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Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 367
#0, S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by JeanneHedge on Aug-13-13 at 12:02 PM
LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-13 AT 12:06 PM (EDT)
 
Nothing big or deep here, as I'm travelling today. Happy to see my teaser giggle fit turn out - Sergei's got a girlfriend! :)

Maybe reading too much into this, but how'd the press get tipped off about Corwin & Utena? They arrived via magic back door, went from airbenders to hotel, and the desk clerk is updating someone (press? bad guys?) the next morning. Do the airbenders talk about the Avatar's visitors? Does the hotel talk about their guests? They weren't in public long enough to cause real public interest. Guess I'll have to stay tuned for part 2.

Jeanne


Jeanne Hedge
http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"


#1, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by pjmoyer on Aug-13-13 at 01:41 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-13 AT 01:42 PM (EDT)
 
>Maybe reading too much into this, but how'd the press get tipped off
>about Corwin & Utena? They arrived via magic back door, went from
>airbenders to hotel,

Via a sky bison, in midair, after about an hour overflight over the city, getting their photos taken by people in airship gondolas who presumably have the Diqiu equivalent of Twitpic and Instagram on their phones. The lightningweb sees everything.

>and the desk clerk is updating someone (press?
>bad guys?) the next morning.

The desk clerk was updating his little sister Emily Wong about the presence of two notable guests for the society page beat which she works.

>Do the airbenders talk about the Avatar's
>visitors? Does the hotel talk about their guests? They weren't in
>public long enough to cause real public interest.

They were driving around in the city for two days in an open top car with a woman with long pink hair. Corwin's write-off-able as a Water Tribesman with too little sun (or maybe Foggy Swamp Tribe, but he hasn't got the accent or leaf hat). Utena's an entirely unique creature. You can spot her halfway down a city block with ease! :)

>Guess I'll have to
>stay tuned for part 2.

Yep! :)

--- 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"


#2, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-13-13 at 02:19 PM
In response to message #1
>Utena's an entirely unique
>creature. You can spot her halfway down a city block with ease! :)

"Like a Studebaker at a Volvo dealership," I believe, was how the development notes put it. :)

--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.


#3, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by McFortner on Aug-13-13 at 08:05 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-13 AT 08:08 PM (EDT)
 
A fun read I must say. Since I'm into film photography, I have to say I love the choices of cameras you had Emily use. The Rolleiflex and the Minox AIIIS are classics. I have a couple of TLR cameras, but no Rolleis or Minoxes. I have a Yashica 44 (no bloody A, B, C, or D), a camera similar to a Rolleiflex Baby (both use 127 film), and a pair of Minolta-16 MG cameras instead of a Minox.

So, Gryph, are you a fan of old cameras, just stuck between the future and the past, or both like I am?

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Links for those who are curious:
Rolleiflex
Minox AIIIS
Yashica 44
Minolta-16 MG


#4, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Zox on Aug-13-13 at 08:28 PM
In response to message #0
       As they were crossing the footbridge over Highway One to Main
Parking B, Touga Kiryuu gave his "graduate advisor" a sardonic look and
remarked, "-That- was easy."
"Why should the poor man be suspicious of us?" Souji Mikage
replied, shrugging. "Our credentials are perfectly valid. The
University of Tothis is a fully accredited institution."
"And a wholly owned subsidiary of Shrine Investment Partners."
"One would almost think you -wanted- this to be harder, Mr.
Kuroda," Mikage chided him, plipping the remote-control locks of their
rental car.
"Perhaps I've merely grown suspicious of success, Professor,"
said Touga dryly.

Hey, Mikage. When Touga "Arrogance Lad" Kiryuu has doubts about the success of a plan? Seriously--reconsider the plan. :)


#5, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mister Fnord on Aug-13-13 at 09:40 PM
In response to message #4
>Hey, Mikage. When Touga "Arrogance Lad" Kiryuu has doubts about the
>success of a plan? Seriously--reconsider the plan. :)

To give Touga credit, this isn't the first time he's done Akio's field work. Even when the plan works it usually ends with him getting his ass kicked. I'd be wary, too. ;)

--
Mr. Fnord's karma ran over his dogma.


#12, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-13-13 at 11:14 PM
In response to message #4
I won't often defend Touga, but I do gotta say that he seems to be learning... I don't think I'd call it humility. Caution, I guess?

He seems to slowly be catching on that he's often in over his head and that those situations usually lead to him dying, which he's done two or three times now and doesn't really enjoy.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#37, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Offsides on Aug-17-13 at 01:51 PM
In response to message #12
>I won't often defend Touga, but I do gotta say that he seems to be
>learning... I don't think I'd call it humility. Caution, I guess?

Eventually, the hindbrain's self preservation instinct refuses to be ignored, no matter how stupid said brain's owner is...

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>


#6, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Polychrome on Aug-13-13 at 09:52 PM
In response to message #0
Hey, Emily Wong! what a pleasant surprise. Maybe she could get a beat in the wider universe so we can see more of her. Her brother better be careful, he could lose his job for what he did.

Polychrome


#8, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by JeanneHedge on Aug-13-13 at 11:02 PM
In response to message #6
>Hey, Emily Wong! what a pleasant surprise. Maybe she could get a beat
>in the wider universe so we can see more of her. Her brother better be
>careful, he could lose his job for what he did.
>
>Polychrome

<sigh> OK, what other-universe is Emily Wong from?

Jeanne


Jeanne Hedge
http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"


#9, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-13-13 at 11:05 PM
In response to message #8
><sigh> OK, what other-universe is Emily Wong from?

She's one of the many people who randomly importune Commander Shepard for strange favors in the first Mass Effect game. She's Chinese, she's a reporter, it seemed like a good fit. This version is rather younger than the one in the game, just starting her career.

--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.


#38, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by CdrMike on Aug-17-13 at 05:43 PM
In response to message #9
>><sigh> OK, what other-universe is Emily Wong from?
>
>She's one of the many people who randomly importune Commander Shepard
>for strange favors in the first Mass Effect game. She's
>Chinese, she's a reporter, it seemed like a good fit. This version is
>rather younger than the one in the game, just starting her career.

She gets bumped up to anchor desk in Mass Effect 2, but then put on a bus off-screen in time for Mass Effect 3. Still remember one of the fellow fans I ran into at the midnight release going "Hey, did you know Emily Wong is dead?"


#10, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by ejheckathorn on Aug-13-13 at 11:09 PM
In response to message #8
><sigh> OK, what other-universe is Emily Wong from?

Mass Effect.

Eric J. Heckathorn


#7, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by trigger on Aug-13-13 at 10:21 PM
In response to message #0
I just want to say, after the foreboding, and what had to be the best food-crawl ever, that if y'all make me cry tears of sorrow in part 2, then I'm going to be really, really miffed.

until the next one. :)

it was good,
t.

Trigger Argee
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"This isn't exactly the Olympic Games." - Corwin of Amber


#11, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-13-13 at 11:11 PM
In response to message #0
Big ups to Jeanne for starting the thread. Time for opinions! So many opinions.

I never really thought we'd actually get Avatar folded into UF, and now that it's happening I don't quite know what to do with myself. This is like back when Utena ended up folded in; I was pretty stoked then too.

>XINQIWU, SANYUE 12, 291 ASC

Hmm, so we're about a hundred twenty years out from the series. I understand the reasons behind it, but man, I am rather disappointed that this makes it deeply unlikely Tenzin, Lin, Asami, and Bolin won't be around except maybe in Valhalla. Especially Asami.

Tenzin's kids are REALLY hanging in there, tho. I mean, that's not unheard of in Diqiu; the line of Fire Lords are super long-lived, and Bumi managed to last a long time. Hell, Lin and Tenzin look amazing for people pushing sixty, in LoK. But man, based on what we see later? Jinora et. al. are rocking it awesome old lady style.

Only nine years till the next comet, too.

>There was only one person who could do that. He immediately set
>aside his broom to hurry back to the main compound. The masters had to
>be informed: The Avatar had returned.

I'm unsure as to whether or not that 'the' should be capitalized or not. It doesn't look quite right to me, but I'm fuzzy on the actual grammar.

>"The Acolytes aren't airbenders," she said. "They follow the
>Air Nomads' old ways to honor them, but so far as we know, no amount of
>study can make a bender out of someone who wasn't born with the gift."

I'm not sure how much you guys care about hewing strictly to canon (Ben implied in a previous thread that it's a Big Deal for Phil) but I'd like to note that we have Word of God on this not being correct within the source materiel. It is possible within the context of Avatar to become a bender through focused study and spiritual discipline. It's just extraordinarily, incredibly rare, a bodhisattva-level accomplishment of spiritual development.

>He was one of those men who wore middle age
>ambiguously, with no particular clues as to which end of that long curve
>he was really at.

A hundred and twenty is pretty damn good to still be looking like you're merely middle-aged.

>Korra grinned. "True. Go there and give the person at the desk
>my card," she said, handing him such an object. "They'll take care of
>you. You're set up for three nights, it's all taken care of. My
>wedding present to the pair of you," she added, her grin becoming a bit
>sentimental.

There are way to many instances of this scattered throughout the story for me to document them all, so I'm just gonna seize on the first one: I am really digging Korra actually being adept at the whole, you know, "I am an important person thing" thing you guys have going on. Korra the fully realized, mature Avatar is still recognizably KORRA, but she has that fluid skill at existing within the system and working the resources available to her she didn't have in the series. It's all very organic and well-executed; I can easily see this Korra showing up to address the President and the Council and, rather than ending up awkward and manipulated, working the room like a professional elder statesman.

And then going out for noodles afterwards, because noodles rock.

>"Well," said Corwin, "remember how you were saying the other day
>that maybe we all should get a dog?" He made a sort of "ta-da" gesture
>toward the bison. "This is better."

Corwin is saying this with the kind of self-assurance of a person who probably did not have to clean up after a ten-ton ruminant the last time he was there.

>It wasn't
>really a saddle at all in any conventional sense, since his back was
>much too wide for any human being to sit astride of, but rather a sort
>of solid platform with raised edges, handholds, and places to secure
>baggage, sufficient for several people and their effects.

People have made the case convincingly that what you put on sky bison is less of a saddle and more of a howdah, like you'd put on an elephant.

>Korra waved until she was confident they wouldn't be able to see
>her any more, then turned to the others and said, "OK! That's those two
>out of our hair for a while. Who wants to try pinepear pie?"

You know, I just finished make this sort of verde-style chili with a lot of cactus pear in it, and all I can think is "man, pinepear sounds DELICIOUS."

>This was Utena's first experience with flying on
>something that didn't at least have seats, and she had expected to find
>it a little more daunting than she did.

Huh, does Utena not know that Corwin can fly?

I am not, of course, Utena. But if I had a boyfriend who could fly, I would totes have insisted on a trip or two up there so I could see what it was like to be in the air without tons of metal wrapped around me.

>Beyond the skyline, a gibbous moon was just
>rising, framed in one of the passes through the mountains that backed
>the city. At this angle, it seemed huge, bigger than Cephiro's moon -
>perhaps the size of Bajor in Jeraddo's night sky. Its silver light
>seemed to highlight the city's golden glow rather than compete with it.

Yue knows how to arrange things for maximum aesthetics, y'all.

>Corwin grinned. "That's Aang, one of Republic City's founders.
>He's my second favorite Avatar - he was the one before Korra."

Bah. Someone needs to be properly educated into just how hard Kyoshi rocked. :)

>No one seemed
>to think it was all that strange that the pattern had just been joined
>by a huge flying animal with two people aboard. People waved to them
>from the windows of airship gondolas and took photos.

I was reminded of this of an older work by Elliot S! Maggin in which people find it good luck for Superman to fly by their windows. I can see Republic City finding sharing the immediate sky with a sky bison as being auspicious, a sign of good fortune.

>"That's Shiro Shinobi Arena. It's a temple, all
>right - a temple of sport! Major League Bending, dangerball, I think
>they even configured it for an Earth Rumble once. Remind me, we'll
>check the sports page in the morning.

Y'know, I've been meaning to point this out for a bit... people in UF seriously need to buy themselves some smartphones. There have been a lot of times where they would have come in handy. Most recently, for Kaname; having something with a panic button app installed on it would have been real helpful during Wedding Attempt No. 1. I mean, waiting for the morning to actually check the dead tree version? You have an omni, Corwin. (Although right this second you are, admittedly, driving.)

>Enormous golden
>letters set into the building's facade at the top announced its name:

I only point this out because later on in the movement you make explicit distinction between letters and characters in kanji or tongyu; it seems off that Republic City's poshest hotel has it's sign in Standard. You'd expect elegantly-crafted characters instead, created by the finest calligraphers and rendered in the appropriately huge size by skilled architects.

(I may be overthinking this.)

>One was a powerfully built young man who might've
>been a Water Tribesman if not for his very fair skin,

... huh, really?

Corwin is the son of two people who are EXTREMELY white. They don't have white folks in Diqiu, so I guess something strange happened to give him the facial characteristics of an Inuit. It's not impossible, I guess, it just seems... weird. Not the only time this happens here, and I kind of have a lot of trouble buying it; Corwin seems like he should stand out as an obvious foreigner, especially with (what people are going to assume are) those tats on his face.

>Inside, the lobby of the Phoenix House was done up in the sort
>of style one would expect from looking at the outside of the building -
>lots of golden and copper trim, red leather, and lashings of that black-
>veined red stone.

