>>She didn't quite wake, but sensed he was trying to leave anyway, and
>>slipped the hand that had been lying on his chest the rest of the way
>>over him, tightening her hold with a mumbled "nooo."
>
>Congratulations, G has been promoted from horsey to teddy bear.

Next stop: dakimakura!

>>"How did you manage to light those chandeliers?"
>
>Two options come to mind: pinpoint firebending or Meiling hoisting G
>up to the requisite height.

It was the former; the chandeliers are out over the main pool, so the latter approach would've been... tricky. :)

>>"Oh, ye gods, my little sister is a naturist," Remilia said, observing the
>>scene through the fingers of one hand.
>
>This got a good chuckle, especially since Remilia really should have
>seen Flandre's utter lack of modesty in the situation coming.

She should have, but somehow Flan just keeps surprising her. (Alternately, she did, then couldn't help but react that way anyway.)

>>"You've named the salamander?"
>
>Of course she did. I do wonder how many other unexpected namings
>Flandre might indulge in as time goes on.

All of her dolls and stuffed toys have names as well, we just haven't heard any of them. (Or seen any of the toys themselves in detail, come to think of it; I have ideas for a few of them, but there hasn't been a good place to work them in yet. I should've mentioned somewhere in the frontispiece for this episode that they're part of the obstacle course one must navigate to get into or out of her bed. :)

>>Flandre shrugged, making ripples in the water around her. "He just looks like
>>a Stephen. Unless he's a girl. I can't really tell."
>
>I'm a bit curious about the criteria for 'looking like a Stephen' but
>that's mostly since it also happens to be my name and I'm sincerely
>hoping I look the part.

I have no specific data about this, since the criteria exist only in Flan's head.

>>"Very well, then. If—I should say when, because I'm sure it's inevitable—Flan
>>makes such a request of you again, you needn't refuse on my account."
>
>I must admit, Remilia's bit here surprised me. I had expected her more
>traditional nature to have drawn the line G clearly expected, but it
>didn't.

It surprised G too, and he's still thinking it over as the act concludes, despite her admonition that he shouldn't think too hard about it—because she obviously has, despite how casually she tried to present her conclusions.

I think it's fair to say that in virtually any other instance, that line you (and he) were expecting is there. In fact, looking at the passage now, there's a paragraph missing that I have a clear memory of writing which would have spelled that part out as well. I wonder what the hell happened there? Grumble. Anyway, she is only talking about Flandre there. Everyone else is out of luck if she has any say in the matter, which of course she has.

>Though if things between them go the way Flandre certainly
>seems interested in I hope she finds something other than variations
>on 'brother' to call the man.

She's still workshopping alternatives, but for now she remains comfortable with "bro" (although she's relying less and less on the "big" modifier as she herself feels less of a child.

>>"Maman was very proud of that particular invention."
>
>Remilia the Elder seems to have been the sort of magical inventor you
>often expect but seldom see in most traditional fantasy settings, the
>person applying all that magical juice to making life better in small
>but deeply practical and satisfying ways.

It's true. When she wasn't being a straight-up magical doctor, she was all about what we would now call "quality of life improvements". The peculiar resistance to entropy that things in the house seem to have (like the fact that everything in the music room is still more or less in tune after being completely neglected for 70+ years) is also almost certainly her doing.

>>"Bro! Meiling! It stopped raining! Let's go do the thing!"
>
>I'm not sure if it is intentional, perhaps as a sign/side effect of
>Flandre becoming herself and growing in a more modern age, that her
>speech patterns seem more modern in my mind that pretty much anyone
>else in the household.

This is also true. Not only is she temperamentally less formal than her sister, she speaks English more like Gryphon and Meiling do—not altogether coincidentally, since they're the people she's conversed with in that language the most since her recovery. (I haven't noted it in the text anywhere, because it felt clunky and fourth-wall-y, but you can assume that when she and Remilia are the only people in the scene, their dialogue is really in French.) How much of this is unconscious imitation of people she thinks highly of, and how much is just because she's at an impressionable "age" and those are the linguistic influences she's surrounded with, she probably wouldn't be able to tell you herself.

>Is it me, or has teaching the witches to touch the Force somehow
>strengthened G's own connection to it? I have this sense that in a lot
>of earlier stories that touched on the Force flavored foundations of
>his fighting style it was all much less potent (I specifically recall
>a scene in one story where he evened somewhat surprised himself by
>managing some telekinesis to retrieve a weapon.)

