Annotated 42-22
Frigg’s clearly trolling for a bit of a reaction when she throws her arm around Syr’Nj’s shoulder and talks about “tapping the sap.” I guess she feels like it’s no longer too soon to bring up Byron, and she’s definitely over Scipio by now. And she gets a reaction…a warm “oh, you” one. I’m sure a dedicated Syr’gg shipper could work with that panel.
But at this stage, Flo and I were more interested in their friendship. This is the kind of textured scene that gets a lot easier if you have the opportunity to write certain characters interacting for years. Frigg and Syr’Nj have had a long and sometimes hard road to their mutual respect. But they’re a solid team by now: two always-distinct perspectives who nevertheless have a lot of common ground.
FB: “Whispers of national intrigue and betrayal…female heroes in non-gender-specific dress…bawdy puns…all GUILDED AGE needs to be Shakespeare today is a little iambic pentameter.”
Bawdy … or Bard-y?
(I guess in some dialects those might be homophones!)
Uncertainty has the possibility of being the worst of ills, for it offers no answers, yet demands them all the same.
Great colouring! Wood atmosphere is very convincing.
That alt-text lives absolutely rent-free in my head in perpetuity.
It’s really touching to see how far these two have come in their friendship. Once upon a time, that sort of lewd provocation would have drawn indignant horror from Syrn’j. Later, an exasperated silence. Later on, a good-natured roll of the eyes. And here we are, full acceptance as a now welcome identifier of a much-loved friend, a little game she’s happy to join in in her own way.
And Frigg responds in kind, letting the joke drop as the facade it was for a desire of talking to her friend. Acceptance, not reproach is what Frigg needs in order to open up and “be serious”.