I do love that Fire Nation aesthetic. The Phoenix House seems kind of like "Fire Nation goes Art Deco," which is awesome.

>Corwin stopped next to her and looked up at the photo, smiling.
>"The crew of the Phoenix Flight," he said. "I may have mentioned to
>Korra at some point that you're an early-spaceflight buff... "

I'm a bit surprised at all the phoenix imagery and the choice of name for the flight. The last guy in Avatar to go into the phoenix metaphor in a really big way... well, Phoenix King Ozai ain't well-remembered.

>A bellman appeared with a bronze cart, upon which Corwin and
>Utena's bags, once he'd placed them there, looked comically small.
>Meanwhile, the clerk slid a large, brass-edged, leather-bound book
>across the counter, along with an elaborate pen in an upright holder and
>what appeared to be an extremely high-end version of the kind of inking
>pad people used to use with rubber stamps.

I quite love the little touches in this sequence. Many people in Diqiu would, of course, be using a chop, rather than signing their name. Which is of course what the ink pad is for. I expect that they have a calligraphy brush behind the desk as well, and that Azana merely pegged the two of them as being exceedingly unlikely to use it.

(Corwin and Utena should totally get chops made while they're here. Chops are both inherently cool and well-made ones are the kind of functional objets d'art that Corwin would really like.)

>This, Corwin knew, was the style of the Southern Water Tribe,
>Korra's native culture - her house in the South Pole settlement of Senna
>looked much like it on the inside, or had when he'd last been there,
>some eight years before

Awww, Korra named a town after her mom. Can you say best mother's day -ever-?

>Like Senjo, they then left with deep bows,
>neither expecting nor awaiting a gratuity.

I really hope Diqiu isn't a tipping culture. :)

(Back when I traveled, always one of the things I made sure to check; am I going to need to tip, or will they be insulted?)

>The food was fantastic, spicy without brutality, and the wine - which
>they hadn't ordered, and which had simply appeared with the staff's
>felicitations - superb.

Wine nerd time: the Phoenix House's sommelier probably paired a semi-sweet riesling (NOT a dry one; not with spicy food) or a nice pinot blanc. Definitely a white, though; with spicy stir-fry, you don't go with a red.

>"Cheaper than taking a
>taxi everywhere. I suppose you could ride Sergei, but I don't think
>he's anywhere near big enough."
>
>"Hrumph," said Serge, eyeing the Avatar dubiously.

Oh, man. Anthy and Corwin's spawn is totally going to ride Sergei at some point, and it's going to be epic.

>Utena jumped behind the steering wheel,

I am now imagining that Korra has the exact same superpower as Brock Samson does; the power to always know when someone is in her car.

>"OK!" said Corwin. "Move the spark advance back to about
>midway, just until the idle smooths out - you'll feel it when it's
>right." She did so, finding the sweet spot without difficulty - he had
>noticed long ago, when teaching her to drive, that she had a natural
>affinity for this kind of thing. "From here on, it's pretty much like
>you'd expect. Oh - first gear isn't synchronized, so you can only shift
>into it when the car's stopped unless you double-clutch." He gestured
>vaguely forward. "Let's do this thing!"

I am now about to reveal myself as a complete philistine:

Fuck manual transmission.

That is all.

>Anne turned and saw that it was dominated by a large,
>framed portrait of a stern-looking young man - black-haired and amber-
>eyed, he might have been Azana's college-age brother - with a truly epic
>burn scar around his somehow-intact left eye.

Trivia: Zuko's burn is actually something only an extremely skilled, very precise master of firebending could pull off. Someone with less control would have ended up boiling the eye right out of the socket.

Ozai deliberately structured it the way he did as an advertisement of his puissance; it's visually arresting and heinous looking, an object lesson for anyone who might offend the Fire Lord... but it doesn't really physically impair Zuko in any way, thus preserving any potential usefulness Ozai might want to wring out of him in the future.

(Ozai was pretty... special.)

>"He has been all those
>things since he was but a child. And he has -long- been a kind, gentle,
>entirely unwitting thief and breaker of hearts. Maki of Kyoshi
>Island... my great-granddaughter Nyima, whom you met... half a dozen of
>the younger Air Acolytes, not all of them girls... even, -ridiculously,-
>my sister Ikki, who is nearly as ancient as I. When he was last here,
>a mere boy of 13, he conquered them all - a feat of which I suspect he
>is still ignorant."

Hmm. I'm about to tread on dangerous ground here, but I'm gonna make the attempt anyway.

You might want to dial back the "Corwin is awesome and makes all the ladies love him without him even trying" stuff. Just a bit. It's become somewhat self-congratulatory.

This isn't to say it hasn't produced some top-quality stuff. The pool the Valkyrie were running, that was comedy gold, as was Kaname's reaction to it. But this is... I think the third movement in a row that's had scenes with people just standing around kind of gushing about how much they and everyone else love Corwin.

I'm not saying stop entirely. It's an important part of the character. I'm just saying it's maybe becoming a bit much.

>"Anything," Anthy replied flatly, her voice becoming ever so
>slightly cold - not hostile, not even particularly aggressive, but with
>a distinct and undeniable edge. "Those who would do him harm. By fire,
>by sword, by stealth... " She sipped her tea, put the cup down, and
>went on calmly, "... by conspiring to deprive him of old and cherished
>friendships."

Yeah. THIS isn't going to bite all three of them at some point. No sir. Not. At. All.

(I love this side of Anthy so much.)

>Nall cleared his throat, looked significantly around to make
>certain he wouldn't be overheard, and then leaned nearer to the window
>and said portentously, "The Earth King has invited us to Bosco's
>birthday party."

This whole ticket-buying sequence was well-executed, but it was a bit... twee, I guess is the word I want?

I get that Diqiu wants to keep things on the down-low, but there's enough commerce between it and Zipang that Standard has crept in as a widely-spoken second language and it can economically support regular transit service and commerce. Bare minimum, we're talking thousands and thousands of people who are in on it. That's not really the kind of thing you can keep a lid on anymore, even in a galaxy of trillions. I mean, this isn't even strong encryption; any idiot could have picked up that passphrase, handed over anonymous, untraceable cash, and headed for Ba Sing Ce.

>"If you get out to Ba Sing Se
>sometime, check out the Wall Museum. Some of the stuff the Fire Nation
>got up to back then... " She shook her head. "Seriously crazy."

... it's the drill, isn't it? They kept the drill in situ and turned it into a museum.

I liked this whole sequence with Anne and Azana, although I do feel like maybe some discussion is merited at some point of the potential advantages of some of Anne's non-traditional demonstrated abilities with fire. She can set stuff on fire without needing to actually THROW fire at it first, which seems like it would be something rare and considered of great potential and power.

>"Ah well. Let's get our -couture- on. Have to admit I've been looking
>forward to this."
>
>"Are you secretly a girl?" Utena wondered as she took his arm
>and they crossed the street to the shop.

Sometimes the banter does drive home that despite the very fast growing up they've all done, these people are still teenagers. :)

>the food was excellent, and, unlike in most
>other fine dining establishments either of them had experienced before,
>the management wasn't shy about the portion size either.

This would actually be a black mark for Kwong's if I hadn't checked the annotations and seen that they have portion selection on their menu, something I wish more restaurants would do.

I can't speak for everyone of course, but if I'm going to the trouble of going to an actual sit-down restaurant with a dress code and a maitre'd and a wine list, I want to -dine-. That means I want to have a soup, a salad, an appetizer, the entree, and then dessert and coffee. This of course necessitates relatively small portions on each of them. If an "entree" is going to be an enormous platter of food the size of my torso (which is what you get at a Chili's or an Applebees) that means no appetizer and probably no dessert.

>"Are you kidding?" Utena replied. "With a little industry, you
>can keep this going for -days!- Your editor will be on the edge of his
>-seat.- And when the payoff finally comes - and it will, if you trust
>us - you'll be number one with a bullet on the Tribune society page.
>Play your cards right, that could take you anywhere."

Ugh. Emily Wong is on the society beat? Really?

I mean, we all gotta start somewhere, but the society pages are where legitimate newsgathering goes to die. They are (or were, as print continues to die as a medium) the domain of the courtier press, people who believe that the purpose of a newsman is to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. See: Quinn, Sally.

I hope Emily gets off that desk as soon as humanly possible before it warps her.

>Exclusive Photographs by Our Correspondent, Emily Wong

She's at least getting her own bylines, always a plus.

>"I beg your pardon," he said, sounding dismayed. "This must
>be a typographical error. Is it a tigerdillo or a tigervark? This just
>says 'tiger'." He shook his head. "Oh dear. That'll need to be
>corrected posthaste."

I was waiting all story for this joke... and it did not disappoint.

>"No it is not. This is a representation of Noatak,
>alias Amon, the figurehead of the Equalist 'revolution'.

... eh?

Amon... wasn't really a figurehead. He was actually in charge. Or does the historical record take the stance that Amon was, in fact, just a figurehead and the real mastermind was Hiroshi Sato?

>"Being obvious was the whole idea," Corwin told her. "Keep
>people looking at the spectacle so they don't notice the real chicanery.
>Think of the guy who ran that Black Rose thing... "

On my initial read, my first thought here was "Huh. They remember that?". I mean, Akio did a pretty thorough job scrubbing out the Black Rose arc of SkU from everybody involved except himself and Anthy. Hell, he went so far as to use the weird-ass time warping nature of the ongoing failed Tournament to mess with the physical nature of the campus. I suppose there have been a lot of opportunities for those blocks to get popped off during the Symphony (Utena has been through, what, two, three different apotheosis events since then?) but damned if I can recall when and if that was made explicit.

Then I considered it context with the scene it segueways into. Sending Nemuro to DSM, especially -under his own name- seems almost suicidally overconfident on Akio's part unless his only goal is to rile up Utena and Company, or if he doesn't intend for Nemuro to be there for long. (Both possibilities I haven't entirely discounted.) I mean, the first generation of Duelists don't live there anymore, but they're in and out on a fairly regular basis.

But it's only suicidally overconfident if Akio doesn't know they actually remember him and his shenanigans, isn't it? Then all he has to worry about is Anthy, and he may figure Anthy is ashamed enough about what she was doing as Mamiya that she won't have told anyone. (He'd be wrong about this, but Akio doesn't understand Anthy 2.0.) In that case, there's a hell of a lot less risk.

>Professor Hideki Nemuro smiled engagingly. "Oh, not at all, Dr.
>Tiefeld," he replied.

I was really hoping his name would "Chirikazu Nemuro." :(

(Old old old fanfiction joke/reference.)

Nemuro has changed a fair bit since the second time he died, I've noticed. Nemuro v1.0 and Mikage Souji were not what you'd call chipper or enthusiastic people. They were driven, certainly, but their personalities were cold, distant, laconic. Dryly intellectual.

This guy is not. He's involved, passionate. Quite, quite mad of course. Dying twice and being resurrected by a Duke of Hell will do that to you. But "graduating" really seems to have changed him. I'm actively wondering how much that has to do with Utena unraveling his little Black Rose scheme; Utena does revolutionize peoples lives, after all.

(I kind of feel bad for UF-Mikage in a way I have trouble feeling bad for UF-Touga. Mikage seems like he still has redeeming, or at least sympathetic, facets to his character. Touga is just a small, nasty, petty kind of evil. Something happened to him between SkU and SoS that utterly stripped out anything redeeming or, indeed, even very interesting about him.)

>"Why should the poor man be suspicious of us?" Souji Mikage
>replied, shrugging. "Our credentials are perfectly valid. The
>University of Tothis is a fully accredited institution."
>
>"And a wholly owned subsidiary of Shrine Investment Partners."

This provoked a visceral reaction in me; I have done a lot of work with for-profit, privately owned universities. They are the scum of the earth, preying on vulnerable people trying to build a better life.

Also, fuck the Corporate Sector. Seriously. The WDF should have burned that fucking place to the ground when they had the chance.

>"Most of them I vetoed." She rolled her eyes. "I
>don't think anyone today really wants to know that I was once arrested
>for vigilantism on San Hua Bridge, for instance," she added, drawing a
>laugh from the others.

I dunno, it seems like, with a distance of some years in place, Korra would be obscurely proud of that one. :) Although I imagine that negotiations broke down when she wanted the wording to be "On this spot in 170 ASC, Avatar Korra was arrested for doing the police's job better than they did." With a footnote reading "YOU HEARD ME LIN."

>"Nall and I, we're used to the idea
>that most of our loved ones are likely to make it at least as far as we
>do. And the ones who don't, well... we'll have plenty of warning, at
>least. But Korra? She isn't aging, but as far as we know she's still
>mortal. She might live until Fimbulvetr. Or tomorrow afternoon she
>might just... stop. We just don't know. Nobody knows. -She- doesn't
>know. So every day they stole from us... "

This is a little bit petty and self-righteous on Corwin's part.

... that's intended as a compliment, by the way. Corwin's a passionate dude, and that's not always gonna play to his benefit.

While I acknowledge they've fucked up a number of times, I'm pretty sympathetic to the White Lotus. Being the support network for an Avatar as headstrong as Korra can't be easy, and Utena is a giant metaphysical wild card. Wanting them not to hurl headlong into each other is a natural precautionary measure.

>She'd
>seen a number of races billed as "vintage" before - the Nekomi Institute
>of Technology Motor Club, of which she was a member (or had been - was
>she in fact still a -student- at NIT? She'd have to check into that, it
>had been a very odd year), held vintage and retro events quite often.

