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Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 357
#457,
Posted by on Dec-- at 00: AM
In response to message #

#0, Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-20-13 at 05:13 PM
LAST EDITED ON Jul-20-13 AT 05:34 PM (EDT)
 
OK, I have to admit, I'm barely scratching the surface of it so far, but I really, really love the way you introduced Korra and the whole Avatar sub-set, and the White Lotus part makes a TON of sense.

Edit: Also, thank you whomever decided to get the REAL Hockey Theme back. Not that Canadian Gold isn't an OK bit of music, but it isn't The Hockey Theme.


#1, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-20-13 at 06:03 PM
In response to message #0
Edit Mk. III: OK, really, seriously, I want to learn Amy and Rory's deal. I mean, I'm assuming it's at least somewhat based on Weeping Angels + Quantum Leap = wacky(?) misadventures, but whaaaaaaaat.

And wow, what a brilliant way for Anne to get a better handle on her PK. And the mysterious Clarinetist appears! Woo!

Back to reading.

(woo!)


#2, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by pjmoyer on Jul-20-13 at 06:08 PM
In response to message #1
>Edit Mk. III: OK, really, seriously, I want to learn Amy and Rory's
>deal. I mean, I'm assuming it's at least somewhat based on Weeping
>Angels + Quantum Leap = wacky(?) misadventures, but whaaaaaaaat.

Weeping Angels do not exist. They will not be appearing in UF. Gryphon would rather go through another kidney surgery than let them into UF. I would rather go through another liver transplant than try to convince Gryphon to put them into UF. And that's all I'll say about that.

--- Philip





Philip J. Moyer
Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios
"Insert Pithy Comment Here"


#3, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-20-13 at 06:21 PM
In response to message #2
Fair enough. Still, something got them unstuck in time, and I'm hoping someday we learn more. (Preferably with an "A-HA!" and a "Right, sorted", but y'know.)

#8, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-20-13 at 09:39 PM
In response to message #2
>Gryphon would rather go through another kidney surgery than let them
>into UF.

Holy fuck, dude, I wouldn't go that far.

... I do hate the Weeping Angels, though. :)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#4, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mister Fnord on Jul-20-13 at 07:48 PM
In response to message #0
Only you, dude. Only you would look at the big starring-everybody-and-their-neighbor's-pets chapter, say "this looks like a great place to introduce a half dozen new characters with attendant cosmology" and get away with it. Well bowled, G, well bowled.

--
Mr. Fnord


#5, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by The Traitor on Jul-20-13 at 08:39 PM
In response to message #4
And include a reference to people who still have yet to show up.

Though the thought of Nall playing with grenades fills me with existential dread...

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends


#6, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by zwol on Jul-20-13 at 09:02 PM
In response to message #4
Also, the ever-tricky problem of introducing new characters who have been there all along, really, just not onstage, was very well handled in this one.

#7, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by pjmoyer on Jul-20-13 at 09:24 PM
In response to message #6
LAST EDITED ON Jul-21-13 AT 02:09 AM (EDT)
 
>Also, the ever-tricky problem of introducing new characters who have
>been there all along, really, just not onstage, was very well handled
>in this one.

"Don't call it a comeback; I've been here for years."

--- Philip
mama said knock you out




Philip J. Moyer
Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios
"Insert Pithy Comment Here"


#9, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by StClair on Jul-20-13 at 11:05 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jul-20-13 AT 11:07 PM (EDT)
 
For all that this movement was, once again, stuffed full of awesome, I'd say my very favorite bits were the asides from the best man ("And then he went and married the pink one") and maid of honor ("She was very disappointed").

Such friends ARE a treasure and should DEFINITELY not be disintegrated.


#10, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-20-13 at 11:39 PM
In response to message #9
>For all that this movement was, once again, stuffed full of awesome,
>I'd say my very favorite bits were the asides from the best man ("And
>then he went and married the pink one") and maid of honor ("She
>was very disappointed").

True story: I was actually playing Nall's speech straight - well, as straight as it was, I mean, he is kind of going for a humorous tone throughout - until I got to the end, looked at it, and then typed that line pretty much by automatic writing, like some kind of fortuneteller. Looked at it again, thought about it for a second, and let it stand. :)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#11, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-21-13 at 01:12 AM
In response to message #10
It was perfect. Totally makes sense given the weight of the occasion and the whole "well, the first one got hosed, so" of the moment, yet he still sticks the landing .

#12, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Droken on Jul-21-13 at 02:05 AM
In response to message #10
Which just goes to show a true mastery of your craft. -WELL- bowled sir; so -very- well bowled.

#30, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by StClair on Jul-21-13 at 07:30 PM
In response to message #10
What they said.

#13, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by drakensis on Jul-21-13 at 04:37 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jul-21-13 AT 05:04 AM (EDT)
 
I just finished re-reading Clarion Call yesterday so it was great to move on to this, even if I was skipping Movement Three.

Haven't read the other comments yet, much less them commentary, so some of this may cross well-trod ground.

Having glanced over the cast list first and spotting mention of Legend of Korra I was curious to see who it would be. I didn't have long to wait:

> "Hey, boss," said Keiko Sonoda. "There's a... squad of kabuki
> commandos or something at the main gate. They're asking - well,
> actually, sort of demanding - to come in and 'secure the premises'."

Did they... yeah, I think they _are_...

> Sure enough, just as Keiko had said, there was a small group of
> colorfully costumed women there. They were indeed dressed like
> commandos, in green tactical jumpsuits under black composite body armor,
> and they did have full-face makeup, mostly flat white with stark black
> and red accents meant to exaggerate their features and make them look
> fierce. Corwin had always privately thought what it really did was make
> them look -adorable-, but he was smart enough that he had never
> mentioned that to them out loud.

Kyoshi Warriors! Hurrah!
And yeah, that'd be a smart thing for Corwin not to say where they might hear it. They're PROUD warriors.

And escorting Korra apparently. Iiiiiinteresting...

Also Maki knows how to handle a Hutchins man and their informalities.

> Before Tsuwabuki could reply, Kardon Felz let out a booming bark
> of laughter and said, "Are you kidding, boss? Those girls are -into-
> our boy MT." He elbowed Tsuwabuki and waggled his eyebrows. "Fifty
> zorkmids says they stash him in their luggage and take him with them
> when they leave."

The Miki Kaoru legacy is secure at Tenjou Academy.

> "I think it's cute," Anaximandra Drax put in from a couple of
> seats to the other side of Tsuwabuki. "Not what Kardon's doing," she
> qualified after a moment's thought. "That's just his usual juvenility."

Well Anax is coming out of her shell nicely.

> Amid those vortices, the form of a young woman appeared out of
> the mist. Slim and athletic in jeans, ugg-like boots, and a fur-trimmed
> blue leather jacket, she had medium-length dark hair drawn up into a
> high ponytail and sidelocks, dusky skin that would have put a native
> Cephirean in mind of the people of the Shalharan desert, and a look of
> composed, eyes-closed serenity on an open, forthrightly pretty face.
> She carried a midsize duffel bag strapped tightly across her back, its
> strap pulled to its shortest length, so that it wouldn't flop around as
> she moved. She did this with a fluid but surefooted motion that was
> part martial artist's kata and part dance, completing a pattern that was
> at once ancient and unique to this one moment.

I actually didn't get who this was until until right after the paragraph. For some reason, the wireless earbuds were what twigged me. Which is bizarre because I'm _fairly_ sure there are no such things in the source material, and yet someone dancing/kataing (is that a word?) out of the Forest of Secrets with headphones... well, that was Korra.

> "I was beginning to wonder if there was some kind of
> conspiracy to keep you and me from ever meeting," said Utena wryly as
> they crossed the Quad.
> "Actually, there was," Korra admitted.
> Utena raised an eyebrow. "... I'm sorry?"
> Korra sighed. "It's a long story. Basically, there's an
> organization in my world whose leaders think they know better than I do
> what I should be doing. After you guys had your, uh, adventure here,"
> she went on, gesturing generally around to Cephiro, "word got back to
> them somehow, I'm still looking into that, but anyway, they were afraid
> that if you and I ever actually crossed paths, something revolutionary
> would happen."

Well... that's a reasonable concern. I mean, that's terrible underhanded behaviour but clearly they have good information on Utena. And surprisingly early if they twigged that back in... 2405 I think it was. The Order of the White Lotus clearly have connections. I guess that means they're probably from the Upper Realms somewhere, not Midgard.

> "Compromise," said Korra. "Besides, Maki would never have
> forgiven me if I let her miss this. She had a hard time believing
> you're not still that little boy who made her go train surfing on her
> first day off the island."

Oh Corwin.

> So You Didn’t Know There Were Ten Worlds

I can't help but imagine Derek Bacon researching that one personally (does he do that or does he have a support staff these days) and returning to B6 with an _epic_ amount of holiday swag for Ivana to spaz out over.

> "... what do you put in the -noodles- around here?" Korra
> wondered.

It's a very _active_ magesphere, IIRC.

> "One day soon, you'll have to tell me -your- version of the Great Sky
> Bison Hijack of 2397."

...I second this motion. It sounds like flavours of how Corwin and Len met Dorothy.

> One in particular, a tall, green-eyed girl with long black hair
> and a cycling jacket, stood frozen for a moment as though in shock, then
> ran to the edge of the platform and had a look over the edge. When she
> turned around, she had a look of gleeful amazement on her face, which
> didn't seem accustomed to wearing that kind of look somehow. Laughing,
> she ran to another of the newcomers, an elegantly dressed girl with
> sandy brown hair, and seemed to surprise (but delight) her by catching
> her in one of those full-turnaround can-you-believe-this hugs. Their
> friends looked on with an air of fond indulgence, which only intensified
> when the black-haired girl seemed to catch herself and then hastily
> composed herself, glaring around as if daring anyone to acknowledge what
> they'd all just seen. No one did, but they all declined with such
> obviously fake innocence that the sandy-haired girl gave a merry laugh
> and hooked an arm around her furiously blushing companion's waist.

Hehehehe. Natsuki so funny.

> This last was in response to another big animal which had
> appeared from the crowd. This appeared to be a large wolf-like
> creature, not quite as massive as Serge, but impressive all the same -
> and nearly as arresting to look at, too, as his shaggy fur was a
> peculiar and decorative shade of blue not normally found on canids.
> He'd threaded his way through the forest of legs, spotted the tiger, and
> moseyed over to say hello, then spotted the Avatar and decided to
> introduce himself with a bit of a licking.

