Would explain why it kept trying to re-recruit her after the crisis point had passed. "Look, your job there is done now, come back and wax my floors."

--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.

The Doctor thought for a moment. "Did you wish really hard?"

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

"Sonic floor buffer. Four stroke patterns, eight different detachable brush heads, fifteen speeds, and only one of them's reverse. No wonder she wants you back."

I'm going to wager Sakuya is nowhere near as bitey as the TARDIS incarnate was.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Though her long association with bitey women may be another reason they got along so well."

My version is, anyway. There are the Usual Fan Versions who are, if not literally bitey, at least extremely violent, usually toward Meiling. There's a whole continuum of Touhou fan art/doujins where stabbing Meiling is one of Sakuya's chief hobbies, either because she's constantly angry with her over poor job performance (in turn, one of the chief ways Meiling gets flanderized), or just because she's a sadist and she knows Meiling won't die from it or fight back.

There are some really nice Touhou fan works out there? But man alive, there are a lot of artists with issues (or at least shitty sensibilities) who are into this franchise. Sometimes running this no-kill shelter of mine isn't necessarily about unwanted characters... :/

>"Though her long association with bitey women may be another reason
>they got along so well."

Hehe, possibly, although for the record, Remilia's never bitten Sakuya. She's always rather wanted to, but she was raised not to take advantage of the servants.

Well, not always. Not when Sakuya looked younger than Remi herself does, and was still recovering from lifelong malnutrition. Poor little thing, even a small stomach like Remi's might have drained her dry, and she's never going to risk doing that again. But, you know... since she grew up. Alas, it was not to be.

(As for Flandre, Sakuya had relatively little contact with her back in the bad old days, for her own safety, and anyway, Flan didn't really know how to bite a person back 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.

Particularly after the short about Count Scarlet rescuing her I had the notion that, during true down time, Sakuya might play with her knives in a manner that would freak the mundanes a bit (the finger juggling trick the count did, or perhaps an idle bit of literal juggling,) but I wonder what would lead people to see the character as openly sadistic? If that is in the source material I might have to count myself glad to have not really explored it.

>There are some really nice Touhou fan works out there? But man alive,
>there are a lot of artists with issues (or at least shitty
>sensibilities) who are into this franchise. Sometimes running this
>no-kill shelter of mine isn't necessarily about unwanted
>characters... :/
>

Seems there are a lot of people in general with issues/shitty sensibilities, and the Touhou design may serve as an especially attractive honeypot.

>Hehe, possibly, although for the record, Remilia's never bitten
>Sakuya. She's always rather wanted to, but she was raised not to take
>advantage of the servants.
>
>Well, not always. Not when Sakuya looked younger than Remi herself
>does, and was still recovering from lifelong malnutrition. Poor
>little thing, even a small stomach like Remi's might have drained her
>dry, and she's never going to risk doing that again. But, you
>know... since she grew up. Alas, it was not to be.
>

This sort of makes me wonder tangentially. We can guess why Sakuya is not an especially large woman, and it is common in vampire lore for folks to more or less be 'locked in' however they were when turned so that's Flandre sorted, but I wonder why (other than artist preference when laying out the character) Remilia is so slight herself?

>(As for Flandre, Sakuya had relatively little contact with her back in
>the bad old days, for her own safety, and anyway, Flan didn't really
>know how to bite a person back then.)
>

That is probably best for all concerned, and quite a few who didn't know they should have been.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Pre-healing Flandre strikes me as a 'more on the floor than in her mouth' eater."

Heh, I put that in the mini specifically to indicate where Sakuya's skill with knives came from. Count Victor obviously didn't need to rely on mundane weapons, but he found it an amusing and mind-settling hobby, and an effective way of moderating the collateral damage when he had to take action against certain lesser foes. Sakuya, still very wary of the rest of the world if not the Count himself, saw it as... of rather more immediate potential utility. By the time they made port in Texel, she was already a dab hand with a blade, and years of diligent practice growing up (at first under the Count's continued tutelage, and then undertaken by herself in his memory) made her absolutely lethal.

>but I wonder what would lead people to see the character as
>openly sadistic? If that is in the source material I might have to
>count myself glad to have not really explored it.

I don't think it is, unless there was a throwaway (as it were) gag in one of the official manga that people took and ran with. I mean, you've got... maybe not just as many, I haven't counted, but a fair number of fan interpretations where, as in UF, she and Meiling are lovers, and usually not the kind that do a lot of knife play. (In this series, for instance, they are unspeakably cute together.) There are even a few where they have children, however that's meant to work (in some cases it's implied to be Weird Yōkai Magic on Meiling's part, in others Somebody Has The Appropriate Equipment because, well, Japanese fandom).