Don't they have that event where they challenge people to build cars that never existed, but SHOULD have? I recall reading something somewhere about crazy steam-powered cars and other such automotive chicanery.

>Then, with a look of gleeful realization, she ran back around
>and seized Corwin by the front of his jacket, giving him a shake.
>"Corwin! Did you grow up to be a -gentleman burglar?!-" she demanded,
>grinning widely into his face. "Do you have a heist team?" she went on,
>getting more and more excited as she explored the idea. Nodding toward
>Utena, she asked, "Is she your social engineer? (Spirits know he'd have
>to have one,)" she added wryly to Utena with a wink, making her giggle,
>before returning her gleeful eyes to Corwin. "Do you have a getaway
>driver? Can -I- be your getaway driver? I will literally change my
>face and let Ryo have the company if I can be the getaway driver in your
>heist team."

My one thought on reading this was "if Minami is ever put in the same room as the Leverage, Inc. team, they will end up breaking into the Federation Senate to steal all of Bill Clark's pens, and Nate Ford will not have any idea why they did it or, indeed, why they are now being chased by the gendarmes through narrow alleyways in a stolen Peugeot that Minami is SURE she can make jump over the Seine if she finds the right ramp."

>"Oh, stop it, Ryo," Minami chided him, pulling to a halt in
>front of their next destination. "You watch too many movies."

"The Piandao serials are not just -movies-, Minami. They are -high art-. Haven't you ever seen 'Burning of the Golden Temple Part XIII?' Amazing wire work, just amazing."

>Taken by Storm will continue in
>Part 2: Goodbye and Hello, as Always

Seeing the quote from his namesake makes me hope that Corwin's kid gets a better name than said namesake's son did.

Well, 'Merle' isn't a bad name, I guess. But Merlin? Dara should have thought that one through.

Normally, here's where I'd go into a wrapup of general thoughts... but I got nothing to add I didn't already go over. At least not at the moment.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#13, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-14-13 at 00:21 AM
In response to message #11
>>The masters had to
>>be informed: The Avatar had returned.
>
>I'm unsure as to whether or not that 'the' should be capitalized or
>not. It doesn't look quite right to me, but I'm fuzzy on the actual
>grammar.

The general rule I was taught, aeons ago, was that if the bit that comes after the colon is a complete sentence in its own right, you capitalize it, and if it's just a list of things, you don't. I don't always think of it, but it's somewhere in my mental stylesheet, all the same.

>I'd like to note that we have Word of God on this not being correct
>within the source materiel.

I'm just enjoying the mental image brought on by the phrase "source materiel". It makes me think of the original stories as things that have to be brought in on trucks, like military supplies.

Anyway, it's possible Korra's just wrong about that. She's not omniscient, after all. It certainly hasn't happened within her lifetime that she knows of, anyway. There are probably legends of old-timey airbenders who did that? But she also owns The Complete Adventures of Wang Fire on crystal, so she knows a thing or two about buying into legends. :)

>>He was one of those men who wore middle age
>>ambiguously, with no particular clues as to which end of that long curve
>>he was really at.
>
>A hundred and twenty is pretty damn good to still be looking like
>you're merely middle-aged.

It's worth noting that from the perspective of someone from New Avalon, 120 is the righthand edge of middle age. We'll be looking at this a bit more in the next movement.

>I can easily see this Korra showing up
>to address the President and the Council and, rather than ending up
>awkward and manipulated, working the room like a professional elder
>statesman.

"Took me long enough... "

>People have made the case convincingly that what you put on sky bison
>is less of a saddle and more of a howdah, like you'd put on an
>elephant.

No canopy.

>Huh, does Utena not know that Corwin can fly?
>
>I am not, of course, Utena. But if I had a boyfriend who could fly, I
>would totes have insisted on a trip or two up there so I could see
>what it was like to be in the air without tons of metal wrapped around
>me.

If you're envisioning something like that scene from the '70s Superman movie, I'm afraid it, uh, doesn't really work that way. At least not for Corwin. He doesn't really fly so much as levitate, anyway, which isn't as exciting for potential passengers. It's mainly useful for not falling to one's death.

That said, she's flown a New Avalon Police jetpack, and that doesn't have a seat, so what she's really comparing the experience to is what it'd be like to, say, go wing walking. Large vehicle, but no actual seats. It's a strange experience, and quite unlike jetpacking or paragliding or whatever else have you.

>Bah. Someone needs to be properly educated into just how hard Kyoshi
>rocked. :)

Oh, Corwin's well aware of that. He has great respect for Kyoshi. But he doesn't like her. :)

>I was reminded of this of an older work by Elliot S! Maggin in which
>people find it good luck for Superman to fly by their windows. I can
>see Republic City finding sharing the immediate sky with a sky bison
>as being auspicious, a sign of good fortune.

Heh, I like that.

>Y'know, I've been meaning to point this out for a bit... people in UF
>seriously need to buy themselves some smartphones. There have been a
>lot of times where they would have come in handy. Most recently, for
>Kaname; having something with a panic button app installed on it would
>have been real helpful during Wedding Attempt No. 1.

There's no signal in Brown Sector. We covered that.

>I mean, waiting
>for the morning to actually check the dead tree version? You have an
>omni, Corwin. (Although right this second you are, admittedly,
>driving.)

Just getting into the spirit of the thing.

>>Enormous golden
>>letters set into the building's facade at the top announced its name:
>
>I only point this out because later on in the movement you make
>explicit distinction between letters and characters in kanji or
>tongyu; it seems off that Republic City's poshest hotel has it's sign
>in Standard. You'd expect elegantly-crafted characters instead,
>created by the finest calligraphers and rendered in the appropriately
>huge size by skilled architects.
>
>(I may be overthinking this.)

Or simply not bearing in mind that a building with a square footprint has four sides. :)

>>One was a powerfully built young man who might've
>>been a Water Tribesman if not for his very fair skin,
>
>... huh, really?

Well, sure, if he's anything recognizable, it's going to be that, simply based on his hair and his eye color. And the Viking cheekbones. He's odd-looking, but not as outstandingly foreign-looking as Utena (who, in the time-honored anime tradition, has a Japanese name - anyone in Diqiu just seeing her name somewhere would assume she was from Kyoshi Island or the Fire Nation - and doesn't look even slightly Asian). :)

(In a similar vein, thanks to the art style employed in the source, I'm not havin' this "he must look Inuit" thing. Only the -really old people- in either Water Tribe look Inuit. Korra's dad looked like Corwin's Uncle Balder with a dye job and a tan. :)

>>Corwin stopped next to her and looked up at the photo, smiling.
>>"The crew of the Phoenix Flight," he said. "I may have mentioned to
>>Korra at some point that you're an early-spaceflight buff... "
>
>I'm a bit surprised at all the phoenix imagery and the choice of name
>for the flight. The last guy in Avatar to go into the phoenix metaphor
>in a really big way... well, Phoenix King Ozai ain't well-remembered.

That was kind of the idea, actually. "Phoenix" as in rebirth, the five nations working together, etc. - Project Phoenix Flight was a major step in the rehabilitation of the Fire Nation's foreign policy image. We'll hopefully get round to telling that story one day. We have notes for most of it, as a byproduct of the design of this very scene.

So yeah! You were wondering what Korra did on her first Comet Day?

SHE WENT TO THE MOON.

:)

>Awww, Korra named a town after her mom. Can you say best mother's day
>-ever-?

Well, someone named a town after her mom. It might not have been Korra herself, except inasmuch as she may have said, "No, don't name it after me, if you have to name it after anyone you want to give some credit to, name it after my mother."

He says "I don't wanna be on no stamp, man"
I say "King, I understand"
He says "My mama should be on that stamp, man"
And then he fires his .44 into the television
Elvis and I

>>Like Senjo, they then left with deep bows,
>>neither expecting nor awaiting a gratuity.
>
>I really hope Diqiu isn't a tipping culture. :)

Nope. One of the many refreshing things about traveling there.

>(Ozai was pretty... special.)

Indeed. One hopes that at some point he attempted to escape and one of the Kyoshi had the opportunity to put him down like the mad dog he was.

... one is not a Buddhist monk, you should understand. :)

"Me, on the other hand, I say guys like you are always worth it."

>But this is... I think the third movement in a row
>that's had scenes with people just standing around kind of gushing
>about how much they and everyone else love Corwin.
>
>I'm not saying stop entirely. It's an important part of the character.
>I'm just saying it's maybe becoming a bit much.

Mm, you may have a point there. In fairness, Jinora's not really coming across with any news there, and she proceeds to make exactly the same point. Anyway, it's lead-up to something we'll get to later.

>This whole ticket-buying sequence was well-executed, but it was a
>bit... twee, I guess is the word I want?

I congratulate you on your perspicacity, sir! Nall is living out a spy-movie fantasy. He's doing that on purpose; it probably hasn't really been done that way for years. The ticket agent is just too polite and well-trained to give him the hairy eyeball about it. :)

(As Phil notes in the annotations, most people do it online these days.)

>>"If you get out to Ba Sing Se
>>sometime, check out the Wall Museum. Some of the stuff the Fire Nation
>>got up to back then... " She shook her head. "Seriously crazy."
>
>... it's the drill, isn't it? They kept the drill in situ and turned
>it into a museum.

There weren't a lot of other options. I mean, it would make a lousy restaurant.

>I liked this whole sequence with Anne and Azana, although I do feel
>like maybe some discussion is merited at some point of the potential
>advantages of some of Anne's non-traditional demonstrated abilities
>with fire.

Azana would probably make note of that, yes.

If she knew about it.

It's only the first day. Patience, weedwhacker.

>Ugh. Emily Wong is on the society beat? Really?

Oddly enough, that's Emily's basic response to the situation too.

>>"No it is not. This is a representation of Noatak,
>>alias Amon, the figurehead of the Equalist 'revolution'.
>
>... eh?
>
>Amon... wasn't really a figurehead. He was actually in charge.

Possibly so, but he was also indisputably an obvious bit of branding, which in Corwin's eyes makes him deeply suspect as the actual mastermind. I mean, that would be like believing that the guy who set the Reichstag fire* was the real mastermind behind the Nazis' rise to power, or that the ringmaster really runs the circus.

Anyway, historians are probably still arguing about that, given that many of the key figures in the incident disappeared and were never seen again. Hell, there are probably some who insist, based on the fragmentary documentation available, that it was really all Batroc. :)

* No, not the Dutch patsy, Göring.

>Also, fuck the Corporate Sector. Seriously. The WDF should have burned
>that fucking place to the ground when they had the chance.

... they had the chance?

>>"So every day they stole from us... "
>
>This is a little bit petty and self-righteous on Corwin's part.

A bit. Although it's worth bearing in mind that he includes Korra in that "us"; he's not just talking about himself and Nall.

>Don't they have that event where they challenge people to build cars
>that never existed, but SHOULD have? I recall reading something
>somewhere about crazy steam-powered cars and other such automotive
>chicanery.

They did it at least once, back in the days when Belldandy and Keiichi were students; that's where Utena's car (the AC Cobra with a back seat) came from. It may not have been run in the new kids' lifetime, though.

>being chased by the gendarmes through narrow alleyways in a stolen
>Peugeot that Minami is SURE she can make jump over the Seine if she
>finds the right ramp."

"Do you take care of this car? The tires feel a little splashy."

--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: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-14-13 at 01:50 AM
In response to message #13
>>>The masters had to
>>>be informed: The Avatar had returned.

>>I'd like to note that we have Word of God on this not being correct
>>within the source materiel.
>
>I'm just enjoying the mental image brought on by the phrase "source
>materiel". It makes me think of the original stories as things that
>have to be brought in on trucks, like military supplies.

"Phil, are we out of Jinora?"

"Uh... darn it, we are. I'll have some more overnighted."


>>A hundred and twenty is pretty damn good to still be looking like
>>you're merely middle-aged.
>
>It's worth noting that from the perspective of someone from New
>Avalon, 120 is the righthand edge of middle age. We'll be
>looking at this a bit more in the next movement.

Also worth noting that I could stand to brush up on the data provided back in the Featured Docs as to this kind of thing, myself.


>>People have made the case convincingly that what you put on sky bison
>>is less of a saddle and more of a howdah, like you'd put on an
>>elephant.
>
>No canopy.

True, although you could rig one up easily enough.

>If you're envisioning something like that scene from the '70s
>Superman movie, I'm afraid it, uh, doesn't really work that
>way. At least not for Corwin. He doesn't really fly so much as
>levitate, anyway, which isn't as exciting for potential passengers.
>It's mainly useful for not falling to one's death.

That was exactly what I was envisioning, yes. (Don't judge me.)

You've ruined my illusions. :(


>>(I may be overthinking this.)
>
>Or simply not bearing in mind that a building with a square footprint
>has four sides. :)

I... er, am actually completely clueless as to what you mean by this.

>Well, sure, if he's anything recognizable, it's going to be
>that, simply based on his hair and his eye color. And the Viking
>cheekbones. He's odd-looking, but not as outstandingly
>foreign-looking as Utena (who, in the time-honored anime tradition,
>has a Japanese name - anyone in Diqiu just seeing her name somewhere
>would assume she was from Kyoshi Island or the Fire Nation - and
>doesn't look even slightly Asian). :)

I am reminded of... it was either in Full Metal Panic or FMP: Second Raid, where a bunch of mercenary guys have Tessa and Kaname cornered at the school, and they order them to "send us over the white girl."

