Pants lived, y’all. Attack a human, and you get rescued from the slaughterhouse and settled into a nice retirement in an aquarium. I guess.
As mentioned in the previous visit to Havei Jin Suir, they are a barter economy, and don’t really have a use for American currency day-to-day. The funds from the sale went to a communal coffer they can use to procure needs from the surface, and the ranchers get “paid” by way of essentially getting a massive credit at the stores and shops around the village.
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
It’s the ‘Brotherhood of the Travelling Pants’.
I think Todd would have preferred PAAAANTS had become pants and eel steaks. Certainly not a statue.
I love it!
Todd just got Pantsed.
No, Stu and his buddy were the one that got just Pants…
they’ll need another one if they intend to KEEP studying the eels…
So chomp a sarnothi’s limb and it’s just business, but attack a human and it’s bad luck? Makes sense for superstitious folk.
I was assuming that “attacking a human” and “attacking a Sarnothi” were both “bad luck” events, but it’s strange that Sai Fen only mentioned the former.
It’s likely because the eel god, Han Shin Jian Tho, gave his children (the eels) to the Sarnothi to be eaten and used to make goods like leather, but occasionally he collects a repayment of his children’s debt (takes a Sarnothi to eat). For the Sarnothi, that’s part of their way of life. However, the humans are not part of that pact with Han Shin Jian Tho.
Ranchers getting bitten is a known on-the-job hazard. A visiting guest getting bitten is something nobody wants to be associated with.
*falls over giggling* I love Stu’s reaction! Dave, any chance of you designing a shirt that says “I am paaaaaannts?”
I am notoriously and infamously bad at merchandising but… maybe?
I’d rather have a face mask with a big Sarnothi grin.
Oh my God I need this now
I would definitely rock a shirt that had Pants saying “Paaaannnts” on it and a Sarnothi grin face mask
Gee, wonder how word got out about the eels *glances at Selkie, then Todd*. I mean, it shouldn’t be a big deal they talked about them during movie night. Since in the long run, these new people brought a new food source and animal to us, people will either be excited for new seafood or think they’re cool as heck.
all the new mass wave of refugees combined with public knowledge of the sarnthi now. lots of ways for information to get out now. its suprissing only a handful of researchers have asked for samples from them.
and for that matter, not sure there was ever a real restriction on talking about sarnthi things before the mass exodus. it just wasn’t something that would come up with the few sanothi that were on the surface.
Some things were definitely restricted, like anything Echo based. And Agent Brown was pretty pissed off at Pohl when he found out that he told Todd about the war.
But you’re right, there are others living on the surface already, not too many, but enough, and I can’t help wonder what they’ve also told people. Humans are a curious bunch, I’m sure there’s some clans that wouldn’t handle the rapid fire questions they’d get. I don’t think they’ve talked to any refugees specifically though, those people seem to be going to other ongoing underwater villages.
PUBLISHED MEEEEEEEEEEETTE!!!!!
It’s all fun and games until the scientists want to dissect your brain.
I smell animal-rightists in the wings with a Save-the-Eels campaign up their sleeves.
That’s close to my original draft, to be honest, but I opted not to go that route. It didn’t have much room for the core cast to be involved.
Maybe throw away gag a short news article talking about the rights of the eels with Todd turning it off with a “I’m so not processing this right now” attitude.
I think those would be animal-leftists. Animal-rightsists would be the ranchers, and GMO-eel guys.
Pants is such a fame whore. He’ll be getting an Instagram account next.
He’ll start showing up in “cute animal compilation” videos as “The Singing Eel”.
They’re the “study the live specimen in a comfortable environment” kind of scientists?
Plenty of food and fresh water, plus plenty of visual and audio stimulation. Sounds like even Pants gets a happy ending.
LOVE this! 😀
Laughing so hard right now … shared this with my husband who sometimes reads over my shoulder. He remembers Todd & Selkie’s first visit.
I still think it’d be cool to see Return of Pants: The Pantsening where he can fly or something but this works too. 😀
Does no one else find it disturbing that “Vahn tae Mettet… Meeettee” sounds a LOT like a gurggly version of “Vant de meat….MEEATTTT”
All the while, I just want to see them get pantsed. 😛
::dodges tomatoes::
And then reality ensues:
“We receive a large number of submissions at xxx Journal and we are only able to publish a small percentage of them. This means that we are not able to consider manuscripts that provide only incremental advances to existing yyy. While your work would be helpful to some researchers, I feel that the improvements to yyy are not large enough to be of general interested to readers of xxx.” 😀
(Literally in one of the latest rejection letters that we just received lol)