Annotated 7-8
Embraisch’Nj’s jokes are fairly well-done for, y’know, what they are. I do find it liberating to write as devil’s advocate now and again. And I’m proud of basically improvising his character on the spot, though any subtlety that might exist in his appearance here is immediately spelled out by Gravedust.
One thing I only noticed on this reread is that Emb the eager assimilator is currently identifying as a FORMER wood elf (“I don’t miss being” one). When next we see him, he’ll identify as a wood elf, on and off the stage. This may reflect a bit of social change: at this point, wood elves are still sort of at war with Gastonia and the number of migrants is drastically low, but after hostilities between the two powers cease in Chapter 18, the migrant presence expands to the point where “Gastonian wood elf” no longer seems quite so oxymoronic.
I took it to be along the lines of Jews– there are Jewish converts who practice Judaism and are thus Jews, and those who are irreligious yet are of Jewish ethnicity, and are also thus Jews, so perhaps likewise, an elf might be referred to as a wood elf on the merit of either lifestyle or ethnicity, or precluded by either, depending on context.
So does that imply that Scorpio becomes a convert to Wood Elf-ism? Or perhaps -asm? *wink*nudge*
HA! https://media.giphy.com/media/2xPJfNH1LWfPG/giphy.gif
I forgot how good Bandit looked in this chapter…
I’m also guessing you based the look of the theater on Shakespeare’s Globe, right?