Eh, I don't know if it's worth being intimidated. I mean, yeah, I'll technically be 41 in a couple of weeks, but psychologically I'm not sure I made it out of high school. :)

>I don't know, it seems to be dragging, a bit?

Well... hmm.

I see what you're saying, and it is a bit of a large digression, but on the other hand, that's kind of the risk one takes when developing what amounts to downtime for action-oriented characters. There was a similar sort of thing during Symphony No. 1 - in the studio, we used to joke darkly and fatalistically about the "entr'acte deathmarch" between the Fifth and Sixth Movements, as all the different threads of the First Symphony's plot branched and then came back together again, and each one had to be followed to its logical conclusion before we could get on with the larger story arc.

Since Try, Try Again, the Dìqiú Suite has developed organically into a similar sort of thing (albeit one concentrated on a single thread), and I've had my concerns that it mightn't be for everyone, source fluency or no. The forum community at large hasn't seen most of it, but there's been a bit of agonizing behind the scenes about just how far down the rabbit hole we really wanted to go with it.

But, on the other hand, this is what's happening in this important character group's lives right now, and it'll be necessary that we know it's happened later on... so, as with the various branches in the middle of S1, we have little choice but to follow where it leads until it comes back to the main road. So while I acknowledge that it's a diversion, I can only insist that it's an important one, and ask that those who are finding it a bit tangential to bear with us a while longer. (I actually have a couple of looks at other corners of the Symphony "world" during the same timeframe in the works, which are also digressions in a way, but at least they'll be a change of pace, and, as with the middle of S1, it'll all come back together. :)

I'm pleased that you're finding it enjoyable even if you're a little puzzled about where it's heading, though. That's kind of the second-best outcome, when you've confused the readers but they're hanging in to see where you're headed anyway.

>I do, however, greatly appreciate what the suite in general, and this
>movement in particular, have done for my appreciation of Anthy. Before
>the continuation of the Symphony last summer, something about her
>struck me as ... off, somehow.

Heh, Anthy can be a tricky one to read, both in- and out-of-story, because she's very different from a lot of the characters around her, particularly right now. Many of the central cast members surrounding her are open books, real hearts-on-their-sleeves type (including Korra, even though she rarely wears sleeves), and Anthy... isn't. Her self-contained affect can make her seem a bit sinister by comparison to those around her, and her modern tendency toward an air of quiet mischief doesn't help. She seems like she's up to something, and she very often is up to something, but one can't tell what from the outside.

--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.