It was like... WHICH white girl? :)

>(In a similar vein, thanks to the art style employed in the source,
>I'm not havin' this "he must look Inuit" thing. Only the -really old
>people- in either Water Tribe look Inuit. Korra's dad looked like
>Corwin's Uncle Balder with a dye job and a tan. :)

Fair enough. I'll be the first to admit that the people in Avatar only look in very broad strokes like the cultures they're built to resemble, but there are certain broad similarities within the universe itself.


>>I'm a bit surprised at all the phoenix imagery and the choice of name
>>for the flight. The last guy in Avatar to go into the phoenix metaphor
>>in a really big way... well, Phoenix King Ozai ain't well-remembered.
>
>That was kind of the idea, actually. "Phoenix" as in rebirth, the
>five nations working together, etc. - Project Phoenix Flight was a
>major step in the rehabilitation of the Fire Nation's foreign policy
>image.

You know... I really hope Zuko managed to hang on to see that happen. Especially because of this:

>So yeah! You were wondering what Korra did on her first Comet Day?
>
>SHE WENT TO THE MOON.

This is the best goddamn idea I've ever seen for what should happen on the next passing of Sozin's Comet. 115 would be really pushing it, even for Zuko's family, but man, being able to contribute to that sort of thing, even as just a "I am the former Fire Lord and I give this project my approval" stature-lending thing, would be the final expiation of his families sins for him.

>>(Ozai was pretty... special.)
>
>Indeed. One hopes that at some point he attempted to escape and one
>of the Kyoshi had the opportunity to put him down like the mad dog he
>was.

One of the things that makes Ozai so frightening, at least in my opinion, is that he isn't really mad, per se. He's entirely sane. He was probably a very effective ruler of the Fire Nation; he's intelligent, incisive, understands people, all that stuff.

He was just, you know... evil. :)

Besides, him dying in an escape attempt is way too merciful. What I like to imagine is that after he'd made his point with a few years in that tower, Zuko had his Dad moved to a comfortable prison-apartment somewhere on the Palace grounds. A high room, with a great view.

And then he made the old man spend the next half-century watching him tear down and rebuild the Fire Nation into something Ozai would have found abhorrent and weak. He'd make sure Ozai had access to plenty of broadsheets and other news sources, too. Maybe have them read aloud to him.

>"Me, on the other hand, I say guys like you are always worth
>it."

I forget where, but I once read a fairly decent little fanfic wherein, after Ozai rather comically declared "I'm still alive" in response to Suki's query, Sokka considered the architect of his peoples near-genocide philosophically for a couple seconds, and then simply straight-up knifed him right there in front of Aang.

(And it would have to be Sokka. Toph, for all her tough-girl persona, doesn't have the experience of life as prey of the Fire Nation all the others have, and Suki I don't think quite has the nerve to kill an unarmed, beaten man in cold blood.)

>>This whole ticket-buying sequence was well-executed, but it was a
>>bit... twee, I guess is the word I want?
>
>I congratulate you on your perspicacity, sir! Nall is living out a
>spy-movie fantasy. He's doing that on purpose; it probably
>hasn't really been done that way for years. The ticket agent is just
>too polite and well-trained to give him the hairy eyeball about it. :)

You know, I sometimes congratulate myself on seeking out subtlety in my fiction, and then when it shows up I just entirely miss it.

It's especially annoying because I totally called Nall's desire to do just this in Try, Try Again. ^.^;

>>... it's the drill, isn't it? They kept the drill in situ and turned
>>it into a museum.
>
>There weren't a lot of other options. I mean, it would make a
>lousy restaurant.

Well, they could have broken down and moved the thing out entirely; it represents a vulnerable point.

That said, with their sudden combined mastery of both air power and artillery pieces, the Fire Nation sort of took Ba Sing Ce's walls and obsoleted them overnight. Postwar, they probably rebuilt that big gap the Dai Li carved in the thing, but the drill likely wasn't a priority anymore.

>Azana would probably make note of that, yes.
>
>If she knew about it.
>
>It's only the first day. Patience, weedwhacker.

Hrm.

I am forced to admit that, if I were still doing martial arts, that would not be... an INACCURATE sobriquet to hang on me.

>>Amon... wasn't really a figurehead. He was actually in charge.
>
>Possibly so, but he was also indisputably an obvious bit of branding,
>which in Corwin's eyes makes him deeply suspect as the actual
>mastermind.

Interesting. I am now curious as to his thoughts on Big Fire. I mean, really. "The Magnificent Ten?" Even for a cadre of metahuman supervillains, that's a pretty on-the-nose piece of branding. They might as well have their own line of action figures; the Fabulous Fitzcarald with real snapping action, Shockwave Alberto with a pack of tiny cigars you can tuck inside his suit.

>Anyway, historians are probably still arguing about that, given that
>many of the key figures in the incident disappeared and were never
>seen again. Hell, there are probably some who insist, based on the
>fragmentary documentation available, that it was really all Batroc. :)

Hey, within Amon gone, it is totally Lieutenant Batroc's time to shine! You'll see! He's gonna build his own revolution! With hookers, and blackjack!

>>Also, fuck the Corporate Sector. Seriously. The WDF should have burned
>>that fucking place to the ground when they had the chance.
>
>... they had the chance?

I am maybe wrong about this, but... my impression has always been that in the immediate aftermath of the War of Corporate Occupation the WDF was basically running the table and could have gotten support for rending Genom and all their creations limb from limb if it had wanted to.

Starfleet had been mostly destroyed (and even if it hadn't been, various Federations members governments had been largely destabilized and were in need of a lot of restructuring) and Genom had brought basically everything it could spare that wasn't doing stuff like pinning down Salusia or the Quarian Union to Zeta Cygni... which led to all that hardware being either destroyed or captured. Plus, the WDF had gained serious cred by being right about Genom all along. The other major military power still standing at the time was Salusia, close WDF allies.

Given that, it seems like that represented a primo opportunity to rip apart Largo's little kleptocratic empire he built out in the Corporate Sector and subject it to MAJOR restructuring.

I mean, I understand the counterargument for not pulling the trigger on that; it would have meant continuing the war for months, possibly years, as they subdued the Corporate Sector system by system and arranged for the occupation and administration of a vast volume of space and billions of people. So taking the soft victory and letting Kwei-chang Kane and later on Larry Mann handle the situation delicately makes a certain amount of sense. But the end result of that process seems to have been Corporate Sector Lite: Less Megalomania, More Fascism.

But the chance did exist.

(I could of course be wrong in my read on the situation as it was then.)

-Merc
Keep Rat


#15, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-14-13 at 02:28 AM
In response to message #14
>>>(I may be overthinking this.)
>>
>>Or simply not bearing in mind that a building with a square footprint
>>has four sides. :)
>
>I... er, am actually completely clueless as to what you mean by this.

There are four sides to that part of the tower. We only know from the text provided that it says PHOENIX HOUSE HOTEL in Standard on one of them. It's entirely possible - in fact, likely - that the name is rendered in Tongyu on at least two of the remaining three.

>>Indeed. One hopes that at some point he attempted to escape and one
>>of the Kyoshi had the opportunity to put him down like the mad dog he
>>was.
>
>One of the things that makes Ozai so frightening, at least in my
>opinion, is that he isn't really mad, per se.

It's a f---ing figure of speech, for f---sakes.

... sorry, too sharp? :)

>Besides, him dying in an escape attempt is way too merciful.

Well, yes, arguably, but they don't have the technology base to construct a proper prometheon*, and the guy's like Hannibal Lecter. As long as he's capable of walking around and speaking to people, he's going to be a problem.

Toph's right, you know. Those guys are just born bad. That's why Zuko is so shit at being a good guy. He has to make a Will check every time he doesn't murder somebody. It's an umpty-point Flaw, which explains why he started the game at like level 15, but in the long run it wasn't really worth it. He's a bad design. Someone needs to have a word with his player. :)

>I forget where, but I once read a fairly decent little fanfic wherein,
>after Ozai rather comically declared "I'm still alive" in response to
>Suki's query, Sokka considered the architect of his peoples
>near-genocide philosophically for a couple seconds, and then simply
>straight-up knifed him right there in front of Aang.

Hmm. Nearly plausible, though I'm seeing it more as a redneck katana fugue with that whale jaw club thing. III've been WORKin' on the RAIL rooooad, ALL the LIVElong DAAAAY...

>Interesting. I am now curious as to his thoughts on Big Fire. I mean,
>really. "The Magnificent Ten?" Even for a cadre of metahuman
>supervillains, that's a pretty on-the-nose piece of branding. They
>might as well have their own line of action figures; the Fabulous
>Fitzcarald with real snapping action, Shockwave Alberto with a pack of
>tiny cigars you can tuck inside his suit.

Oh, they're branding, all right. It's fairly well-agreed within the International Police that the Ten are just a front for something much less colorful and - let's face it - fun to punch. They want the public to fear them, but also to find them interesting, which is not something 100% Committed Bad Guys care about. They're dangerous branding, but then, so was Amon.

--G.
* Breathtakingly cruel and elegant 14th-century Gamilon torture device. Employs a combination of tailored stasis and cellular regeneration inducers to keep the prisoner alive while a vicious animal eats bits of him. Indefinitely. Illegal everywhere, including on Gamilon, nowadays.
-><-
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.


#18, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by pjmoyer on Aug-14-13 at 03:33 PM
In response to message #15
>>>Or simply not bearing in mind that a building with a square footprint
>>>has four sides. :)
>
>There are four sides to that part of the tower. We only know from the
>text provided that it says PHOENIX HOUSE HOTEL in Standard on one of
>them. It's entirely possible - in fact, likely - that the name is
>rendered in Tongyu on at least two of the remaining three.

In fact, the Phoenix House Hotel is named in Standard on one side, Tongyu on the two sides adjacent to it, and in Kokugo (the original spoken and written language of the Fire Nation before Tongyu supplanted it internationally) on the side opposite of the Standard label, since the building was partially built by Fire Nation interests.

Kokugo also shows up more frequently in the Little Fire Nation neighborhood of Republic City, as well as in the Little Zipang neighborhood (where it's often mistaken for that foreign "Japanese" language).

--- 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"


#16, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by mdg1 on Aug-14-13 at 07:54 AM
In response to message #14
>Hey, within Amon gone, it is totally Lieutenant Batroc's time to
>shine! You'll see! He's gonna build his own revolution! With hookers,
>and blackjack!

Mais non! Leftenant Batroc would never sully himself with les colombes souillées ou vingt-et-un! It would be an insult to mon avatar, non?

Then he kicks another metalbending cop in the head, and jumps out the window.


#19, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by pjmoyer on Aug-14-13 at 06:00 PM
In response to message #11
LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-13 AT 06:19 PM (EDT)
 
>I never really thought we'd actually get Avatar folded into UF, and
>now that it's happening I don't quite know what to do with myself.
>This is like back when Utena ended up folded in; I was pretty stoked
>then too.

To be honest, Merc? It's all your fault.

I'd had the thought off and on about how bending and the Avatar world could incorporate into UF, and mostly wrote it off as not plausible (especially given its metaphysics and event timing), but it was your comment about Katara or Korra at the CTF Snowball fight that caused me to re-think the possibility and re-ignited the creative juices for the integration (especially since it'll tie into several other things later on involving [INFORMATION REDACTED].)

And believe me, after hearing about the event from Corwin and Utena, Korra will NOT be missing the next one.

>>XINQIWU, SANYUE 12, 291 ASC
>
>Hmm, so we're about a hundred twenty years out from the series. I
>understand the reasons behind it, but man, I am rather disappointed
>that this makes it deeply unlikely Tenzin, Lin, Asami, and Bolin won't
>be around except maybe in Valhalla. Especially Asami.

Yeah, well, that's life in the big city. I want all 4 Books of Legend of Korra to be Canon for our purposes (as far as is reasonable), which puts us in a bit of a pickle thanks to Books 2-4 not being released yet. Is it September yet? *whine*

>Tenzin's kids are REALLY hanging in there, tho. I mean, that's not
>unheard of in Diqiu; the line of Fire Lords are super long-lived, and
>Bumi managed to last a long time. Hell, Lin and Tenzin look amazing
>for people pushing sixty, in LoK. But man, based on what we see later?
>Jinora et. al. are rocking it awesome old lady style.

Admittedly, a lot of that appearance is derived from fanart depictions of the older Airkids, though I suppose I should draw Ancient Master versions of them one of these days, with Korra.

>>"The Acolytes aren't airbenders," she said. "They follow the
>>Air Nomads' old ways to honor them, but so far as we know, no amount of
>>study can make a bender out of someone who wasn't born with the gift."
>
>I'm not sure how much you guys care about hewing strictly to canon
>(Ben implied in a previous thread that it's a Big Deal for Phil) but
>I'd like to note that we have Word of God on this not being correct
>within the source materiel. It is possible within the context of
>Avatar to become a bender through focused study and spiritual
>discipline. It's just extraordinarily, incredibly rare, a
>bodhisattva-level accomplishment of spiritual development.

Which, well, "bodhisattva-level accomplishment of spiritual development" doesn't come along everyday. Do you know many current bodhisattva running around these days? Also, I'd like a citation on that Word of God, since I don't recall it being listed as a possibility for attaining bending on the Avatar Wiki (which remains our go-to source on matters Avatar for the time being).

Yes, it may be possible, but in "today's" fast-paced world of Diqiu, it certainly isn't considered likely. Far more possible for devoted Air Acolytes to give birth to airbending children (or for a random genetic 'sport' to show up in the wider population) than it is for the intense-study method. They just haven't encountered them yet.

