I’ve done Specials for Valentine’s Day only sporadically over the years, but this year I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
For one thing, the date lined up directly with an update day. And for the other thing…well, it’s a well-known (and often satirized) fact that the average pen-and-paper RPG party employs a binary when it comes to dealing with encounters: fight or attempt to seduce, with no third option. And the choice of option is often quite arbitrary, the only firm variables being the presence of a bard in the party and the bard’s blood alcohol level.
K’ip has only always been fighting, up to now, but what better date to have him try out the alternative? No better date, clearly, although a Christmas-themed episode featuring mistletoe might have worked almost as well. And K’ip has only been an adult since the time-skip, anyway, so it’s technically also the first suitable occasion.
He does learn a valuable lesson about that approach right away…something important about size and species differences that many professional bards never really master.* Given the overabundance on cat-like species that was already commented upon, he was a bit unlucky in his choice here – he could have landed a hit much closer to home.
Si’ri is definitely loving the holiday, though, as is only natural for a tiny, sparkling person with wings. I mean, like most tiny, sparkling persons with wings she actually loves any kind of celebration, but Valentine’s day still remains a firm favorite.
In order to maintain the light mood, I kept the actual act of seduction, and the aftermath, off screen. This discreet approach affords every reader the opportunity to imagine the specifics in the least mentally-scarring way possible. If you prefer to, just imagine that K’ip’s butt is hurting because he sat on an uncomfortable chair during an hours-long, platonic dinner date with the copper dragon. =P
More on Thurs…uh, Monday.
*On the other hand, those professional bards tend to have mastered the art of dulling the pain with alcohol, something that K’ip hasn’t done yet, despite that also being a thing he’s now legally qualified for. Apparently, Si’ri didn’t inform him he was supposed to get dead drunk on that important birthday…
Oh my, Si’ri has people-parts and isn’t just a floating ball of light!
Well I mean in-story Si’ri. On set Si’ri is probably an upside down mop in “breast-plate” armor and various other props to give a “human” shape with copious amounts of bloom effect applied to mask what all that actually is. Not-close-up Si’ri, of course, being a hollowed-out snow globe, small lightstick, and strap-on or glued on Halloween fairy wings with the wire holding it up painted to match the background (unless digitally editing it out is cheaper these days).
Sadly enough (in a way) it’s not only cheaper to digitally edit out the string – nowadays, something flitting, glowy and sparkly like Not-close-up Si’ri is probably cheaper to create purely digitally, compared to even the cheapest ‘practical’ effect you could imagine for her. Fortunately, cheap digital effects still look reasonably cheap, so the old B-movie spirit still lives on in that.
And I prefer to imagine that Close-up Si’ri was created in the old-fashioned way for this scene: by sticking a pair of fake boobs on Lee, covering him head-to-toe in white paint (for the umpteenth time) and shining a couple of powerful stage lights right at him until he got fuzzy at the edges (possibly literally). I think Nolan and George wouldn’t even pause to think whether that’s the cheapest way of doing it…they’re just so used to abusing Lee, and enjoy it so much, that it has become second nature. XD