[FFML] [Mai Hime, Future] Unexpected Visitor

[Bert Miller]

Yay! More! More!

John Biles wrote:
> Crystal's Story, Part One:
>
> I
> have no big romantic delusions about sex, but I also want to avoid being
> pregnant.
Abnormal enough for a sixteen-year-old, I would think, to be indicative 
of having actually
listened to adult advice.

>     Around the middle of song three, it finally hit me.  It looked just like
> Aunt Nao.
Heh. Skinny redhead, seducing a man... yep, must be Nao.

> Miyu and Alyssa went to
> see some stupid foreign film about math.  The very idea made me ill,
Heh. Nice characterization touches there, on all sides.

>     "She and Kazuya were first loves.  REALLY SAPPY AND STOMACH CURDLING
> first loves."  Aunt Nao made funny faces as she said, "Oh, my little
> wuvi-lumpkins, I lurve you sooooo much."  Then she kissed one of my stuffed
> bears.
>   
These lines made me laugh out loud the first couple of times through.

>     When I was little, she got me in trouble sometimes as she tended to
> encourage me to be naughty and break the rules.  Then Mom would yell at both
> of us.  When she babysat me, we'd watch late night TV, eat up the ice cream
> and not put away the toys.  Mom would go crazy, then Aunt Nao would tease
> her about something and she'd just laugh and make Aunt Nao help me pick up
> my toys.
>   
Again, very nice bit. Nao, in the anime, seems to like coming across to 
everyone
else as a bad girl, but isn't actually so bad as all that. And maybe not 
as bad as
she herself thinks she is. Still, her overcompensatory lifestyle (nun, 
combatting
supernatural evil) while never thinking much about her own happiness smacks
of someone perhaps told too often as a child that she'd been, or was, 
bad, to
the point where she believed it.

>     "Love can make us angels but it can make us monsters too," Aunt Nao
> said, finishing her tea, then staring at her noodles.  "Love can make you do
> terrible, horrible things.  Things you will regret for the rest of your
> life."
>   
Interesting to have Nao say this, given that she doesn't do all that 
awful much during the Festival
for love (as opposed to revenge for her eye). She's actually talking 
about Shizuru here.

>     "I'm a Journalism teacher at Rosewood,
Heh. Specializing in how and why newspapers get censored, perhaps? Chie 
would
certainly have some interesting things to say about newspaper coverage, 
or lack
thereof, during a certain bridge destruction and private army invasion.

> longer."  She stared out the window for a moment; I glanced, but didn't see
> anything.
>
>     Chie glanced over without turning her head to look outside the
> restaurant.  "Is something wrong?" she asked very softly.
>   
Now, this bit suggests that Chie is very well aware that she's on the 
outside, and Nao on the
inside, of a major secret, and that Chie has also made the conscious 
decision that some
things weren't meant for her to know (or expose). Which is about what 
I'd expect of her;
Chie is too smart about the right things to be as oblivious as she's 
portrayed in the
first part of "A Dream of Flight".

>     "Wild woman, got in knife fights all the time, seduced men right and
> left, then broke their hearts," Chie said.
>
>     No way that was true.
>
>     Right???
>   
Heh. I liked this. To the adults, of course, Chie's remark is just 
funny, but Crystal isn't
able to dismiss its possible truth quite so easily.

>     "You didn't see Aunt Haruka's imaginary ice cream thief, did you?" I
> teased her.
>   
Bingo!

>  and I don't know what
> Yukariko's up to.  Probably kicking her husband's ass,"
Which reminds me: shouldn't your five sixteen-year-olds have a twenty-three
year old 'cousin'? If not, whatever happened to Yukariko's pregnancy at the
end of the series?

>     "Neither will I," she said.  "But we're not stupid enough to fall for
> his tricks again."
The teenagers, on the other hand...

> illusions.  I suddenly wondered if I WANTED to know.  Could I even face
> knowing what I could have become?  If I would have been something better...
>   
She's a nun who fights supernatural evil for a living, and is considered 
'kind' by her
unrelated protectees. How much better can you get?

And it's not like people don't tell her this; in this story alone, a 
number of
people tell her. Nao just can't hear it.

>     "I think he may suspect something, but he seems to me more likely to try
> to figure it out than to leave over it," Natsuki said, now looking up.  "It
> intrigues him."
>   
Bingo. And, of course, in 'A Dream of Flight' he begins to find out...

>     "Interesting," I told her.  Probably best to make sure he's not in the
> Order's archives...
>   
...which raises the question: why isn't he?

>     "I don't know what he'll think if he does find out," Natsuki said.  "Not
> everyone can handle something like this as well as Tate does."  She sounded
> a little jealous.
>   
Yeah, well, once everyone else finds out, we'll see how well Tate 
handles the sight of a man
who CAN help fight the supernatural. Roger has the potential to pose a 
real problem for Tate.

>     Way to totally evade, I thought.  "They fuck regularly?"
>
>     "He tries his best," Yukino said calmly.
>
>     That actually made me feel better; it was so nice and subtly vicious.
>   
Heh.

>     Midori and her hubby were the first to arrive.
So far, you've avoided applying a name to Midori's professor, but he has 
a last name in
the anime: Sasaki.

> and Mai kept taking as many turns as possible.
>   
Heh. Of course.

>     "You are a better person than I," Shizuru mumbled in my direction,
> trying to figure out how to stand up.
>   
Given that she's a peace activist, I guess Shizuru has some of the same 
issues as Nao.

>
>     We were practicing in the yard behind my dorm as we did a lot of nights,
>   
What do all the other kids at this school think of these five, by the way?

>     "The world is dangerous.  I estimate a 90% chance you will not live to
> see thirty if you do not begin some proper training," Aunt Miyu said to
> Kasumi, who stared, eyes wide.
>   
Heh. Very Miyu. But I note Kasumi seems to have taken the sentiment to 
heart as of ADOF.

>     "You're not talking about...ummm....Masakuri Hayao?" Kasumi finished
> weakly.
>
>     "He...I mean...I knew Crystal liked him and...ummm..."  Kasumi shuffled
> on her feet.
>
>     I slapped my forehead.  "Did you come to ask if I minded if you asked
> him out?"
>   
Heh. Nice plot development.

>     "He asked me out, but I knew you liked him enough to go to dangerous
> trashy parties half-naked to impress him...I mean...ahaha..."
Heh. Kasumi is so honest about her opinion here!


I'm really enjoying these stories (and also really, really impressed at 
the rate you're
writing them). Keep up the good work!