>Seems there are a lot of people in general with issues/shitty
>sensibilities, and the Touhou design may serve as an especially
>attractive honeypot.

Well, it's the infinite monkeys principle again, just running in the other direction.

>This sort of makes me wonder tangentially. We can guess why Sakuya is
>not an especially large woman, and it is common in vampire lore for
>folks to more or less be 'locked in' however they were when turned so
>that's Flandre sorted, but I wonder why (other than artist preference
>when laying out the character) Remilia is so slight herself?

Canonically, I don't think an answer is ever given. She might have been turned at a young age herself (to the best of my knowledge, it's never specified whether she's a hereditary vampire like ours, or even if such things exist, in the source). In UF, it's just one of those things. Some people simply don't grow to be very big! (Her small appetite presumably doesn't help, but it's not as if she's anorexic; she's a perfectly healthy size for her... size. If you know what I mean.)

To be fair, her father, whom she takes after in looks, was a tall man, but not very heavily built.

It's kind of funny how they developed. Remi takes after the Count in appearance and Remilia the Elder in temperament (although her personality is not as extreme as her mother's, in terms of insisting on her dignity at all costs and suffering fools with no gladness whatever, and she acquired none of Remilia the Elder's Brugeoise tight-fistedness), while Flan is the other way around: she looks like their mother (and was a witch like her), but now that she has her mind back, she's much more like the Count in personality, having both his easygoing everyday nature and his capacity for truly volcanic wrath under the right (or possibly "wrong" would be more appropriate) circumstances.

>"Pre-healing Flandre strikes me as a 'more on the floor than in her
>mouth' eater."

I have read that it is rather disturbingly conveyed in one of the official sources, I know not which one, that canonical Flan gets her blood intake by eating people without realizing it, because an unspecified member of the mansion staff who may or may not be Sakuya is... somehow... adept at disguising human flesh as things a girl like Flandre would stereotypically like to eat, such as pastries. I am not making this up. Obviously I, uh... didn't go with that in UF. In her, er, "cloistered" years, she received regular supply drops of normal foods and a steady bottled-blood ration. That's why she doesn't know how to feed properly from humans; she could never be trusted to before, and in the few weeks since her recovery she hasn't had to learn. She's kind of curious about it, though. I mean, wouldn't you be, in her position?

Anyway, the canonical explanation is a deeply bizarre design decision on ZUN's part, since it completely undermines any attempt, and there have been a number, to make the SDM characters sympathetic, if in the background they're murdering villagers on the regular and feeding them to Flandre all along.

--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.

Short answer? Zun's bad habit of not fleshing out his characters. Or he's a troll. Either way, the result is that fans tend to use the gaps in his characterizations and run with them. This has led to the humorous situation over the years where he's written official books or manga that are totally at odds with what the fandom has settled on. Officially Meiling is a competent and friendly gate guard who is on good terms with Sakuya and even reads manga that Remilia loans her, tends the mansion's garden, practices tai chi, and takes a siesta in the afternoon. But she was written in the first game as so much of a Chinese stereotype that her tag is "Chinese Girl," so Japanese fans (whose culture has an even more sour view of Chinese goods than we do) took the fact that she's never able to stop Marisa and Sakuya is thus often tasked with dealing with the "rat" (as Patchouli has dubbed her) and turned it into "Marisa keeps getting in because Meiling is asleep on the job, so Sakuya punishes her with her knives." Thus she's "another quality Chinese product" with all the sarcasm that implies.

>I have read that it is rather disturbingly conveyed in one of the
>official sources, I know not which one, that canonical Flan gets her
>blood intake by eating people without realizing it, because an
>unspecified member of the mansion staff who may or may not be Sakuya
>is... somehow... adept at disguising human flesh as things a girl like
>Flandre would stereotypically like to eat, such as pastries. I am not
>making this up. Obviously I, uh... didn't go with that in UF. In
>her, er, "cloistered" years, she received regular supply drops of
>normal foods and a steady bottled-blood ration. That's why she
>doesn't know how to feed properly from humans; she could never be
>trusted to before, and in the few weeks since her recovery she hasn't
>had to learn. She's kind of curious about it, though. I mean,
>wouldn't you be, in her position?
>
>Anyway, the canonical explanation is a deeply bizarre design decision
>on ZUN's part, since it completely undermines any attempt, and there
>have been a number, to make the SDM characters sympathetic, if in the
>background they're murdering villagers on the regular and feeding them
>to Flandre all along.