_Completely_ mis-identified Duran until he was named. I was wondering how Korra's big wolf-bear thing (name escapes me) had made his own way to Tenchuu. (Is it Tenchuu that Tenjou Academy is located in? I _think_ it's Tenchuu.)

> A mix of cheers and boos greeted this screen. Someone called
> out, "Oh come on, Hockey Night in WHAT? The EA makes -everything-
> lame," to which there was much laughing agreement. Corwin picked his
> way through the floor-sitters and -lyers to the rightmost of the three

Sad but true.

Also -lyers looks odd, but for the life of me I don't see how else it would be spelt. With an 'I'? '-lier'? Nah...

But I digress.

> " - TAKEN FROM BEHIND BY KRUGER!" Professor Jim bellowed,
> disbelieving.
> "Oh -Natsuki!-" Shizuru cried, drawing her startled lover's arms
> tighter around her. "So bold!"
> "SHIZURU!" Natsuki blurted, blushing bright red, as the whole
> room disintegrated in laughter.

Those two are comedy gold.

> "What in the world has - " Natsuki started to mutter under the
> laugh that got; then she bit off the rest of the question and growled at
> herself as she realized, belatedly, that it would be -daft- to utter the
> phrase "gotten into you tonight" at this moment.

On the one hand, yes, it would be. On the other hand, my inner straight-man (not like that!) urges her to do so anyway.

> Natsuki had, by this time, passed clean out the other side of
> her earlier embarrassment; now she just raised an ironically triumphant
> fist in the air and forestalled all comments by remarking, "Yes, yes,
> thank you. I am amazing."

Yes, I'll give her that one.

I loved that whole section, which may have been obvious. It's not like watching Utena & co sitting down and having a family evening watching TV... it's like BEING THERE WITH THEM.

> "OK, look, -I- will go and see what's going on, and if I think they need
> more backup than me, -I'll- call. K? Lensman's honor." Turning them
> loose, she reached into the small crowd of onlookers and dragged out
> Tsuwabuki. "I'll even take Mitsuru with me."
> "Hey, I didn't - " Tsuwabuki began to protest.
> "(Shut up and come with me,)" Wakaba growled, twisting his arm
> slightly.

Indeed. Do not argue with the Onion Princess. (Or a previous holder of your exalted office, O President of the Student Council.)

> Korra frowned thoughtfully. "Gonna be honest: That sounds like
> a terrible job."
> "Oh, it is," Corwin agreed. "It's the dullest mythical position
> ever invented. You're basically Atlas with a better wardrobe
> department." He reached and cheerfully dinged a bellhop's bell set into
> the upper panel of the console. "Which is why the first thing I did was
> automate it!" He typed away for a moment as she favored him with an
> indulgent don't-ever-change smile, then added, "Actually, I automated
> -all- our jobs. I'm not sure the girls have noticed yet. Maybe they
> just think things are slow lately. Anyway, that's why we can leave for
> extended periods without things falling over. Otherwise we'd have our
> own equivalent of the White Lotus constantly texting us all OMG IT IS
> RAINING FIRE WHERE R U."

All things considered, I'm surprised no previous Trinity went bug-nuts over that. (Discounting the previous Trinity, who were a bit different).

Of course, given the Rune Knights mechanism exists, perhaps some of them _did_.

> // Somewhere:
> "THIS WAS NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND!"
> "SHUT UP AND RUN THEY'RE GAINING!"
> //

...yeah, about what I expected.

> "That I might be able to show you a few moves?" Korra finished.
> Anne nodded, looking a little glum. "Well... I could try," said Korra,
> grinning. Anne blinked, looking up at her. "Hey, fire's fire, right?
> I'm not sure it matters so much where it comes from." She hopped down
> from the planter, restarted her music player, then tilted her head
> toward the courtyard. "C'mon and let's see if I can't help you out
> some."

I rather hoped that this was where the scene was going.

> "Hmm," said Korra. "OK, I'm going to make a couple of
> assumptions here, stop me if I'm getting things wrong or making you
> uncomfortable. You're pyrokinetic and, from the looks of you, human."
> Anne nodded. "That must have made you a pretty hot property, no pun
> intended. I've tangled with the Psi Corps myself a time or two - I'm
> not their preferred flavor, but they don't know that to look at me.
> Sometimes I meet one who takes airbending for telekinesis, for instance.
> How old are you - 13?" Another nod. "How long were you on the run?"

Interesting. That suggests that Diqiu -is- in Midgard, contrary to my thoughts previously.

> "Because they can fly," Korra said, as though that were the most
> natural explanation in the world. When Natsuki responded to this with a
> skeptical look, she grinned and clicked to the next picture. "There we
> are. A rare shot of Mogi in action." She grinned and explained, "He's
> been scientifically proven to be the laziest sky bison in the world."

Which may take some doing. Being the laziest, that is.

> "No need, you're both right," said Korra. "Sorry, I haven't
> left home in a while. I'm not used to being around people who don't
> already have the backstory. See, it all ties into the answer to the
> question you asked me last night, that we didn't have time for. And we
> still kinda don't," she added with a grin, "but I can give you the short
> version, anyway, if you've got a couple of minutes."
> Shizuru smiled. "I'd like nothing better."

Oh good, exposition. (takes out note pad)

> At the other end of the table, the Trinity had drifted in about
> quarter to nine, while Korra was still on the sports page. This would
> have been catastrophically late on any normal wedding day, but none of
> them seemed concerned as they waved good-mornings to various friends,
> took their seats, and started in on breakfast.

...but... exposition! (comedic weeping)

> Utena's grin slipped slightly into I-may-have-opened-that-door-
> a-little-TOO-wide territory.
> "Oh!" said Corwin as if just remembering something. "And she
> was there when I was born."
> Utena gave him a curious look. "What, as in, in the room?"
> "As in standing about there," said Corwin, pointing to a
> theoretical spot about two feet away, "practicing the ancient and
> honorable Southern Water Tribe art of midwifery."

...I have trouble seeing Korra doing anything medical.

Okay, now I do and it _scares the crap_ out of me.

> "No," said Korra lightly. "No, I'm afraid it must have
> completely slipped his -mind- to mention that he's capable of assuming
> human form now. There must not have been a good time to bring it up."
> She put her hands on her hips. "For instance, last night during the
> game, when he was climbing into my lap."

Utena knows _exactly_ how you feel, Korra.

> Umi went a little bit red. "Did heeee," she said with
> exaggerated casualness. "Wellll."

Blushing Umi sounds adorable.

> "Gentlemen," said Skuld Ravenhair cheerfully. "Thanks for
> coming. I have a little job for you."
> Sitting at either end of Skuld's living-room sofa, her guests -
> a stocky man in jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater, and a skinny
> specimen in a brown pinstripe suit - glanced at each other and shared a
> private smile.

When you care enough to call in the _very_ best...

> "We know you have a choice in interdimensional time travel,"
> said the man in green cheerfully as another group of guests emerged from
> his TARDIS in his wake, "and we'd like to thank you for choosing the
> Time Lords. We hope to see you all again - "
> " - In a few hours when you need to get back home," Rose
> finished for him, and, laughing, they high-fived.

...expect them to have fun doing it.

> bottom of the stairs, Wolfgang (Beagle of the Lens) left Gryphon's side
> and darted straight for the the front of the seating section on the
> left. For a second, Gryphon wondered who the Lenshound was in such a

Only flaw noted so far, repetition of the word "the".

> "H-Heather!" she blurted, so shocked that she stumbled over the
> first phoneme in a way that had become rare for her of late. The girl
> at the podium straightened and turned to face Kate, her fair-skinned,
> dark-eyed face breaking into a wide smile.

Well hello Heather. Fancy speaking you here... or anywhere.
(actually this works well if only because we are meeting several characters new to us, so there are plenty of introductions of people part of the main character's lives that not everyone knows).

> "Doesn't matter, still a princess," said Anne airily. "Anyway,
> it's funny because of Utena. She's Prince of Cephiro because she
> decided when she was little that she wanted to be a prince instead of a
> princess. You know - rescue instead of being rescued, and stuff. I
> wondered if it's ever occurred to her how many -badass princesses- she
> knows. That's why I was laughing."

Good point, although at that point she'd not have met any of them.
(And I get the feeling that that the previous Trinity didn't exactly break out of the traditional gender roles. Wasn't Princess Emmeraude away in a _tower_, fercryin'outloud?

> "Good morning, everyone," she said, her voice pleasant and
> sturdy, like its owner. "My name is Presea. I am the Master Smith of
> the Tenth World. My craft, my art, my responsibility and my privilege
> in this world is the making of fine, strong, beautiful, and functional
> things. As such - " (here she smiled a little archly) " - you can
> probably guess why Lady Anthy called upon me to bear witness here today.

From your lips to the maternal grandfather of the groom's ear.

> must have presented. Utena was equally taken aback to find herself
> dancing with Klingon Chancellor Krojaar, who, she would have thought,
> had a somewhat more important -civil war- to attend to - and after him

It's very Utena that she doesn't realise that even if he wasn't fond of her (he likely is) and honouring her aid to him (likely true) it is politically a very sound move on Krojaar's part to keep ties to the IPO warm. That is, of course, one of issues the Klingon Civil War seems to be being fought over.

> On the other hand, it soon became apparent that they had little
> real -understanding- of their elements. To Korra's eye, they were like
> she had been early in her career, when she'd first moved to Republic
> City: well-grounded and highly skilled in the mechanics, but lacking
> that essential underlying connection to the elements as spiritual
> phenomena. They still thought like -sorcerers,- as though they were
> simply casting elementalist spells. Of the three, only Fuu really had
> a glimmer of a deeper understanding, and she didn't seem that -certain-
> of whatever insight she might have acquired.

Very interesting. Juniper might not be the only one with a training trip to Diqiu in their future.

> "Awriiight," she said, putting up her right hand. "Up top."
> When nothing happened after a few seconds, she frowned and said, "Hey.
> Do NOT leave me hangin' here."
> Corwin sighed. "Toph, do you realize where we are?"
> Toph smirked at him. "Uh-huh, and as ever, I'm missing the
> show." She waved a hand in front of her eyes, unblinking.

