[beta] DSKSWDYHMS? - Chapter 1

[Black Aeronaut]

paladindythe said:

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"Sho ga nai," he said, smiling.

After a quick Google search, I came up with "It can't be helped." I think I'm missing some subtext here, regarding this
phrase...

It's pretty much a Japanese catch-all phrase used to indicate any situation where certain matters can't be helped. It became very popular
to use that phrase, or it's more formal form, Shikata nai, during the American occupation of Japan. This was a very difficult time for the Japanese to
endure, in some ways worse than the war itself, and rather than the Japanese, as a whole people (with some exceptions), wind up cursing the Americans they
expressed their infamous fatalism by simply accepting it all as a situation that couldn't be helped.

Rei is hungry. Zeke knows it and she just brought some food as a gift to thank him for his good deed. It really can't be helped that he must extend some
hospitality in return.

ordnance11 said:

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Not the last of the old...but the first of the new?....I keep seeing him wielding a lightsaber sooner or later. *grin*

*snrt* Maybe if I get enough popular demand for some beam-saber action, I'll apply it as a reasonable Rule of Cool trope.

And 'First Of The New' is part of what I'm going for here, yes. Like Anything Goes school of martial arts meets Steamboy in the realms of Niel
Gaiman's New Gods.

robkelk said:

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The most prominent figure in my family is Agatha Rachel Steam

Let me guess - a slightly-shorter-than-average blonde middle-European who wore glasses?

It's a good enough template.

What's more is that I can say that she got her maniacal streak from her grandmother, Scarlet O'Hare-Steam (who always seemed to be on a power-trip,
even after her humbling experience at the London Exhibition where the Queen narrowly avoided being killed). My, what a sordid family history!

robkelk said:

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Bob Schroeck said:

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However... "Artemus" is a character from Wild Wild West -- you want "Artemis" here.

Considering that Mr. Gordon was something of a clockpunk engineer himself, the confusion in the context is understandable. (I just finished
watching all four boxsets of WWW last weekend. Go figure...)

Gah! That's a spelling error I always seem to make for some reason.