Long and short of it is that all youkai naturally prey upon humans, it's just that some are a bit more...discrete about it. That discretion mostly has to do with the official rule being that humans from the village are off-limits, the enforcement of that rule being the role of the Hakurei Miko, whose punishment (depending on Reimu's mood) can be as light as a good bludgeoning and as severe as outright extermination. But any humans outside the village boundaries who are not explicitly under her protection are fair game. Not that all youkai are man-eaters, some just need humans to be afraid of them to sustain their existence. And still others like Yukari are a total mystery.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

Yeah, see, I'm a lot more on board with this (modulo our version of the house doesn't particularly need a guard, so she's taking on more of a handyperson role)...

>Long and short of it is that all youkai naturally prey upon humans,
>it's just that some are a bit more...discrete about it. (...) Not that all
>youkai are man-eaters, some just need humans to be afraid of them to
>sustain their existence.

... not this, so much. (That last part is very Monsters Inc., isn't it? And we know how that worked out!) I'm more into the "monsters are people too" school of thought. Peaceful coexistence, man! It's what's for breakfast, not people. :)

--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.

Well, at least one of the nicer fan traits that Zun has not clubbed over the head is that she has the "Cool Big Sis" tag attached to her. She's often depicted as not only playing with Cirno and the other members of "Team 9," but has been depicted as such with Flandre and even a young Sakuya.

>... not this, so much. (That last part is very Monsters Inc.,
>isn't it? And we know how that worked out!) I'm more into the
>"monsters are people too" school of thought. Peaceful coexistence,
>man! It's what's for breakfast, not people. :)

Unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast (no pun intended). Youkai are creatures of myth, most springing into being due to man's fears and incomprehension. Some are harmless, some are mischievous, and some are deadly. Even today, Japanese culture is rife with such creatures, though they are now urban legends because most of the harmless mysteries of the world have been explained away. A lot of the inhabitants of Gensokyo are youkai who fled there because they were in danger of disappearing from the human world as fear of them diminished.

It's basically the canon explanation for why the Scarlet sisters set up shop there: While the concept of vampires remains in the West to this day, the fear of them has diminished as superstition has been conquered with reason and enlightenment. And the outside world largely doing away with the idea of magic is why they have a freeloader living in the Great Library.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

Especially the great big ?! surrounding Koishi.

However, she's a closed book; she has no tells, she's very difficult to influence socially, she doesn't state her reasons for things, and she never pauses to think anything through. She seems to do things "just because".

Telepathy used against her is utterly fruitless; it's like a blank hole where a person should be. This blankness also affects normal people, who find it difficult to remember her when she's gone.

Even when the story focus is on her, it should only ever state her actions, not her thoughts, motivations, or feelings. I'd also recommend a degree of separation in the dialogue: "Koishi told them she would." rather than, "Koishi told them, 'I will.'"

Satori, on the other hand, is a straightforward T20-rated psychic who can't screen her own ability any more than anyone else can screen against it, and who was never taught by other telepaths how to live in society. Easy peasy.

--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.

As for Koishi, I was talking about how she seems to have Eldritch Abomination tentacles in quite a lot of depictions, including some semi-canon ones.

Your breakdown of them as characters is quite good, though! I'd actually like to see them, but... yeah. See previous re: editorial stance on the nomming of people.

I thought as much when reading the piece. I know I immediately reacted 'oh, -that- is where she got those skills' when that bit came up. Seems as if the Count was also a talented teacher given how well Sakuya picked up the blade (though between the seemingly speedy learning and her already noted agelessness, I wonder what sort of extra-normal status applies to the maid with the blades?)

>I don't think it is, unless there was a throwaway (as it were) gag in
>one of the official manga that people took and ran with. I mean,
>you've got... maybe not just as many, I haven't counted, but a fair
>number of fan interpretations where, as in UF, she and Meiling are
>lovers, and usually not the kind that do a lot of knife play. (In
>this series, for instance, they
>are unspeakably cute together.) There are even a few where they have
>children, however that's meant to work (in some cases it's implied to
>be Weird Yōkai Magic on Meiling's part, in others Somebody Has
>The Appropriate Equipment because, well, Japanese fandom).
>

Oh wow, not 2 pages into that link and Meiling's thirst is -radiating- out. It's done in a cute way, but it is still what the memes would classify as 'extreme thirst'.

>It's kind of funny how they developed. Remi takes after the Count in
>appearance and Remilia the Elder in temperament (although her
>personality is not as extreme as her mother's, in terms of insisting
>on her dignity at all costs and suffering fools with no gladness
>whatever, and she acquired none of Remilia the Elder's Brugeoise
>tight-fistedness), while Flan is the other way around: she looks like
>their mother (and was a witch like her), but now that she has her mind
>back, she's much more like the Count in personality, having both his
>easygoing everyday nature and his capacity for truly volcanic wrath
>under the right (or possibly "wrong" would be more appropriate)
>circumstances.
>

The 'one must be dignified at all times' makes for an amusing bit of humor, but doesn't seem like it would make many friends if done seriously rather than in (at least partial) jest. I'm curious, not sure if I missed an aside, was Remilia the Elder nobility before marrying the Count?

