Annotated 14-4
I am inordinately proud of the “Keynes”/”Keens” pun and connecting it to the few little scraps we’d developed about avian culture. That’s the highlight of this page for me, so I guess Scipio wins it, but everybody gets their little piece of glory here. It is interesting to see Gravedust abet a lie so convincingly.
(Also, can’t help but visualize Bandit Keens, a gnomish version of the Vulture who takes his birdsona a little too seriously but would still be offensive as hell to any actual avians he meets.)
We definitely were still thinking of Bandit Keynes’ player as a cis male at this point, not a trans woman, or I wouldn’t have included the “this Keens dude” gag. Had we followed our original plan there, the gag would’ve been a little nod to her player’s identity; it ended up losing that deeper meaning, but the surface reading still works fine.
It probably isn’t great for Bandit’s issues that the gnomes imply she’s dragging the Peacemakers down in the public’s estimation, rather than them lifting her up.
Someone’s gonna hafta explain this pun, the word “Keens” means nothing to me.
You’re not alone.
Also, I just figured “‘Keens’ dude” was Frigg’s attempt to convince the crowd they’d never met, a back-up to Scipio’s “Bandit who?”. I never thought to connect it with Bandit’s player.
I mean, that’s definitely the surface reading I was referring to. It IS Frigg’s attempt to convince the crowd they’d never met. I didn’t mean to imply Frigg was aware of the players outside the tubes on any level: this would’ve been just one of those cute coincidences writers try to engineer for irony’s sake.
“Keening” is making a particular type of high-pitched whistling noise.
Keen as a noun is a wail for the dead.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keen#Etymology_2
It could be likened to bird cries maybe?
Gondolessa’s name sounds kinda sorta like condolences, so maybe there’s a loose death theming to Avian names? But what about Yalaria, then? I mean, I could see it as Yell-aria but, oh well. It’s not really clear.
Bird cries was the primary intent, yes.
Wait, does this mean the group never actually learned Bandit’s name? Or are they just playing dumb, pretending they don’t know her?
I thought the former, but evidently it’s the latter.
It’s… it’s definitely the second one. Bandit introduced herself by name within seconds of meeting the group, Gravedust has written her name in his journals, and Scipio used her name against her in the last chapter. Admittedly, I can’t think of a time when Frigg has used her name, but Frigg usually substitutes disses for actual names, only using them when she really has to.
Wow they’re really in a Keens spot now