Pottery
Out of the forest and into the next part of the date ^^
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Well, my grandmothers both lived in the same small town in Germany and I didn’t know everyone there. And I visited them each summer vacation for a month. But they seem to know me when I last visited about ten years after their death.
What Kai’s neglecting to point out is that he’s a very social person and spent most of his formative years surrounded by @$$#013s. He has had a LOT more reasons to make friends with everyone in his grandparents’ hometown than his own.
Or rather, he had the potential of making friends with people in his grandparent’s town and none in the place he had been living. So when he was on vacation and could make friends? He made all the friends he could.
I spent a bunch of my formative years in a small town where basically everyone was … of similar attitude to the people in the town the dragons grew up in. However, there were a very few people who were willing to be friendly, because they were also outcasts. To be clear, they still had horrible attitudes, they didn’t see anything wrong with how the rest of the town was apart from the bit where they were personally excluded. They were perfectly willing to exclude anyone for any reason, they just wanted some other people “on their side.” So I had some “friends” in the town I was living in, and didn’t need to make friends with everyone around my grandparents’ places. Which was probably for the best, because my grandparents were surrounded by very provincial people.
The dragons’ grandparents, on the other hand, live in tourist land, where provincial attitudes would be counter to the tourism industry. And as much as Kai thinks Serena’s pots are made for the people of the town, I virtually guarantee she makes most of her money selling them to tourists for a significant amount more than they’re really worth. The rest of the town uses them to fit the aesthetic they’re trying to portray and probably buy them without the tourist markup.
Nah, if this town’s economy was relying on any kind of tourist based income, then Near wouldn’t have had any problems finding at least a food place where she could order in English – Near mentioned that her dad read about the town in a travel blog, and I strongly suspect that that blog was written by someone who happened to find a nice place off the tourist track.
You have a point about English, but on the other hand, those big buildings right on the beach, blocking the view for the rest of the town, look very much like tourist hotels to me.
Did… did I read that right? Someone seemed to know you ten years after they died?
I had to go back and re-read Berpol’s comment to get it… And yes, it could be read that way xD
I read it as Berpol talking about two different ‘they’ in one sentence.
They (the people from the village) remembered Berpol 10 years after they (the grandparents) passed away.
it is wonderful, not very often you get to date a cat 🙂
!!!
:)*
I date my brother’s cat at about 12 years. 😛
Really go for cougars, eh? 😉 🙂
We have drawings of Near purring, so yeah, dating a cat has benefits.
Reference -> https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58856471/
Kai’s gone to pot
and he’s taken his date;
to see if gloves can evade
the obvious fate…
He knows everyone
year out and year in.
This is a small village,
not Rome or Turin.
What’s new in their day?
A pot to arrange?
Won’t her parents
think it quite strange?
Diolch yn fawr iawn.
I’ve tried throwing a bowl on a wheel. I’m better at the pinch pot method. They don’t look as good, but I can actually get it into the shape and size I want without it collapsing back into a pile of clay. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a kiln at the moment. I had a certain glaze I loved using called “floating blue” that was supposed to cook brown with patches of blue in it, but whenever I put it in a bowl or pot and I got a solid brown outside with a turquoise waterfall looking pattern on the inside.
Wet clay, pretty dress, I hope Serena has a spare apron for Near!
“Look at THAT! White [dress], black [clay].”
“That’s what being fearless is all about!”
I wonder if the theme of this whole date is going to be Near wanting to do stuff that her outfit is too fancy for XD
Wet clay, fluffy fur.
My mum (who has experience doing pottery, and trying to make a living off it) pointed out that potters often use a wet sponge to get a nice finish on the pot they’re throwing, so Near’s fur shouldn’t be a problem. On an unrelated note, her claws might actually be rather helpful, as there are various scrapers used to refine the shape of a piece of pottery, and having built in scrapers that you’ve been living with every day of your life, and are therefore very familiar with their shape would allow for a level of control closer to that of someone who has been doing pottery for a lot longer.
her fur might not be a problem for the pot, but getting the clay out of her fur will be a chore
Ok. Kai is channeling Patrick Swayze, and Near is Demi Moore. This date just got a lot more interesting.
Reference -> https://youtu.be/rE3GUtRXcFQ
Could fun to hear someone refer to Kai and Kaya as a dragon from Italian lore as a joke, or how they both only show some of the properties of said dragon.
Robin’s probably going to do some research that now, if they weren’t already.
With how everything is going so far, along with the translating dragon, this’ll be a date to remember for both Near and Kai.
How many people live in this town? And will we learn its name? Does it have one?
I wonder how close Kai is to reaching Dunbar’s Number… Near should put on an apron if she wants to try her paw at pottery, don’t want any stray globs of clay to get on her pretty dress or her fur. By the end of the day, the whole town may know about Kai and Near’s date whether from seeing it, being called by Annabella, or hearing it through the grapevine. When will we see Kaya? Is she also helping Annabella’s plot from the shadows?
