I’m back from Canada! Thank you everyone who came by and said hello! I had a wonderful time! Now I am going to sleep for one million years.
I’m back from Canada! Thank you everyone who came by and said hello! I had a wonderful time! Now I am going to sleep for one million years.
74 Comments
And laaaaast but not leaaaaast, it’s Jocaaaasta the sphiiiiiiiìiiiiiiiiinx!
And introducing today’s Special Guest, all the way from the USA, The Last Sphinx!
;)
With her amazing “oh shit, what do I say!?” face!
I can definitely understand where she is coming from tho. It’s the council of ELDERS!!
I think the point is she remembered how to make medalions
She did not remember how to.
It needed to be shown to her in a Vision.
Whether she can actually make new Medallions is still unknown.
Whether she can actually repair existing Medallions is still unknown.
That she could, without realising it, ALTER her own Medallion is definite, however we do not know if she can do that consciously.
Ravi said she “accessed the shared sphinx memories” so I assume she could just think about it and remember how medalions are made once she gets a hang of it
Which may not take too long. I imagine her father showed her quite a lot of jewelry making techniques when she was little.
when did she alter her medallion?? I’m pretty sure you can’t do that without breaking it. although, magic is weird, and sphinxes…
When she was coming out of the Vision from having touched the Phoenix Egg.
Chapter 2, page 33, frames 5 and 6
https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/illumination-2-page-33/
. o O ( NO PRESSURE. NO PRESSURE AT AAAAAALLLLLL. )
Also, good thing she dressed in her best for this highly paramount occassion. Well done!
Her shirt has a piece of zombie pizza dripping poison goo.
Anyone who thinks this isn’t her best doesn’t realize how incredible this shirt is.
Let’s see . . . Jocasta really freaked out when she found out she was not human and freaked out some more when she found out her friends aren’t human either. Add to that, she has been chased by a demon, kidnapped by a dragon. Even more, she has inadvertently done a Vulcan mind-meld with a phoenix egg and found out she is the mythological equivalent of royalty. On top of all of that, Finn has given her a super-secret build up and an abrupt introduction and now some verrrrey strange people are all staring at her.
Pressure? The surface of the planet Venus doesn’t have that kind of pressure!*
If I were Jocasta, I would be fighting the temptation to hide under the table, curl um into a ball and whimper, “There is no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
*Fun Fact: The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is approximately 90 times that of Earth’s at sea level.
You have Jocasta, from the Middle Ages, confused with Michelle in the present day of the comic.
Michelle didn’t find out she is the mythological equivalent of royalty from the Vision from the Phoenix Egg. Mary says that to her, after she and Jim return from the tomb of Phineas in chapter 1.
It’s not Finn who introduces her. It’s James.
Orville Hyde addressed James by his last name alone — Finn.
Michelle is Jocasta. James is Finn. Those are their last names.
Furthermore, it’s considered polite in Britain to always use the person’s last name until invited (or in other words, given permission) to use their first name.
Cultural differences is a thing, yo, and Kory has shown that she’s done a lot of research here. :)
(Remember how I told you a few weeks ago that you come off as a jerk whenever you “correct” others on your own mistaken assumptions? You might want to tread the water a little more carefully from now on…)
How polite is it to use the last name without a title, like “Mister” or “Elder”? Depending on context, I’ve always understood that to be a bit coarse or abrupt, if not downright rude.
Depends on a couple of factors. Even as early as a hundred years ago, men in the United States (to say nothing of men in other countries) used only the surname when addressing:
* Those of either sex who were distinctly inferior, socially or professionally.
* Male equals with whom one was on familiar (but not necessarily intimate) terms.
* Boys and young men to whom one stood in a professionally superior but socially equal relationship.
They added the title when addressing:
* Social and professional superiors.
* Social or professional inferiors of either sex entitled, by virtue of age or status, to a distinct mark of respect.
* Male equals with whom one was not on familiar terms.
* All women who were not distinctly inferior.
The only time they addressed someone by first name only:
* Those of either sex with whom one was on affectionately intimate terms.
* Children.
* Contemptibly remote inferiors.
As you can see, addressing someone by their first name (unless they were children, or someone you were affectionate with) was rude, and addressing someone by their last name (with or without a title) was the norm. (BTW, “contemptibly remote inferiors” referred to female servants, and all servants who were “people of colour”. Remember, I’m talking about 100 years ago, when things were still segregated.)
In the U.S., over the course of the last century, almost all uses have been swallowed up by first-name-only, except where tradition or professional discipline enforces use of titles to eminent superiors. I believe the same is coming-to-be in Great Britain too, but you’d have to ask a native speaker about that.
That first name only as you describe it in the USA, has been how things are in Australia, since before I was born, over 50 years ago.