Hah. Nice to see her and she's NEVER getting tired of that joke.

> Korra nodded, letting the hesitation pass - not her business to
> pry, whatever had caused it. "Diqiu is... well, it's the same planet,
> really, just... hey, Corwin, how would you explain the deal with Diqiu
> and Zipang?"
> "Five degrees counterclockwise on the zorth axis," Corwin
> replied; he hadn't really been listening, as he was nearly asleep.
> This left Hikaru and Umi none the wiser, but Fuu brightened and
> said, "Oh my! That sounds fascinating."
> "Uh... " said Hikaru, looking puzzled.
> "Basically," Fuu explained, "that means Korra's homeworld is a
> sort of... -time shadow- of Zipang. Physically the same planet, but
> with a different, independent existence. Not a full-fledged parallel
> universe, much less a wholly separate cosmos like Cephiro, but two
> worlds coexisting in virtually the same time and place, unaware of and
> unaffected by each other."

Aha! All becomes clear.

> "Oh, you know me, I'm always up for adventure," said Umi
> breezily. "Wouldn't miss it."

If you say so, Umi. For a given value of 'always' meaning, not on your first visit to Cephiro.

> "Why me?" Miki asked, failing to budge from his spot between
> Kaitlyn and Juri.
> "Because you're perfect," said virtually everyone.

That line never gets old.

> "I always assumed I'd be speaking at his wedding one day, so
> you'd think I would have prepared some remarks - I mean, I've had 19
> years to do it. But no. Because I could never, in a -hundred- years,
> have predicted who he'd be marrying, or where, or how they'd meet.
> There was a time when I thought he'd probably have to build his ideal
> woman himself, because there was no way nature was going to put together
> somebody that smart, that brave, that tough, and above all that patient
> by itself. Not with only 13.8 billion plus or minus 37 million years to
> work the problem. But what can I say?" he added with an eloquent shrug.
> "I was wrong." He gestured toward Utena, who sat hand-in-hand with
> Anthy on one side of her and Corwin on the other, giving him a wide-eyed
> look of surprise. "'Cause there she is."
> Nall let the moment sink in for a second, then grinned and went
> on, "And then he went and married the -pink- one, which shows you what
> -I- know, but what're you gonna do."

Oh that cheeky dragon.

> "Yeah, yeah," said Wakaba cheerfully, waving the gesture away.
> "Technically Kate's supposed to do this, but I pulled seniority. I
> haven't known Utena quite as long as Nall's known Corwin," she explained
> to the room, "but I -have- known her since the fourth grade. Nall was
> around when Corwin finally discovered girls," she added with a smirk,
> "but -I- was there when Utena finally discovered she -was- one." Around
> the back of her hand, she stage-whispered mock-confidentially, "She was
> very disappointed."

Nall, you have -competition-

> "And though I can't really be said to have had a hand in any of
> it," she finished, her eyes shimmering a little in the chandelierlight
> from above, "I'm proud of him - of them all. So proud of what they've
> done; what they've made; what they -are.-" She paused for a second to
> collect herself, then raised her glass with a bright smile and said
> simply,
> "Here's to Cephiro's Trinity. Here's to love."

'Scuse me, I seem to have gotten some tears in my eyes.

> "Give me that," growled Kaname, and without further ado, she
> snatched the scroll from the Valkyrie second-in-command's hand and
> speed-read her way down its face. "I - ... a parchment with scrollbars?
> OK... let's see. You guys, fine, wonderful... " she mumbled, sinking
> into a reverie of concentration. "Aeryn, I think you might have sold
> yourself short... sorry about that, I just realized... Buttercup
> Utonium, 10:1, paren, 25:1 he survives." She snorted. "Maevis
> Copperwing, I don't even know who that -is-... Clarissa Broadbank,
> crossed out. That's cute... "
> The Valkyrie glanced nervously at each other. None took up the
> implied challenge to explain to Kaname that "crossed out" didn't mean
> what she thought it meant on that list.

...so it means what? That she's out of the running, that she's dead (not half as much of a handicap as her personality unless something freaky happened to her afterlife, if applicable) or - his maternal grandmother forfend - that she actually _got somewhere_? (He'd have had a busy autumn and winter for that to be so, between Anthy and Nanami).

> She smiled. "I'm an adult, I'm fully capable of putting myself to bed
> if I need to. And I hardly think I'll be doing that in the same place
> that -you- do tonight," she added. As Utena blushed - she genuinely had
> not thought of that - Anthy went on archly, "I don't think Corwin is
> ready for that yet."

Utena's genuinely not good at thinking about sleeping arrangements, is she, given her triumphant return to the Duellist's Castle three movements ago.

> Corwin clapped him on the shoulder. "Great. Tell you what, I
> won't tell Lhakpa you're coming or what you look like now. Then maybe
> you have a chance of getting all the way off the ferry before the chase
> begins."

I'm not sure who Lhakpa is but I can think of two amusing scenarios already.

> Korra opened her eyes; they were glowing, all detail washed out
> by white light. Anne gasped softly in wonder at the sight. With a
> little smile, Korra winked at her, then drew a breath, turned, and began
> to walk the intricate circular steps of the veilbending dance. Drawing
> together into a tight little group around Serge (who was entirely
> unconcerned), hands linked all around to be sure no one got lost, Corwin
> and the rest followed her into the mist, which swallowed them all up.
> A few seconds later, the fountains stopped; the torches guttered
> and went out; the wind died away. When the mist cleared, the door to
> the Forest stood closed and silent once more...

And I hold my breath waiting for something to go wrong...


Anyway, great fun reading. Don't know what happened to my morning, but "oh well, what the hell." Much respect, etc.


#17, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-21-13 at 08:43 AM
In response to message #13
>I actually didn't get who this was until until right after the
>paragraph. For some reason, the wireless earbuds were what twigged me.
>Which is bizarre because I'm _fairly_ sure there are no such things in
>the source material, and yet someone dancing/kataing (is that a word?)
>out of the Forest of Secrets with headphones... well, that was Korra.

In veilbending, it helps a bit to have something to keep the beat.

>> "Compromise," said Korra. "Besides, Maki would never have
>> forgiven me if I let her miss this. She had a hard time believing
>> you're not still that little boy who made her go train surfing on her
>> first day off the island."
>
>Oh Corwin.

To be fair, he didn't make her go train surfing, exactly. It's just that he went train surfing, and Maki's superiors had told her not to let him out of her sight.

>_Completely_ mis-identified Duran until he was named. I was wondering
>how Korra's big wolf-bear thing (name escapes me) had made his own way
>to Tenchuu. (Is it Tenchuu that Tenjou Academy is located in? I
>_think_ it's Tenchuu.)

Sadly, Naga's no longer with us by 2410. Which is sad, because, as Korra will tell you, she was the best polar bear dog ever.

Also, the Cephirean city which Tenjou Academy is in (actually, right next to) is Saitou. Tenchuu is where the High Priest's Tower was, before Akio destroyed it.

>Also -lyers looks odd, but for the life of me I don't see how else it
>would be spelt. With an 'I'? '-lier'? Nah...

Yeay, probably -liers is more correct (by analogy with "outliers", for instance). I think I was concerned with making it less likely to be mistaken for "liars".

>I loved that whole section, which may have been obvious. It's not like
>watching Utena & co sitting down and having a family evening watching
>TV... it's like BEING THERE WITH THEM.

I enjoyed putting it together for much the same reasons. As noted in the Annotations, bits of it came from watching the Stanley Cup Finals (which ultimately ended in disappointment, but that's life) while working on the story. I knew I wanted to have some kind of big fun gathering for the gang the night before the ceremony. It was originally going to be movie night, but hey, hockey.

>All things considered, I'm surprised no previous Trinity went bug-nuts
>over that. (Discounting the previous Trinity, who were a bit
>different).
>
>Of course, given the Rune Knights mechanism exists, perhaps some of
>them _did_.

Well, Corwin plays it light here, because he doesn't want to bring himself or Korra down, but part of the reason he did that was because it is never far from his mind that the job of Prince of Cephiro killed Utena's predecessor.

>...but... exposition! (comedic weeping)

It would've been basically the same explanation she just gave Anne... :)

>...I have trouble seeing Korra doing anything medical.
>
>Okay, now I do and it _scares the crap_ out of me.

Well, we know she learned waterbending and its attendant arts largely from Katara, and Katara was a champion midwife in her time. It seems unlikely she'd have neglected something as potentially important and useful as that.

One imagines Korra wasn't... entirely within her comfort zone... the first time, though. :)

>Good point, although at that point she'd not have met any of them.
>(And I get the feeling that that the previous Trinity didn't exactly
>break out of the traditional gender roles. Wasn't Princess Emmeraude
>away in a _tower_, fercryin'outloud?

This is so. Still, in retrospect it's pretty funny. :)

>> Toph smirked at him. "Uh-huh, and as ever, I'm missing the
>> show." She waved a hand in front of her eyes, unblinking.
>
>Hah. Nice to see her and she's NEVER getting tired of that joke.

In Valhalla, that stuff literally never gets old! :)

>> "Oh, you know me, I'm always up for adventure," said Umi
>> breezily. "Wouldn't miss it."
>
>If you say so, Umi. For a given value of 'always' meaning, not on your
>first visit to Cephiro.

It's fair to say she is not unconscious of this irony. :)

>Utena's genuinely not good at thinking about sleeping arrangements, is
>she, given her triumphant return to the Duellist's Castle three
>movements ago.

We all have our blind spots. I can never remember I've got food in the house if it's hidden, for instance, which makes all those cupboards with their opaque doors very inconvenient, and forget about the drawers inside the fridge.

>I'm not sure who Lhakpa is but I can think of two amusing scenarios
>already.

You'll see in the next movement. :)

>And I hold my breath waiting for something to go wrong...

Man, that's the second time I've seen that. I really didn't intend for that ending to be so ominous. :)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#21, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-21-13 at 10:22 AM
In response to message #17
>Man, that's the second time I've seen that. I really didn't intend
>for that ending to be so ominous. :)

Something rattled into my brain as I was trying desperately to get some shut-eye and considered what about that trip could be considered ominous given these circumstances.

The bridal party is off on a trip to Diqiu. One of the members of said bridal party is real close to giving birth.

There's a super important job you can get in Diqiu just by being born. The downside is someone has to die to vacate the position.

