would be terrified by riding in a Belv.

Ah, but it's not just any Belv. It's the Super Belv. The most powerful Belv... in the world.

(Also, the danger you don't fully understand is always scarier than the danger you do.)

>> "Monsieur, do you see these wings? They're not humorous."
>
>I am sure there are situations where they might be, but saying so
>would be... unwise.

Well, yes, I mean, if she were trying to climb through a small window and they got hung up on the jamb, that would be funny, but only a fool would say so.

>Also, how jaded of a public servant was that clerk? He didn't take it
>in stride precisely, but he air of 'seen it all' is quite potent.

The French (or Gallian) civil servant is a unique breed, the Alsatian doubly so. :) Also, this guy is worn the heck out. It's 10:30 on a Friday night and he's still at work, because somebody decided to close the office for a party that afternoon, but the same amount of work still needed to get done. He probably thinks he's hallucinating.

(Also also, he's Gallian in 1946 and he was at an office party that afternoon, so he's probably a bit drunk.)

>A testament to G's willpower to not make some horse appropriate noise
>at that comment.

Please. He has some dignity. In public. Usually.

(If it had been Flan saying that, he probably would have.)

>So blood types have flavors, and we know illnesses can be tasted to
>some extent, is it a thing for vampires in UF to go the route of VtM
>kindred and snack on the inebriated if they are looking to partake of
>recreational pharmaceuticals?

Some do, some don't. It's not particularly effective if what they're after is the same effect that the original user is experiencing—too dilute, and their own physiology is too resilient. It does change the bouquet somewhat, though. Sort of like terroir in wine. :)

(As to the blood types thing, I'm not sure if it's in the games somewhere or just a very consistently adopted fanon thing, but I've seen numerous sources claiming that Remilia prefers type B, while A is Flandre's favorite. In that case, she's in luck, because she got around a gallon of it back in TTW Act VI. :)

>Seems like the Scarlets, at least, might
>not strictly need to, though they would need truly mythical quantities
>of whatever substance to get past their regeneration I'd guess.

Yeah, anyone with enough stuff in their system to affect either of the Scarlets secondhand would have been killed by it, and they don't do carrion. :)

>It's very good that G doesn't age, if keeps this up he'll be many
>years older than himself.

Well, he'd have to keep it up for some time to start showing a cumulative effect; it's a solid two-to-one ratio. But yes, whenever you're shenaniganing with time, it helps to be more or less immunized to it yourself.

(This is also a consideration for Sakuya, since her own timestream keeps running when The World has the continuum around her paused. Or, well, technically her personal timestream is accelerated to such a degree that the continuum around her appeears to have stopped. Either way you look at it, by rights that should have the side effect of aging her much faster than her surroundings, given how much she uses that trick. The fact that, on the contrary, she doesn't seem to age at all is... suggestive.)

>Also, given all the commentary about how fraught this maneuver is,
>repeating it, and seemingly planning to do so more often, seems like a
>bit of tempting fate. But I may just be paranoid due to other authors,
>and, you know, real life.

Well, they know it's something they need to be cautious about. And exactly how often he'll be doing it is still kind of up in the air. Theoretically he could do it monthly; it would be more work, but easier to keep track of things, since he'd just be resetting each full moon. On the other hand, letting it ride for two or three months and then doubling back is less faff, but means a longer "walk" to get back to SDM. Six of one...

(My meta-problem now is that I've "caught up" to the main OWaW timeline, so his SDM time is no longer in the "past".)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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