My life experience has lead me to wishing I could not suffer fools, but my paycheck keeps demanding that I do anyway, so I can understand why Remilia the Elder wouldn't want to.

It is probably a good thing that we've not seen Flandre pop off since she healed, I expect that mental state if/when it happens will be a rough ride for everyone concerned, even if the cause initially just.

>I have read that it is rather disturbingly conveyed in one of the
>official sources, I know not which one, that canonical Flan gets her
>blood intake by eating people without realizing it, because an
>unspecified member of the mansion staff who may or may not be Sakuya
>is... somehow... adept at disguising human flesh as things a girl like
>Flandre would stereotypically like to eat, such as pastries. I am not
>making this up. Obviously I, uh... didn't go with that in UF. In
>her, er, "cloistered" years, she received regular supply drops of
>normal foods and a steady bottled-blood ration. That's why she
>doesn't know how to feed properly from humans; she could never be
>trusted to before, and in the few weeks since her recovery she hasn't
>had to learn. She's kind of curious about it, though. I mean,
>wouldn't you be, in her position?
>

I have to say, the baking skills required to dress up human flesh as a pastry would be impressive (well, assuming they aren't savory I suppose, otherwise it's a Sweeney Todd situation.) Disturbing, but impressive.

>Anyway, the canonical explanation is a deeply bizarre design decision
>on ZUN's part, since it completely undermines any attempt, and there
>have been a number, to make the SDM characters sympathetic, if in the
>background they're murdering villagers on the regular and feeding them
>to Flandre all along.
>

Seems mostly like a failure to plan ahead. Given that the SDM crew were antagonists initially, their level of popularity with the fandom may have surprised the creator a bit, and so now there is motivation to do a bit of a hell/face turn despite how hard that's been made by previous work.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "If the village in question were large enough to generate a steady stream of condemned prisoners, feeding Flan would make for an efficiently terrifying method of execution/disposal."

Well, they still had a month and a half at sea with not many other things to do. Pretty small practice space, admittedly, unless they basically took over the ship through sheer force of personality, which now that I've said it strikes me as very amusing—picture all the sailors leerily avoiding the afterdeck at night for the rest of the trip because the Count and his protégée were known to be up there, throwing an apparently inexhaustible number of knives at various barrels, boxes, bottles, and the base of the mizzenmast. Anyway, it's not that surprising that she'd attained basic competence by the time they reached Texel. She's always been a quick learner and a hard worker when she's got enough food in her to function. (Also unnervingly good with languages, which may be a clue to the aforementioned status.)

>Oh wow, not 2 pages into that link and Meiling's thirst is -radiating-
>out. It's done in a cute way, but it is still what the memes would
>classify as 'extreme thirst'.

If you get far enough, you see that it runs both ways. Sakuya's just (unsurprisingly) a little better at playing it down. :)

>The 'one must be dignified at all times' makes for an amusing bit of
>humor, but doesn't seem like it would make many friends if done
>seriously rather than in (at least partial) jest.

Mm, it's safe to say that Remilia the Elder was not well-loved outside her immediate family. She wasn't widely disliked, either, but most people who knew her respected her rather than liked her. The adjective most often used to describe her outside the family was "formidable".

I don't want to make her out to sound like too much of an ice queen. She did have positive qualities—she adored her children and was particularly well-disposed toward anyone else who got along with them, for instance. She was upright and honest, steeped in her family's tradition of square dealing, but her consequent reluctance to offer any special treatment to anyone made some people resent her. She was fair-minded but not generous,* and too formal for most acquaintances to get attached to. She had a few close friends outside the family, mostly other witches whose ability she esteemed particularly highly—she was very active in the witching and alchemical professional societies of the day—but nobody not directly involved in those friendships ever really understood what the other parties saw in her.

* Well, I say not generous. She didn't like to be seen to be generous, and got gruff with anyone who noticed when she was. Bit of a tsundere, really. For instance, she healed the scars on Sakuya's back early on in the latter's tenure at Maison Écarlate, but played it off as using her as a test subject for a new healing salve, most likely with a peremptory summons to her laboratory and order to strip, and an unreassuring remark like "This probably won't do you any harm, but if it does, be sure to describe it in useful detail for my notes." And she took a terrible vengeance on Van Zandt without ever telling anyone she'd done it. She was that kind of lady.