I'm not even tossing this out there as a prediction of any sort; I certainly wouldn't bet money on it. Anthy's pregnancy has been a plot point since long before Korra was even a glimmer in her creators eyes, and for that matter it would be weird to drop Korra into this universe and then immediately retire her.

But still. It's one of those things.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#29, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-21-13 at 02:20 PM
In response to message #21
>There's a super important job you can get in Diqiu just by being born.
>The downside is someone has to die to vacate the position.

I'm usually not in favor of disclosing developments ahead of time, but in this case I'll make an exception to say:

Uh, no. This isn't happening.

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#14, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-21-13 at 05:37 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jul-21-13 AT 07:46 AM (EDT)
 
Good lord, two movements of Symphony of the Sword in two months.

2003 called. It wants its update schedule back. Also its lawnmowner, and those DVDs.

(I kid because I love.)

So let's do this thing.

>The chairs were not mere mortal folding jobs,
>because that was not the way things were -done-
>at Tenjou Academy

Now I'm imagining a Student Council meeting shortly after the change in management...

"Third item of business: Prince Tenjou has asked if the budget can bear a campus-wide... Keiko, stop snickering... 'chair replacement program.' Thoughts?"

"Sweet Pillar, YES. -Can- the budget bear that? These things are awful. Every damn chair in this school is made out of metal. I mean, we look pretty stylish sitting on them in our uniforms, drinking tea and generally being fancy, but they're like torture devices. My ass may be permanently deformed. I'm considering a class-action suit."

"Thank you, Keiko. That's ever so helpful."

>Utena and Corwin were having a -much-
>better time, because - in their own world,
>surrounded by their happily-pitching-in friends
>and colleagues - they were able to put their
>heads down and kick it all school-project stylee.

I'm hesitant to even bring this up, because I'm usually wrong, but is that a typo?

It seems like you'd want that to be either 'styles' or 'stylez' (yes, with the z) or just plain old 'style.' But I might just be crazy, or simply ill-informed. I've never seen 'stylee' before, even as slang, so...

>(This was a trick reserved for advanced Lens
>users; get it wrong and you could end up mentally
>smooching every Lensman on the network, which
>would be embarrassing on a level not previously
>within the scope of human understanding.)

"Hey, Gryph, remember that time in the 21st century when you accidentally CC'd the entire WDF on a mash note to Kei?"

"Yes. Yes I do. That's still in my top three most embarrassing moments ever, you know. I think my actual murder trial may have been more dignified."

"Uh-huh. Remember last night when you gave her a kiss through the Lens before you turned in for the night?"

"How do you know about tha- oh. Oh GOD."

"Yeah, we have a new winner, I think."

>Keiko shrugged. "I dunno, man, they're dressed
>like a SWAT team and they're wearing makeup like
>Gene Simmons. What would -you- call them?"

This reference seems... off, coming out of Keiko's mouth. She's a native Cephirean who hasn't spent much time in Midgard, watching her make a reference that's even a little dated -now- (to say nothing of 400 years in the future in another dimension) just doesn't scan right. Seems overly precious.

>"Ha -haa!-" he cried delightedly as he approached,
>his arms wide in welcome. "It's -true!- The Warriors
>of Kyoshi, live and in person here in my very own
>little universe. That can only mean one thing!"

Good lord, I think we have a new modern record.

I know that it's nowhere near the top record, as back in the early nineties Ben could see something new and interesting and have 20,000 words integrating it into UF written that same night, but man, he went from 'I don't know what that series is, you crazy forum dwellers' to 'tightly integrated' in like three weeks. That's FAST these days. :)

>Before Tsuwabuki could reply, Kardon Felz let out
>a booming bark of laughter and said, "Are you
>kidding, boss? Those girls are -into- our boy MT."

Space is far too limited here for me to get in all of his greatest hits, but just about everything involving Kardon? Pure gold.

You guys are smart to only deploy him in small doses, though. He's funny when he's around for three or four paragraphs. He'd turn grating FAST if we had to deal with him being 'on' for three or four -pages- in a row. Tsuwabuki is lucky he graduated through Nanami Kiryuu's intense two-semester course in verbal and emotional abuse; otherwise I'm not sure he'd have the tolerance to put up with it.

>She did this with a fluid but surefooted motion that was
>part martial artist's kata and part dance, completing a
>pattern that was at once ancient and unique to this one moment.

Stylistic quibbling: maybe consider replacing that 'but' with an 'and.' Fluid BUT surefooted implies that you would normally expect those two states to be exclusive, and so it's notable that Korra has achieved both at once. That isn't really the case, or at least, not in my own opinion. 'and' makes it a more straightforward case of simply listing the traits of Korra's veilbending kata.

>She removed a set of wireless earbuds, tucked them away in her
>jacket pocket, then declared, "Corwin!" and grabbed him up in a bear
>hug.

I really really like the subtlety at work here, and in other places latter in the movement that I'm too lazy to collect all in one place. You guys do a great job of conveying the necessary information for us to understand that Diqiu is... further along the development curve than it is in ATLA/LOK, without hitting us over the head with it.

>Korra rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me," she said. "Honestly,
>-pirates?- It's the third century, people!"

See, like right there. That's the sort of thing that might just sail right by people unless they're paying attention. Subtle.

It took me a few minutes to realize "Wait a minute... THIRD century?" :checks Annotations: "And they are using the Sozin's Comet calendar. That means Korra is... at -least- forty-seven, assuming she was still born in 153 ASC. Wow. She looks GREAT for her age. Someone is trying to beat Kyoshi's record, I guess."

>"After you guys had your, uh, adventure here,"
>she went on, gesturing generally around to Cephiro,
>"word got back to them somehow, I'm still looking into that,

I'm prepared to blame Clef in some capacity. It's like Bumi said: "ALL old people know each other. Don't you know that?"

>"No, no," Korra assured him as she followed him back
>out of the room and down the hall. "Well after my time.
>My boys made it to the semis that year, though!"

On the chance she's using "my boys" in a literal sense, dear sweet flying spaghetti monster, I seriously hope that UF-Korra did NOT lower herself to actually breeding with Mako. Or at least that UF-Mako isn't the giant douchenozzle he is in canon.

(I have Opinions when it comes to Mako.)

>In the event, it took nearly an hour,
>which was quite a respectable showing for her -
>though, in fairness, 45 minutes of that was spent
>reading the library's copy of So You Didn't
>Know There Were Ten Worlds.

"Hey, aren't there eleven now? The Lotus was saying something about it."

"Cripes, they know about that? -We- only found out a couple months ago. Yeah, there are. Derek will prepare a second edition at some point. Friggin' Akio."

>"... what do you put in the -noodles- around here?" Korra
>wondered.

I like this linguistic compromise for the one-liner. As the annotations say, Korra ain't really a cornflakes gal, but saying 'congee' would probably have been a tad bit TOO obscure. So, noodles. Aesthetically pleasing.

>"That is NOT supposed to happen. I mean, that's
>got to be what, 1400 tons of water in there? I
>don't mean to brag here, but I'm the best living
>waterbender I know, and even I shouldn't be able
>to bend that much water that casually - if at all!
>- without being in the full Avatar State."

This passage made something occur to me: if Korra is indeed living in the third century ASC, then she was around and in her prime during a passage of Sozin's Comet.

She must have had quite a bit of fun with THAT. Supercharged firebending for a whole day? That is a recipe for awesome in Korra's hands.

I also bet that in the back of her mind, the seventeen year old Korra who ran away to Republic City is yelling at her "Don't TELL him, you idiot! He'll figure out some way to turn this off! This is AWESOME. Look, there's a whole ocean nearby! Why don't we go down there and see what we can really do, get our Red Sea on a little?"

>"Most of the time they stay in the Spirit World," she replied.
>"The visions do get annoying sometimes if I don't lay down the law,
>though."

I like how she's gone from "Dammit, past lives, I could use some guidance here!" to "Okay seriously dead guys, shut up. Trying to sleep here."

>"Anthy, this - at long last - is Korra, of 'once
>when I was five' fame."

Man, is there anybody Corwin didn't meet when he was five? The dude has some serious Jenny Sparks action going on. I keep expecting to find out that Bill Clark visited his grade school once (photo op) and that Eidun Palpatine gave him piano lessons.

>Corwin laughed, then pointed a mock-chiding finger at Anthy and said,
>"You never told me Chu Chu was from outside Cephiro."

When Anthy Himemiya decides to choose a familiar, she doesn't screw around. ANY witch can have a CAT.

>One in particular, a tall, green-eyed girl with long black hair
>and a cycling jacket,

I realized this was Natsuki pretty quickly, but given that we'd been just soaking in Avatar stuff for the preceding parts of the movement, my brain did some initial cross-firing and thought "... wait, is that Asami Sato?" :)

>A mix of cheers and boos greeted this screen. Someone called
>out, "Oh come on, Hockey Night in WHAT? The EA makes -everything-
>lame," to which there was much laughing agreement.

You know, I love just how... how... how comically -inept- Earthdome at the whole "unification through authoritarianism" thing they have going on.

It's brilliant camouflage. Hiding in plain sight. No government would ever deliberately seek to undercut it's own authority and legitimacy, so they must just be bad at this... right?

>Shizuru looked over from her perch at the edge of the end of the couch
>to her right, noted the name stitched across her shoulders, and said in
>an intrigued tone,
>
>"Your name is 'Avatar'?"

Shizuru is really more right than she knows. It's sort of like how Shepard's first name is "Commander." :)

>the Earth Alliance government had left Hockey Night in
>Canada largely alone, apart from the mandated change in
>its title to reflect the 2406 abolishment of Canada as a country.

You gotta figure the Canadians are getting pretty blase about that by now.

Near as I can figure, in the past 120 years (which is living memory for some Canadians) Canada has been...

-Part of the United States
-Part of Imperial Americana
-Part of the Neo-Soviet Union (!)
-A ward of the Olympus Superstate, and
-An independent country

So at this point one imagines some stoicism regarding the whole thing is setting in. :)

>This got another round of boos from the assembled Duelists and
>friends, many of whom struck up their own chorus of "O Canada" to drown
>out the EA's rather bland tune.

I'm not afraid to assert as a semi-proud American that "O Canada" is about a million times better a national anthem than "The Star-Spangled Banner," which really sort of sucks.

