Annotated 39-8
In panel 1, Shanna summarizes the group’s gaming history, making zero value judgments about it as she does. There’s no “pathetically enough” or “as a substitute for a real social life” tacked on, there. Maybe Xan’s advice reached her. Maybe having nearly died at J.J.’s hands made some of her issues fall into perspective. But she won’t be breaking out the nerd-baiting in front of this crowd for quite a while…and when she does, it’ll be the playful ribbing of a friend, not the acid-tongued lashings of a misanthrope.
But somebody has to leaven this emotionally heavy exposition scene with some sarcasm, right? ENTER KAYE.
Lots of self-owns in these last few panels. Kaye admits the gamer culture has no shortage of odd behavior, Shanna admits she knows what she sounds like, and T and Flo admit that their whole series concept sounds a bit silly if you tell it in a certain way.
Random question about Kaye that only occurred to me upon reread for some reason.
Is her stated ‘it’s just too far’ reason for not being there with the others actually all there is to it?
I may be projecting, some, but I’m getting a ‘social anxiety’ or ‘agoraphobia’ vibe from her on reread. Feels like she’s more comfortable mitigating social interaction through a screen.
That does gibe with her story of her worst Christmas, where she tried to throw a big event, it backfired, and we ended on her alone in her apartment. As I’ll say in an upcoming annotation, my own read on her is that physical health issues might be what’s constraining her. I don’t think either of those theories are proven in the text, but they’re certainly not disproven.
We definitely see her with some physical health issues coming up so that makes sense.
The Christmas story is definitely part of why I get that vibe from her, yeah. But since you said it was partially based on your own experiences, I didn’t want to come across as, you know, diagnosing you, rather than just the fictional character.