Very few of the Count's confidantes, in particular, ever understood why he, a bachelor of stupendously long standing, suddenly decided after visiting Teerlinc & Brouwer one day that, come Hell or high water, he was going to make Remilia Teerlinc his wife, and were even more confounded when she agreed. But hey! Love be like that sometimes.

As for Remilia the Younger, she did pick up pretty early on that too much dignity is isolating, and from the very formative ages of five to seventeen she had Flan to keep her from taking herself too seriously. After, uh, "the incident" she probably swung too far the other way in reaction, but eventually she reached the state of relative equilibrium we see in TTW, where she gets carried away sometimes, but usually recognizes that she's done it and tries to blunt the edge with wry humor. (She may not consciously understand why she finds Gryphon's habit of not reacting to her bullshit endearing when she muses on it in Act IV, but I'll wager it's because on some level she recognizes that it helps remind her to do that second part.)

>I'm curious, not
>sure if I missed an aside, was Remilia the Elder nobility before
>marrying the Count?

In the old marriage register of the Chapel of St. Basil the Great in Bruges (the oldest church in town, part of what is today the Basilica of the Holy Blood), where she was married to Count Victor Scarlet of Alsace in 1500, Remilia Teerlinc is described as a "shopkeeper's daughter", which is a somewhat breathtaking understatement when you know that the "shop" was Teerlinc & Brouwer, the most powerful alchemical suppliers in that great mercantile city, and the "shopkeeper", her father, one of the richest men in Bruges.

Basically, if you were a witch or alchemist anywhere in Belgica, northern Gallia, the western principalities of what would eventually become Karlsland, the Sealands, Daneland, or southern Baltland, and you needed supplies, reagents, glassware, scales, reference books, or anything else related to your profession, chances are you either bought them from your nearest branch of Teerlinc & Brouwer, or, for the odder and rarer items, direct by courier from the main store in Bruges. They were the Fisher Scientific or Grainger of their day.

So the Teerlincs and Brouwers were not nobility in the classical sense, but as some of the leading figures at the very top of the emerging mercantile middle class (many of the women in both families being powerful witches in their own right), they were People To Be Reckoned With in the region, and in some ways conducted themselves more rigidly and correctly than the gentry. (It could be argued that they had to in order to survive, since they didn't have noble privilege to protect them from any social or economic missteps.)

>It is probably a good thing that we've not seen Flandre pop off since
>she healed, I expect that mental state if/when it happens will be a
>rough ride for everyone concerned, even if the cause initially just.

The potential saving grace there is that, unlike mad Flandre's occasional bursts of random berserker rage, the Count's temper (and sane Flandre's) was/is like a laser beam in a misty room—you can see it, but if it's not aimed at you and you don't step in front of it, you'll be fine. Flan at her worst would have, at the very least, destroyed most of that deck of the ship. But yes, anyone who ever saw her at her worst will probably be a bit unnerved (including Flan herself, the first time it happens).

>I have to say, the baking skills required to dress up human flesh as a
>pastry would be impressive (well, assuming they aren't savory I
>suppose, otherwise it's a Sweeney Todd situation.) Disturbing, but
>impressive.

Indeed. (I suspect it's a backward construction after he drew something with her having a child's tea party or the like, and someone asked, "Wait a second, why is a vampire eating montblancs?" :)

>Seems mostly like a failure to plan ahead. Given that the SDM crew
>were antagonists initially, their level of popularity with the fandom
>may have surprised the creator a bit, and so now there is motivation
>to do a bit of a hell/face turn despite how hard that's been made by
>previous work.

Yeah, I don't want to seem too unsympathetic to ZUN here. I know perfectly well that when you're operating a project as huge and unwieldy as Touhou, you're going to trip over your own dick all the time with this kind of detail. :)

>"If the village in question were large enough to generate a steady
>stream of condemned prisoners, feeding Flan would make for an
>efficiently terrifying method of execution/disposal."

"Keep yourself in line or we'll feed you to the mad vampire what lives in that creepy mansion by the lake. If you're lucky we'll kill you first." Yeah, I could see that being... a deterrent.

(Maison Écarlate is not by a lake, alas, but maybe someday Flandre will tangle with a Neuroi large enough that the resulting crater reaches the water table. :)

--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.

Being reasonably certain that I couldn't pick up blade skills that quick that still strikes me as impressive, both for Sakuya and the Count's teaching skills. As for them commandeering a portion of the deck for practice, not only is that an amusing scene, it would serve to somewhat alleviate the Count's internally expressed concerns about sleeping with one eye open by making it plain just how monumentally bad an idea it would be to cross him or his new protégée.