>she found herself wishing that Kyouichi Saionji were here.
>He'd been with her at that game - they'd discovered ice hockey
>and their own fledgling friendship together that night - and
>it didn't sit well with her that he'd disappeared, not just
>from her life, but, as far as she could tell, from -everyone's.-

Wait... what? People have seen Saionji. Anne saw him just a few weeks before the wedding.

...holy shit, have Corwin, Anne, and Kaitlyn not told Utena yet?

That was a month ago! She is going to be PISSED. So is Wakaba. I mean... wow.

Kaitlyn even went off to brief Utena and Anthy after Anne dumped the whole "oh, I saw Saionji. He's not wearing his lens and was hanging out with Touga, who was trying to destroy Cephiro" thing right in her lap. Did she... omit that part?

>"Actually, I automated -all- our jobs. I'm not sure the
>girls have noticed yet."

"I had a devil of a time with the Rose Prince v2.0 object. It had this subroutine that kept wanting slay princesses and rescue dragons. But I think I nailed that down with v2.2."

>Corwin picked it up and examined it;
>the writing on it was so excruciatingly neat and precise that at first
>he took it for a machine-printed font.

Shizuru really is the complete package when it comes to any of the traditional feminine arts, isn't she?

(I bet she knows how to walk in heels, too.)

>"Korra has a
>-very- old soul. Nobody knows the exact number, but there have been
>-hundreds- of Avatars, maybe thousands, and they're... each has a
>unique, individual spirit, but they're all incarnations of the same
>soul. Somehow. Or possibly the other way around."

I like how, despite being pretty Zen at times, Corwin doesn't really do the whole 'Eastern (Earth) mysticism' thing. It's nice that there are fields of knowledge that he's both not versed and really not interested in; paradoxically, NOT being omnicompetent makes him seem more well-rounded as a person.

>The next time Korra
>said "again", she tried that, but what she got wasn't a puff of flame at
>the end of her arm; instead, she managed only to set a lower branch of
>the tree across the courtyard on fire.

You know, it occurs to me that maybe -Anne- could teach the firebending masters of Diqiu something.

Firebending typically involves two things; moving flame outward from your body (usually with an accompanying martial arts move to act as a focus) or, more rarely, moving an already-existing flame around; and even that usually involves getting pretty near the flame in question. Even Combustion Man couldn't just look at something and ignite it.

But Anne can do that. In fact, a lot of pyrokinetics in the 'big universe' can. There are probably many firebending masters who would be very interested in someone who can set something on fire from a distance without needing to hurl flame across the intervening space OR preform a martial arts move. It would likely be regarded as a super-technique, right up there with bloodbending or the kind of stuff Combustion Man got up to.

>"Fear and anger -will- power firebending," Korra mused. "For a
>while, during my predecessor's tenure as Avatar, our world was out of
>balance and the going wisdom was that they were the prime constituents
>of the Fire Within... but they're not. They're shortcuts. Cheap
>imitations."

I now envision Korra having a long and barely civilized (possibly ending in violence) argument with someone like Anakyn shar Atrados or Rianna Santova about fear, anger, and rage being "cheap imitations" and invalid paths to power.

>Even now, so many years after her old friend had (as she
>preferred to think of it) left to scout out the Spirit World ahead of
>her, Korra's unconscious reaction to this was to remark, "Aagh, Naga,
>stop," and fend the creature off without looking. Only when her hand met
>a much coarser pelt than Naga's sleek white coat did she blink, look,
>and say, "Oh. Right. Good morning, Duran."

Calling it now: Duran -is- Naga.

Reincarnation is neat that way.

> bottom of the stairs, Wolfgang (Beagle of the Lens) left Gryphon's side
> and darted straight for the the front of the seating section on the
> left. For a second, Gryphon wondered who the Lenshound was in such a

Duplicated 'the' in there.

>"Doesn't matter, still a princess," said Anne airily.
>"Anyway, it's funny because of Utena. She's Prince of
>Cephiro because she decided when she was little that
>she wanted to be a prince instead of a princess. You
>know - rescue instead of being rescued, and stuff. I
>wondered if it's ever occurred to her how many -badass
>princesses- she knows. That's why I was laughing."

Subverting traditional gender roles is awesome.

This doesn't have much to do with UF, but... I was digging through my Adventure Time stuff just today for the Princess Bubblegum Mad Science Supercut I'm assembling, and I ran across the Princess Cookie episode.

Which is about a guy who wants to be a Princess. Because Princess's are awesome. They go around spreading joy and laughter and making everyone happy. Who WOULDN'T want to be a Princess, even if you're a boy?

And nobody regards that as weird. Criminal, possibly; there are better ways to become a Princess than taking people hostage. But not weird.

It's maybe my favorite episode of the whole series because of that.

Anyway, sharing time over. Back to the review mines!

>With a vaguely indulgent smile, Anthy waited for them to finish,
>then turned them to face the crowd of their friends and well-wishers,
>declaring, "Ladies and gentlemen, your Prince and your Pillar."

The ceremony was lovely, and I know you guys had to wrangle a million and one cast members for this one... but, no Clef? Not involved in the ceremony at all, not even mentioned at all in the movement?

Although I do get that he might not be physically present. Sort of a 'You never have the President and the entire Cabinet all in the same place at the same time thing' maybe; he's off guarding the doors to make sure that anything that thinks the wedding is a GREAT time to pull some shit is disabused of that notion.

>his was his big moment - probably his greatest challenge
>as a lifelong shutterbug - and he rose to it magnificently.

I've had the good fortune to meet Doc in real life a number of times, and extrapolating from that, I can only imagine what sort of crazily weaponized camera equipment Chip came to this wedding wielding.

Seriously. Dude probably has the sort of stuff where you look at it and think "You know, it seems like worrying that thing will steal my soul is a legitimate concern."

>Interspersed with the various friends-and-family moments were
>those in which one or the other would take a turn around the floor with
>various of the Dignitaries and Token Grown-Ups whom they hadn't had a
>chance to meet before the ceremony.

One imagines that they invited various representatives of the major nations of Cephiro and a few media types. No cameras allowed, nothing disruptive, but they probably invited one or two of the more respectable society writers who could write up an account after the fact for Cephiro's finer publications, their New Yorker equivalents.

If nothing else, Anthy probably made those arrangements discreetly. She's more politically adept than she lets on, that one is.

>Then, while some applauded the local Duelists, she stopped
>smiling and pointed straight at one of them, adding flatly, "Except
>you."
>
>Kardon Felz blinked, looked to either side, then pointed
>questioningly to himself.

Kardon IS Sokka. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

>"Just Korra is fine," she said, giving the young blonde a
>friendly grin. "Diqiu is... do you know where Zipang is?"
>
>"A Japanese colony in the Enigma sector," said Umi.

Oh God. That explains everything.

The Enigma Sector: driving stellar cartographers to drink for 15,000 years and counting.

>Korra chuckled. "Very possibly, but we really don't want it
>to come to that. We've had a world war or two of our own,
>internal to Diqiu, and nobody wants that kind of thing to happen
>there ever again. So we... try to keep it on the downlow.

This Korra is far more seasoned than her seventeen-year-old counterpart, who would probably have started babbling blithely about specifics and just brought everyone down. I imagine the thought process:

*This is a wedding, Korra, not a history class. Don't mention the genocide. Or the race riots. Or the OTHER genocide. Remember that quinceneara on Zipang, when you made that girl cry?* "So we... try to keep it on the downlow." *YES. You rock, Korra.*

>"You let me worry about the White Lotus," Korra replied casually
>as they all set off for Ohtori Hall. "After the talking-to they got
>from Kyoshi the other day, I don't think we'll have any problems with
>them, anyway."

You know, I'm not real sure that Korra should be taking semi-secret society managing advice from the woman who founded the Dai Li. It's not a line on Kyoshi's resume that inspires confidence. Although the Dai Li WERE good at what they did.

>"After Corwin's 13th birthday party
>we were hanging around in the banya and Hildy said you know it's only a
>matter of time before he notices we're all women and Aeryn said one of
>us will probably have to put the poor boy out of his misery and then
>Hildy started taking bets and before we knew it we had a whole pool
>going like for fantasy baseball and there was big money involved I'm
>talking big, BIG money and it all sort of got out of control and it's
>Hildy's fault."

Okay, the list? Funniest part of the whole thing. Expository humor is one of my most favorite things, and the list delivered.

A little surprised there were no dudes on it (you'd think someone would put money on that, even at long odds). And man, wouldn't the girls have been awfully surprised if Corwin had just been one of those people who are just... not that interested in sexytime, really? I imagine the list growing old over the course of decades, being handed down from mother to daughter as some sort of venerable treasure.

>"Uhh... no," Utena agreed, hand behind head. "Prrrobably not.
>(I'm not sure -I- am,)" she added under her breath.
>Still smiling her reassuring smile, Anthy patted her arm.
>"We'll get there, my love. We'll get there."

Polyamory is really, really, really hard work. Gryphon makes it look easy, but Gryphon makes a lot of things look easy. It is not.

>Hmm," Nall said thoughtfully. "Sure, I can do that. I'm sure
>nobody will notice a guy lugging a banded ironwood chest that says
>CAUTION CONTENTS EXTREMELY HOT in dragonscript on the lid."

"Can I have a few yuans? You know, to bribe the customs guy with?"

"You don't -have- to bribe the customs guy, Nall. Dragon eggs aren't illegal to transport across international borders."

"I kind of -want- to bribe the customs guy, though. I'm going on a train trip, it's... traditional. It makes me feel like James Bond."


> The Legend of Korra
> created by
> Michael Dante DiMartino
> and
> Brian Konitezko

"Bryan Konietzko"

(Don't sweat that one, I've done the exact same thing.)

...

Well.

That was a heck of a ride.

Not exactly a lot of high drama, but we got our share of "plot" during both Clarion Call and First Dates and Firefights. They can't -all- involve Akio and the Earth Alliance and Kaname almost getting her organs harvested.

I am kind of astounded the wedding went off without a hitch. You'd have expected some sort of awful crisis to fall on them during it, but no. It was just a party. It might, I submit, have even been a par-tay.

(I do suspect they may encounter a nasty surprise or two inside the gift pile; Akio in particular seems like he'd do some sort of overly dramatic dick move like send Utena a single heartbreakingly exquisite red rose with a card that says "Thinking of You" on it. But that's post-wedding.)

