Phil’s response to this script was to ask why Gravedust was so bitchy in panels 1 and 2. My response: “I didn’t see this as anything more than good-natured teasing, with full awareness that E-Merl is kind of a Nervous Nellie. Most people would be relieved to be accepted as part of the group, but E-Merl only feels MORE pressure as a result, since he still thinks he’s an unworthy screw-up. Better to acknowledge such issues in playful passing than to act like they don’t exist.” See how you take it.

I did accept Phil’s edit of “team-killing tendencies,” though. He had hopes we’d do a little series of awkward euphemisms: friend-murder problem, oopsie-genocide, sleepaxing.

Also, “Old Dwarvish” became “Old Savasi” and “Pre-Savasi,” because of more backstory Phil’d worked out–the dwarves of GD’s tribe, who are the only dwarves left, really, became “Savasi” when they left the Solates Mountains, much as Jews and other cultures have metabolized their history of persecution into part of their cultural identity.