League of Superheroes: The Reilly Factor

Ansric: I thought I'd start off this week's blog tour of League of Superheroes with an interview featuring the story's narrator, Tom Reilly. As I often say, he never shows up for appointments.
Tom Reilly/Darklight: As I often say, you need a new joke. At least a new invisibility joke.
Ansric: I'd like to concentrate on a few obscure points in the story and beyond--some things that bothered me a bit.
Tom: In the story is okay. I'm not sure about going beyond it.
Ansric: All right, I admit I don't care for "absolutely (in)correct" and "delete that." Would you mind explaining them?
Tom: I've always said "absolutely correct." Anyway, I don't know where I got it. Dad doesn't do it. "Delete that" was something Allen said a few times, but then Rod started saying it all the time just to bug him. I guess I caught it from him. He doesn't do it anymore, but I still do, though not as much.
Ansric: Most polyglots are mimics, and sometimes it gets out of hand. Next point: you don't bother translating your Spanish, French, or whatever most of the time.
Tom: Most of the time it doesn't matter that much, or you can figure it out in context. My opening chat with Genie just involved my asking her what language I was speaking at the moment, and she'd identify it and start in with a comment of her own.
Ansric: Which you would interrupt.
Tom: I sometimes forget my manners when I encounter a polyglot who's supposed to be a little girl. In Spanish, she says she hadn't considered something, probably having a chat in something other than English. In Japanese she said I was a splendid something; she didn't get to the noun. And I should mention that originally the second language was Russian, not Japanese, but you despise the look of transliterated Russian.
Ansric: Transliterated Japanese doesn't look bad, but transliterated Russian is an abomination. Related point: I admit I'm surprised that some people don't know what "pantsing" is. I thought it was clear in context at least, though I don't use the term myself.
Tom: It means you pull someone's pants down, usually from behind and at a really embarrassing moment. We don't actually do it, but any threat against Rod's pride is worth making.
Ansric: Near the end of the story, you look back at the whole affair and say "We had not completely failed." Why not just "We had not failed"? The other is awkward.
Tom: Awkward but true, as a lot of true things are. Do you realize how many people died--people who weren't ready to die? We should've done better.
Ansric: You did reasonably well for amateurs. And some of what happened was beyond your control. But then, you tend to blame yourself a little too much sometimes.
Tom: Most people blame themselves too little. But that goes beyond the current story, doesn't it?
Ansric: Just as well. You also have an annoying habit of saying things that only make sense later. For example, when you mention looking down on Clarice's prayerful approach to the suits and then call yourself a fool. That's a reference to the third story, Unity Six. And what happened then wasn't entirely your fault.
Tom: It was mostly my fault.
Ansric: And you saved Clarice's life twice in about a thirty-second interval to make up for it. And the second time you believed you were throwing yourself on a live grenade, so to speak: you didn't expect to survive.
Tom: It was my fault that her life was in danger to begin with.
Ansric: I'll disagree, but we should wrap this up. Tomorrow: a bit about the writing of the series--why Tom finally took it up and wrote it as he did.

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