Gonna try using the transcript box for its intended purpose going forward. Just FYI.
↓ Transcript
Gien: Hmmph. I thought you would see my side of this.
Gien: You put your OWN child to work after all.
Te Vahn: Ya leave m’boy OUTTA this, Gien.
Te Vahn: Mehn’s old enough t‘have his markings, an all he does is feed cattle and clean th’ work space.
Te Vahn: Yer talkin’ about havin’ a girl ain’t barely past growin’ her legs do HARD LABOR.
Gien: I am TALKING about teaching the girl her PROPER PLACE.
Gien: As an Echo, she has obligations to the Clan.
Te Vahn: She ain’t even PART of th’ Clan!
Te Vahn: Gien, she may be Jin’Sorai Born, an’ I’m glad ta help her learn what that means, but we ain’t her life.
Te Vahn: Her home an’ family‘s up on th’ surface. Are ya really deludin’ yerself inta thinkin’ she’ll ever CHOOSE ta live down here?
Gien: You put your OWN child to work after all.
Te Vahn: Ya leave m’boy OUTTA this, Gien.
Te Vahn: Mehn’s old enough t‘have his markings, an all he does is feed cattle and clean th’ work space.
Te Vahn: Yer talkin’ about havin’ a girl ain’t barely past growin’ her legs do HARD LABOR.
Gien: I am TALKING about teaching the girl her PROPER PLACE.
Gien: As an Echo, she has obligations to the Clan.
Te Vahn: She ain’t even PART of th’ Clan!
Te Vahn: Gien, she may be Jin’Sorai Born, an’ I’m glad ta help her learn what that means, but we ain’t her life.
Te Vahn: Her home an’ family‘s up on th’ surface. Are ya really deludin’ yerself inta thinkin’ she’ll ever CHOOSE ta live down here?
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
I like where Te Vahn is going with this. The newly expelled refugees on the surface may carry their old clans with them, but will the children who’ve grown up on land really want to carry those on, or form a new clan of their own?
Yes, Te Vahn has a good, smart head on her shoulders. And that is an interesting idea, a clan created with everyone who’s learned how to live on land, and it’s basically a mix of all the clans that have taken refuge? Neat idea.
aint too many farmers/ranchers that didnt have a good head on thier shoulders. You cant be an idiot around cows or apparently sentient eels.
Farmers are by nature planners and that means thinking ahead.
Gien is like the Sarnothi equivalent of a Boomer come from money or a dynasty trying to get a gen Z kid to go bass-ackwards about the strides we’ve made as a society. Die off, Palpatine, the Old World is gone. Its not coming back, and its not WELCOME back.
I feel like that’s a little extreme. Dude just had his entire legacy wiped out by inter-clan skirmishing and he’s fighting to keep a shred of that.
Is he right? No, not even in the slightest, but Gien isn’t fighting against societal change that grew from gradual, generational movements. He’s fighting to rebuilt what was destroyed by war and tyranny.
On top of that, he’s in a very different position than Te Vahn. Te Vahn was (likely) a rancher in Sarnoth, now she’s a rancher in the refuge outpost. Her job hasn’t really changed. Gien’s has changed entirely.
‘She have no options, Te. That’s her destiny.’
But your lovely Transcript comments.
I will so miss them…..
Hopefully he’ll still do his commentary in the space where he left his comment. I would miss those too.
I’m going to think of a solution to keep the Secret Director Commentary around, I don’t intend or want to do away with it. I’m fine with giving up the space of the transcript box, though, if it helps meet an accessibility need. Quippy jokes or behind-the-scenes trivia could also go in the general blog space, for example. And there’s apparently a Custom Field box I never paid attention to before now…..
Could comic alt-text work as a new home for the Secret Director Commentary?
Alt-text was the original home for the SDC, but I moved it to the Transcript box because readers on mobile couldn’t easily access the alt-text.
I’m so used to the alt-text as an extra joke on xkcd that I’m disappointed when I read on my phone and get only the first few words and have to guess at what the rest of the line might be XD
But yeah, accessibility trumps comedy, but there should be a way to achieve both without sacrificing too much. Hope you find a good medium.
P.S. I’ve been persuaded to host a writing event during August. Hoping to see the fic form that I coined spread out to a much wider audience! Basically, it’s about nonsexual ways that characters can connect with each other, in five categories of intimacy (details in my name URL there). I’m that weird mix of excitement and nerves, but I think it’s going to go over well.
DYW has a nice setup where you tap the empty space to the right of the nav buttons
Another comic I read has the SDC as italic text at the end of the dialog
https://www.thebrightsidecomic.com/comic/chapter-48-p731/
S*P and QC use the bottom right corner of the image itself…
flavor text and such should be done as a mouse over.. much like XKCD does.
Do a lot of Jin Sorai just have really subtle markings around their eyes?
Some do, yes. Mehn and Te Vahn’s markings consist of not much more than a thin darkening under their eyes.
Uh Gien? Her place is NOT under your THUMB.
You might be able to push Pohl around a bit, but Selkie is gonna be another matter, especially when she grows up.
I do NOT envy Todd and Andi when Selkie and Amanda become teenagers.
Teenage Selkie and Amanda would, however, make for a great comic series.
Yes, he is deluding himself.
Yes, this will likely end badly
Agree with others here; Gien is about to say/do something really damn stupid.
Well she might choose to live down there if Todd was dead!
Until she found out someone in her clan killed her dad (if Gien did that, and let’s be fair, he would), and goes on a murderous rampage.
And both of her birth parents would /cheerfully/ help her.
No way she’d give up books, movies, video games…
Thank you, Te Vahn!
Actually, I haven’t noticed Mehn’s markings.
Well, she doesn’t say *where* he has them… 😛
I’m ‘old enough’ to have wisdom, but I don’t HAVE any.
Jin’Sorai appear to have significantly more subtle markings than the other clans. Mehn has thin darker lines under his eyes, similar looking to eyebags. Dave seems to have forgotten to include them on Mehn’s most recent page, but they’re there on the one previous.
Watching Gien get BTFO’d by another sarnothi is cathartic as all hell, though it also makes me worry he’s going to do something Very Bad to try and bring Selkie into the fold.
Sorry to be that guy but I went back to look at Mehn’s markings and they are faint but there but I think Benny’s markings are missing on that page where they are asking if it shoots?
Kilyle, if you’re on mobile and you only get the first part of the XKCD alt text, tap on the alt text and it will expand and show you the whole thing! If necessary it will even add a little scroll bar! That’s how it works for me. I was so happy when I discovered this.
Oof. Selkie’s ability has been dampened badly but if there’s one thing that might bring it back up to speed very fast is someone trying to manipulate her like that. Does Gien not know the story of how her father got those scars?
If nothing else, trying to use Selkie like that might force her mother out of hiding to administer some swift justice. The “forcing her out of hiding” part of that might be Gien’s actual plan, now that I think about it.
I will admit, while I generally look at the comments, alot of the time I just look for Dave’s tag just to make sure I am not missing some juicy “Selkie” lore.
Why not keep both in the transcript box, thus ensuring the flavor text is also available to those who need the transcript?
TRANSCRIPT:
transcript text
****
FLAVOR:
Dave’s comments
I really don’t think “cattle” is a suitable word here. “Livestock”, maybe.