I would say it's partly that, and partly a result of his own closer study of the matter in the year or two before his displacement to 1946. He started paying more deliberate attention to the Jedi side of Katsujinkenryū after Leonard went off to become a Jedi Knight himself, and a lot of his work with Raven has involved the Force/magic intersection as a matter of course as well. Zauberschule is a very big part of it, though.

>Seems like Sakuya is settled into the new rhythm at the mansion, she
>seems much more emotive here, or maybe Remilia was just particularly
>on target when it came to her lovingly administered teasing.

Again, both impressions are applicable. The "family" vibe in the household is so much stronger now than it was in the old days with the large staff, and she and Remilia are so much more open about their relationship than they were in the dark period when it was just the two of them staggering along under the weight of the 10th of Floréal, that she feels a lot more free to express the emotions she's always had. And of course there's Meiling, who unlocks a lot of things just by being there. (Early in their relationship, she found this troubling to the point of annoyance, until it finally dawned on her that there was nobody around she needed to front for in the first place.)

As for Remilia, well, with all due respect to Meiling, nobody knows Sakuya better, and now that she's gone and deliberately ripped open the curtain of Professional Detachment that used to hang between them, she's going to make the most of it any chance she gets. She enjoys teasing Sakuya as much as Flan enjoys teasing her, and all is right with the world. :)

She still does her job perfectly and elegantly, of course. She wouldn't be Sakuya if she didn't. But she's a lot less of a Vulcan about it these days, and I dare say it's a healthier way of life for all concerned.

>...and the confluence of the various timelines in this tale just got
>even more tangled. At this point I'm picturing the picture used in a
>lot of conspiracy memes depicting a wild eyed fellow in front of a
>cork board that looks like someone threw a ball of yarn and box of
>thumbtacks at repeatedly until some of them stuck.

The really fun part is that it's even crazier than that hypothetical guy thinks, because of the whole Crisis on Infinite Tracers thing. :)

>>"Whatever you're doing, turn it off!" Gryphon shouted over the noise.
>
>I feel like this is a reference I'm missing, but I'm not sure if it
>isn't a false positive due to this also possibly being one of those
>stock lines that come up in such situations.

It's not a specific reference to anything, although such a reference may be appearing in a future installment, since Gryphon and Meiling working on the house always give me "Han and Chewie trying to fix the Falcon" vibes anyway. :)

>Sakuya's wit is as sharp as her murder implements I see. This might be
>more of the 'loosening up' I thought I saw earlier, or maybe it is
>just her getting some more time to shine?

Yes, and also yes.

>>"I'm sure I'll adapt in a day or two," said Lena, and then, with a wry grin,
>>"I'm not exactly unfamiliar with creatures of the night—right, Chief?"
>>Gryphon chuckled. "Indeed."
>
>It was noted where our time witch was imported from, so does that make
>this a reference to said source, or a tale yet to be told?

She's talking about one of her colleagues back at the 508th JFW. Captain Lacroix is not a vampire (ED. NOTE: in this universe), but she is markèdly eccentric even by the liberal standards of Night Witches.

(Lena runs into the local version of Amélie Lacroix in every timeline she manifests in. She has no idea why. It's not like they're Destined to Be Together or anything of that sort; they rarely even get along all that well! Indeed, sometimes they spend entire lifetimes just trying to murder each other. But she always turns up, regardless of context. Even Lena thinks that's kind of eerie, although by this point she's learned to roll with it. And hey, at least in this life they're on the same side.)

>>"Well... I suppose there's no reason why that wouldn't work," said Gryphon
>>after a moment's thought.
>
>Mosquito jokes aside, is Remilia's appetite truly that small that a
>month's worth of her hard to acquire dietary supplement would be
>easily portable in luggage?

Probably not, and that is a logistical concern nobody's actually thought of yet in this scene, and will need to be addressed. (Technically speaking, it's not that hard to acquire, although the fact that Remilia isn't very good at the game, either socially or in terms of technique, does have to be taken into account.)

>This whole sequence was pretty much Flandre gold, facilitated by
>Remilia's dignity. Somehow I doubt Flandre will ever fully get tired
>of causing indignant Remilia noises.

Certainly not! And on some level, she knows Remilia enjoys it too—now that Flan is better at feeling out the line between being impertinent and being hurtful. Remi wouldn't know what to do if Flan didn't tease her. It would mean she must be sick or something.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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