I may have further thoughts later, but it's super late and I'm tired, and this'll do for a first pass. It'll all come out in the wash, I expect.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#18, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-21-13 at 09:11 AM
In response to message #14
>Good lord, two movements of Symphony of the Sword in two months.

Eh, summer vacation (possibly the last one, but I'm trying not to think too hard bout that). Enjoy while lasts, etc.

>2003 called. It wants its update schedule back. Also its lawnmowner,
>and those DVDs.

I know, right? Actually, 2001 is the year that really makes me step back and go "what". I noticed that when I was recording the Symphony 1 and Symphony 2 audio.


>>heads down and kick it all school-project stylee.
>
>I'm hesitant to even bring this up, because I'm usually wrong, but is
>that a typo?

No, it's a thing: "kick it all {big time|old school|etc.} stylee". I think the extra "e" is just so you know it's pronounced with the E sound at the end. Either that or it's an Internet typo that's become its own word, like "newsfroup"* or "filk".

* I just dated myself**
** Fortunately I'm a cheap date

Stephen Fry has used it, in a highbrow ironic way, so one imagines it's not that recent. :)

(On an episode of QI he described cheese as "a celebration of what happens when milk goes off big-time stylee.")

>>Keiko shrugged. "I dunno, man, they're dressed
>>like a SWAT team and they're wearing makeup like
>>Gene Simmons. What would -you- call them?"
>
>This reference seems... off, coming out of Keiko's mouth. She's a
>native Cephirean who hasn't spent much time in Midgard, watching her
>make a reference that's even a little dated -now- (to say nothing of
>400 years in the future in another dimension) just doesn't scan right.
>Seems overly precious.

I'm sure the Student Council have movie nights. It's hardly beyond the realm of possibility that someone will have rented S.W.A.T. at some point.

(Yes, I know what you actually meant, but, well, consider: dated or not, you understood what she was getting at, right? If it helps, think of it as like one of those movies where everyone is speaking English even though you know they really aren't. :)

>I know that it's nowhere near the top record, as back in the early
>nineties Ben could see something new and interesting and have 20,000
>words integrating it into UF written that same night, but man, he went
>from 'I don't know what that series is, you crazy forum dwellers' to
>'tightly integrated' in like three weeks. That's FAST these days. :)

That's all down to Phil. As seen in another thread, my TiVo went on a bender, I was very confused, and then there were DVDs. :)

My obvious love for its protagonist notwithstanding, I actually have a somewhat... complex... relationship with The Legend of Korra, which I don't want to sidetrack this thread by getting into in depth, but the original show was one of those where-were-you-all-my-life moments.

>Stylistic quibbling: maybe consider replacing that 'but' with an
>'and.' Fluid BUT surefooted implies that you would normally expect
>those two states to be exclusive

No, what it means is that she's very firm on her feet without actually stomping around like an earthbender. If there's a word choice problem, it's "surefooted", not "but". :)

>>"After you guys had your, uh, adventure here,"
>>she went on, gesturing generally around to Cephiro,
>>"word got back to them somehow, I'm still looking into that,
>
>I'm prepared to blame Clef in some capacity. It's like Bumi said: "ALL
>old people know each other. Don't you know that?"

This would probably not be a crazy bet.

>>"No, no," Korra assured him as she followed him back
>>out of the room and down the hall. "Well after my time.
>>My boys made it to the semis that year, though!"
>
>On the chance she's using "my boys" in a literal sense

It's deliberately ambiguous. She might mean a team her sons (if she has any) were on; she might mean a team she coached, or one she sponsored, or possibly just one she was rooting for.

>>it didn't sit well with her that he'd disappeared, not just
>>from her life, but, as far as she could tell, from -everyone's.-
>
>Wait... what? People have seen Saionji. Anne saw him just a few weeks
>before the wedding.

Well, yes, she knows that, but he hasn't been seen since then, and they don't actually know where he is. Or why. Or what his game plan is. Or if he has one. Or what he was planning to do for backup, if anything. It's all a bit annoying.

>Shizuru really is the complete package when it comes to any of the
>traditional feminine arts, isn't she?
>
>(I bet she knows how to walk in heels, too.)

I bet she does.

>ending in violence) argument with someone like Anakyn shar Atrados or
>Rianna Santova about fear, anger, and rage being "cheap imitations"
>and invalid paths to power.

There are certainly hairs to be split there (fear is always shit, even the Reform Sith would probably agree to that, but there's the whole directed v. nonspecific anger thing), but not when you're talking to a confused teenager who sets things on fire with her mind.

>Calling it now: Duran -is- Naga.
>
>Reincarnation is neat that way.

I'm not sure it's that weird; Duran's a robot. :)

>The ceremony was lovely, and I know you guys had to wrangle a million
>and one cast members for this one... but, no Clef? Not involved in the
>ceremony at all, not even mentioned at all in the movement?
>
>Although I do get that he might not be physically present. Sort of a
>'You never have the President and the entire Cabinet all in the same
>place at the same time thing' maybe; he's off guarding the doors to
>make sure that anything that thinks the wedding is a GREAT time to
>pull some shit is disabused of that notion.

Yeah, that's good. Go with that.

Also, he's afraid of Toph Beifong. Soon as he heard she was coming? Straight up the tower.

>You know, I'm not real sure that Korra should be taking semi-secret
>society managing advice from the woman who founded the Dai Li. It's
>not a line on Kyoshi's resume that inspires confidence. Although the
>Dai Li WERE good at what they did.

On the contrary, I suspect the way the Dai Li turned out is precisely why Kyoshi wanted to be the one to Have A Word With the leaders of the White Lotus.

>A little surprised there were no dudes on it (you'd think someone
>would put money on that, even at long odds).

There might've been, and Kaname just didn't mention it. She didn't say anything like the full list out loud.

>(I do suspect they may encounter a nasty surprise or two inside the
>gift pile; Akio in particular seems like he'd do some sort of overly
>dramatic dick move like send Utena a single heartbreakingly exquisite
>red rose with a card that says "Thinking of You" on it. But that's
>post-wedding.)

There isn't really a gift pile, as such. I mean, they're grown-up people who already have all the kitchen stuff they need; the traditional reasons for wedding gifts don't really apply, and they would've felt strange expecting stuff just for stuff's sake anyway. There were a few very personal items we'll get to later on, but no general Swag Table.

I thought I mentioned that someplace in the story, but I might've just thought about it. Stuff gets dropped...

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#20, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-21-13 at 10:10 AM
In response to message #18
>>2003 called. It wants its update schedule back. Also its lawnmowner,
>>and those DVDs.
>
>I know, right? Actually, 2001 is the year that really makes me step
>back and go "what". I noticed that when I was recording the Symphony
>1 and Symphony 2 audio.

What's super crazy weird for me as a reader is I still largely think of Symphony of the Sword as this bold new direction for EPU.

SoS is older right now than UF was when S1M1 was written.

>No, it's a thing: "kick it all {big time|old school|etc.} stylee". I
>think the extra "e" is just so you know it's pronounced with the E
>sound at the end.

So it's a thing I've just never heard of then. Fair enough.

I wouldn't have pointed it out at all, but it was a combination of 'I've never, ever seen that before, and my brain wanted to end that sentence with 'styles' or 'stylez'' and 'there are at least two other grammatical errors in here. So let's take a risk of looking dumb.'

>That's all down to Phil. As seen in another thread, my TiVo went on a
>bender, I was very confused, and then there were DVDs. :)

The ironical thing here is that it took something like five years to convince Phil to watch the thing (he finally bit the bullet last year, which meant that he avoided the crazy withdrawal those of us who watched ATLA as it aired had been going through since 2008) and he mainlined the stuff even faster than YOU did and immediately transformed into a total evangelist about it himself.

>My obvious love for its protagonist notwithstanding, I actually have a
>somewhat... complex... relationship with The Legend of Korra,
>which I don't want to sidetrack this thread by getting into in depth,
>but the original show was one of those where-were-you-all-my-life
>moments.

Your complex relationship with Legend of Korra is one shared by many fans. The series has... structural issues. I'll leave it at that.

And you're lucky that you got to watch ATLA in a sensible way. While it was airing, it was sort of... "Hi! Hope you enjoyed the enormous kick in the head that was 'Crossroads of Destiny.' Nine month wait until we show the next season! Oh, and another nine-month wait between 'Day of Black Sun' and the series finale, in which we'll burn off all ten episodes in a single week. But we'll air everything up to 'The Boiling Rock' in Canada six months before it airs in the states, so you can either be a filthy pirate OR have no idea what everyone else is talking about."

There was frustration, is what I'm saying.

>>Stylistic quibbling: maybe consider replacing that 'but' with an
>>'and.' Fluid BUT surefooted implies that you would normally expect
>>those two states to be exclusive
>
>No, what it means is that she's very firm on her feet without actually
>stomping around like an earthbender. If there's a word choice
>problem, it's "surefooted", not "but". :)

Quibbling withdrawn!

>>On the chance she's using "my boys" in a literal sense
>
>It's deliberately ambiguous. She might mean a team her sons (if she
>has any) were on; she might mean a team she coached, or one she
>sponsored, or possibly just one she was rooting for.

Hence my qualifying the statement before launching into the rant.

>>ending in violence) argument with someone like Anakyn shar Atrados or
>>Rianna Santova about fear, anger, and rage being "cheap imitations"
>>and invalid paths to power.
>
>There are certainly hairs to be split there (fear is always shit, even
>the Reform Sith would probably agree to that, but there's the whole
>directed v. nonspecific anger thing), but not when you're talking to a
>confused teenager who sets things on fire with her mind.

Hey, Zuko was a confused teenager who set things on fire with his mind, and he...

He, uh...

Yeah, you know what? Go with Korra's way.

>>Calling it now: Duran -is- Naga.
>>
>>Reincarnation is neat that way.
>
>I'm not sure it's that weird; Duran's a robot. :)

... you know, you spend literally hours combing through the forums and the stories for the express purpose of NOT looking dumb due to lack of knowledge, and still. It's like the universe is punishing me for all that stuff I did.

More seriously, given that robots have souls, I don't see any reason they can't reincarnate or be reincarnations themselves. I sort of assume that a robot soul is just like the soul of any other sentient being; it can linger as a ghost, it can be reborn into another body, etc etc. Could be wrong about this, of course.

