something strange and wondrous - All kinds of crazy stuff happened in the wake of the Harmonic Convergence of 171; the Airbender Proliferation was just one item on the list.

a range of different types - Each type of bending can be used to propel a naval projectile, but the different methods require different hardware; there's also a model for nonbender gun crews.

didn't have a father of record - A career-minded single woman bearing and raising a child alone on purpose was a pretty startling and radical thing when the Sato women started doing it; even in the late third century it's considered pretty progressive.

unlike Nature Priestess - It's cute how Utena still pretends she believes that's the real reason Anthy shied away from all the technological solutions.

Seriously?! - This is one of my favorite little Anthy moments (along with the facepalm following it), if only because it's so rare and pleasing for her to have a complete record-scratch moment that way.

What do you care what other people think? - The title of Richard Feynman's second memoir, based on a catchphrase he and his first wife, Arline, used throughout their relationship.

steal his clothes, etc. - You thought the button-up shirt she's wearing for a jacket in Avatar at Work was hers? (Well... I suppose it is now.)

now you try - Though the operative word is not explicitly spoken, this is a dare and both parties know it. As such, there's only one available response.

that wasn't a yes-or-no question - Corwin's response is one of the canonical "equivocal" answers given by a Magic Eight-Ball, which is optimized for Boolean queries. (It's worth noting that by "try again", he meant the question, as that is what the Eight-Ball means when it says that. Everyone else's interpretation would require Corwin to be much smoother, and much less flat-footed, and much less planar-travel-lagged, than he is.)

Rei - Yes, of course Inspector Imanishi's secretary is called that solely to facilitate the Ghostbusters quote.

token firebender - RCPD inside joke, dating back to the days when they were virtually all metalbenders... and Mako.

flicked an ancient switch - Studies have shown that the sound of babies in severe distress actually does this. Don't ask me how the people conducting the experiment got them to play along; there are many things about the study of psychology I would rather not know.

What's Nall got to do with it? - What's Nall but a secondhand - ... no.

Yolvahlok! - Adapted from the "Call Dragon" Shout in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, by which the player character can summon a dragon at will by Shouting his Name. (Convergently, the summoned dragon's Name, and thus the in-game Shout, is "Odahviing", which is Nall's Name in UF.)

Angstberg - I think my favorite thing about Garnet's inexplicable use of German to taunt Nall in this scene is that she's doing it correctly. "Angstberg" really is German for "Mount Anxiety".

Freiherr von Arschgesicht - "Baron of Assface". Much less comical and more insulting in German than the translation might imply.

modified police armor - Similar to her Equalist Task Force uniform from Book 1, but with more modern sensibilities. In the third century, her "working with the cops" armor is Water Tribe dark blue to set her apart visually from the tinheads, and she doesn't wear a badge, because she's not a sworn member of the police force and thus not entitled to one.

glider-staff - Korra's glider is of the "Mechanist" type, like the one made for Aang in the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. She actually owns Aang's original (it turns up in the third season of The Legend of Korra), but by 291 ASC it's nearly 200 years old and she's long since retired it from active duty. The one she's using here is of relatively recent construction.

more like what I remember - Ikki was a mightily loud child, capable of summoning her father from up to two miles away.

expecting her to slap him - In the original draft of this scene, she did, but then I realized that she's come beyond the fantasy-princess slap-in-the-face (even if it was going to be hard enough to knock him down). She's been studying ba gua; the obvious thing was for her to throw him instead.

jarta mín - Asgardian Norse: "heart of mine". Can be used as an endearment for a lover or, as here, one's offspring. Compare Irish Gaelic a chuisle mo chroí ("O pulse of my heart").

chillin' with his daughter - Dad Achievement Unlocked: Adjustable Priorities.

pleasantly scented - Utena doesn't wear perfume, but she naturally smells good, and faintly of roses - it's a Rose Prince thing.

oh, you have one - I love Garnet. I just do.

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good - "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", first recorded by Nina Simone in 1964, but the version Utena's quoting Gryphon quoting is the 1965 cover by Eric Burdon & the Animals.

