------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

That's been the hardest part of returning TFLF from hiatus, actually - keeping that balance. When we realized that shit was going to get really real for a lot of the "main cast" just before the girls' summer vacation began, and thus before they would have a chance to do most of the cool stuff that their association with members of that cast implies, it became obvious that we couldn't just ignore what was going on outside Sakuragaoka - it would be too obviously weird, and it would be ducking a challenge just for fear of tackling it, in a way.

On the other hand, there was justifiable concern when Corwin's letter to Mio came out that the Real World was about to drop some pretty serious brutality on these poor kids, which had the potential to be both a massive buzzkill and take them into territory that it wouldn't be any good to watch them try to navigate. Splitting that difference has taken a lot of careful thought.

We can't really avoid it becoming a maturing experience (of a kind that they never really had in the canon, as it happens), but what we're hoping is that we can make it one that keeps them who they are. The alternative is to do like Rex Stout did in the Nero Wolfe novels, wherein Archie, Wolfe, and the rest of the core cast never age or change even as the setting they inhabits advances from the early 1930s to the early 1970s.

As it happens, Kakifly more or less did that in the K-On! manga - even in the extension where the Original Four go off to college, they're pretty much exactly the same as they were as freshmen in high school, apart from being better at music. I've been accused of a similar thing in my own time (I'd say it's number three on the common accusations list, after "your future is the 1950s with better production values" and "your villains are all Snidley Whiplash"), and not always without justification, but here, we're trying for something more complex. Time will tell if we succeed.

>So yea, really looking forward to the next piece; can't wait to see
>the girls of HTT work their magic with a purpose.

So are we! If I say myself, I'm pretty sure it's going to be awesome. :)

--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, from what has occurred so far, and in my own (admittedly slightly biased, but I think still relevant) opinion, you're doing pretty damn well.

>>So yea, really looking forward to the next piece; can't wait to see
>>the girls of HTT work their magic with a purpose.
>
>So are we! If I say myself, I'm pretty sure it's going to be awesome.
>:)

You can't see it? But if you strain yourself you might hear the sound of me shivering in anticipation :)

-Droken

I'm personally still loving the band name debate. Orangebender!

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Orangebender. :)

Other candidates they didn't get to before the scene faded out include:

- Severe Tire Damage
- D Term (n.b. Sato Academy only has three terms per year)
- The Stormbirds
- Love Machine (Jun thinks if they're going to do this one they should go all the way and make it "Love ♡ Love Machine")
and, of course,
- The Daughters of the Republican Revolution

--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.

Better than some of the band names that have gone into Rock Band or Guitar Hero over the years.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

Senken no Chaffinches.

Iunno, the thought amused me, is all. =]

---
"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.

Heh, no weirder than the actual pull-three-words-out-of-a-hat names of half of the anime and manga titles out there. ;)

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

The other day I was in the bookstore in Bangor, and noticed a manga volume with a title something to the effect of, Basically, I Blame You That My Life Isn't Working Out the Way I Wanted. Which is an arrestingly specific summary, but kind of unwieldy. :)

(And another called Is This a Zombie?, which just makes me think it's a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies-style pastiche of Mein Kampf where Hitler's experiences as a twentysomething tramp in Vienna cause him to develop into a zombie hunter instead of a raving anti-Semite. Which is almost certainly NOT what it is, but I prefer to think so.)

--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.

Is It Wrong To Try And Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?

(Actually, both of those are pretty good.)

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."

Dunno, probably. I didn't investigate that closely.

--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 dunno, would Yui fight that dirty? I suppose if enough was on the line she would. I'm pretty sure either of the Hirasawa sisters would kill to protect the other if the danger was great enough.

... I don't need to know these things, but I consider them anyway as part of the process.

--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.

On the one hand, K-on girls slinging elemental stuff and fruit around!
On the other hand, K-on girls FIGHTING... hhngh.

Believe me, I know exactly what you're talking about. We're putting a lot of thought into just how these girls' world can and should be allowed to intersect with the one where stuff like Taken by Storm happens, and how any such intersection should be presented.

One thing that may be a comfort is that I love K-On! and including it in UF is not an act of revenge ficcery - that is to say, they're not here to be abused. (I don't do that kind of thing very often and haven't at all, as far as I can recall, for quite a long time now.) That isn't to promise that the story may not, at some point, require it - I often find I have to do things I don't really want to do in order to make the machine work - but we're gonna try like hell to avoid damage, and, in the event it becomes unavoidable, to minimize scarring.

Oh dear. That wasn't as reassuring as I was hoping it would be. That's kind of the price of being up-front about these things, I suppose. At any rate, I can't see a day like that even threatening to come for quite a while in the overall scheme of things, so it's not something any of us has to worry about right now, and I promise that if it does, it won't be undertaken carelessly.