>Also, he's afraid of Toph Beifong. Soon as he heard she was coming?
>Straight up the tower.

Toph is kind of like Batman; she's never actually killed or even seriously injured anyone, but she has the kind of reputation that makes you think she has some sort of skull throne somewhere. :)

>There isn't really a gift pile, as such. I mean, they're grown-up
>people who already have all the kitchen stuff they need; the
>traditional reasons for wedding gifts don't really apply, and they
>would've felt strange expecting stuff just for stuff's sake anyway.
>There were a few very personal items we'll get to later on, but no
>general Swag Table.

Cultural differences at work, then. I personally would feel weird attending a wedding as anything other than somebodies +1 and -not- bringing a gift. But I'm also italian, and we consider an envelope with a check to be an appropriate wedding gift no matter how rich the couple in question actually is.

>I thought I mentioned that someplace in the story, but I might've just
>thought about it. Stuff gets dropped...

To be fair, I did some skimming around the displays of martial prowess. I like me a good display of martial prowess, but it was a distraction from people talking. :)

-Merc
Keep Rat


#36, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by The Traitor on Jul-22-13 at 07:34 AM
In response to message #20
>>>Calling it now: Duran -is- Naga.
>>>
>>>Reincarnation is neat that way.
>>
>>I'm not sure it's that weird; Duran's a robot. :)
>
>... you know, you spend literally hours combing through the forums and
>the stories for the express purpose of NOT looking dumb due to lack of
>knowledge, and still. It's like the universe is punishing me for all
>that stuff I did.
>
>More seriously, given that robots have souls, I don't see any reason
>they can't reincarnate or be reincarnations themselves. I sort of
>assume that a robot soul is just like the soul of any other sentient
>being; it can linger as a ghost, it can be reborn into another body,
>etc etc. Could be wrong about this, of course.

Fictional precedent: in the Terry Pratchett/Stephen Baxter collaboration The Long Earth, an AI called Lobsang is, in fact, a reincarnation of a motorcycle repairman from Tibet. It's that sort of book.

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends


#37, Aside
Posted by Pasha on Jul-22-13 at 08:00 AM
In response to message #36
>Fictional precedent: in the Terry Pratchett/Stephen Baxter
>collaboration The Long Earth, an AI called Lobsang is, in fact, a
>reincarnation of a motorcycle repairman from Tibet. It's that sort of
>book.

That any good?

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


#39, RE: Aside
Posted by The Traitor on Jul-22-13 at 08:36 AM
In response to message #37
Well, I think so. Then again, I'm easily pleased.

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends


#40, RE: Aside
Posted by twipper on Jul-22-13 at 01:45 PM
In response to message #39
I'm going to come in Neutral on 'The Long Earth'. And this from a guy who dearly loves the Discworld.

Not bothering with the sequel. *shrugs*


#43, RE: Aside
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-22-13 at 11:00 PM
In response to message #39
What twipper said.

The Long Earth is very... well, long on the Baxter and short on the Pratchett. I read it on the strength of the latters name and wasn't all that impressed. They can't all be winners, of course, but yeah, the sequel isn't worth my time either, at least in hardback.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#49, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by SpottedKitty on Jul-23-13 at 10:05 AM
In response to message #36
>Fictional precedent: in the Terry Pratchett/Stephen Baxter
>collaboration The Long Earth, an AI called Lobsang is, in fact, a
>reincarnation of a motorcycle repairman from Tibet. It's that sort of
>book.

For any book Sir Pterry has had a hand in, its status as "that sort of book" has a similar level of probablistic inevitablilty as "drop spanner --> foot goes ouch". Haven't read either of the books yet, but I'll almost definitely get round to them eventually — busy right now pleasantly digesting the last "Science Of Discworld".

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.


#15, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BeardedFerret on Jul-21-13 at 07:17 AM
In response to message #0
Well, Gryph, you certainly came through on the audio front. Listening to the whole thing got me three quarters of the way from Melbourne to Canberra. That's huge!

Really great movement. Now I'm hanging on wondering:

A) what the hell Nall and co were up to on the night before the big day, and
B) where the bridal party winds up, because I don't think you'd have left what felt like an ominous cliffhanger without an awesome payoff.


#16, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-21-13 at 08:18 AM
In response to message #15
>Well, Gryph, you certainly came through on the audio front. Listening
>to the whole thing got me three quarters of the way from Melbourne to
>Canberra. That's huge!

Thanks. It's a pretty significant investment in both time and disk space, but having gotten a lot of use out of audiobooks myself in the last few years, I figured it would be a Worthwhile Service; good to have some corroboration on that. :)

>A) what the hell Nall and co were up to on the night before the big
>day, and

You'll find out. :)

>B) where the bridal party winds up, because I don't think you'd have
>left what felt like an ominous cliffhanger without an awesome payoff.

Well... it wasn't really intended to be ominous, particularly, but I do hope for awesome, so. :)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#44, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BeardedFerret on Jul-23-13 at 03:47 AM
In response to message #16
>>Well, Gryph, you certainly came through on the audio front. Listening
>>to the whole thing got me three quarters of the way from Melbourne to
>>Canberra. That's huge!
>
>Thanks. It's a pretty significant investment in both time and disk
>space, but having gotten a lot of use out of audiobooks myself in the
>last few years, I figured it would be a Worthwhile Service; good to
>have some corroboration on that. :)

I've been meaning to expand on this for the last couple of days but haven't found myself in front of a keyboard to do so - I mostly browse on the iPad, which isn't conductive to writing effortposts.

The audios have honestly been a massive help to me over the last couple of years. I think I got onto the first one on a post-midnight drive out of Sydney and it got me home quite effectively. Since then they've nicely drowned out roommate parties, neighbours arguing, other neighbours makin' sex and just plain and simple insomnia. I look forward to them a lot, and I'm extremely grateful that you've put the time in.

>>B) where the bridal party winds up, because I don't think you'd have
>>left what felt like an ominous cliffhanger without an awesome payoff.
>
>Well... it wasn't really intended to be ominous, particularly, but I
>do hope for awesome, so. :)

The way it ended, with just the tableau of an empty rose gate as the final 'image', just put me in mind of something going Very Badly Wrong and the teleportees arriving in somewhere very unpleasant. In fairness, that could just be the Game of Thrones fan in me expecting you to torture your characters.


#45, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-23-13 at 04:04 AM
In response to message #44
>The audios have honestly been a massive help to me over the last
>couple of years.
>I look forward to them a lot, and I'm extremely grateful that you've
>put the time in.

Well, I'm glad to know they're helping. One unanticipated side benefit for me I've discovered, since I started trying to do concurrent audio on the new releases (as opposed to recording the back catalog, which I still hope to find time to do more of when things aren't quite so hot on the textmaking front as they are right now), is that reading the whole thing out loud makes for a dandy (if time-consuming) last proofreading pass. Mistakes that the eye glides seamlessly over can trip the tongue in a way that makes them much harder to miss (albeit not impossible).

>The way it ended, with just the tableau of an empty rose gate as the
>final 'image', just put me in mind of something going Very Badly Wrong
>and the teleportees arriving in somewhere very unpleasant. In
>fairness, that could just be the Game of Thrones fan in me expecting
>you to torture your characters.

Oh. No, not so much this time. We just thought it would be a fun bit of symmetry to end with a reverse of the scene in which Korra arrived.

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#19, A pre-emptive side note...
Posted by pjmoyer on Jul-21-13 at 10:09 AM
In response to message #0
I admit this is probably going to be like trying to hold back the North Sea from the Netherlands, but...

Any discussion of aspects of Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender that don't directly pertain to this story (and other stories that will be coming later), should be directed to either the "Source Material" or "General" Forums. Given that we're in the rather ... unique situation of referencing a series that is still being released, I would like to pre-emptively keep such discussions separate from the ones involved with the Undocumented Features stories.

This includes discussions of favorite/unfavorite ships and plot developments from newly-released media that are coming up in the future.

ESPECIALLY shipping.

Thank you.
--- Philip





Philip J. Moyer
Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios
"Book Two in September 2013! Yaaaaaay!"


#22, RE: A pre-emptive side note...
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-21-13 at 10:30 AM
In response to message #19
So what you're saying is, my five thousand word essay about the rise and fall of Zutara, circa 2006-2008, isn't welcome here?

I'm hurt, Phil. :)

(The best part is how you got this up exactly one minute before I went off on a total ATLA tangent in my reply to Ben. Like you were lying in wait.)

-Merc
Keep Rat


#23, RE: A pre-emptive side note...
Posted by pjmoyer on Jul-21-13 at 10:51 AM
In response to message #22
>So what you're saying is, my five thousand word essay about the rise
>and fall of Zutara, circa 2006-2008, isn't welcome here?

Save it for the "Group Social Dynamics of the Avatar's Companions" course they have in the "Avatar Studies" research track at Republic City University. You'll probably get a 'B', an 'A' if it's well-researched. Most students just ramble about their favorite theoretical hookups without going into a rational, well-thought-out justification for them.

Korra has no idea why that one person insisted she and the Doorman from Amon's "Revelation" could have been a couple, but she does admit the guy was just trying to do his job, and she can respect that.

>(The best part is how you got this up exactly one minute before I went
>off on a total ATLA tangent in my reply to Ben. Like you were lying in
>wait.)

I'm just naturally gifted that way.

:)

--- Philip





Philip J. Moyer
Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios
"Insert Pithy Comment Here"


#25, RE: A pre-emptive side note...
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-21-13 at 11:57 AM
In response to message #19
LAST EDITED ON Jul-21-13 AT 11:58 AM (EDT)
 
>Given that we're in
>the rather ... unique situation of referencing a series that is
>still being released, I would like to pre-emptively keep such
>discussions separate from the ones involved with the Undocumented
>Features stories.

Thanks, Phil. Yes. Particularly since I'm a wait-for-the-trade-paperback/BD-compilation consumer of serial products these days, which means I'm probably not going to be watching these things on TV.

(Phil's going to kill me. He's very invested in making sure we're not trampling the canon, and if I'm wandering along six months to a year behind the curve, it's going to make his job much harder. I can't imagine why he's very invested in seeing that that doesn't happen, I mean, he's been around here long enough to know that it's what I do, but... :)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#24, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Proginoskes on Jul-21-13 at 11:46 AM
In response to message #0
This movement is quite excellent.