I seem to recall mention somewhere in the stacks that Detians are noted as being quite good with languages, G's apparently abhorrent Gallic accent aside. That would rather neatly explain much about Sakuya, but it would open a whole other avenue of 'that is quite a tale' to her backstory. Or I could be leaping at shadows.

>Mm, it's safe to say that Remilia the Elder was not well-loved outside
>her immediate family. She wasn't widely disliked, either, but most
>people who knew her respected her rather than liked her. The
>adjective most often used to describe her outside the family was
>"formidable".
...
<snip>
...
>So the Teerlincs and Brouwers were not nobility in the classical
>sense, but as some of the leading figures at the very top of the
>emerging mercantile middle class (many of the women in both families
>being powerful witches in their own right), they were People To Be
>Reckoned With in the region, and in some ways conducted themselves
>more rigidly and correctly than the gentry. (It could be argued that
>they had to in order to survive, since they didn't have noble
>privilege to protect them from any social or economic missteps.)
>

It sounds, in summary, as if Remilia the Elder had a much larger, warmer heart than anyone would have guessed, but her upbringing and eventual family circumstances made her decide it best that she keep the number of people who knew that very low to avoid headaches and explosions (metaphorical and literal.) No one will ask the powerful, influential, obscenely wealthy Countess for a favor she'd feel absolutely horrible refusing if they are convinced to their core that she'd never grant it, and might punish them for asking.

>The potential saving grace there is that, unlike mad Flandre's
>occasional bursts of random berserker rage, the Count's temper (and
>sane Flandre's) was/is like a laser beam in a misty room—you can
>see it, but if it's not aimed at you and you don't step in
>front of it, you'll be fine. Flan at her worst would have, at the
>very least, destroyed most of that deck of the ship. But yes, anyone
>who ever saw her at her worst will probably be a bit unnerved
>(including Flan herself, the first time it happens).
>

I wasn't sure about how well her IFF would function when riled, but I was definitely figuring Flandre would be shaken by events after the fact even if she only thrashed the deserving. Uncomfortable echoes of the bad past and all that.

>"Keep yourself in line or we'll feed you to the mad vampire what lives
>in that creepy mansion by the lake. If you're lucky we'll kill you
>first." Yeah, I could see that being... a deterrent.
>

Seems about in line with a dark medieval/gothic horror/fantasy motif. Though I'm not sure how GRIMDARK humans in Touhou are to know if it fits that setting.

>(Maison Écarlate is not by a lake, alas, but maybe someday
>Flandre will tangle with a Neuroi large enough that the resulting
>crater reaches the water table. :)
>

I am still not sure just how powerful Flandre is. I mean we know she can lay out an impressive volume of fire, and it can ruin someone's day, but unloading a few thousand rounds of .22 caliber is likely to wreck most people's day as well.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Little girl, BIG explosion is a time tested trope though."

(nod) She was an excellent student, and Count Victor had trained literally generations of monster hunters by then, so he knew talent when he saw it and how to nurture it.

>As for them commandeering a portion of the
>deck for practice, not only is that an amusing scene, it would serve
>to somewhat alleviate the Count's internally expressed concerns about
>sleeping with one eye open by making it plain just how monumentally
>bad an idea it would be to cross him or his new protégée.

Indeed—especially when the word got around that, as far as anyone else could tell, they were never both asleep at the same time.

>I seem to recall mention somewhere in the stacks that Detians are
>noted as being quite good with languages, G's apparently abhorrent
>Gallic accent aside. That would rather neatly explain much about
>Sakuya, but it would open a whole other avenue of 'that is quite a
>tale' to her backstory.

It would! And it would. ;)

>It sounds, in summary, as if Remilia the Elder had a much larger,
>warmer heart than anyone would have guessed, but her upbringing and
>eventual family circumstances made her decide it best that she keep
>the number of people who knew that very low to avoid headaches and
>explosions (metaphorical and literal.)

Yes. That's it exactly, and in far fewer words than I managed to hurl against the wall. :)

>I wasn't sure about how well her IFF would function when riled,

That is definitely a concern, particularly before anyone has seen how she performs in a high-pressure situation for the first time.

>but I
>was definitely figuring Flandre would be shaken by events after the
>fact even if she only thrashed the deserving. Uncomfortable echoes of
>the bad past and all that.

Yes. Fortunately, most of those memories are badly blurred, but certain experiences can have the unpleasant side effect of temporarily sharpening some of them. As magical as her restoration appears (and in some ways is!), like any sufferer of a deep trauma, she's better but not all better. Not yet. Probably not for a long time.

>>"Keep yourself in line or we'll feed you to the mad vampire what lives
>>in that creepy mansion by the lake. If you're lucky we'll kill you
>>first." Yeah, I could see that being... a deterrent.
>
>Seems about in line with a dark medieval/gothic horror/fantasy motif.
>Though I'm not sure how GRIMDARK humans in Touhou are to know if it
>fits that setting.

To my eye, it doesn't seem to, but they occasionally try to make it go there anyway, if that makes any sense.

>>(Maison Écarlate is not by a lake, alas, but maybe someday
>>Flandre will tangle with a Neuroi large enough that the resulting
>>crater reaches the water table. :)
>
>I am still not sure just how powerful Flandre is.

That's OK—neither is anyone else, including Flandre. (In part, whether she really could make her own lake would depend on whether she has/uses Lævatein. On her own, she probably doesn't have that kind of firepower. I mean, she was a witch before her turning, and still has that power on top of being an abnormally strong vampire, but she wasn't being trained for heavy combat and never learned the likes of Dragon Slave. :)

--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.

The benefits of not everyone in a group being the same sort of creature. Hybrid vigor as applied to social dynamics and mutual defense (that sounds like it should be someone's thesis paper title.)

>Yes. That's it exactly, and in far fewer words than I managed to hurl
>against the wall. :)
>

Chalk that up to different purposes, you were providing backstory/details for a character, I was summing up for Cliff's Notes/confirmation of my own understanding. I fully expect anyone reading this branch of discussion was more entertained by your writing than mine.

>That's OK—neither is anyone else, including Flandre. (In part,
>whether she really could make her own lake would depend on whether she
>has/uses Lævatein. On her own, she probably doesn't have that kind
>of firepower. I mean, she was a witch before her turning, and still
>has that power on top of being an abnormally strong vampire, but she
>wasn't being trained for heavy combat and never learned the likes of
>Dragon Slave. :)
>

I had gotten the impression that several forum comments were mostly riffing on the 'tiny magical girl bomb' trope (exemplified by the character who brought us all the spell you noted,) it is all just still (likely deliberately) a bit murky. Moreso because of the temporary Neuroi power boost she received, though tangentially that now make me wonder if what was happening to Flandre is somehow related to the genesis of Neuroi-chan.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Anyone caught teaching Flan the Dragon Slave spell will be punished by being used as her subsequent target dummy."

One thing we don't know yet, because there hasn't been an opportunity (or really motivation, beyond curiosity) to test it, is whether she still has any lingering changes to her powers from that experience. We know she kept the wing crystals, and I haven't shown it on screen, but she can still fly. Beyond that, whether she still has anything resembling the Neuroi boost to her danmaku firepower, for instance, hasn't yet been determined.

(spoiler: probably. Further developments are in store for her as early as Book 2, Act 1. Flandre's very much a moving target, authorially, at the moment. :)

>though tangentially that
>now make me wonder if what was happening to Flandre is somehow related
>to the genesis of Neuroi-chan.

Not directly, no. Neuroi-chan (if the one we have in the story "now" is the original) started out as an ordinary (rather small) Neuroi, and only assumed her witch-type form during her initial encounter with Yoshika.

I should sit down and timeline this out in Excel or something for folks, because it's interesting how the timing of a few things lines up. For instance, the Night of a Thousand Daggers (May 16-17, 1946) wrapped up in the early morning hours of the day before the last-timestamped part in main series episode 12, "Revelation"—the scenes in which Erica and Trude encountered Neuroi-chan, Trude started attending Zauberschule, and Wilma had her Force breakthrough, all on May 18. So by that point, witches around the area had been spotting Neuroi-chan for a couple of weeks, since her first sighting by the 511th on May 5.

Most interestingly to me, the night of the next full moon (and so Gryphon's next opportunity to go back to April and live his months at the SDM over again at St-Ulrich, which we know he has to do at some point because he's in all those episodes that happen in between :) will be June 14—the night of the day after the Battle of Freiburg...

--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 may have misread the big fight scene a bit, I thought she could always fly (much like Remilia) which was partly how she was able to consume the Neuroi to begin with? Did she actually just leap onto it (that'd be a well targeted leap)?

>Most interestingly to me, the night of the next full moon (and so
>Gryphon's next opportunity to go back to April and live his months at
>the SDM over again at St-Ulrich, which we know he has to do at some
>point because he's in all those episodes that happen in between :)
>will be June 14—the night of the day after the Battle of
>Freiburg...
>

So we the readership know it is a function of things being written out of order, but has in universe G always been a champion at keeping secrets and playing his cards close to his chest? I imagine he'd have to be to not miss a beat, or let anything slip, when realigning his personal timelines.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "I've missed you guys." "You just saw us this morning, are you sure you didn't hit your head in the crash?"

Nope, her wings didn't work before (except possibly to make her able to jump farther). She did, in fact, just run up and jump onto its back.