Baby, sometimes I'm so carefree
With a joy that's hard to hide
And sometimes it seems that all I have to do is worry
And then you're bound to see my other side
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord! Please don't let me be misunderstood

spontaneous firebending manifestations - Spontaneous bending manifestations are very rare in the third century, but they do occasionally happen. Most students of the phenomenon believe that the people they happen to have really been benders all along, but their talents have lain latent in them for various reasons, until unlocked by extraordinary stimuli, like Korra's own airbending ability.

Ran and Shaw - As seen in the ATLA episode "The Firebending Masters".

cha siu bao - Barbecue pork buns.

dou sha bao - Red bean buns. Sweet!

the vacuum hammer - One can achieve mastery of airbending by advancing through all 36 levels of the training or inventing a new technique. (Aang, in fact, was only level 35, but got his arrow for inventing the air scooter.) It appears Nyima did both. The "vacuum hammer" is a technique that uses sudden, radical air pressure differentials to inflict specifically targeted point loads on objects (more precise than just "blowing things over with a big wind", which is not exactly a new trick).

only six tracks - For those familiar with K-On! and/or curious, the six tracks on the Hōkago Tea Time demo disc Korra has here are:

1. "Gohan wa Okazu" ("Rice Is a Side Dish")
2. "Don't Say 'Lazy'"
3. "Fude Pen ~ Ball Pen" ("Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen")
4. "Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss" ("My Love Is a Stapler")
5. "Sakuragaoka Joshi Kōtō Gakkō Kōka" ("Sakuragaoka Girls' High School Anthem")
6. "Fuwa Fuwa Time" ("Fluffy Time")

The demo was recorded in early March, just before the end of the four founders' freshman year, and so before Azusa joined.

my old guitar - Korra's guitar is a Fender Zipang Classic Reissue Stratocaster, circa 2325, which Asami bought for her in a music shop in Saikyō during one of the first fully planned excursions across the Veil. Its original finish was Fender's classic Three-Tone Sunburst, but the custom color Asami had it painted later became available as a factory finish. Customers outside Dìqiú presumably assume that it's called "Avatar Blue" out of simple whimsy.

I haven't played since... almost 50 years - In other words, she put her guitar away when Asami died.

10GIÄ - The music shop of choice for the Light Music Club in K-On!, which is evidently a reference to a real-life Japanese music shop chain called "Jeugia" (the logos are in the same font and color). The Republic City store is a branch; the company's headquarters and main store are in Sakuragaoka. The 10GIÄ chain is part of the Kotobuki Group.

Dallas - A cameo character based on a real person: Dallas Seger, the guitar repairman at Northern Kingdom Music, who saved my mother's Giannini classical guitar after someone fitted the wrong strings to it.

a couple hours - In real life, a guitar needing such extensive repairs could reasonably expect to be in the shop for at least a week, but this is fictionland and we've got stuff we have to get done, so... :)

it's a lot easier to get a message - Yes, this means Corwin basically had to go out on the porch because he couldn't get a decent cell signal from inside the house.

Utena's meeting with Queen Hippolyta - We saw the tail end of this meeting from another angle at the end of Special Assignment #78, "The Antianeira Incident".

Kai, ra'wI' sutai-O'Brien. NuqneH. - Klingonese: "Hail, Commander of-the-honored-line O'Brien. What do you want?"

the new KDF uniform - One of the alternate uniform styles available to Klingon officers in Star Trek Online.

Karn - Lieutenant Karn dresses like a TOS Klingon because he is a TOS Klingon. He lost an argument with a Weird Alien Artifact. Occupational hazard of the 22nd-century KDF.

The Science Gorn - Just what it says on the tin. Also sporting the new KDF uniform.

the dramatic story - We'll find out what Utena learned in Technical Difficulties.

Qapla', ra'wI' sutai-O'Brien - "Success, Commander O'Brien."

noDwI' - jol yIchu'! - "Retaliator - activate beam!"

its busy schedule - As one of the IPO Headquarters Transport Squadron's small force of spacefold-capable courier ships, the Blink Dog racks up a terrifying amount of mileage in an average day, calculated strictly on the basis of the distances between her various destinations as opposed to how far she's actually going.

Utena appeared out of nowhere - My old City of Heroes peeps may recognize the distinctive stylings of that old standby, Recall Friend. IIRC, Recall Friend didn't actually work across zone boundaries, but then again, I doubt B6 and Dìqiú are even on the same server, so...