Can you please stop correcting people? I know you have the best intentions, but it’s a little hard to wade through the comments section of this comic with the knowledge that someone’s gonna come along and ruin the joke or correct something that doesn’t need corrected or answer a rhetorical question or go on about how “well if you were a patron you’d know all this stuff already!”
The suspense is killing me.
At least we get to see more of Blanche’s Dad. He’s cool
The Look he shares with the centauress over James’ hamfisted bringing the meeting to order, is a classic.
I’m kinda dying to know what his name is. I hope it’s another pun on “Black and White” like with Blanche. My guess is it’s Gwyn.
Well, if I had to place a bet, it would be that she she’ll be lucky to get more than three words out before Ravi butts in with something profound like “Look! We found a sphinx!” and starts ravsplainin’ things until they’re *profoundly* unclear… :)
You mean… he starts Raving?
Yeah, look at him. If they don’t let him talk he’s likely to actually explode.
Apart from the cleaning bill, would that actually be a Bad Thing?
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Jocasta, who looks like she’ll explode if she actually has to speak.
I’ll bet the next page is nothing but awkward silence
I’m guessing Michelle will just sigh and change to midform or fullform.
*Cue the reactions*
Is that a purple pizza shirt? Did Michelle wear a purple pizza shirt to the important meeting with the big high council?
Comfort is key with this sort of thing
Ravi’s body language i the first panel just screams at me Wallace from the Wallace and Gromit shows.
Oh yeas. And he has just found a particularly interesting bit of Wensleydale! :)
Michelle: Hi… my name is Michelle…
Everyone: Hi, Michelle!
Michelle: …and I am a sphinx. It has been ten months since I discovered I wasn’t human.
Ravi: We can help you begin a – a twelve-step programme to re-establish the sphinxes and medallion-
James: Ravi! *makes mouth-zipping gesture*
Ravi: *impish gesture of acknowledgement* *copies mouth-zipping gesture*
Orville: Bet you she starts staring at Noir’s lightball.
Senior satyr: I bet you’re right.
Madame U: Fifty says she doesn’t.
Orville: You’re on!
Madame U: All right, girls… *gets her serpents doing a synchronised coiling dance*
Nuala: *AHEM!!!*
>:=)>
Ravi does seem to be the only one of the three who doesn’t feel rather awkward about this. Come on, Michelle, you did show-and-tell at school, didn’t you? It’ll be just the same only with fewer people! You’re not even going to be marked on it! >:=)>
This isn’t related to your post or even the page, but are you just everywhere, at every webcomic? I swear I see you in the comments section for like, 60% of the webcomics I follow.
And dollars to crumpets that they use a different pseudonym for the other 40%. ^_-
I do get around to a certain extent, I suppose, but I’ve only posted comments on a fraction of the webcomics that I read. And I do post everything as Greenwood Goat – while I could whip up a whole sock puppet army of aliases, I’ve never actually felt the need. In case anyone was wondering, I am not Alan Moore or Michael Moorcock or Mike Mignola or Bryan Talbot or Peter Gabriel or Jimmy Page or Ian Anderson, and I’m definitely not the Comte de Saint Germain or Albertus Magnus or Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen brain. Here is a list of the places where I have done significant commenting : Stand Still, Stay Silent. Drowtales. Datachasers. Modest Medusa. Sandra and Woo. Skin Deep (many of them now lost on the old site and due to site crashes… I could redo and repost, I suppose). Spare Keys For Strange Doors. Bicycle Boy. Kordinar 25000. Of Conquests and Consequences (old site). A Redtail’s Dream. Kaspall. Treading Ground. (The last three webcomics are finished/complete.) There are also scatterings of comments on Widdershins, The Last Cowboy, Grrl Power, The Black Orb, Bird Boy, Unsounded, But I’m A Cat Person, Lief and Thorn, Castoff, Supercell, and across DeviantArt. There are/were a load of comments in Alien Dice and Cyantian, and on the web novel Tales of Magisterius University, but these are a few years back now. Thank you for your interest in the Greenwood Goat. I hope to entertain you with more comments in future! >:=)>
It would be nice to still have all of those fanfic comments of yours, Greenwood, and they are ALWAYS very humourous.
She was hoping exactly this wouldn’t happen.
Great to hear the con was a blast, Kory :)
2 cons in 2 weekends would wear anyone out.
Get the rest you need. We can wait :)
Odd choice of attire Michelle. Is that t-shirt suppose to represent how you’re probably feeling right about now?~
Have a nice nap. Um will that be in dog years, cat years, Vulcan years ( kidding.), or human years?
I think one Venusian day of sleep should be enough for anybody.
(One day on Venus is 243 Earth days.)