>>Korra grinned. "True. Go there and give the person at the desk
>>my card," she said, handing him such an object. "They'll take care of
>>you. You're set up for three nights, it's all taken care of. My
>>wedding present to the pair of you," she added, her grin becoming a bit
>>sentimental.
>
>There are way to many instances of this scattered throughout the story
>for me to document them all, so I'm just gonna seize on the first one:
>I am really digging Korra actually being adept at the whole, you know,
>"I am an important person thing" thing you guys have going on. Korra
>the fully realized, mature Avatar is still recognizably KORRA, but she
>has that fluid skill at existing within the system and working the
>resources available to her she didn't have in the series. It's all
>very organic and well-executed; I can easily see this Korra showing up
>to address the President and the Council and, rather than ending up
>awkward and manipulated, working the room like a professional elder
>statesman.
>
>And then going out for noodles afterwards, because noodles rock.

Well, it also helps that, for all practical purposes, Avatar Korra is the only Avatar the living population of Diqiu has ever known. There's no more "aangst" about living up to Aang's legacy, because everybody who could have known Aang in life and compare her to him is now dead. That brings about a level of freedom that Korra didn't have growing up, because she pretty much knows everybody who's worth knowing on the planet, being contemporary or older than them.

Of course, that brings along its own set of problems, which we'll get into later...

(It's like having the Queen or the Pope running around negotiating treaties and kicking bad guys in the face. She's an accepted fact of life, and you can't imagine the world without her, but you don't believe she'd just drop in at a food stand on the street to pick up food skewers for her polar bear dog.)

>>No one seemed
>>to think it was all that strange that the pattern had just been joined
>>by a huge flying animal with two people aboard. People waved to them
>>from the windows of airship gondolas and took photos.
>
>I was reminded of this of an older work by Elliot S! Maggin in which
>people find it good luck for Superman to fly by their windows. I can
>see Republic City finding sharing the immediate sky with a sky bison
>as being auspicious, a sign of good fortune.

This is a common sentiment, especially among the other major cities of Diqiu, as the Air Nomads have returned to existence. They're very much a "community outreach service" organization in the modern day, providing support in disaster areas, quelling disputes, relaying messages and goods to remote corners of the globe, etc. Kind of a mix of Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and the Peace Corps. On flying bison.

>>Nall cleared his throat, looked significantly around to make
>>certain he wouldn't be overheard, and then leaned nearer to the window
>>and said portentously, "The Earth King has invited us to Bosco's
>>birthday party."
>
>This whole ticket-buying sequence was well-executed, but it was a
>bit... twee, I guess is the word I want?
>
>I get that Diqiu wants to keep things on the down-low, but there's
>enough commerce between it and Zipang that Standard has crept in as a
>widely-spoken second language and it can economically support regular
>transit service and commerce. Bare minimum, we're talking thousands
>and thousands of people who are in on it. That's not really the kind
>of thing you can keep a lid on anymore, even in a galaxy of trillions.
>I mean, this isn't even strong encryption; any idiot could have picked
>up that passphrase, handed over anonymous, untraceable cash, and
>headed for Ba Sing Ce.

Yes, this is a concern, but it's also rooted in the whole relationship between Diqiu and Zipang (the details of which will be covered, hopefully, in later stories). However, in summary:

Zipang was founded in the late 2100's/early 2200's by a bunch of Tomadachi settlers and other first-wave colonies that had decided that those colonies had gotten rather too urbane for comfort. Since they wanted that real frontier experience, they settled on Zipang and started up again, this time going for a Tokugawa/Edo/Meiji aesthetic, but with much less of the social stratification, and allowing concessions for modernity like automobiles, telephones, etc.

(In essence, a planet founded by historical anime fans. You may cringe now, if you like. They still view Ruroni Kenshin as historical drama.)

Things went along well for several decades until 2282, whereupon the WDF fell, GENOM came to power, the Galaxy went down the toilet, and the Zipangi went "Whoah, we don't want no part of this" and locked down their borders save for Dejima Station (much like their historical counterpart of Japan did, back in the day). However, this left them with a conundrum of what to do about trade and general interaction for however long this exile would take ...

... and then they started realizing they'd never been entirely alone in there, anyway.

Well, things happened, contact was made with Diqiu, and a symbiotic relationship evolved enough that in the present day, pretty much the entire government of Zipang is in on the secret. And they're very good at respecting their sister planet's privacy. Hence things like automatically changing passports for Diqiu natives heading out into the galaxy, or hiding Diqiu's internet traffic within Zipang's.

>>"If you get out to Ba Sing Se
>>sometime, check out the Wall Museum. Some of the stuff the Fire Nation
>>got up to back then... " She shook her head. "Seriously crazy."
>
>... it's the drill, isn't it? They kept the drill in situ and turned
>it into a museum.

The Wall Museum of Ba Sing Se contains many historical artifacts from the 600-day Seige of Ba Sing Se and the Fall of Ba Sing Se and the following Comet Day. It's quite the tourist attraction.

>>"No it is not. This is a representation of Noatak,
>>alias Amon, the figurehead of the Equalist 'revolution'.
>
>... eh?
>
>Amon... wasn't really a figurehead. He was actually in charge. Or does
>the historical record take the stance that Amon was, in fact, just a
>figurehead and the real mastermind was Hiroshi Sato?

Even the testimony of the Avatar only takes one so far. And believe me, Korra's still annoyed about it.

>>"Most of them I vetoed." She rolled her eyes. "I
>>don't think anyone today really wants to know that I was once arrested
>>for vigilantism on San Hua Bridge, for instance," she added, drawing a
>>laugh from the others.
>
>I dunno, it seems like, with a distance of some years in place, Korra
>would be obscurely proud of that one. :) Although I imagine that
>negotiations broke down when she wanted the wording to be "On this
>spot in 170 ASC, Avatar Korra was arrested for doing the police's job
>better than they did." With a footnote reading "YOU HEARD ME LIN."

Well, they also wanted to put up a giant statue of Korra to go with the one of Aang out in the harbor, but she said they could only do that if the statue would be going "I'M VERY VERY VERY SORRY!" to Aang's statue, which kinda put the kibosh on the idea.

Also, Korra, in hindsight, readily acknowledges that her first day crime fighting really didn't go so well. She trashed a street, a clock shop, AND left an iceberg over a canal bridge. All over three petty Triad members. These days, she'd just lock them in stone and ice and call it a day.

>While I acknowledge they've fucked up a number of times, I'm pretty
>sympathetic to the White Lotus. Being the support network for an
>Avatar as headstrong as Korra can't be easy, and Utena is a giant
>metaphysical wild card. Wanting them not to hurl headlong into each
>other is a natural precautionary measure.

Again, the issue is complex, as Korra herself would acknowledge. It'd just help if they talked about it with her, you know? It's not like she's hard to reach, she's even got a (screened) email address and most of the Master Lotuses have her direct-line cell number...

--- 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"


#21, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-14-13 at 09:24 PM
In response to message #19
LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-13 AT 09:28 PM (EDT) by pjmoyer (moderator)
 
>To be honest, Merc? It's all your fault.

Oh man, Phil, you know better than to actually VALIDATE me. :) It's like feeding a mogwai after midnight, only with my ego instead of a mogwai.

>I'd had the thought off and on about how bending and the Avatar
>world could incorporate into UF, and mostly wrote it off as not
>plausible (especially given its metaphysics and event timing), but it
>was your comment about Katara or Korra at the CTF Snowball fight that
>caused me to re-think the possibility and re-ignited the creative
>juices for the integration (especially since it'll tie into several
>other things later on involving [INFORMATION REDACTED].)

To be honest, I figured if it happened at all, it would happen (I think Ben spoke to this) like the Eva pilots happened; names, personalities, and universe-appropriate explanations for the powersets, rather than a wholesale setting integration.

I'm pleased the latter happened, tho.

>Is it September yet? *whine*

September 7th! Just three weeks.

>Which, well, "bodhisattva-level accomplishment of spiritual
>development" doesn't come along everyday. Do you know many
>current bodhisattva running around these days? Also, I'd like a
>citation on that Word of God, since I don't recall it being listed as
>a possibility for attaining bending on the Avatar Wiki (which remains
>our go-to source on matters Avatar for the time being).

Grr. I can only provide half a cite.

Mike and Bryan spoke to the subject in a pair of interviews; the first was rather sketchy and just laid out hypotheticals and broad strokes, the other one they nailed it down a bit more solid.

The first one is archived here at ASN.net, but I'm having trouble finding the latter one, as I can't remember who was interviewing them or, indeed, if it was an interview rather than a panel transcript.

>>... it's the drill, isn't it? They kept the drill in situ and turned
>>it into a museum.
>
>The Wall Museum of Ba Sing Se contains many historical artifacts from
>the 600-day Seige of Ba Sing Se and the Fall of Ba Sing Se and the
>following Comet Day. It's quite the tourist attraction.

I now choose to believe that the Jasmine Dragon remains operated as a historical trust by a cadet branch of the Fire Nation royal family both as an example of period tea-making and for its historical significance as the preferred residence of the Gaang while visiting Ba Sing Ce. :)

>>Amon... wasn't really a figurehead. He was actually in charge. Or does
>>the historical record take the stance that Amon was, in fact, just a
>>figurehead and the real mastermind was Hiroshi Sato?
>
>Even the testimony of the Avatar only takes one so far. And believe
>me, Korra's still annoyed about it.

"Dammit, I had to fight a bloodbender with practically no help at all! HE was the mastermind! It was really hard, you guys!"

>Well, they also wanted to put up a giant statue of Korra to go with
>the one of Aang out in the harbor, but she said they could only do
>that if the statue would be going "I'M VERY VERY VERY SORRY!" to
>Aang's statue, which kinda put the kibosh on the idea.

If it's been restored, they presumably have a stature of Korra in that big spiral room in the Southern Air Temple, although that's much more modest.

>Also, Korra, in hindsight, readily acknowledges that her first day
>crime fighting really didn't go so well. She trashed a street, a
>clock shop, AND left an iceberg over a canal bridge. All over three
>petty Triad members. These days, she'd just lock them in stone and
>ice and call it a day.

Korra seemed really personally offended by their behavior at the time, like they were an affront to her sense of order in the universe. Probably contributed to the overeaction.

Still, it was probably salutary in some ways. It's like the possibly apocryphal story about Bill Russel, a Celtics player. He didn't want to throw an elbow on the court, it wasn't his style. So one day Red Auerbach tells him "Listen. Get out there and throw an elbow. Just once, and you'll never have to do it again."

Korra's rampant destruction is a bit more large-scale than a basketball game, but I bet the Triads got the message.

(Sean Connery's "That's the Chicago way!" speech from the Untouchables may also be relevant here.)

>>While I acknowledge they've fucked up a number of times, I'm pretty
>>sympathetic to the White Lotus. Being the support network for an
>>Avatar as headstrong as Korra can't be easy, and Utena is a giant
>>metaphysical wild card. Wanting them not to hurl headlong into each
>>other is a natural precautionary measure.
>
>Again, the issue is complex, as Korra herself would acknowledge. It'd
>just help if they talked about it with her, you know?

On the one hand, this is a legitimate point, as Korra is the Avatar and she's kind of large and in charge. Presumably the Avatar Spirit picker her for a REASON.

On the other hand, I'm willing to bet there are multiple instances where the Lotus brought something to Korra's attention advising caution, restraint, and limited engagement, and the mere fact OF them bringing it to her attention caused her to dive in with both feet and raise a ruckus. :)

-Merc
Keep Rat


#23, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-15-13 at 00:52 AM
In response to message #21
>To be honest, I figured if it happened at all, it would happen (I
>think Ben spoke to this) like the Eva pilots happened; names,
>personalities, and universe-appropriate explanations for the
>powersets, rather than a wholesale setting integration.

Yes, my hypothesis (mentioned in the notes for this movement, I think) is that Korra would've been imported more-or-less original-context-free, and possibly a scattering of characters from the earlier series would've done the same.

Phil's way is probably better, though. Assuming, at least, that he doesn't kill me with this canon thing before it's all said and done. :)

>>Is it September yet? *whine*

Speaking as someone who isn't looking forward to the fall semester, may I just say, secure that shit, Hudson. :)

>I now choose to believe that the Jasmine Dragon remains operated as a
>historical trust by a cadet branch of the Fire Nation royal family
>both as an example of period tea-making and for its historical
>significance as the preferred residence of the Gaang while visiting Ba
>Sing Ce. :)

Historical trust, hell, it's a thriving business concern. There are Jasmine Dragons all the hell over Diqiu, and a handful in Saikyo and Uehara. The original shop is maintained pretty meticulously in its Original Configuration, though, which in the modern day makes it like one of those turn-back-the-clock McDonald's restaurants, only, you know, classier.

>"Dammit, I had to fight a bloodbender with practically no help at all!
>HE was the mastermind! It was really hard, you guys!"

At many, many points in both ATLA and Korra, I kept hearing that immortal line from the English dub of Special Combat Unit SHINESMAN:

"Ever wish you just had a shotgun?"

>If it's been restored, they presumably have a stature of Korra in that
>big spiral room in the Southern Air Temple, although that's much more
>modest.

Yeah, I'm sure it's fully refurbished by now. They may even have updated it a bit, gotten rid of those statues that don't actually look anything like Kyoshi, Kuruk, et al. Cough. :)

(That room must be a huge hassle to maintain. "OK, everyone, the Avatar's died, and you know what that means: We have to move all the statues!")

>>Also, Korra, in hindsight, readily acknowledges that her first day
>>crime fighting really didn't go so well. She trashed a street, a
>>clock shop, AND left an iceberg over a canal bridge.

It'll melt!

... OK, the other stuff is a problem, but...

>Korra's rampant destruction is a bit more large-scale than a
>basketball game, but I bet the Triads got the message.

She might've been able to make a little more headway with the Equalist Gimps if she'd played it a little more Martin Riggs. "You know, I'm surprised you guys haven't heard of me, I mean I got a real bad reputation. Sometimes I just go nuts, like now! Hahaha!"

--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.


#26, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by JeanneHedge on Aug-15-13 at 10:23 AM
In response to message #11
>>"Being obvious was the whole idea," Corwin told her. "Keep
>>people looking at the spectacle so they don't notice the real chicanery.
>>Think of the guy who ran that Black Rose thing... "
>
>On my initial read, my first thought here was "Huh. They remember
>that?". I mean, Akio did a pretty thorough job scrubbing out the Black
>Rose arc of SkU from everybody involved except himself and Anthy.
>Hell, he went so far as to use the weird-ass time warping nature of
>the ongoing failed Tournament to mess with the physical nature of the
>campus. I suppose there have been a lot of opportunities for those
>blocks to get popped off during the Symphony (Utena has been through,
>what, two, three different apotheosis events since then?) but damned
>if I can recall when and if that was made explicit.

If we're talking about the same blocks (to forget Utena and the failed tournament), there were gaps in them, especially among those who knew Utena and took part in that tournament. For example, they did work on Miki - until he saw Utena after she inadvertently brought him across that first Christmas to help Kate. They didn't work on Juri at all - IIRC, she had a photo (or something like that) of Utena and never forgot her in the first place. Juri said she'd been asking people at Ohtori what had happened to Utena, until people, not remembering Utena, started thinking Juri was nuts, at which point Juri stopped asking.


Jeanne


Jeanne Hedge
http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"


#27, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-15-13 at 11:20 AM
In response to message #26

>If we're talking about the same blocks (to forget Utena and the failed
>tournament), there were gaps in them, especially among those who knew
>Utena and took part in that tournament.

We're not, actually. Akio slapped people with two sets of mindwipes over the course of SkU; the big whammy came at the end, when people either forgot Utena or didn't quite remember things involving her the way they happened. Those aren't the ones I mean.

But there was a second set of blocks he set up within the series itself; after the Black Rose arc ended, he made everyone forget it. Not only did he make them forget it, he altered the physical configuration of the campus literally overnight; after Mikage "graduated," Nemuro Memorial Hall went from Mikage's secret lair of mindfuckery to a burned-out shell, and it's implied that Akio managed to make it so that it always had been a burned-out shell.

From her in-series perspective, Utena jumps straight from her second duel with Touga to her third duel with Saionji, with no Black Rose stuff in-between.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#28, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-15-13 at 12:21 PM
In response to message #27
>Nemuro Memorial Hall went from Mikage's secret lair of
>mindfuckery to a burned-out shell, and it's implied that Akio managed
>to make it so that it always had been a burned-out shell.

Or it actually had always been one - Nemuro and his students had, after all, died in a fire - and the illusion was that it had been there at all.

Regardless, all of that stuff pretty well unraveled when the Lost Tournament was finally resolved properly.

--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.


#29, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by BobSchroeck on Aug-15-13 at 01:09 PM
In response to message #28
>>Nemuro Memorial Hall went from Mikage's secret lair of
>>mindfuckery to a burned-out shell, and it's implied that Akio managed
>>to make it so that it always had been a burned-out shell.
>Or it actually had always been one - Nemuro and his students
>had, after all, died in a fire - and the illusion was that it had been
>there at all.

That was the interpretation that I took away from the end of the Black Rose Arc -- that it all had been one bizarre ghost story.

>Regardless, all of that stuff pretty well unraveled when the Lost
>Tournament was finally resolved properly.

Well, that's good to hear. At least we won't have to worry (much) about landmines in anyone's head.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


#30, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-15-13 at 01:30 PM
In response to message #29
Hell, all of SkU can be interpreted as a bizarre ghost story.

Or a bizarre passion play. Or both!

It is good to know that everyone's slate got wiped clean when Akio finally got slotted, though. We know where we're at, at least.

It may be wrong of me, but... I'm kinda-sorta rooting for Mikage. He was a crazy son of a bitch in the series, don't get me wrong, and his actions in the Symphony have not been what you'd call "highly ethical" but the man had legitimate issues and Akio and Anthy really did a number on his brain. I feel a great well of sympathy for him for some reason (unusual for me in regards to the guys in black hats, or, hell, the guys in white hats) and I wouldn't mind him getting a clean death, or at least getting to stagger away from the wreckage of Akio's latest doomed enterprise with mind and body intact.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#34, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by BobSchroeck on Aug-15-13 at 04:45 PM
In response to message #30
>It may be wrong of me, but... I'm kinda-sorta rooting for Mikage. He
>was a crazy son of a bitch in the series, don't get me wrong, and his
>actions in the Symphony have not been what you'd call "highly ethical"
>but the man had legitimate issues and Akio and Anthy really did a
>number on his brain. I feel a great well of sympathy for him for some
>reason (unusual for me in regards to the guys in black hats, or, hell,
>the guys in white hats) and I wouldn't mind him getting a clean death,
>or at least getting to stagger away from the wreckage of Akio's latest
>doomed enterprise with mind and body intact.

I can't say I feel inclined to disagree with you here -- and besides,
we do have precedents for apparent bad guys turning into awesome good
guys in UF. Maybe we're seeing a new ally coming from an unexpected
direction...

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


#36, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Pasha on Aug-15-13 at 05:27 PM
In response to message #30
>It is good to know that everyone's slate got wiped clean when Akio
>finally got slotted, though. We know where we're at, at least.


I've never actually heard 'slotted' used to mean 'killed', I have to admit. It (at least in my knowledge) has a totally different meaning.

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


#39, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-20-13 at 10:21 PM
In response to message #36
>>It is good to know that everyone's slate got wiped clean when Akio
>>finally got slotted, though. We know where we're at, at least.
>
>
>I've never actually heard 'slotted' used to mean 'killed', I have to
>admit. It (at least in my knowledge) has a totally different meaning.

I think it's from the hilariously awkward Canned Future Slang in either Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun. Probably the latter.

--G.
you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect?
-><-
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.


#40, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by BobSchroeck on Aug-21-13 at 08:38 AM
In response to message #39
>>I've never actually heard 'slotted' used to mean 'killed', I have to
>>admit. It (at least in my knowledge) has a totally different meaning.
>I think it's from the hilariously awkward Canned Future Slang in
>either Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun. Probably the
>latter.

Nope, SR uses "fragged" most of the time. Must be Cyberpunk 2020.

-- Bob,
Shadowrun Returns backer
Player of Mossad, the Jewish Street Samurai
(Still angry after all these years that there were no bagel shops in SR Seattle)
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


#41, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Lime2K on Aug-21-13 at 10:19 AM
In response to message #40
Slot is indeed from Shadowrun. It's amusing definition in the slang dictionary in the most recent core rulebook is:

"slot n. (vulgar) Mild curse word referring to female genitalia. v. To insert a chip or credstick into chip or credstick reading device." (SR5, pg. 14)

(Yes, that was copy/pasted. I'm not re-typing all that.)

Geek is what SR uses for kill; Frag and its various derivatives is used where the F-bomb would be dropped normally.

--------------
Lime2K
The One True Evil Overlord
I love how it's all Webster-like with its definitions...{/i]


#42, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Pasha on Aug-21-13 at 11:15 AM
In response to message #41
Yeah, to have sex with is the definition I'm familiar with, from SR

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


#43, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by BobSchroeck on Aug-21-13 at 01:11 PM
In response to message #41
>Geek is what SR uses for kill; Frag and its various derivatives is
>used where the F-bomb would be dropped normally.

I remember the other use as well, but... I wonder if it's a difference in versions (we ran SR2, but I haven't looked at the books in years), or maybe just our group's evolved usage...

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


#44, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-21-13 at 02:00 PM
In response to message #41
As the instigator of this one, I'd like to note that I have no idea where I got this from. I've been using 'slotted' as slang for 'killed' for at least a decade, but I don't know when I picked it up.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#45, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Bushido on Aug-21-13 at 02:05 PM
In response to message #44
Urban Dictionary has an entry with that definition credited as British Army slang.

#46, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-21-13 at 02:09 PM
In response to message #45
>Urban Dictionary has an entry with that definition credited as British
>Army slang.

Ah, there we are. Shadowrun, Andy McNabb's books - not that much of a difference, really, no wonder I had them filed wrong. :)

--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.


#48, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-26-13 at 02:36 AM
In response to message #45
>Urban Dictionary has an entry with that definition credited as British
>Army slang.

Aha. With that as a pointer, I can at least say that I almost certainly picked this one up from Garth Ennis, during either his Hitman or Punisher runs.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#17, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Aug-14-13 at 11:50 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-13 AT 11:45 PM (EDT)
 
inital edit on accounta premature hitting of the send button

> "It's amazing," said Utena, and she meant it. Ever since the
> first time she'd seen it, New Avalon had been her benchmark for Amazing
> Big Cities, but Republic City could contend in the same weight class.

Mmmm Hmm. Well, they do said that you always compare the rest to your first. <EG> I like the way you make it clear that even though it may not be as tall or wide as New Avalon, Republic City holds its own in its own ways.

> "Master Rohan," Korra replied, making the slightly different
> salute of her own native Water Tribe (right fist loosely enclosed in
> left hand) in return; then the two smiled and performed a complicated
> secret handshake before embracing like the old friends they obviously
> were.

Since I'm technically cheating and doing this on my SECOND read through, we will be surprised by just HOW old friends they really are. (for whatever reasons I rather thought that Korra was more like her described age, somewhere in her 40's)

> "but
> she does love her symbols, and I've found it's generally best to humor
> her."
> Corwin chuckled, an I-get-it sort of chuckle, and said, "It's
> Jinora, isn't it."

Which, after all, is a perfect extension of how she was written in the first 'Book' (which is all I've seen of LoK so far). And makes sense since it 'smooths the waters' unless its about something important enough to not do so.

> "I don't know, I was five!" Corwin objected, then frowned. "No,
> wait. Yeah, I did. I remember now. I had one from dinner when I went
> back out to the cave that night. Mogi was the only one who came out to
> see me, so I gave it to him. Sort of an apology for, you know...
> stealing his mom."

And well, further proof that at another half of what the Air Temple does is providing backup security; after all it doesn't matter if "yip yip" is very weak encryption if you never get to where you can put in the password.

> Rohan whacked his arrow with the heel of one hand. "Oh, for,"
>he said, but the rest was lost in semiaudible mumbling.

And probably is the spitting image of his dad (except for no beard) in that pose ;D

> "We'll have to look into the
> import/export regulations for Diqiu megafauna. Ah, jeez, aren't sky
> bison endangered?"
> "They once were, but not for some time now

Proof of how Corwin is maturing under the good influances of his mates. A mentally younger Corwin might not have even thought about that worry till after it had become a problem for them. Though I have a feeling that even if they were still endangered (though the fact that they were, but now arn't, says good things about the stewardship Tenzin's children have provided for them) the powers that be would have to have bowed gracefully to the inevitable; much like the ancient joke "Where does an 800lb gorrila sit? ANYWHERE HE WANTS TO"

> Corwin stopped next to her and looked up at the photo, smiling.
> "The crew of the Phoenix Flight," he said. "I may have mentioned to
> Korra at some point that you're an early-spaceflight buff... "

No doubt! Korra probably grinned to herself when she learned the two had that in common as well.

rest of thoughts here later when I have time to finish up

> "Senjo will show you up. My name is Azana, and
> if there's anything you need, please don't hesitate to dial zero and ask
> for me." Then she really smiled, showing very white teeth, and added,
> "Have a wonderful evening."

a line like that... makes me wonder how many idiots she's had to hurt cause they insist on interpreting "anything" in a rather... adult way. *rolls eyes*

> "I already know her phone number, it's zero," he replied

*GZNERK*

> "Wow, a restaurant with a -dress code,-" said Utena. "We
> haven't done that in a while."
> "Nope," Corwin agreed, placing the cards carefully in the top
> pocket of his black-and-grey-checked wool jacket. "Think we'll be able
> to pass?"
> "Of course not," Utena replied, grinning. "That's half the
> fun.

Maybe not *before* their stop at the clothiers, but we do know they clean up darn well. *EG* In fact, its the sort of setup that screams for a useage of "Sharp Dressed Man"

> "No idea what most of this stuff is," she mused. "That must be
> the cocktails. Cactus juice?"
> Corwin snorted. "Best saved for another time, I think,"

Reminds me spiritually of a drink I had in the Phillipines while I was in the navy... and I dont remember anything of the evening after that; Suffice it to say that I was not a happy camper the next morning (and was put to tasks to compound said suffering just to try and drive the point home about my poor judgement) Tasted like fruit punch; had an alchohol content probobly near 50%; and I've gone and wandered into TMI territory I expect.

> "I also got you a map and a couple of Badgermole cards," Korra went on,
> giving Kate a rolled-up document and a small waxed-pasteboard card, the
> latter decorated with a gaily colored cartoon image of the eponymous
> animal. "For the subway," she explained to Anne's curious look. She
> held up the other card, then handed it over.

Ah, so those are like the equivalent of monthly passes; and that BadgerMoles have become Daiqu's generic term for underground urban rail transport then.

> "Hrumph," said Serge, eyeing the Avatar dubiously.

I agree, Serge. Though its probobly not a size or weight issue as much as that of dignity

> Several objects were indeed coming their way, lofting down from
> the upper levels of the Air Temple's tower. Kaitlyn automatically
> stepped into formation with Korra, her blade singing from its wooden
> cover (out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the boy and a couple of
> the other youngsters goggling at it). Anne slung her bokuto, figuring
> that whatever these objects were, she was probably better equipped to
> deal with them empty-handed.

Heh. This really shows a lot about Kait and Anne. No confusion, no hesitation, just instant correct assesment and action.

> Her jaw set in a look of fierce determination, Korra took a step
> forward and whirled her staff before her like a rotorblade, intercepting
> all four of the incoming objects at once. They instantly disintegrated,
> creating a great spray of multicolored semi-liquid that flew outward in
> a broad arc to either side, covering the ground in a wide stripe.

what the?

> "Hm.
> Orangeberry!" A moment later a squadron of flying lemurs arrived,
> descending upon the distributed pie filling like cleanup crews

Oho! <Belushi>FOOD FIGHT!!!!</belushi> Now why does this make me think of Tenzin's youngest?

> Korra sighed, rolling her eyes. "Meelo... "

Probably because of that. Heh. I believe the thought here is "The more things change the more they stay the same".

> "I just speak Standard more slowly," Amy added.
> "And louder," supplied Rory, earning himself an elbow in the
> ribs.

Ah. Like a true citizen of the Brittish Isles, then. ;p

> Corwin considered asking him if he could get ahold of a black
> Buzz Rickson's MA-1 pilot's jacket in Utena's size, but decided against
> it. He almost certainly wouldn't get the joke, although - the Phoenix
> House being the kind of place it was - he might just come up with the
> jacket somewhere.

Darn skippy straight Corwin. Thats the sort of thing Concierges and or Head Desk clerks DO.

> "Em?" he said in a hushed voice when his party answered, cupping
> his hand around the mouthpiece. "It's Jiang. They just left. No, they
> didn't mention where they were going. They're foreigners honeymooning
> in Republic City, use your imagination. No. No, I don't think you'll
> have any trouble picking up their trail. They're quite... memorable.
> Right. Fine. You owe me for this, little sister."

Though this... sometimes is and sometimes isnt. But given that its his little sister turning the thumbscrews... well, lets just see who Em turns out to be, eh?

> "Fuel pumps to AUTO."
> A quick hunt turned up the appropriate knob. "Fuel pumps to...
> AUTO."
> "Magnetos to BOTH."
> "Magnetos... magnetos... aha! Magnetos to BOTH."
> "Spark advance to FULL."
> Utena scanned the panel. "Spark advance... "
> "That's that thing that looks like a turn signal lever, except
> it's on the wrong side of the wheel," Corwin told her, since it wasn't
> marked. "All the way forward."
> "Aha. Spark advance... FULL."
> "Gearshift in neutral."
> Utena waggled the lever. "Neutral."

<Burt Ward>
Atomic batteries to power...
Turbine to speed..
</Burt Ward>

> Only then did it occur to her to ask, "So, uh... where are we
> going?"

A valid question; but then again as I recall you two work best when you just go where you will.

> "Deng!" a woman's voice called from behind him. "Are you being
> an ass again?"

Feel more like STILL to me. Probably his default setting involving anyone not directly a student of the school.

> "Hello! I'm Azana. This is Deng,

Well! the night clerk is also someone high up in the Firebending dojo to boot? Eyrie synchronicity, or someone casting on the cheap? ("Your already paying her to scale for this gig... why not throw in a few more lines and save yourself the cost of a second actress??)

> "search for a g-greater understanding of the sword and of ourselves."

a stutter? Good heavens, either Kait is still knackered after yesterday despite a nights rest or she's seriously stressed...

> Within
> thirty seconds, he was convinced of that. The other ninety were just
> because he was having such a good time.

Ha! They may be 'grown' but their not (always) "Grown-up"

> "Azana," said Ito conversationally, "do you remember our
> discussion about your teaching career?"
> Azana's smile became slightly indulgent. "I remember you
> telling me I should have one," she said, more in a tone one would use
> when speaking to a favorite but slightly dotty old relative than when
> addressing one's sensei.

Ehehe... Bet it because at the moment she's thinking of him as her slightly dotty old relative than as the Master of the Dojo

> "Well," Ito said, magnanimously ignoring her tone, "we now have
> the potential for a compromise. Here is a young woman who isn't
> entirely certain she wishes to study here. You are not entirely certain
> you wish to teach. Why don't you find out together?"

Thats so crazy IT JUST MIGHT WORK!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA *hack hack couhg*

> Anthy chuckled. "Well... for that, you'll require some
> background information. You'll have to bear with me, because the old
> figure of speech about something being a long story is more than usually
> true in this case."

About 5 symphonies worth, not counting the original source material. *wink*

> "But
> that would require him to know he's doing it, and then he wouldn't be
> Corwin."

There has been a bit of discussion about that fact, and, well.. I think this pretty much sums up the whole issue. Its not so much what he does, but who he is. It just sort of happens because of the sort of person he is, you know?

> "... by conspiring to deprive him of old and cherished
> friendships."

Urk... Please tell me that was more the doings of previous members of the Lotus. cause otherwise this could get... interesting

> "There you are," he said. "Will you need assistance with your
> luggage?"

Yes, but he's already got it covered

> They took the same tack this time, and the result
> was a day to look back on and smile forevermore.

See? if its not broke, dont fix it!

> "Well, by night I'm the desk clerk at a fancy hotel," Azana
> replied, "but my day job is professional bending. I'm the firebender
> for one of the local MLB teams - the Temple Island Fire Ferrets. So you
> see - having a firebending student is a perfectly valid training
> technique." She grinned and added, "Maternity leave? Not so much,"
> drawing a laugh from Anne.

Ha! Confirmation of several points... And the Temple Island makes a less controversial sponsor than Korra herself

> Her broad, blocky head reminded Serge of Buddy, the
> Labrador retriever who lived a few doors down from their old house on
> Tomodachi; but there was something bear-like about her giant stature and
> the way she carried herself.

One of Naga's decendents, carrying on the family tradition, I assume.


> /* ZZ Top
> "Sharp Dressed Man"
> _Eliminator_ (1983) */

HAHA! Yes, I was kind of expecting that music cue for a while now!

> The staff of Ming and Daughters, Clothiers appeared to consist
> of identical quadruplets,

and they even get their own version of the SDM girls to boot. My hat is off to you, G.

> There was a brilliant flash of light from across the street,
> near the car. Without missing a single beat, Corwin went on matter-of-
> factly, " - and the entire circulation of the Republic City Tribune,

I hope Doc can score a comission of that shot. it would be most totally awesome.

> They were there to hear Baron Zoria and his Circle of Horns

Hear them play like men Possesed!
Fall under their spell!
You'll swear their out of this World!

ahem. I'd apologise, but that's been stuck in my head since their first appearence.

> "What a winning disposition you have," Utena said sweetly. "I
> can see why you chose a profession that involves a lot of interacting
> with the public."

and she managed to not bite off her tounge despite it being so far in her cheek. Woman of many talents there Corwin. Dont ever let her go...

> "That accusation is not unfamiliar to me," Utena agreed, then
> repeated, "Are you in?"

Ah, but its the best KIND of crazy!

> "Hi, Corwin
> Ravenhair here. I need to send a telegram."

Have to wonder though... was there a reason Corwin HAD to send a telegram? or just cause he'd always wanted to but never had an excuse till now?

> "Being obvious was the whole idea," Corwin told her. "Keep
> people looking at the spectacle so they don't notice the real chicanery.
> Think of the guy who ran that Black Rose thing... "
>
> DEEDLIT SATORI MANDEVILLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE

...
...
...

well. It didnt strike me the first time, but isnt THIS just an interesting scene jump.

> As they were crossing the footbridge over Highway One to Main
> Parking B, Touga Kiryuu gave his "graduate advisor" a sardonic look and
> remarked, "-That- was easy."
> "Why should the poor man be suspicious of us?" Souji Mikage
> replied, shrugging.

Oh geez. this would be frighteningly ominous if it was someone other than Mikage and Touga. Now it seems more like finding that the bad guys have hired Laurel and Hardy

well, at least we kind of know why Souske, Amy and Rory are there. But unless Akio sends some COMPETENT help, they're gonna wipe the floor with em without ever realising they were a threat!

Also, is it just me, or does anyone else get the vibe that Amy and Rory have been sort of doing the Quantum Leap sort of thing for a bit before their appearance here at DSM?

> "He died," said Anthy.

Sadly, his body kept on going without him and hasn't STOPPED stirring up trouble since.

> Or tomorrow afternoon she
> might just... stop. We just don't know. Nobody knows. -She- doesn't
> know. So every day they stole from us... "

Yup. thinking about that can dampen most anyones spirits, really. And as a serial re-incarnator, its not like she'll be hanging around Vallhalla.

> It was a sort of mechanical clatter, and it seemed to
> be coming from somewhere outside the train. And it was -moving;- it
> racketed invisibly along the wall of the compartment, from front to
> back, and faded away to the rear.

Heh. Kind of reminds me of the background noise of the previous generation of bus destination signs.

> Ryo straightened up and gave a merry laugh, hands on hips. "Oh,
> you're good," he said. "You're very good." He turned to Corwin,
> pointing to Utena. "She's very good," he added, as if Corwin might not
> have noticed it before.

Oh, he has. And I see Ryo has more than a bit of his own Stark on at the moment. Though you really should give him his leg back now that your done pulling it. He'll need it for the race.

Speaking of... For some reason I'm seeing it as sort of full color panels, much like from Aha's video for "Take on Me".
Sadly, its not an OFFICAL music cue.

> car 22 (Sato, Minami and Ryo) won

Does this mean on the astronomically rare occasion that they DO manage to get passed its a
<sunglasses> Catch 22? </sunglasses>

> Azana's smile was a tad enigmatic as she replied, "Oh, I expect
> you'll be seeing me again soon. But you're very welcome. We've enjoyed
> having you here, and we hope you come again."

Most likely first at 4:30 on Tuesday, then whenever they help bring Anne to or from bending training.


#20, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Pasha on Aug-14-13 at 06:09 PM
In response to message #17

>Which, after all, is a perfect extension of how she was written in the
>first 'Book' (which is all I've seen of LoK so far).

Don't feel bad, that's all the unwashed masses have seen, too. Book two starts up in...september?

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


#22, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-15-13 at 00:37 AM
In response to message #17
>> "Senjo will show you up. My name is Azana, and
>> if there's anything you need, please don't hesitate to dial zero and ask
>> for me." Then she really smiled, showing very white teeth, and added,
>> "Have a wonderful evening."
>
>a line like that... makes me wonder how many idiots she's had to hurt
>cause they insist on interpreting "anything" in a rather... adult way.

Oh, not many, I should think. The Phoenix House is an ultra-luxe grand hotel, one of the two or three best in the city. They don't attract the kind of clientele that would do that sort of thing very often (nor encourage them to stay on the rare occasions when it happens).

>> "I already know her phone number, it's zero," he replied
>
>*GZNERK*

Heh, I'm glad this got that reaction from someone. I remember being very pleased with it when it came to mind.

>> "I also got you a map and a couple of Badgermole cards," Korra went on,
>> giving Kate a rolled-up document and a small waxed-pasteboard card, the
>> latter decorated with a gaily colored cartoon image of the eponymous
>> animal. "For the subway," she explained to Anne's curious look. She
>> held up the other card, then handed it over.
>
>Ah, so those are like the equivalent of monthly passes; and that
>BadgerMoles have become Daiqu's generic term for underground urban
>rail transport then.

Sorta, but not quite. I had in mind the Oyster card that's used on London public transport, and those refillable ticket card things they used on BART back in the '90s when I lived in Oakland, CA - not a monthly pass, but a sort of debit account arrangement, so you don't have to keep fumbling around for change. It's called a Badgermole card because that's the trademark the Republic City Transportation Authority uses for the card service (again, like the Oyster card). The subway itself is just... well, the RCTA. Or the subway.

Now, the one in Ba Sing Se is rather grandly called the Subterranean Railway Network, with elaborate and imposing signage to match, but then they like to get their pompous on in Ba Sing Se. :)

>Oho! <Belushi>FOOD FIGHT!!!!</belushi> Now why does this make me
>think of Tenzin's youngest?
>
>> Korra sighed, rolling her eyes. "Meelo... "
>
>Probably because of that. Heh. I believe the thought here is "The
>more things change the more they stay the same".

Technically Rohan's the youngest, but as he was barely a character in Book 1 (and then only toward the end), the oversight is understandable.

>Though this... sometimes is and sometimes isnt. But given that its
>his little sister turning the thumbscrews... well, lets just see who
>Em turns out to be, eh?

To give Jiang credit, what he's doing there is a fireable offense, but at the same time, it has to be said he's not giving up much information. He didn't even tell her their names, which he surely knows, enabling her to preserve the Phoenix House's reputation for discretion in her article (as seen later).

>Well! the night clerk is also someone high up in the Firebending dojo
>to boot? Eyrie synchronicity, or someone casting on the cheap?

Well, she's not that high up (officially she has no standing there at all, which is why she isn't dressed like an instructor), but yeah. Azana started out as just the desk clerk - when originally designed she was supposed to be distinctly from the Fire Nation, but not necessarily a bender - but then we needed a firebender for the Fire Ferrets (more on that in the next movement) and Anne needed a congenial firebending instructor, and, well, why reinvent the wheel?

I posted about Nyima being one of those Rina Dragonaar-like characters who are just supposed to show up and do something simple, but end up developing into well-fledged characters with arcs of their own; well, that happened several times in the making of this movement. Nyima, to a lesser extent Lhakpa (more about her in the next piece, too), Azana, and the Satos all sort of barged to the front of the bus on me, as has at least one character who won't appear until next time.

On the one hand, this is irritating because the Symphony cast is already mammoth and there will inevitably be a good many Someone's Favorite Character who gets slighted on screen time as we proceed into S5; on the other, it's good because, well, it's creativity happening, and I've found over the years that I buck that current at my peril...

>> Within
>> thirty seconds, he was convinced of that. The other ninety were just
>> because he was having such a good time.
>
>Ha! They may be 'grown' but their not (always) "Grown-up"

Master Ito is not related to the Fire Nation royal family, but he has a bit of the Uncle Iroh-nature.

>> "... by conspiring to deprive him of old and cherished
>> friendships."
>
>Urk... Please tell me that was more the doings of previous members of
>the Lotus. cause otherwise this could get... interesting

Well, Korra did say the people responsible had been sacked. (We'll see more about this - you guessed it! - next time. There are reasons why this is unambiguously marked as part 1 of a thing. Even though it's part 5 of another thing. Actually, part 5 OF PART 5 of a thing. Sometimes my head hurts.)

>Ha! Confirmation of several points... And the Temple Island makes a
>less controversial sponsor than Korra herself

They aren't actually sponsored by the Air Temple, as such, but by long arrangement, they're allowed to list the island as the team's home (even though their real headquarters, for any operational purpose, is Shinobi Arena). It's no big secret that Korra's the majority owner of the franchise (these things work a little differently in Major League Bending than they did in the old days, when pro bending was more like boxing).

>> Her broad, blocky head reminded Serge of Buddy, the
>> Labrador retriever who lived a few doors down from their old house on
>> Tomodachi; but there was something bear-like about her giant stature and
>> the way she carried herself.
>
>One of Naga's decendents, carrying on the family tradition, I assume.

You assume correctly.

>> The staff of Ming and Daughters, Clothiers appeared to consist
>> of identical quadruplets,
>
>and they even get their own version of the SDM girls to boot. My hat
>is off to you, G.

Like I said once elsewhere, I like to think that those girls and the ghosts of ZZ Top are still roaming the galaxy, bestowing good fortune and the keys to the Eliminator upon the downtrodden; but the Daughters of Ming are similar spirits, it's true. :)

>> "What a winning disposition you have," Utena said sweetly. "I
>> can see why you chose a profession that involves a lot of interacting
>> with the public."
>
>and she managed to not bite off her tounge despite it being so far in
>her cheek. Woman of many talents there Corwin. Dont ever let her
>go...

That's one of those lines Anthy will take great pleasure in hearing about; she's been working for years now to slant Utena away from punching guys like that (at least as an opening move :) and more toward insulting them with a smile.

>> "Hi, Corwin
>> Ravenhair here. I need to send a telegram."
>
>Have to wonder though... was there a reason Corwin HAD to send a
>telegram? or just cause he'd always wanted to but never had an excuse
>till now?

Well, yeah, he could have just called, but it's the principle of the thing. :)

>> Or tomorrow afternoon she
>> might just... stop. We just don't know. Nobody knows. -She- doesn't
>> know. So every day they stole from us... "
>
>Yup. thinking about that can dampen most anyones spirits, really.
>And as a serial re-incarnator, its not like she'll be hanging around
>Vallhalla.

Yeah, that's the thing Utena thinks of asking about and then doesn't bring up, because the moment isn't right. Avatars don't go to the "normal" afterlife; they go to Diqiu's Spirit World, where they're available to be consulted by the next one.

I mean, Corwin can get there, if he really wants, but it's... not the same.

>Speaking of... For some reason I'm seeing it as sort of full color
>panels, much like from Aha's video for "Take on Me".
>Sadly, its not an OFFICAL music cue.

In an earlier conception of that scene, the race was more of a track-day/amateur cup-style event, and Corwin and Utena ended up participating. For that I would utterly have busted out "Take on Me", because I thought of that video the moment the race car turned up in Legend of Korra (and doubly so when I saw a storyboard of one of the racing-scene frames; in storyboard form it looks eerily like the video, I think I posted about that somewhere else on these boards). I didn't end up writing it that way, though, because... well, I dunno, somehow it seemed like it would be a little too much? Also, I'd thought of Minami and Ryo by then.

--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.


#47, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Aug-22-13 at 10:20 AM
In response to message #22
>Sorta, but not quite. I had in mind the Oyster card that's used on
>London public transport, and those refillable ticket card things they
>used on BART back in the '90s when I lived in Oakland, CA - not a
>monthly pass, but a sort of debit account arrangement, so you don't
>have to keep fumbling around for change. It's called a Badgermole
>card because that's the trademark the Republic City Transportation
>Authority uses for the card service (again, like the Oyster card).
>The subway itself is just... well, the RCTA. Or the subway.
>
>Now, the one in Ba Sing Se is rather grandly called the Subterranean
>Railway Network, with elaborate and imposing signage to match, but
>then they like to get their pompous on in Ba Sing Se. :)
>

In Los Angeles their known as TAP cards. You can load them with cash like a debit card or put your monthly pass on them (like I do)


#24, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-15-13 at 00:58 AM
In response to message #17

>> As they were crossing the footbridge over Highway One to Main
>> Parking B, Touga Kiryuu gave his "graduate advisor" a sardonic look and
>> remarked, "-That- was easy."
>> "Why should the poor man be suspicious of us?" Souji Mikage
>> replied, shrugging.
>
>Oh geez. this would be frighteningly ominous if it was someone other
>than Mikage and Touga. Now it seems more like finding that the bad
>guys have hired Laurel and Hardy

That's true enough in Touga's case, but so far Mikage has been shown as pretty good at what he does. He isn't a fighter, though. Well, I mean... he IS, SkU proved that, but he's primarily a wizard.

>well, at least we kind of know why Souske, Amy and Rory are there.
>But unless Akio sends some COMPETENT help, they're gonna wipe the
>floor with em without ever realising they were a threat!

Upon considering it for a couple days, I think I have to walk back my initial assessment that sending these two guys here is suicidally overconfident on Akio's part. I don't think these two are meant to get into any kind of fight or, indeed, any sort of conflict while they do whatever it is they're planning to do to the pliant young minds of the DSM institute. Among other things, they're woefully underequipped for it. They probably have a specific mission they aim to complete and then get out, and will likely be taking every precaution possible (you'll note they're going to be based out of an isolated and underused Residence Hall) to remain unnoticed.

I mean, lets break it down here. Best case scenario for Akio is that the mindwiping is still holding and the only person with direct, firsthand memories of Hideki Nemuro/Souji Mikage is Anthy; everyone else has to go off her account, rather than personal experience. In that case, Nemuro could literally walk right by any of his former Black Rose Duelists and nod to them in the hallway, with little risk of disaster. They're not even on-campus that much, and judicious use of magic and technology would serve as forewarning that he and "Kuroda" should spend a couple days sequestered in their offices.

Worst case scenario is everyone has all their memories back in full. This is bad, but not catastrophic; Utena would sure as hell know him on sight, as would Anthy, and all his Black Rose Duelists. But most of the Black Rose Duelists are scattered to the four winds or just plain old almost never show up at DSM (Shiori and Kozue have no strong connection to the school, Mitsuru and Kanae have full-time jobs in Cephiro, Tatsuya never became a Duelist and is Sir Not Appearing in This Symphony; that just leaves Wakaba) and Souji Mikage didn't really have much interaction with the Student Council, did he? I'm not even sure that Miki and Juri even met the man, I'd have to re-watch the series.

That's much trickier, but if Nemuro works really hard at keeping his head down and not being noticed, he should be okay. Using his own name is slightly arrogant (all somebody has to do is mention it in Anthy's hearing) but the man has his pride.

It is entirely feasible for both Mikage and Touga to go unnoticed for months and months. I'm not sure they could manage it for years, but that's probably not their timetable. There's still what I would consider a high probability Touga (and if someone fucks this one up it's gonna be Touga) will walk out of the admin building one day and run smack into Kaitlyn and Juri, but fortune favors the bold.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#25, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Bushido on Aug-15-13 at 02:04 AM
In response to message #24
I just got the mental image of Utena showing up for the next grand snowball fight, belting someone in the face with a snowball, and only then realizing that it's Touga.

#31, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by twipper on Aug-15-13 at 02:02 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Aug-15-13 AT 02:03 PM (EDT)
 
>Nothing big or deep here, as I'm travelling today. Happy to see my
>teaser giggle fit turn out - Sergei's got a girlfriend! :)

This scene promises to be a favorite of mine for some time. Ben & Co are the only group of writers I read reliably other than Jim Butcher who manage to make their non-verbal characters consistently interesting and fully communicative without ever actually speaking.

And props out for importing Emily Wong.

Couldn't have made Emily the ship-board reporter in ME3, no...

Brian


#32, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-15-13 at 02:11 PM
In response to message #31
Thematically speaking, it would have been nice to be offered a choice between Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani for shipboard reporter. (Does -anyone- pick Diana Allers? Someone you have no pre-existing relationship with and sketchy credentials comes flouncing up to you wearing their workout clothes, and you're supposed to let them embed themselves in your unit?)

For reasons that baffle me, Bioware decided to kill off Emily Wong in a marketing stunt; she was live-tweeting the Reaper invasion of Earth in the run-up to ME3s launch, and she and her news crew go out piloting their shuttle into one of the smaller in a kamikaze strike.

It wasn't bad writing, but it was a really gimmicky way to kill someone off, even a minor character, out-of-game.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#33, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-15-13 at 02:22 PM
In response to message #32
>Thematically speaking, it would have been nice to be offered a choice
>between Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani for shipboard reporter.

Khalisah's lucky she doesn't work at the Republic City Tribune. It would just have been her luck if she'd emigrated to Diqiu and taken a job at the Trib in the hope that, by decamping to an out-of-phase otherworld in a timespace pocket, she would never, ever have to be headbutted by Commodore Tenjou again.

--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.


#35, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-15-13 at 05:15 PM
In response to message #33
I disagree with her politics, but I've always admired Khalisah's moxie.

It takes a certain amount of guts to fire up your camera drones and keep getting in the face of someone who you KNOW will abuse their extralegal status to assault you on-camera and walk away scot free, if they're so inclined.

Khalisah and Emily would actually make a hell of a team, now that I think of it. Khalisah goes in all attack-dog style, distracting and discombobulating people while Emily pumps a bunch of sources and engages in some not-strictly-legal information gathering.

Then just when their subjects are about ready to write Khalisah off as another pretty face full off bombast and hot air, BAM. She hits them with the stuff Emily passed on to her. She gets the on-air credit, Emily writes the long-form piece and gets the byline.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#49, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by JeanneHedge on Dec-29-13 at 06:32 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Dec-29-13 AT 06:34 PM (EST)
 
Something I noticed on a re-read. Perhaps something to be said for people double-checking their timelines when writing, or something nitpicky like that.

In Try, Try Again, at breakfast the morning of the wedding, it is mentioned that Korra is checking the pre-season baseball and pro bending results on the sports page.

She was flipping through the sports section of the Republic City
Tribune's website, checking up on the spring training results in both
baseball and pro bending,


In Honeymoon By the Sea, a later story in the timeline (taking place after the wedding), Anne and Azana discuss fitting Anne's training into Azana's schedule:

"A week, I think. Last I heard, the plan was to head home next
Saturday." Anne scrubbed at her hairline, then draped the towel around
her neck. "If all goes well, I'll be coming back sometime in the middle
of June."

"Hm," said Azana. They made their way down the stairs into the
building, closing the trapdoor behind them. "Well, that works for me.
Spring training starts later this week, but it's a lot less regimented
than the spring training in, say, baseball, so there'll be plenty of
opportunities for us to keep exploring if you want. After that I'll be
pretty well tied up for most of April with all the business involved in
getting the season underway, but by mid-June we should be into a pretty
good groove. There'll be time to breathe. Be a good time for us to
really get started, if you want."


To recap - spring training hasn't started yet in Honeymoon, so how can there be pre-season bending results in the sports section in Try?

And no, Korra wasn't looking at exhibition results - in What's Past is Prologue (happens after Honeymoon), it is said of the exibition matches the group goes to see:

This was the first exhibition of the year, not even part of the
official preseason (which didn't begin until the following week)


Jeanne


Jeanne Hedge
http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"


#50, RE: S5M5 Pt 1- Honeymoon By the Sea
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-29-13 at 06:52 PM
In response to message #49
>Something I noticed on a re-read. Perhaps something to be said for
>people double-checking their timelines when writing, or something
>nitpicky like that.
>
>In Try, Try Again, at breakfast the morning of the wedding, it
>is mentioned that Korra is checking the pre-season baseball and pro
>bending results on the sports page.

In the case of pro bending, it's not actually the result of play so much as the pre-preseason roster changes and other administrata of the sport. The tail end of the "silly season", as it were.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

--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.