Page Commentary No. 331 (Patreon)

(Apologies for this commentary going up later than usual.)

Gunwild: So I think I was trying to capture something about the interesting feeling of wearing your ancestors' traditional garb, and wondering about how they felt while they were in it, possibly comparing how different your lives are, etc. But that sounded hard so I made it about a cool sci-fi knife.

Psu: I think you got some of it. Sometimes it's just in the way things are presented next to each other, that the spaces in between those words and images are filled with the meanings we want to convey. I wanted to remark on how she's connecting with her ancestors through garb and gear but her most direct relative is kinda nonplussed at her going off somewhere.

Gunwild: North American English informal version of nonplussed: "not surprised/particularly bothered," for our outside readers. And yeah, I don't wanna say anything mean about Wrenn's mom since she's barely been represented in the story, but a goodbye hug is a nice thing to give your kid! Oh well, maybe she didn't notice 'cause she was reading. I'm not different.

Psu: It could've been off screen but by our decision not to focus on that image, maybe it was simply perfunctory and unremarkable! The story of her feeling disconnected is better represented by just... the distance. Wrenn never even mentions having a mom. She's too busy with fancy space knives.

Gunwild: Well, if I had fancy space knives they'd take up a bunch of my time. Heck, I make a fuss over ones from as close as Switzerland.

Psu: I talked about my german knife quite a bit when I got mine. It's kinda awesome. Cuts vegetables great and I even clean it by hand and everything. I imagine Wrenn's are neater though. It's a whole Kilodorn hard which is a more honorable scale than a Moh's scale.

Gunwild: A warror's measurement. (Although officially, the "Dorn scale" measurement of hardness in our comic is named after both actor Michael Dorn and Warhammer 40K character Rogal Dorn - and because using a real scale would make us subject to the laws of science!) 

Psu: But we must also learn as we get older, that the quality of a blade is not only in its hardness but its flexibility. And Wrenn might need to get a little more flexible about what it means to do good, if she's gonna pass this adventure. Ehh? Like how I brought that around?

Gunwild: Oh I got it! This was a quality commentary. We've got lucky readers.