Isn’t Venus too close to the sun so nothing can live on it.
Actually, Atlas, that’s not the problem. The problem is a runaway greenhouse gas effect.
Venus is hot, but it isn’t because of how close it is to the sun. Well, not entirely. It’s because its atmosphere is about 96% carbon dioxide, which is much heavier than Earth’s atmosphere (which is about 78% nitrogen). Carbon dioxide is also a “greenhouse gas” (it traps infrared radiation, aka heat).
That’s why air pressure at the surface of Venus is enough to squish you into a red paste (93 bar, which is roughly equivalent to being half a mile underwater). The temperature at the surface is about 872 degrees Fahrenheit (remember that water boils at 212 degrees), and the wind blows constantly at a speed of about 220 mph.
On the other hand, when you get up to an altitude of about 35 miles above the surface, the temperature, air pressure, and wind speed is about the same as it is on Earth… and 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen (Earth’s atmosphere) would be a lifting gas, the same way helium is on Earth.
So you could actually colonize Venus by building giant, environmentally-sealed airborne cities called aerostats and pumping them full of oxygen and nitrogen to breathe… of course, there’s a lot of other considerations. You’d need to use robots with flight capability to bring minerals up from the surface, you’d have to have onboard processing, you’d need vast hydroponic or aeroponic gardens (both for food and to process the carbon dioxide we exhale), etc. So colonizing Venus wouldn’t be easy. But it’s feasible, with enough technology.
In other words it would be tedious time consuming and very hard to do but we’d do it.
Yes, make the girl who was practically in coma not to long ago give a speech. Good plan.
Wait what no one said I was presenting today crapcrapcrap.
She’s having flashbacks to school, clearly.
That’s gonna be me this Friday at College.
How did things work out with your presentation?
Or the classic recurring nightmares. Suddenly, Michelle realizes she’s not wearing any pants.
Madam U you could make friends if you tried. Tried really hard but if you tried.
Hmm. I wonder what Madam U’s friends are like.
Old and salty trolls, probably the “Internet” subspecies.
Why did she smack her thigh? It’s not an action I’d associate with dismay or embarrassment or surprise. Determination, maybe?
Nervous gesture.
Ah yes, faffing, the mark of a true bureaucrat.
Michelle: (Gulp) *thinking to self “oh shit”
This feels like a tiny bit of a dick move on his part, but maybe he’s thinking she wants to introduce herself. I don’t know.
Well, if she has stage fright this might be a problem
Michelle: “As the oldest resident Sphinx in the Avalon, I request to siege at your council.”
siege – sēj/
noun: siege; plural noun: sieges
a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.
Well that’s one way of either compelling cooperation or an all out brawl.
Mmm… not necessarily. Siege also means a seat or a throne (though that meaning is obsolete).
So someone probably meant: “As the oldest (and only) resident Sphinx in the Avalon, I request a seat on the council.”
Though we don’t know yet if Michelle is going to stay in Liverpool. At some point she might want to return stateside to finish her college degree.
I’ve tried several times to make a comment, and they never appear. This isn’t the first time it happened either, I’d say 90% of my attempts simply never go through.
Assuming this one does.. why is that? Why can’t I ever comment? Did I do something wrong?
Hmm weird, it looks fine to me! Sometimes comments with too many links will get sent to my spam filters, but I try hard to make sure all legit comments are approved. I’m sorry if yours haven’t!
Dont think Ive ever sent a link.
Cue someone saying “Wait a minute. Did you say Jocasta?”
Technically she doesn’t have to explain anything in words. It might be more fun just to fully transform and wait for the inevitable ruckuss to die down, then just field questions.
Hey Madam U would you like to actually see stuff with your own eyes because recently in Korea ( North) there was a program where these scientists did operations for blind people to see. And please don’t yell at me.
For a Gorgon such as Vadoma, that would be problematic.
Whilst her sight would be restored, also restored would be the Gorgon’s power of turning living beings to stone by merely looking at them. From the way some Gorgons deliberately blind themselves, the obvious assumption that can be made is there is no ‘off switch’ to the power. It’s on ALL the time. So a Gorgon merely looking at someone, means that person is DEAD.
So, she would need to cover her eyes with a heavy blindfold, in order to keep Prestor John’s in business.
So far, we don’t yet know what the effective range is on a Gorgon’s power.
Hey, I get to correct you for a change. “Baby gorgons are generally kept blindfolded until they can learn how to control their stoney eyesight.” https://www.skindeepcomic.com/reader-questions/rq-1-baby-monsters/
If any do intentionally blind themselves, it may be for the same reason Manticores sometimes remove their tails… to make people less afraid of them.
And so, I’ve catch up. Hello everyone
Welcome to the Avalon, Potwór