>So we the readership know it is a function of things being written out
>of order, but has in universe G always been a champion at keeping
>secrets and playing his cards close to his chest? I imagine he'd have
>to be to not miss a beat, or let anything slip, when realigning his
>personal timelines.

Not always, but this isn't his first rodeo, and he knows how important it is not to fuck it up when you're doing something as potentially hazardous as looping your timeline. (He and Sakuya will be discussing this soon, since he's going to need her help to do it and she is well aware that it's not filed under the canonical Good Ideas in the time traveler's handbook.)

--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 is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Three words: Don't do it.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Maybe four: Really, don't do it."

The Doctor ripped those pages out of his copy early in his first incarnation. Which does explain a lot about the Doctor, come to think of it.

Michael

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

I imagine that from her view it was a skill of sufficient importance that it focused her thoughts considerably.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Quite. Among other things, she knew she would inevitably approach the age where men like Van Zandt would be interested in more than just working her to death in a kitchen somewhere (and she knew that was his long-term plan—that's what he meant when he told Victor "it'll be years before I get value out of her"), and she was not on board with that, uh... career path change.

--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.

She wouldn't be the first character I've read about where someone expresses curiosity about "the culturally significant name given to any new landscape feature she creates" if some threat ever pushes her to her limits.

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

Only to find that her mother had left some sort of spell hanging years ago for this instance and some echo of the two of the manifests to look their daughter's beau over and give some degree of approval/disapproval/warning not to let one of their little girls down...

Fun fact: the first draft of the proposal scene did in fact take place before her parents' tomb, and was a much more formal affair, in which Remilia delivered the "you had better ask me to marry you" line as, "Under better circumstances, you would have to speak to my parents first... but this will have to do. Here before the tomb of my father and mother, ask me properly, and you shall have your answer."

(no ghosts, though.)

I liked the way the scene came out, except its stilted formality, while in character for part of Remilia's personality, didn't really match how I felt she would handle that particular moment. Jaymie suggested I switch it around so that the proposal itself was more intimate and personal, and Remilia indulged her fondness for dramatics with they way she informed the rest of the household of their betrothal instead. I tried it out, liked it, and that's what we went with.

We will probably see the elder Scarlets' monument somewhere in Book 2, under different circumstances (possibly something like you suggest, or maybe with Flandre, who wasn't really able to mourn them properly when they died). Fortunately, it isn't in the part of the grounds that was wrecked in Book 1.

--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.

---

"The food changed."

Gryphon blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again. What did you even say to that?

"That was how I knew, at the time," Flandre continued. "I heard noise, and shouting, and breaking things. And then the food changed. The scent of Maman was missing from the edge of the tray where she had held it. The white rose Papa would place by my food was gone. The food changed. And I remember how I felt.

"I felt indifferent. And then I felt irritated. Who was to see to my needs now? The staff? Honestly, it was just inconsiderate of them. I was too lost in my madness to even notice they were gone for months. And when I finally did... there was a candlewick's worth of regret, but the storm in my mind blew it out. And I forgot. The thing that I used to be, it took over, and only now it's gone can I..."

Gryphon moved closer but the tiny girl held out an arm. It shook. "I have to see them now. And, and I have to be here now, to... I don't know what I'm going to do. Be quiet here, I think. Be still. But be with them. That's why I brought you here, mon grand frère. They should know who's in their family now. And who came back."

Flandre sat down before the dark grey stone of the twin tombs. They weren't that big, but they still loomed over the girl. Gryphon saw her put down a little crystal vase in between them, a white rose inside.

"Stay with me, big brother?"

"Always," he said.

The vault wasn't silent. Old buildings never are. They don't know how to be. Still, the quiet that they shared went on for a long time as they sat beneath the little window above the tombs, weak moonlight falling through. There were clouds overhead, and the moonlight flickered and dimmed.

But it never quite faded.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I hope nobody minds, I was just inspired.

That's really lovely. May I use it? And if so, how would you like to be credited?

--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.

If you could credit me as Cassie Heath, I'd appreciate it very much. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

My mum told me that my Creative Writing MA was just a pissy little degree from a nowhere university. To my face. So you have no idea how validating this is.

Roger that, thanks very much!

--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.

... Also when you put the little pointy bracket in front of it, my emote looks like it's plotting something mischievous. Since I'm known elsewhere as Scapegrace I find that oddly fitting. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

Isn't amazing how utterly wrong people can be about things? Like your mum was here.

That was amazing.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

ISTR that your parents took medications away from you a bit ago that you described as “essential for mental health”, to which I can only state that your parents are the sorts a British friend of mine from younger days would describe as “right tossers, as long as by ‘right’ you mean the kinds who applauded Thatcher”.

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"