Indeed—although Sakuya has noticed that, under some conditions, Meiling seems to have a Somebody Else's Problem field. If she wants to, she can almost disappear, or at least escape notice, despite the fact that she ought to stand out like a sledgehammer in a rack of screwdrivers most of the time. It's similar to a trick she's seen the Chief pull more than once, and she wishes she could learn how to do it, although with The World she doesn't really need it.

>Though Remilia's ability to simply... take
>over a room, seemingly any room she is in, also feeds both into and
>from that. I'm actually impressed at the fellow manning the desk's
>ability to recover as well as he did.

Given his profession, training, and experience, the reaction he did pull was akin to a Tex Avery wild take from a normal person. He's the desk manager of a Grand Hotel—these guys are tank-bred with the genes for unflappability. :)

>>"But of course, Madame la Comtesse."
>>"Mademoiselle," Remilia corrected him.
>
>I'm mildly surprised that this correction is necessary as often as it
>seems to be, Remilia doesn't exactly look even a fraction of her age
>(surely not a day over 399, and I'm really glad she
>can't actually punish me for that joke) so I wonder is it just
>the title that leads to the assumption?

I think it's a combination of the title, her bearing, and the silver hair. The combination creates a cognitive conflict with the first impression that comes from her overall appearance, and people start second-guessing themselves.

>Also, is it just how I'm reading it, or does she enjoy, at least
>mildly, correcting people about this, possibly because of how soon
>that status is scheduled to change?

I don't think it's just you. :)

>>Then, the matter disposed of to her satisfaction, she went to the table in the
>>corner where the suite's telephone sat and picked it up, wondering if there
>>were anything she had to do besides that to get it to work.
>
>This threw me a little. Telephones were invented well after the SDM
>was shoved into its bubble, and I believe after Sakuya vanished,
>certainly they wouldn't have been well known until after that point at
>any rate. So how did remilia become familiar with them?

She's not familiar with them—hence not knowing what she had to do to use this one, which fortunately turned out to be "nothing"—but she's run across enough mentions of them in the more modern books Gryphon has brought to the house that she at least recognized what it was when she saw it.

>She's probably not likely to need to, unless she brought the lion's
>share of the Scarlet fortune with her to Paris (and even then.)

Oh no, not even slightly. There are boxes and boxes of old coins and whatnot in the basement. Many of the coins are older than that, but she picked ones from the last 50 years or so before That Night in hopes of not shocking collectors too badly or causing too much of a ruckus, as, for instance, if Sakuya had turned up at an antiquarian coin dealer's shop with a handful of 13th-century Strasbourgeois kreuzer (which would have been the currency of choice in the Colmar region when her father first moved there in the early 1200s).

>Remilia may not fully understand money, but clearly she knows when she
>has Beyond Enough of it.

Well, unless you're someplace that's experiencing catastrophic hyperinflation (like, say, Weimar Germany), an entire suitcase stuffed full of cash suggests certain things about one's available wealth. :)

>Also, the Neuroi are noted to take iron, did they go after other
>metals like gold? If so, destabilized or not, the collector's market
>is going to be ecstatic at that treasure trove appearing.

They didn't, only iron (investigators are divided on whether they use it for fuel or building material), but so many people assumed they would and buried coins and bullion before fleeing the occupied areas that folks will be finding buried treasure scattered around the countryside for decades. Those coin dealers Sakuya sold the louis to probably assume they came from such a find.

>So others have commented on the setup line here, and I had the same
>thoughts, but I thought it noteworthy that Shizuka could receive that,
>including the darker undertone, interpret it correctly, and then
>respond not that G was insane or somesuch, or that the 501st wouldn't
>want to take part in overthrowing a duly constituted allied
>government, but just that they might not be able to squeeze it into
>their schedule.

Shizuka gets him pretty well—well enough to know that he wasn't entirely kidding, but also that it would have been his absolute last resort, in part because it would be extremely hard to sell to the rest of the crew. (And although he said "we", he really reckons he'd have to do it alone.)

And really, he's exaggerating somewhat, and they both know it. He wouldn't have to topple the Fourth Republic, only its present government, which would be trivially easy by comparison.

"Don't you think he looks tired?"

>>"Mnnn... you beast," she mumbled, and then, blushing in her sleep, "... the
>>kitchen? control yourself..."
>
>And so we have proof that 'you beast' is Remilia code for 'keep
>going', but I am especially impressed by Sakuya's ability to maintain
>her composure through this scene. Forget an iron will, that an
>adamantium will in action right there.

It wouldn't have done to disturb the young mistress. :)

>On the topic of people with wills made out of exotic, durable metals
>Madame de Moret is clearly no slouch in that department either. I
>wonder if she was chosen for the assignment based on that trait?

Not specifically, but you don't get to be where she is in her career without being pretty tough-minded. Also, sike many of the female personnel of the Seventh Bureau, she's a retired witch, albeit not a combat veteran (her career fell in between the wars).

>This makes me look forward to Flandre crossing paths with the rather
>large number of musicians either in or somehow attached to the Greater
>Gryphon Clan one day.

You're not alone!

>Flandre acquires her first admirer from the outside world. At least
>this is all pre-paparazzi, pretty sure a few folks would end up eating
>their cameras after a while in that situation.

Indeed, attempts at photography are going to be pretty futile before the invention of charged coupled devices, unless someone has invented a photographic process that involves some magical medium rather than silver halides.

>Julien is fortunate they not only want him to keep and finish the
>portrait of Flandre, but produce more, because otherwise his
>compatriots would assume he'd swapped out wine for full potency
>absinthe if he told them about his night.

They might anyway, until and unless one or more of them happens to meet his new clients. :)

--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.