--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.

It was better than you think.

If I understand it correctly, it's not your intent to break the characters, like a toddler with a new toy might do. You're intent on making sure that if they face something that could break them, they will be strong enough to handle that.

HTT has a long walk to get there, and they aren't planning on taking that trip in the first place.

(This makes me think of a discarded project you once mentioned where you had self-inserts on the outskirts of Bubblegum Crisis. Your SI characters weren't fighting Buma, and had no intent of doing so.)

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I feel as if it's going to be interesting to see what you do BECAUSE these two entirely differently toned 'worlds' are going to be grinding up against one another, and that it's a massive challenge I'm proud of you for undergoing.

Bonus points if Kamen Rider Gaim shows up....

Thank you. I thought it would be important to give the running joke a slightly firmer foundation than it has in the source, without getting too greyfaced about it, and that seemed like the suitably whimsical answer - though it still has a serious undertone, in that it still strongly implies the level of trust the Hirasawas have in their daughters (Ui to run the household in their absence, and Yui not to make that job too onerous).

(It also implies that Yui and Ui have dual United Republic/Air Commonwealth citizenship, which means they're eligible for AC passports - which would be quite handy when the time comes for HTT's first world tour! :)

>Nomad Air, Huh? from the sound of Yui's dad, their a lot better than these guys

Indeed, Nomad Air - the Air Commonwealth's national airline and flag carrier - is one of the most highly respected airlines in Dìqiú - neck-and-neck with the Republic's poshest airline, Western Imperial Airways, in most passenger satisfaction surveys. (Next to Western Imperial, the Republic's flag carrier, imaginatively named United Republic Airlines, is widely regarded as B-list, though not in a risky or shady way; it's just not as nice.)

--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.

"Five sky bison of five for timeliness and efficiency, four of five for comfort of seating, three of five for the in-flight meal. Next time I'm not having the fish."

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Oh, heh, that reminds me, I should probably clarify: Nomad Air uses actual airliners, they don't ferry giant groups of paying customers around alfresco on sky bison (although that is probably a popular tourism service, like those helicopter and/or blimp flights that you can get in some cities). Early in the history of Dìqiú aviation (shortly after the canon), a subculture of Air Commonwealth citizens with an interest in muggle flight technology developed, and they and various foreign friends and suppliers (not least the great Asami Sato, who is almost always referred to by all four words in the 3rd century :) didn't take long to determine that Air Nomads' instincts for three-dimensional movement and aerodynamics made them well-suited to operate conventional aircraft as well as those powered by airbending. The airline was formally established in 202 ASC, in part by a few prominent veterans of the Project Phoenix Flight support organization.

Little history lesson for the day.

--G.
Speaking of Phoenix Flight, I know you guys haven't heard much about CTCS lately, but don't fret - the text is largely in place, now we're working on the "making the whole package awesome" part, in amongst all the other stuff we're cooking up at the same time. Project not, I repeat, in no way abandoned. :)
-><-
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 figured as much. I just went for the voice of a slightly-too-cute reviewer.

As for the fish, it wasn't as bad as this. On the other hand, Zucker/Abrams/Zucker wasn't there.

>Speaking of Phoenix Flight, I know you guys haven't heard much
>about CTCS lately...

I'd actually forgotten about that, what with OWAW 15, Taken By Storm, and TFLF 9 coming out. Apparently I am easily distracted by shiny...oh, look, a butterfly.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Yeah, Ritsu's a firebender; Azalynn mentioned it in her scouting report back before the series started. I mean, look at her eyes...

--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'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.

"Rits-chan, where's the school bully?"
"Let me answer your question with a question: how's your hamburger?"

--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 fact that I'm a disgusting, obnoxious bitch has absolutely nothing to do with it.

---
"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.

>Or possibly "I will kill again".

"I once told someone who had a dog in a hotel next to where I was staying, that kept barking at 5 o'clock in the morning, I got up and then hadn't planned - this is always the problem, if you don't plan what you're going to say, it all goes wrong. I got up and then thought, God, I don't know what I'm going to say, so I went, 'I've killed... before!' And then went back and my wife was saying, 'What have you killed before?'"

- Jeremy Clarkson discussing the futility of being both angry and English with Hugh Grant, Top Gear series 9, episode 2 (February 4, 2007)

--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.

They look brown to me. I mean, my eyes are about that color, and I only set things on fire through careful planning, solid alibis, and chemical accelerants.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

After looking at some images for comparison, I'd go with "golden-brown, a few shades different from Azula's eyes."

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Well, as is customary with the royal family, everything goes to 11.

--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.

Or up to 16-1139, as the case may be.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."