"I think so too."

"Jaromira and I do something at least tangentially similar--using mental models of each other to cover areas where the other is more skilled--but I'm not sure how similar." 

"I don't really use my model of Xander for any practical purpose. It cannot help me dance."

"No, that wouldn't work as well. My model of Jaromira mostly makes me more polite to people I don't enjoy interacting with."

"Oh, I have my own homemade subroutine for that, it's called 'overt expressions of diplomatic deference actually mean contempt, I'm owning this idiot so hard'."

She laughs. "Beautiful." 

"Thank you!"

"I try not to build habits of contempt, though; the set of people I endorse expressing contempt towards is much smaller than the set of people I am natively disinclined to be polite to."

"I don't do this with, like, peers. I do it if the principal is being a jerk, I start calling him 'sir'."

"When I start wanting to sass authority figures I usually start sprinkling my speech with 'with all due respect.' Because the respect they are due is none." 

"Cute."

"Conveniently, it also works unironically if I say it to someone I do respect. Mind, I don't think I've ever 'sirred' somebody unironically in my life, either."

"In the 'fun with literal meaning' category there's 'I apologize'."

"That one's good too. Occasionally I take advantage of my naturally overwrought diction to tell someone something explicitly disrespectful to their face in terms they won't successfully parse and a tone that doesn't tip them off, but only if I'm very certain or reasonably indifferent to the consequences of failure."

"You do have fairly overwrought diction. Are there actually a lot of people who won't understand it?"

"Not usually, but how overwrought it is varies, and the high end can get moderately incomprehensible. Speaking like this is genuinely easier for me, in the long run--it makes me think about what I say, in a way that prevents me from saying things I would regret. I used to have problems with that, as a small child."

"Awwww."

"Also, I have developed an aesthetic preference for it. I consider myself quite fortunate that magic seems to only have visual and not audio aesthetic preferences." 

"You missed Faith's presentation on that last year! It does care about audio but much, much less. Coast Paladin helicopters have sound systems. Did you never see their documentary?"

"No, I--I didn't do much research on magical girls between Mother's death and becoming one."

"Was your mom a magical girl?"

"No, if she were I wouldn't have dropped it. But when I was a little girl I used to play make-believe that I was one, and draw pictures, and do research, and Mother always encouraged me. But between when she died and when Father remarried, we had a nanny, and when I told her that when I was going to be a magical girl when I grew up she told me the statistics, and when I pointed out that it runs in families she told me that a great-grandmother's sister wasn't a close enough relation to make my chances high enough to be worth counting on."

"My great aunt is one but we're not really close."

"My great-grandmother and her sister both died before I was born, I only know about her because my mother told me."

Nod. "I always wanted magic but didn't really expect it."