I looked up what that was, as an introvert I don’t think I could even name 50 people that I know.
There’s no real consensus on the exact number of connections in Dunbar’s number. The highest I’ve seen it estimated at is 200, but personally I think that’s way too high
Dunbar’s number is one of those things I discover every so often and then forget about before discovering it again. Personally, I feel like that entire premise is operating under the assumption that all humans’ minds work the same way, which is blatantly untrue. A “personal” Dunbar’s number makes a LOT more sense than a Dunbar’s number for humanity as a whole.
Dunbar’s number is not entirely applicable here. That’s about reciprocal relationships in a stable society. Kai and Kaya aren’t a stable part of this community. Normally, that would probably provide a more limiting limit. However, they’re both distinctive and interesting, which relaxes their limits. They only need people to be willing to put up with them for a week or two at a stretch. They also don’t need to know how all of the other people relate to each other.
That said, this is a web comic. They’re not going to get *near* their Dunbar’s number, because doing so would mean that Robin would have to draw most of those people.
Panel 1: I don’t suppose you could add a comma to “you”?
English grammar doesn’t require the use of so many commas. It’s a matter of individual style… You may prefer more, the author may prefer fewer…
There’s a useful guideline you can use. Try saying it out loud and if you can hear a little pause in your speech, you may need a comma. For example, try saying “I’ll send it to you as well” and then say “I’ll send it to you if you want it”. When I do this I can hear myself make a little pause between “you” and “if” in the second example. So that might want a comma. But I don’t make any pause between “you” and “as” in the first.
Can you not understand the extremely simple fact that 98% of everything you say is wrong? Why are you trying to ruin this awesome comic?
Is this just a bot created by some kind of comic hater or something?
Most English teachers at the primary and secondary level talk like there’s one way to do English and that must be done. I think most teachers of specific languages do that even.
If you talk to a linguistics professor, you’ll get the very different and more accurate answer; language must be descriptive, not prescriptive, by their very nature. Only constructed languages are ever really prescriptive, and even most of those aren’t.
However,most people don’t get to a point in their education where they have a linguistics professor. I didn’t. I was lucky enough to have a TA who had a linguistics professor, and decided to relax a bit on the prescriptivism.
Does this mean that English rules don’t matter? Not exactly. But it does mean they’re not as strict as you’ve probably been lead to believe. It also explains how it is that so many English teachers get away with teaching things that conflict with other English teachers.
Commas are one of those things where a lot of those differences show up. In the grand scheme of things, punctuation matters a lot less than a lot of other parts of the language. It exists to enhance the ability of the readers to understand the structure of the sentences. But what enhancements are needed or even useful is pretty subjective. There are definitely, places where putting a comma would be just, wrong. If, one, goes, overboard they, are, useless. But most places where they could go are optional.
Don’t get me started about literature teachers.
And semi-colons are even more ‘fun’ that commas, for me at least. 😉
*than
Back in the 1950s the BBC had short interval films between programmes, one of which was a potter working some clay on a wheel. I don’t think his face was ever shown, just his hands, and I don’t think anyone ever figured out what the finished product was supposed to be!
Found it:
https://youtu.be/DzNWCgqan8A?si=eouDLf7cPsED3IF4&t=488
That’s pretty nice! And, to me, it’s pretty obviously a large vase or bowl, but he keeps changing the design to demonstrate variations in the art, for the camera. BUT; that’s just my opinion. I -could- be wrong… 😉
Growing up, my Dad was 1 of the best Bus Mechanics the local depot had. And basically everyone in the depot knew everyone else & their families. I didn’t know them all, but all the Staff knew us. That meant I got many free trips that I shouldn’t really have had, but also that basically every bus was also a spy for my Dad.
Once accidentally rode my bike for around a kilometre without my helmet coming home from High School before getting off and walking it back, but it was too late – my Dad asked about it that night, had to give a full explanation….
The upsides and downsides of “everyone knows everyone else” situations….
Aside from doing pottery, I wonder if Kai will get show of his dragon breath by starting a fire in the kiln.
That would be neat!
I dunno, Near doesn’t look very happy in this comic, especially the last panel.
Hope she’s not getting grumpy towards Kai, he’s really trying his best.
My cousin is kinda like Kai about knowing everyone in town. Drives his gf crazy. 🙂
I’m originally from “Gays Mills, Wisconsin, USA.” It’s a town of about 400 people, plus the people in the surrounding rural farming/orchard areas.
Knowing everyone is kinda just natural in such regions. Kai isn’t alone in this.
Yeah, smalltown life is exactly like that. Hell, I’m from the same small town except in California. Everybody knows everybody else which can be both good and bad.
Cool! Mom’s 2nd husband was from Gays Mills. 🙂 Dairy farm-boy; made a career of the Air Force.
While making pottery is fun, I don not believe that Near is dressed properly for that activity.