To avoid simply me-tooing, I'll bring up something that nags at me every time Zach Stephens makes an appearance since S3M4: Gudrun Truemace's recognition of him as "Zachiel Firewheel". Are we ever going to find out what Mr. Stephens is, Celestially speaking? My best guess is an In Nomine-style Ofanite. Not sure how an Ofanite came to exist in a setting that seems to be bereft of the other Choirs (and indeed, other Ofanim), but I'm sure Gryphon can make perfect sense out of it.


#26, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-21-13 at 11:58 AM
In response to message #24
I'm actually pretty sure this was covered in the S3M4 annotations, actually. Or at least it was as much as Gryph et al feel like discussing it.

#27, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Proginoskes on Jul-21-13 at 12:12 PM
In response to message #26
I shall have to read that, then. I somehow failed to realise it existed, despite considerable evidence.

#28, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-21-13 at 12:26 PM
In response to message #27
*rummages*

Ah, yeah, here we go:

3310 In the game setting he was created for, Zachiel was an angel; in UF, he's a relatively minor Æs, son of Balder and Nanna. He works for Heimdall in the Department of Celestial Vigilance, as one of the DCV's agents monitoring the situation in Midgard.


#31, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by zerosumgame on Jul-22-13 at 02:09 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-13 AT 02:28 AM (EDT)
 
Like a lot of people here, I've been waiting a long time to see this wedding. So, thanks for that. It got a bit dusty in here during the toasts afterwords.

Avatar? Definitely wasn't expecting that. Nor the "Hey, let's honeymoon in another reality!" ending.

I'm really hoping to find out how Corwin's automation of the Prince and Priestess roles works. They're a bit more...active than the Pillar.

Great job, thrilled to see the mojo flowing the way it has been the past few months, &c.

Keep up the great work is cliche, but accurate.

-Jason


#32, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-22-13 at 02:32 AM
In response to message #31
>I'm really hoping to find out how Corwin's automation of the Prince
>and Priestess roles works. They're a bit more...active than the
>Pillar.

(Speculation ahead.)

Probably only because they had to be, no?

Cephiro was sort of running crippled for a long time; metaphysical functions that, in the rest of the Nine Realms, are maintained by the World-Engine had to be done by 'hand', so to speak. The Prince wasn't just some generic hero; he was doing a job where, if he stopped, the fabric of the world literally started falling apart. As has been noted elsewhere, that KILLED Dios when he couldn't keep up with it.

But Corwin built a nice little World-Engine for Cephiro which means that it doesn't need to be done by hand anymore. There's a... well, I imagine it's a function call. Instead of Utena feeling compelled to go somewhere and preform her Princely duties that stop the world from collapsing, the World-Engine keeps everything running on an even keel.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#34, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Peter Eng on Jul-22-13 at 03:32 AM
In response to message #32
LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-13 AT 03:32 AM (EDT)
 
>
>But Corwin built a nice little World-Engine for Cephiro which means
>that it doesn't need to be done by hand anymore. There's a... well, I
>imagine it's a function call. Instead of Utena feeling compelled to go
>somewhere and perform her Princely duties that stop the world from
>collapsing, the World-Engine keeps everything running on an even keel.
>

Considering the definition of the Prince ("The Pillar's prayers make for a very tranquil world, in which little rescuing is needed, but some things slip through the cracks, and for those, the Prince is there." - Knights of the Tenth World, Part 1), it's likely that all he needed to do was beef up the "Don't Let Bad Stuff Happen" protocols.

Now, automating the High Priest's main duty (protecting the Pillar), that could be challenging.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#35, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Mercutio on Jul-22-13 at 05:22 AM
In response to message #34
Depends on what the High Priest is protecting the Pillar from, I guess.

The Pillar doesn't need physical protection from anything in Cephiro (Corwin saves; all others take full damage) and things from outside Cephiro, at the time the Trinity system was designed, were probably pretty rare.

That implies that we're talking protection from weird metaphysical threats, which fits the role of a Priest. Things like demons trying to punch out your soul or catching dream cancer or stuff like that.

Corwin could probably automate that just by applying the Aesir equivalent of a coat of sealant, or something.

What I do (and I may be totally off-base here) is that I usually think of Cephiro as being a fundamentally broken place, requiring rather heroic intervention just to keep it intact and suitable for habitation. So when Corwin talks about the nifty little things he's doing to upgrade it, I envision it becoming more like Midgard, which spins happily on its way and spawns all kinds of life without requiring divine or demonic intervention of any sort.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#38, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Pasha on Jul-22-13 at 08:05 AM
In response to message #35
>What I do (and I may be totally off-base here) is that I usually think
>of Cephiro as being a fundamentally broken place, requiring rather
>heroic intervention just to keep it intact and suitable for
>habitation. So when Corwin talks about the nifty little things he's
>doing to upgrade it, I envision it becoming more like Midgard, which
>spins happily on its way and spawns all kinds of life without
>requiring divine or demonic intervention of any sort.

Well, there is divine intervention, the gods just got tired of doing all the work (presumably when the 9 worlds got big enough)so built a machine to, you know, do it for them. But as seen in Twilight..6?..the whole of Creation stops working if the World Engine stops turning, and there isn't a Verthandi around to pick up the slack. I assume Cephiro is kind of the same thing, s/Verthandi/Corwin (and on a much smaller scale as well).

As for Anthy's ongoing job, remember we've seen Jotun's and sorcerers invading so far. Also, she took her job very seriously and re established Date Night.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


#33, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-22-13 at 02:42 AM
In response to message #31
>Great job, thrilled to see the mojo flowing the way it has been the
>past few months, &c.

Thanks. Believe me, so are we. It's been a long, long time since we were able to finish work on a Symphony movement and carry actual momentum straight into the construction of the next.

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#41, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by twipper on Jul-22-13 at 01:49 PM
In response to message #0
>(This was a trick reserved for advanced Lens users; get it wrong and you
>could end up mentally smooching every Lensman on the network, which
>would be embarrassing on a level not previously within the scope of
>human understanding.)

Nine paragraphs in, and this sentence became my favorite of the movement. Mostly because of the following mental image it immediately triggered:

*Doc Smith sits upright in his grave with such speed as to whack his head on the stone tomb ceiling*

'By Mentor, I created cybering...'

A most enjoyable read. And welcome back, Juni-chan. I was wondering where she'd been off two in the last two movements.

Brian


#42, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-22-13 at 01:58 PM
In response to message #41
>welcome back, Juni-chan. I was wondering
>where she'd been off two in the last two movements.

Oh, she was around. Right in the thick of things, for the most part, just didn't get a lot of screen time. (There's a brief sighting in First Dates and Firefights.)

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#50, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by discord on Jul-23-13 at 09:42 PM
In response to message #42
>>welcome back, Juni-chan. I was wondering
>>where she'd been off two in the last two movements.
>
>Oh, she was around. Right in the thick of things, for the most part,
>just didn't get a lot of screen time. (There's a brief sighting in
>First Dates and Firefights.)


Speaking of Juni... fiddly detail, I know, but I wonder if I'm the only one that noticed it; in the story, Korra guesses Juni's age as 13... yet didn't she hook up with the Duelists after two years on the run in Page of Swords, from 12 to 14?


#52, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-23-13 at 09:50 PM
In response to message #50
>Speaking of Juni... fiddly detail, I know, but I wonder if I'm the
>only one that noticed it; in the story, Korra guesses Juni's age as
>13... yet didn't she hook up with the Duelists after two years on the
>run in Page of Swords, from 12 to 14?

Hmm. Yeah, she's supposed to be 15 here. Calculation error when compiling the "S5 dramatis personae" list, which I then used as age reference for this story (the year's wrong and her birthday is in December, which always messes me up a little).

--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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#53, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BZArcher on Jul-23-13 at 09:55 PM
In response to message #52
No-prize answer: Thanks to her malnourishment when on the run, Juni looks a little younger than people expect.

Plus, hey, one of those sort of faces.


#46, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by BeardedFerret on Jul-23-13 at 06:52 AM
In response to message #0
>Edit: Also, thank you whomever decided to get the REAL Hockey Theme
>back. Not that Canadian Gold isn't an OK bit of music, but it
>isn't The Hockey Theme.

I'm disappointed the real winner of that competition wasn't used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbZMnF1VNlE
(Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Night_in_Canada#Finding_a_new_theme:_Canada.27s_Hockey_Anthem_Challenge)


#47, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by zojojojo on Jul-23-13 at 07:08 AM
In response to message #0
I'm a little surprised, but not really, that nobody mentioned.. but I'm curious if Utena (or Gryph. probably certainly Gryph.. no, I haven't read the annotations) deliberately called out The Spiraling Shape when she said that Anne getting lessons from Korra "could lead to excellence or serious injury"

-Z everybody loves that groovy thing


---
Remember kids: guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.


#48, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-23-13 at 08:39 AM
In response to message #47
LAST EDITED ON Jul-23-13 AT 08:41 AM (EDT)
 
>I'm a little surprised, but not really, that nobody mentioned.. but
>I'm curious if Utena (or Gryph. probably certainly Gryph.. no, I
>haven't read the annotations) deliberately called out The Spiraling
>Shape
when she said that Anne getting lessons from Korra "could
>lead to excellence or serious injury"

In this setting it's from one of Kaitlyn's songs; we saw the Art of Noise perform it in S3M1 Ad Astra, though the title and a few of the lyrics are slightly different.

--G.
fogging the view, cupping face to the window, in darkness you make out the End of the World
-><-
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
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#51, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by discord on Jul-23-13 at 09:46 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jul-23-13 AT 10:20 PM (EDT) by pjmoyer (moderator)
 
[ Edited for a safer link, don't use danburro, it's not entirely 'safe'. -- PJM ]

In honor of this awesome chapter, I thought I'd toss out some awesome art I found of Korra by an artist named stanley lau:

http://artgerm.deviantart.com/art/Korra-Aura-313531425


#54, RE: Try, Try Again
Posted by Verbena on Jul-24-13 at 11:25 PM
In response to message #0
Not that I have much to add that others haven't (especially since I haven't seen more than the first episode of ATLA and didn't know Korra existed until I read this) but I wanted to say I really enjoyed this piece very much, and am looking very much forward to finding out whatever the Rune Knights, Nall, and Wakaba and Mitsuru were doing. =)


--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu