Quite right. A perfectly elegant maid is always prepared for contingencies.

>>The Scarlet sisters being all floral.
>>Love the matching gloves.
>
>Those look like clover leaves done in white, though I guess they could
>be meant to be some simple flower.

Well, botanical, then. (I thought at first they might be meant to be violets, which are often white rather than actually violet, but those usually have five petals, not four.)

>In any case, the contrast makes it
>look better on Flandre IMHO

Hers also has that collar part, which, while I like a collarbone view as much as the next chap, does add a certain something.

>but any picture that shows the sisters
>simply, peacefully happy (as opposed to any number of other
>expressions portrayed in the art that are less pleasant for all
>concerned) is a winner.

Indeed. Being a Flandre fancier, in particular, is suffering when it comes to trawling the seas of fanart. Jeez, artists like to abuse her. :/

(I mean, arguably not as much as Meiling, but some of them go reeeealllly far with the whole "locked in the basement" thing.)

>>Needed: more Remi in floppy sun hats.
>>(Also, I love it when artists show how their clothes account for their wings.)
>
>You'd think that would be super common, given the whole 'vampires are
>somewhere between allergic and incinerated by the sun' thing.

>You'd think that would be super common, given the whole 'vampires are
>somewhere between allergic and incinerated by the sun' thing.

The Scarlets are supposed to be daywalkers (they're weakened by daylight and don't find it particularly pleasant, but it doesn't do them actual harm), but most artists either seem to ignore the whole "vampires + sunlight" thing altogether or go the full Count Orlock.

>Plus
>hats are just Remilia's thing (half the pictures where they have her
>without a hat she ends up looking like a shaggy Rei Ayanami.)

It seems to be more customary (when the artists bother to take that whole "sun" thing into account at all) to show Remilia, at least, employing a parasol when out and about during the day, probably because her usual hat doesn't have a brim. Varying the kind of hat she wears is a lot less common. Flan, well, she usually just doesn't seem to care. (cf. the "game mechanics" joke with the numbers showing her regenerating faster than the sun can damage her anyway.)

>>I think Sakuya has
>>gotten so used to wearing the maid headband she's actually forgotten
>>she has it on.
>
>She might have her maid outfit on under the street clothes, superhero
>style.

Either that, or she's like Jigen from Lupin III and can't shoot throw knives straight without her hat on. :)

>>This is what happens when Remi goes to
>>London with the lads girls.
>
>That's actually mildly surprising, usually it's Flandre who gets that
>treatment. Maybe Remilia is wanting to show her sister she isn't
>always prim and proper.

To be fair, she might not have been dressed like that when she left. It depends on who-all exactly "the girls" are in this context. :)

>>The artist's intent with this one was that they were marrying each other, but
>>that could just as easily be Remi's dame d'honneur gown
>>in our timeline.
>
>Hmm, do I need to calibrate my monitor, or is that a sort of peach
>color on that gown? Given her usual fashion choices, I'd expect it to
>be pink.

It is a bit on the orange side, yeah. I guess the artist felt like changing things up a little. I'd probably have gone for pink as well, for continuity's sake.

And looking at it again, I noticed that Sakuya is still wearing her headband. I think the artists are afraid we won't know who she is without it. (This is, admittedly, kind of a running joke in Touhou fandom, since so many characters in the franchise have signature hats.)

>And as for the pairing, at least it isn't one of the Alabama
>Approved marriage pictures (definitely a source of 'OK, I know her
>options are somewhat limited in canon, by seriously WTF is wrong with
>you people?')

Yeah, I didn't go with it myself, but I've got nothing against the concept of Remilia with Sakuya in general; it's a natural enough growth path for their relationship if the terrain slants the right way, so to speak. I've even seen it done reasonably well.

Remi and Flan, well, I can't remember the name for that complex, but I'm sure it has one.

>>Speaking of Sakuya marrying the wrong character,
>>this is an absolute crack pairing,
>>but I really dig Sakuya's outfit. I could easily see her
>>wearing that under other circumstances.
>
>Fashion consulting bu Utena Tenjou perhaps?

"Sakuya! Thank Grandad-in-law you're here. Quick, put this on and stand next to Corwin's chair. Queen Hippolyta's party will be here any minute, Mitsuru's seating plan says the Captain of the Pillar's Guards is supposed to be in that spot, and we all totally forgot he doesn't actually have one."

"What am I supposed to do once I'm there?"

"I don't know, just... stand there and look glamorously badass. Like you do anyway. Please?"

(No, for purposes of this mental image I don't know why she's in Cephiro either. :)

>>And finally, Flan is ready to hit the town.
>>Although I'm not sure Remi is ready for Flan to hit the town. :)
>
>To be fair, the town probably won't be ready for it either.

Neither will Saint-Ulrich, I imagine...

> And the tiny tophat is adorable.

I know, right? Lucchini is going to want one just like it.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

What, a man can't stop by his son's world with his wife and her maid every once in a while?

Yeah, I had thought my tolerance for eldritch horrors was high enough, but I've learned that is not always the case. The most irritating part is that some of those pieces are, in terms of art quality, really well done.

Meiling also gets the short end of the stick, but the abuse of her seems more cartoonish most of the time, like they're going for a Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan vibe and missing the mark a bit. Though I confess I mostly avoid investigating the doujinshi much in order to preserve my sanity.

>It seems to be more customary (when the artists bother to take that
>whole "sun" thing into account at all) to show Remilia, at least,
>employing a parasol when out and about during the day, probably
>because her usual hat doesn't have a brim. Varying the kind of hat
>she wears is a lot less common. Flan, well, she usually just doesn't
>seem to care. (cf. the "game mechanics" joke with the numbers showing
>her regenerating faster than the sun can damage her anyway.)
>

Things like this are why I wish I had developed some artistic talent. I usually enjoy AltHat!Remilia pictures and I'd likely spend entirely too much time creating them if I could draw.

I expect having Flandre ignore the sun altogether is another variation on the Crazy!Flan interpretation, though most of them don't show it actually hurting her in any way at least (I haven't run across that game mechanics image yet, I expect I will sooner or later.)

>To be fair, she might not have been dressed like that when she
>left. It depends on who-all exactly "the girls" are in this
>context. :)
>

That sounds like it could become quite the story. Whether or not Remilia would want it told is another matter.

>And looking at it again, I noticed that Sakuya is still wearing
>her headband. I think the artists are afraid we won't know who she is
>without it. (This is, admittedly, kind of a running joke in Touhou
>fandom, since so many characters in the franchise have
>signature hats.)
>

The original medium for the games more or less mandated that part, much like Mario's design. Sakuya seems to be relieved of her hat somewhat regularly in the art though, if they put care into her hairstyle at least, though I think Flandre might be bare headed the most (but then, her crystal bedazzled wings are fairly distinctive so an artist can vary other attributes and still make it obvious who they are drawing.)

>"Sakuya! Thank Grandad-in-law you're here. Quick, put this on and
>stand next to Corwin's chair. Queen Hippolyta's party will be here
>any minute, Mitsuru's seating plan says the Captain of the Pillar's
>Guards is supposed to be in that spot, and we all totally
>forgot he doesn't actually have one."
>
>"What am I supposed to do once I'm there?"
>
>"I don't know, just... stand there and look glamorously badass.
> Like you do anyway. Please?"
>

This sparked the tangential thought that at this point it seems like a character's reaction to Sakuya is an effective way to tell if they're a villain or not.

>Neither will Saint-Ulrich, I imagine...
>

The witches are all tough girls, I'm sure they'll manage. Several of them will probably have a blast.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

It's such a crapshoot. There are some really nice pieces of work out there, but sometimes you don't realize until you're about halfway in that if you don't bail the fuck out right now you're going to see something you'll wish you hadn't seen.

>I expect having Flandre ignore the sun altogether is another variation
>on the Crazy!Flan interpretation

Sometimes, and other times they clearly just couldn't be arsed not to have stuff happening during the day. (Admittedly, conveying that things are happening at night in black-and-white line art is presumably a giant pain in the ass.)

>The original medium for the games more or less mandated that part,
>much like Mario's design.

That's true. The earlier games, in particular, are low-res enough that without obvious distinctive details, and signature color schemes, the characters would be really hard to tell apart.

>I think Flandre might be bare headed the
>most (but then, her crystal bedazzled wings are fairly distinctive so
>an artist can vary other attributes and still make it obvious who they
>are drawing.)

It's true. Of all the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil characters, she's the most instantly recognizable from silhouette alone.

>>Neither will Saint-Ulrich, I imagine...
>
>The witches are all tough girls, I'm sure they'll manage. Several of
>them will probably have a blast.

One thing I have to keep in mind when the time comes to do that scene is that Remilia was in an especially expansive mood that night because of the occasion and the moon phase, but Flandre is naturally more outgoing than her sister anyway—and inherently less formal, so where Remi charmed and impressed everyone who got to meet her, Flan is likely to just befriend the shit out of people. I don't think Eila is ready. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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There should be a pool called 'happy vampires' to make such images easier to find.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "They have one for 'Fancy Winged Flandre' so no way would it be too niche."

She's got a gradient in her hair, so it's perfectly plausible to me that it's naturally silver and she's dyed it. But yeah, hair/eye color in this kind of art never follows Proper Genetics anyway. (For that matter, what even is Proper Genetics when the child is somehow the offspring of a female vampire and a human woman who may or may not be from the moon?)

For the record, in my head (and thus UF), Remilia's hair is really supposed to be silver as well, though it's virtually always drawn either light blue or light purple, while Sakuya's is more of a steel grey.

--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.

Meiling's outfit, especially, makes me think of the whole crew getting into some kind of a kerfuffle with one of the Republic City Triads, and Remilia deciding on a whim that they're going to match the aesthetic because when in Rome, et cetera. :)

>Next is longcoat and vest Remilia with, somehow, two versions of Gungnir (I can only imagine
>someone is profoundly doomed.)

Perhaps Sakuya has applied her timeskip duplication trick. This would be insanely dangerous with a celestial artifact like Gungnir, but, hey, sometimes you just have to make a Statement. :)

>Then we have Remilia and Flandre in a long-ish, fancier coat and 'say yes to ruffles' dress
>respectively. Somehow Remilia looks like the younger sister here
>(might be because she looks plain thinner than Flan the way they're
>drawn.)

Remi is often depicted as physically a little younger, or at least smaller, than Flan; the reasons why (if they're explored at all) vary from artist to artist. Some think they were both human originally, and though Flan is chronologically the younger, she was turned slightly later in her life. Others just use it as a starting point for "lol Remi is flat and Flan isn't" jokes and the ever-popular "Remilia tries to act cool but is actually an insecure moron" treatment. :/

(Less cruelly, Remi's lighter build is also often put down to her small appetite.)

>Looks a bit like Remilia was getting fashion tips from Utena.

I kind of vaguely regret that Touga Kiryuu is Totally Dead now, because both of those outfits give me the read that Trigon tried, for some unfathomably stupid reason, to trap a vampire countess who can (sometimes, allegedly) see the threads of Fate and her little sister the Harbinger of Chaos in the framework of a Rose Tournament and expected it to work out favorably, and although the way in which we did finally eliminate Touga in Taken by Storm was very satisfying, it does mean we'll never get to see him get hit simultaneously by Gungnir and Lævatein and reduced to the metamagical equivalent of degenerate quantum particles.

>Moving on here's a flock of Flandres* around Remilia in need of a napkin, or perhaps a shop towel.
>Nothing too special about the outfits, mostly this is here for the
>adorable Flandre content.

The interpretations of Four of a Kind that give each Flandre a slightly different personality always amuse me. In this set we appear to have Bored Flan, Mischievous Flan, Happy to Be Here Flan, and Naptime Flan.

Also, I'm impressed that Remilia has somehow managed to have blood on her face and a pool of it on the floor without getting any on her clothes.

>This picture of happy sisters
>meanwhile is here for the outfits, though I have to confess to
>not being entirely sure what occasion they'd be best suited for. A
>reasonably classy, but not 'official occasion' sort of dinner party
>where dancing is expected perhaps.

Those outfits would also not look out of place in the higher-end jazz clubs down on Allard Avenue in New Avalon.

>And rounding out, what would the season be without
>more pumpkin spiced outfits,
>this time the whole extended household getting into the mood.

I have zero idea what aesthetic Patchy is going for there, but I kind of dig it. Mostly, though, what really strikes me about this one is the eyes (even though I don't much go for the "white pupils" thing). Remi, especially, is looking amazing.

--G.
* and I ran, I ran so far away / I just ran, I ran all night and day / I couldn't get away
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Meiling's outfit and general condition gave me the impression they were finishing up some sort of kerfuffle, to the detriment of the receiving party. Though in the scenario suggested that might make Flandre's expression something of an affectation for the sake of unnerving their opponents, as opposed to a stock cracy!Flan trope, so that is an improvement.

>I kind of vaguely regret that Touga Kiryuu is Totally Dead now,
>because both of those outfits give me the read that Trigon tried, for
>some unfathomably stupid reason, to trap a vampire countess who can
>(sometimes, allegedly) see the threads of Fate and her little sister
>the Harbinger of Chaos in the framework of a Rose Tournament and
>expected it to work out favorably, and although the way in which we
>did finally eliminate Touga in Taken by Storm was very
>satisfying, it does mean we'll never get to see him get hit
>simultaneously by Gungnir and Lævatein and reduced to the metamagical
>equivalent of degenerate quantum particles.
>

Well, I don't think Akio is actually that stupid, but there is more than a small chance the sisters will encounter some other minion of his at some point, and said minion can provide a substitute source of raw materials for experimentation in metaphysics. I expect whoever it is to regret their life choices, briefly.

>Also, I'm impressed that Remilia has somehow managed to have blood on
>her face and a pool of it on the floor without getting any on
>her clothes.
>

That did confuse me a bit, since it looks like the puddle is still being dripped into from... somewhere. But perhaps she simply was leaning forward to have a bite, and then sat back after the messy phase.

>I have zero idea what aesthetic Patchy is going for there, but
>I kind of dig it. Mostly, though, what really strikes me about this
>one is the eyes (even though I don't much go for the "white pupils"
>thing). Remi, especially, is looking amazing.
>

She looks a bit 'wounded wizard' to me, but that might just be the head bandage. And Remilia's eyes are rather terrifying frankly, so I'm hoping she's just putting on a show for the sake of the onlooker.

>* and I ran, I ran so far away / I just ran, I ran all
>night and day / I couldn't get away

Flandre is inevitable.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

"Gentlemen. Show Miss Hong out."

(violenzia)

"It's Mrs. Hong, actually."

>Though in the scenario suggested that might make
>Flandre's expression something of an affectation for the sake of
>unnerving their opponents, as opposed to a stock cracy!Flan trope, so
>that is an improvement.

Indeed, I can easily see Flan pulling out the Crazy Face for psywar purposes, and being good enough at it to dismay her sister in the process.

>Well, I don't think Akio is actually that stupid

No, you're probably right about that. Although the corollary image of him attempting to seduce either one of them is also worth a chuckle. Neither one would be at all impressed by that "highway to the end of the world" business. The main difference there is that Remilia would laugh at the mere attempt, while it would amuse Flandre to pretend it had worked for a little while, then crack open a nice cold six-pack of whoopass once she had him thinking everything was coming up Trigon. :)

>>Also, I'm impressed that Remilia has somehow managed to have blood on
>>her face and a pool of it on the floor without getting any on
>>her clothes.
>
>That did confuse me a bit, since it looks like the puddle is still
>being dripped into from... somewhere. But perhaps she simply was
>leaning forward to have a bite, and then sat back after the messy
>phase.

"What, this? Oh, it's not blood. We're having sloppy joes today."

>And Remilia's eyes are rather terrifying frankly, so I'm
>hoping she's just putting on a show for the sake of the onlooker.

Remi's temper burns much slower than Flan's, but once you actually do reach the end of the fuse, look the fuck out. :)

>>* and I ran, I ran so far away / I just ran, I ran all
>>night and day / I couldn't get away
>
>Flandre is inevitable.

Especially when there are four of her.

--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.

Peter Eng
--
"You thought you could drive me to madness? I lived there for four centuries."

Exactly. "Pff. Amateurs."

--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.

I have a very hard time even picturing Remilia eating something like sloppy joe. Or Sakuya for that matter. Now, Flandre and Meiling, them I could see having a contest with them (whether who could eat more or who could end up most messy is up for debate.)

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

I can, but they'd both do it with a knife and fork, and a lot of spare bread for soppage. (And it wouldn't end up on the floor.) They are, after all, ladies of refinement.

>Now, Flandre and Meiling, them
>I could see having a contest with them (whether who could eat more or
>who could end up most messy is up for debate.)

Hahaha! You just made me picture some place that's known for ribs and/or chicken wings at closing time, with the entire waitstaff all sort of hovering fearfully at what they hope is a safe distance from the big corner table—which is completely tiled in little tin buckets full of gleaming white, totally stripped bones—quietly but vehemently arguing about who has to wake up the two blissfully smiling, sauce-smeared, food-comatose patrons and ask them to please leave so they can all go home.

(Meanwhile, back at base, everyone else is like, "Where the hell are Meiling and Flan? They went out for 'a quick snack' hours ago.")

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
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Also, I just realized that this image is straight out of Norse mythology. No, hear me out. Flandre is associated with Loki, right, because Lævatein is his sword, and she's known for her chaotic nature and so forth. There's a story in one of the sagas where Loki gets into an eating contest with some giants. He loses, but in the process he terrifies the giants, because he only just barely loses, and only because it turns out the guy he was up against was actually the personification of all-consuming elemental fire. :)

--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.

This just adds to the pile of 'when the SDM crew eventually visits a (more) modern realm' events that seem to be becoming a pastime of forum speculation. It's all aggregating in my mind a bit like one of those Youtube TikTok compilation videos (not a bad thing, just a mildly odd one given the source medium is text.)

>Also, I just realized that this image is straight out of Norse
>mythology. No, hear me out. Flandre is associated with Loki, right,
>because Lævatein is his sword, and she's known for her chaotic
>nature and so forth. There's a story in one of the sagas where Loki
>gets into an eating contest with some giants. He loses, but in the
>process he terrifies the giants, because he only just
>barely loses, and only because it turns out the guy he was up
>against was actually the personification of all-consuming elemental
>fire. :)
>

Is Meiling known for a prodigious appetite even for her size, or mostly just a proportional one?
For that matter, is Flandre known for her capacity for feasting? I mean, I could see her being one of those tiny black hole characters, it's a fairly amusing image and nice contrast with her sister's infamously small appetite, just sorting out the 'not fact, just funny' traits from the 'amusing character background' traits.

As for Loki, wasn't he actually a frost giant anyway? Which seems like cheating, but also it's Loki so he absolutely would cheat.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

Depends on the artist, but mostly it's in keeping with the rest of her, when it's an issue at all.

>For that matter, is Flandre known for her capacity for feasting? I
>mean, I could see her being one of those tiny black hole characters,
>it's a fairly amusing image and nice contrast with her sister's
>infamously small appetite

She is in my head, and that's what counts around here! :)

>As for Loki, wasn't he actually a frost giant anyway? Which seems like
>cheating, but also it's Loki so he absolutely would cheat.

Well, he was and he wasn't. He was born a giant, but adopted and raised by Odin, which made him one of the Æsir, so in most of the stories he has traits more like theirs than those of the giants. The old sagas are, unsurprisingly, rather vaguer about that sort of detail than modern SF&F tend to be. :) Regardless, he has an association with fire, I think mostly because of his red hair, so the gist of that particular legend is that he could only lose an eating contest if he were up against actual fire itself.

(Similarly, Thor's part in that same series of events was a drinking contest in which he only failed because it turned out he was trying to drink the ocean. And it's that kind of mythological story, so it's never mentioned as in any way odd that he didn't notice it was salt water instead of mead. :)

--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.

Patchy? Let's see....

OH! PUMPKIN SPICED MUMMY!

Oh, of course.

That's a lot of work and Patchy's pretty lazy, but hey, that's why she has Koakuma. :)

--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.

Do you have a preferred brand of eye bleach to cleanse with afterward?

>First up we have Remi, who I
>have to say looks the most like a Strike Witch out of the four we've
>got in the story thus far, what with the adorable lil bat wings and
>everything. She's not gone as far as the rest of the Strike Witches,
>as decorum and modesty forbid her showing quite that much leg, but
>she's still keeping to the spirit more than the others. Sort of.
>

That outfit tempts me to try to do some Photoshopping to adjust the colors, going with a more traditionally vampiric red, black, and white combo.

>Flandre is sporting attire
>that feels... well, it feels very elaborate, but it's Flan. She
>likes putting on a show, even when it's not really useful. And the
>cape game is very much on point. Edna Mode can suck it, capes are
>extremely useful garments especially for cold environments - like,
>say, mid-air.
>

There are a lot of pictures or that outfit, to the point where I half wonder if it has a source (like Remilia's and Sakuya's fancy outfits from the Touhou-vania spinoff game.) I put forth a variation on that when suggesting attire for Flandre as sergeant-at-arms for the upcoming marriage. She does wear fancy well though.

>Sakuya here is wearing full
>dress whites and looks very... naval, for want of a better
>term. I will say, though, that if you don't think Sakuya is the sort
>of person who would wear a dress uniform into a combat zone you are
>Very Wrong. I'm not entirely certain what kind of effect her small
>localized blizzard of knives would have on a Neuroi, but I'm certain
>that said alien invaders would be less than keen on finding out. =]
>

This is another of the 'fashion consulting by Utena Tenjou' images in my mental categorization. Which sort of feeds into Gryph's notions of Akio's most ill-advised Rose Tournament ever.

As for effectiveness, going by the big fight scene where Sakuya first turned up in the pages here, it seems she would be able to expose a Neuroi to a finishing blow, but perhaps have difficulty landing one on her own.

>Lastly, Meiling has a very
>military aesthetic already in her character design, but this piece
>just felt very her. Of course Meiling's got a sensible flying helmet
>instead of various flavours of peaked officer hat. Of course she's got
>a sandwich on the go to keep her energy levels up (bacon, lettuce,
>tomato, three different types of hot sauce, fiery mustard, and some
>pepper spray the QM left in the kitchen by accident). For all that
>she's a dragon, she's the most... grounded.
>

Heh, that level of spicing at least means her lunch is always safe from being pilfered (except by Flandre,) at least after the first few food thieves learn the hard way to give her lunch bag a wide berth.

>you can't make me go back. you can't. i'll hit you. with a
>brick. in a football sock. covered in mould.

Welcome to trawling Danbooru for appealing images! The support group meets by appointment but emergency talk therapy is available if you need it.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

If she joins the Gallian Air Forces, she'll have the same uniform as Perrine, although she'll likely embellish it, as wealthier officers have tended to do in armed forces through the centuries. It'd be mostly blue, though, in any event.

>This is another of the 'fashion consulting by Utena Tenjou' images in
>my mental categorization. Which sort of feeds into Gryph's notions of
>Akio's most ill-advised Rose Tournament ever.

That whole concept amuses me on a number of levels, one of which is imagining what that crew would do as the student council of a freaky private school in a pocket dimension that's a spin-off of Hell. Kick out all of the current administration and open Scarlet Devil Academy, presumably. :)

>As for effectiveness, going by the big fight scene where Sakuya first
>turned up in the pages here, it seems she would be able to expose a
>Neuroi to a finishing blow, but perhaps have difficulty landing one on
>her own.

That's what Meiling is for. They haven't fought Neuroi together, but as far as taking on Large Alien Threats, it ain't their first rodeo.

>Heh, that level of spicing at least means her lunch is always safe
>from being pilfered (except by Flandre,) at least after the first few
>food thieves learn the hard way to give her lunch bag a wide berth.

"Come on, Flan-Flan, I know it was you. Your sister wouldn't want to, Sakuya wouldn't dare, and Gryph would at least have left me some chips."

--G.
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That seems like one of those sort-of-alternate-universe anime spinoffs/sequels/retellings that pop up from time to time. Hard to say if Akio would prefer the results to his current reality, but it'd be fun to watch.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Though now I may end up hunting for the SDM crew in school uniforms since Scarlet Devil Academy seems like an amusing idea on its own."

The House of Scarlet has a long tradition of military service in times of national crisis! Admittedly, in Count Victor's day, "military service" was a different sort of business...

>She's not gone as far as the rest of the Strike Witches,
>as decorum and modesty forbid her showing quite that much leg, but
>she's still keeping to the spirit more than the others. Sort of.

She does have the advantage that she doesn't actually have to use a Striker Unit, which spares her the necessity of wearing clothes that won't interfere with one. (Although even if she did have to use one, she'd probably be wearing bloomers, which would be an... odd aesthetic, unlikely to catch on in the wider witch community. :)

>Flandre is sporting attire
>that feels... well, it feels very elaborate, but it's Flan. She
>likes putting on a show, even when it's not really useful.

Heheh, I think we established in one of the other threads that that's actually the uniform of a Romagnan Ducal Guards officer, which Lucchini scored for her new pal Flan to wear to her sister's wedding.

>Sakuya here is wearing full
>dress whites and looks very... naval, for want of a better
>term. I will say, though, that if you don't think Sakuya is the sort
>of person who would wear a dress uniform into a combat zone you are
>Very Wrong.

This is quite true. And unlike Corwin, she'd never half-ass it by just wearing the hat and the jacket over normal clothes. These things should be done right or not at all, in her view. :)

>Lastly, Meiling has a very
>military aesthetic already in her character design, but this piece
>just felt very her.

It really does.

>Of course she's got
>a sandwich on the go to keep her energy levels up (bacon, lettuce,
>tomato, three different types of hot sauce, fiery mustard, and some
>pepper spray the QM left in the kitchen by accident).

"My blood! She punched out all of my blood!"

>For all that she's a dragon, she's the most... grounded.

She's not one'a them hoity-toity mountain peak dragons. Hong Meiling works--G.
well, she doesn't really have to any more, but...
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In a similar, but earlier, vein: Captain Sakuya Izayoi, RN (ca. 1810)

--G.
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Poor Remi, that face. "All I bloody well wanted was to have a nice family moment, but noooooo."

--G.
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Somehow, this is Lucchinni's fault. I just know it.

Just out of shot to the left. Flan's really chasing her; the fairy maids are just caught in the middle, like hatchbacks in heavy tractor-trailer traffic. :)

--G.
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And Gryphon is standing behind the camera, palming his face, wondering why he ever invited the entire 501st to stay over for the weekend. The rest of the 501st witches are behind him, watching the proceedings in various states of amused or embarrassed.

And poor Perine is trying to apologize to Remillia... "Veuillez me pardonner, Comtesse Scarlet. Il semble que nous ne pouvons l'emmener nulle part."

Also, I just remembered the fanservice episode (yes... there was a dedicated fanservice episode, like the main body of the work is not enough) of the first Strike Witches TV series, which is why I now know that Flan is chasing Lucchini because Lucchini is letting her kleptomaniac freak flag fly—in the form of Flan's stolen bloomers.

--G.
"I thought you said you'd done some growing up." "I couldn't help it, they were right there."
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Pffft.

I think I know the episode. The one with the Naughty Little Bug that Barkhorn sat on?

No, that's the equivalent episode from Strike Witches 2. The one in the first series involved Erica misplacing her pants and "borrowing" a random pair from the changing room in the bath because she had a medal ceremony to attend, at which point Lucchini, emerging from the bath to find that her pants had been stolen, went on a rampage stealing everyone else's clothes.

It's a deeply ridiculous episode even by Strike Witches standards, and yet conveys interesting and significant character information in the way they react (Yoshika panics, Mio doesn't give a damn, Trude doesn't understand what everyone's so worked up about, Perrine and, a bit unexpectedly, Eila go into full-on Maiden Mode, and so on). It's one of the weirdest and yet most signature things about that show, that even the dumb episode about underwear theft has... layers. (Besides the fact that some of the costumes are layered. :)

--G.
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For the record, that's not me being euphemistic. That's literally what they're called on the show. The Japanese dialogue uses zubon—trousers—instead of the actual phoneticized loanword "pants" (pantsu), which in Japan means women's underpants (probably because that's what underpants are called in British English), for garments that are clearly not trousers.

That word choice coincidentally also gives me the image of witches trying out Zubaz pants, which would not be notably easy to wear with Striker Units, but are at least easy to get out of when the bell rings.

--G.
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That is some impressive dedication to, well, something that it probably doesn't bear thinking about for too long. Not sure what it says about me (or what all my time online has done to me) that this only increases my curiosity about the series, simply to see how they pulled off differentiating that episode from the rest fanservice-wise.

>"I thought you said you'd done some growing up." "I
>couldn't help it, they were right there."
>

Is Lucchini known for somehow relieving people of their intimate apparel while they are still wearing it (which would honestly be fairly impressive,) or simply rifling through drawers ?

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."

I haven't watched the episode in long enough that the details have eroded a bit, but I believe the initial theft was (like Hartmann's taking of Lucchini's in the first place) from the bath changing room, and it sort of escalated from there. I think all of the articles of clothing she ended up stealing were unattended at the time, though.

Most notably, these included Eila's tights, which she made into a kind of white Strider Hiryuu mask (as though that would somehow prevent anyone from recognizing her).

--G.
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I don't know enough about Alice or Marisa, but that was charming. I particularly liked that the artist made sure to include the Scarlets' fangs (I swear half the art forgets they have them unless it's depicting them in anger.)

Also Remilia wearing that choker necklace has a certain appeal, though that just might be me.

I do think the author wanted to poke a bit of fun at the subgenre of fandom that has the sisters at each other's throats too, which gains it a few points.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "I could see them arguing over which noodle is tastiest, but only playfully."

Well, as seen in that doujin, Alice is a magician who uses dolls, which she makes and clothes herself, as servitors and props for most of her spell effects. Sometimes the dolls are just drones, sometimes they're shown to have personalities of their own. Often it's a mix of both; she has two, in particular (Shanghai and Hourai), who've acquired names and distinct portrayals, so they're often depicted as actual characters while the rest are just cannon fodder (sometimes literally, as there's at least one type that explodes).

Personality-wise, Alice is kind of an oddity even among Touhou characters, in that not only doesn't she have a firmly set personality in the source, there isn't really a solid consensus in the fandom about what she's like either. She's portrayed as anything from the nicest person in the setting, whom everybody loves, to a cold and socially dysfunctional recluse who, when she manages to say anything at all to another person, always manages to say something hurtful. (Even in the versions where she's well-loved, the other characters often like to bully her. I don't know what it is about her that makes so many artists—even the ones who seem to like her—want to be mean to her.) Because of her lifestyle, even when she's nice she's usually a bit eccentric, but then, a person who wasn't eccentric in the world of Touhou would be the most eccentric of all. :)

She originally appeared in the first generation of Touhou games (the ones written for the NEC PC9800-series computers) as a little girl, and in the later Windows games as a young adult, making her, as far as I know, the only Touhou character who has ever visibly aged. This is especially odd when you consider that she's one of the magic-using characters who have advanced far enough in their study of magic to transcend mortality (in the taxonomy of Touhou, she's no longer human but a type of yōkai).

Meanwhile, Marisa is one of the two perennial player characters in the series (the other being Reimu, the Obligatory Shrine Maiden). She's sort of the John Belushi of Touhou--loud, overbearing, with a tendency to just show up out of the blue, eat all your food, steal borrow your stuff, and fall asleep on your sofa, all without asking, but she's so charming and does it all with such an obvious absence of malice that few characters can hold it against her for long, even while being hugely irritated by it. In fan works she's one of the cast's traditional ladykillers, often unintentionally.

Thematically, her thing is that she's a mage who isn't innately talented, but has to work her butt off to get anywhere, which is at odds with her lazy and disorganized image. Unlike, say, Alice or Patchouli, she hasn't done whatever it is magic-users have to do to become Magicians with a capital M, so part of her shtick is that when she steals things from characters who are effectively immortal, she frames it as a long-term loan because after all, they can just come and get their stuff back when she dies, which won't take too long from their perspective. This is the scaffolding for a lot of "tragedy of long life" stories, as you might expect.

(It's also often implied that the reason she hasn't done that is because Reimu, who is usually shown as at least her pal if not more, has a policy of assassinating humans who turn into yōkai, and Marisa really doesn't want the tsuris.)

Oh yeah, she also owns(? it's probably stolen) a portable Reflex furnace.

>I particularly liked that the artist made sure to include the Scarlets'
>fangs (I swear half the art forgets they have them unless it's
>depicting them in anger.)

Somewhere along the line, somebody realized that you can't give a character a moefang if she has fangs all the time anyway, and the conventions for depicting the Scarlets were forever divided thereafter. :)

(The ones that get me is when their wings are omitted. I just want to ask the artist, did you seriously forget they had them, or could you just not be bothered?)

>Also Remilia wearing that choker necklace has a certain appeal, though
>that just might be me.

Well... let's say it's not just you. :)

>I do think the author wanted to poke a bit of fun at the subgenre of
>fandom that has the sisters at each other's throats too, which gains
>it a few points.

"Tastes great!"

"Less filling!"

Boy, I dated myself with that joke, and not by taking myself to dinner. :)

>"I could see them arguing over which noodle is tastiest, but only
>playfully."

Back in Symphony 1, Saionji and Miki fought a duel over which feature of crab rangoon is the best. I feel this is in the same conflict category. :)

--G.
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From everything I can tell, and against every instinct fandom possesses, Touhou is very much the land of 'Do not investigate this too closely'.

>Oh yeah, she also owns(? it's probably stolen) a portable Reflex
>furnace.
>

Well that's just flat terrifying. Seems to be a running theme that Touhou characters are ludicrously OP.

>Somewhere along the line, somebody realized that you can't give a
>character a moefang if she has fangs all the time anyway, and the
>conventions for depicting the Scarlets were forever divided
>thereafter. :)
>

I guess I'm a traditionalist, I prefer my vampires with fangs, so I always appreciate art that caters to that. Though I'd guess the moefang thing is why I tend to find them cute rather than threatening on the Scarlets.

>"Tastes great!"
>
>"Less filling!"
>
>Boy, I dated myself with that joke, and not by taking
>myself to dinner. :)
>

And the same applies to me for getting said joke. So at least you won't feel alone in your datedness.

>Back in Symphony 1, Saionji and Miki fought a duel over which feature
>of crab rangoon is the best. I feel this is in the same conflict
>category. :)
>

The collision of the sisters debating noodle preferences and duelists settling a food dispute leads to the thought that it will be interesting to see how Remilia and Flandre react to learning about rose duels. I expect Flandre will be much more enthusiastic about the concept, at least if/when she acquires a melee weapon.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Not sure why, might be some of the art pieces having their influence, but I see Flandre as a rapier sort of girl."

you want OP? the fan-made 3d Subterranean Stars has the mini-Hakkero (portable reflex furnace)...as well as Alice's dolls, a broom that is more akin to a Jet Striker and....an enemy that is supposedly the personification of the freaking sun, I think?

lots of OP, but also lots of the various characters, even if Marisa is the primary

EDIT:

Correction, she's the personification of NUCLEAR FUSION...and a 'hell raven'?

yeah, OP, pls nerf.

ALSO EDIT:
Those mini-hakkero have been...upgraded (which you see happening towards the beginning), and aren't her normal style which is a bit more mystical/divination looking, and not Science Fictiony

It's odd to see things looking as tech-y as that, although the head-up display is something I think every witch should have. The closest they get to anything like that in World Witches is the Liberion Night Witches, whose radar manifests as a kind of monocular plan position indicator instead of the antler antennae they do in Europe. :)

The trouble with danmaku is that it's almost impossible to tell what the hell is going on most of the time. This is also true of trying to write a fight scene involving anything like it as text, ye gods.

--G.
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It's supposed to be a unique artifact, for all that there appear to be five or six in that video. :)

--G.
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Eternal Night - part 0 has more true-to-form versions of the characters (and is newer, so the animation quality is *even better*).

You also get the epic moment of Sakuya throwing her knives, then *jumping from one to the next* to close on the enemy.... so, yeah

Ah yes. Utsuho Reiuji. She's one of Satori Komeji's "Pets". Literally.

In essences, she's a demonic raven who has grown to be quite powerful - I'd dare say that she'd give someone like Infernal Duke Akio Ohtori a fair run for his money.

And that's BEFORE she swallowed up the spirit of the Sun itself and gained the ability to use nuclear fusion - both as an energy source and a weapon.

Thing is that while she's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, she makes up for it with sheer firepower and her experience in Danmaku. But she means well, despite how it looks on the surface. The whole thing with bringing Hell to the surface of the Earth was just because she thought Hell was looking kinda run down, so she thought she'd make her "Mommy" happy with her girl by giving the place an upgrade.

Once Satori made her disappointment known, Utsuho was pretty quick in making with the I'm Sorrys.

She's a good girl, just doesn't always think things through well enough.

To be fair, she is a bird. "Birdbrain" isn't an insult for no reason. :)

--G.
inb4 "uh ACTUALLY corvids are very intelligent birds who can perform long division and use mobile phones"
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Eh. I wouldn't go that far.

Except MAYBE with ravens. They are some next level "Clever Girl" bullshit intelligent, which I rank alongside dolphins, elephants, and primates (silver backs and chimps). It would not surprise me if someone did teach a raven long division and/or how to use a mobile phone.

I was gonna put it as, "She's very smart! For a crow." ^_^

-----
Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!

If the Ragnarok happened in the WaW world, leaving behind Midgard, then that means Baldr, God of the Sun, is dead. Does that mean his body might be somewhere in the world, incorruptible yet edible?

Not that it's relevant to the subject at hand at all, but I'm just as dated. To boot, I remember a mid-1980s Freshman Week show for the Princeton Triangle Club where, just before curtain, the entire audience spontaneously (?) split itself into two halves and started shouting "Tastes great!" and "Less filling!" at each other for somewhere between five and ten minutes...

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

This made me imagine Flandre meeting Saionji, and talking about how to best utilize their various forms of former violent insanity. A very dangerous meeting, to be sure.

"OK, name the dumbest, most painful thing you ever did on purpose. Go."

"I attacked a man who had a lightsaber with a regular steel sword."

"Oo. How'd that go?"

"Not amazingly well. We sort of cut each other in half."

"Honestly, I'd say a tie's not bad under the circumstances."

"I suppose not. Your turn."

"I ate the core of a Neuroi."

"... Why?"

"Seemed like the best way to get rid of it."

"What happened?"

"I turned into into a Neuroi myself—which hurt a whole lot, by the way—so my sister had to kill me."

"Kill you?"

"Well, OK, I was only mostly dead."

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

"You come in here, you trash my house, you beat up my servants, and for what? Bragging rights on /r/vampirehunters? How inconsiderate can you be? Who's going to clean the carpet you're standing on right now with my maid out of commission? Because I'm about to make an almighty mess of it and I'm not going to go rent a Rug Doctor myself, that's for god damn sure."

--G.
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	-={(Astynax)}=- "Though thinking about it, comparing Remilia to Dracula is likely to be hazardous to one's health if she ever finds out."

"You know the difference between you and me?" Remilia asked as she stepped over Dracula's crumpled form. "I make this look good."

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.