Physical controls were a primary reason I went with a 2023 Mazda 3. I didn’t want a touch screen as the primary input device. The rotary dials for menus and volume have been great. I find the screen is just in a better position too; it doesn’t need to be within reach so it just blends into the dash better and is at an easier angle to see.

Before I updated my car I used the headphone jack regularly for playing music there. Otherwise it was relegated to a couple situations a year like air travel.

Now that I’ve got a newer vehicle I just have all my music on USB there.

If it’s wind based then maybe that doesn’t count as direct elemental impact? It’s not directly acting on the knife?

We don’t know where the sovereign knight commander is, so there may some threat there - and maybe that’s in the sovereignty or academy?

Time for dinner and gathering permission slips from the knights. Love seeing Rozemyne’s entourage get their assignments and some strong words of support from everyone.

Ah right, that was mentioned. Maybe this will give her a chance to leave the estate and join the discussion despite the infant?

Feels like the volume should end with meeting Duneklfelger at the country gate. It’d make a good epilogue to have it be from someone else’s perspective, like Hannelore maybe.

Going to be quite the change of pace if the short stories circle back to earlier parts of the volume. There’s tons of space available for content while Rozemyne was absent, but it just feels like it would disrupt the tone.

I was thinking we were going to delay the majority of the conflict until next volume, and starting off this set of chapters with the baptism really made me think that was going to be the case.

Of course I forgot this is bookworm, so of course we can’t just execute an invasion - we need meetings and a phone call and a meeting to figure out a noble justification! There’s plenty of ways to fill up the volume that don’t involve actual conflict.

Seems like there’s not much room left in this book for anything major, so maybe just a preliminary scare - like a scout for Georgine getting caught at a gate? Or maybe we get into things and it leaves off on a cliffhanger? Maybe there will be additional side stories this volume since there’s plenty of space to cover with the time skip.

I have to imagine we’re going to focus on defending the temple the rest of this volume, but maybe there’ll be an opportunity to have her meeting with the merchants before everything goes crazy.

Surely we’re going towards a Copy/Place merging of Rozemyne and Ferdinand’s two partial books now.

Had another thought as I reread the part. Now that Rozemyne has acquired the (partial) book before being adopted there’s no explicit need to get access to the archive. It’s probably still valuable to align her interests and make working with her easier for the royals, but it’s not a hard requirement now.

To me it sounds like previous Zents have made physical transcriptions of important bits and that’s what would be locked up. Or at least some kind of tool that provides access to the knowledge even if it isn’t specifically in a written form.

There have been notes about the book being passed between generations too if I recall, which based on our description this week could be as straightforward as the feystone of a dead Zent.

Pretty quiet week. Getting all the formalities out of the way it would seem.

It’s entirely possible that Letizia getting to meet was something Leonzio suggested to Detlinde.

As for Georgine I have to imagine she’s cunning enough to manipulate Detlinde some times, but based on what we’ve seen Detlinde is more guided than controlled. There’s probably plenty that she’s done beyond what Georgine might have wanted.

Probably just good politics as a contingency plan. If Letizia is known to be in line for the Aub position in Ahrensbach then it’d be valuable for them to be on good terms with her. Detlinde being so… incompetent… is useful for manipulating her, but there’s always the risk she gets executed and Lanzenave would lose any position they had if they had all their eggs in that basket.

Ferdinand has been spoiled by Rozemyne’s culinary inventions where everything is edible and not just rock candy.

Looks like we’re in for a good volume. We’ve already set the expectation of something substantial happening at this dedication ritual and having Wilfried and Charlotte lead their respective rituals is a great way to get Rozemyne out of having to do multiple and highlight that hers is the only one where something crazy will happen rather than just a side effect of the ceremony itself.

Not sure when we’ll get time with Hirschur, she clearly is raring to go, but that’ll probably have to be after the start of term and I’d have thought the rituals would be completed first- which presumably would derail any free time Rozemyne has to deal with her.

Less engagement is exactly what I would want. Show me my new chronological content and then I’ll get the hell out of there.