Skip to content
Currently On Hiatus: Please Enjoy A New Reader Question Every Weekday!

Illumination 3 Page 15

Illumination 3 Page 15 published on 61 Comments on Illumination 3 Page 15

I literally just got back from BLFC! So now I’m uploading the comic and then going to bed!! Hah hah!

Thanks to everybody who stopped by at BLFC and said hello! I am so tired but the show was so much fun. I bought roughly 5 million enamel pins.

Anyway here’s a new comic page!

61 Comments

No you are rubbish, mysterious voice!

Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks, I say!

I’m envisioning Madam U being the one. And it’ll be followed by accusatory pointing and “You’re all having me on, aren’t you? Think it’s funny to play such a trick on the visually handicapped?”

Well, maybe not that but somehow I suspect it’s her anyways, since it took so long for ‘Rubbish!’ to come out of the peanut gallery. ;)

But whatever it is, I feel sorry for them, because surely Ravi will open his big fat smarty pants mouth and spew forth a soul-withering discourse on why it /isn’t/ rubbish. :D

And the accusatory pointing being directed at a nearby wall.
It may NOT be her, considering she runs a business selling what medallions exist. She would be the one to gain the most profit by selling a NEW medallion for, let’s say, manticores.

Unless the new medallions were being sold someplace else, in that case she’d have some compatition which could hurt her prices. I think that’s kind of a big logical leap for this conversation, so I’m guessing madam U is not the one shouting.

Well, we *did* have a flashback on how prone sphinxes are to wring every last copper out of their customers … which is to say, not at all … so Madame U’s vision of going out of business with a JATO helpfully attached would be rather well-founded.

I don’t know if it’s really her, buuuut at the same time she’s probably seen medallions come and go over a loooooong time, she -might- have insight to the rarity of sphinx ones… or potentially a perceived nonexistance. Y’know, not saying it’s true and all, but rumor can be a powerful thing.

I was recently going through the “Word of God” page on the wiki, and at some point Kory answered a question about the rarity of sphinx medallions with, “Madam U probably has one or two in her shop.” It hasn’t come up in the comic, so it may have changed since then.

(In case anyone doesn’t know, “Word of God” is the TV Tropes term for “things the author said about their work that aren’t in the work itself”.)

Looks like Madam U is doing her equivalent of squinting really hard at something! Kinda hoping whoever yelled is someone that hasn’t spoken yet, which so far would either be the Satyr, the White Stag, or the Centaur looking person.

Oh my goodness, look at Barnaby’s dainty little paws on Michelle’s medallion. He’s so adorable. I find it amusing that the comment section can’t stop talking about floof, so Kory brings in one of the floofiest creatures alive.

I mean, if you don’t keep an angora rabbit trimmed it can turn into this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angora_wool#/media/File:EnglishAngoraRabbit.jpg . It’s like a pillow with a wiggly nose.

I know Ravi promised to be silent, but I think this is a situation where he would be helpful, since the council really believes they’re being tricked. He might know something that could convince them it’s not an optical illusion or prank.

Or at least ONE member of the council thinks they’re being tricked. (I’m still betting on Nuala.)

Seems that Orville’s already a believer. He called her a sphinx even before Michelle confirmed it.

Well he *is* a Bugbear. If anyone would know a Sphinx on sight, it would be one of those.

Honestly I think the only reason she hasn’t pinged the entire Bugbear nation is that they haven’t ever *felt* a Sphinx before so they don’t know what the weird thing is, just that there’s a weird thing.

Come on people! This is hard for her, push the naysayer out of the room and get down to business. Also I wonder if sphinx’s have a kind of telekinetic power, seems fine manipulation would be difficult in full form otherwise, which would make creating the first medallions tricky.

I notice that the “Rubbish!” shout didn’t happen until after Michelle said “…I guess maybe y’all should be aware of it?” (IT being the new info she’s trying to sort out.) Perhaps the unspecified voice (and I’m thinking it’s Orv, just because he’s more aware of the magical undercurrents…. the hoodoo, if you will… that he sensed “from Finn’s direction” when the others apparently didn’t) is saying “Rubbish” that no one else needs to be aware of everything new in Michelle’s head right now? Perhaps a desire for “plausible deniability” in whatever conflict may arise.

—Or, it could be Madame U, because she has “all surviving sphinx medallions in her possession and none are missing so this must be a hoax.” (Is she aware of the surviving dragon(s)? and working undercover to see if the sphinx medallion ever recognizes anyone?)

What I wonder is what those black spots at the tops of her eyeballs are. Places where the eyelids detach from the eyeball? They don’t look anything like human medial canthi, and Alec doesn’t have them.
I also wonder what that red spot on Barnaby’s paw is. Did the medallion bite him?

Why are her eyes glowing? Is it because she now has all of that new information?

Michelle:”Here, I’ll prove I’m a sphinx by curing this snake woman’s blindness with my powers.”
Everyone: “Aaggh! Nooooo–!”

Proving our gal Michelle is a true sphinx is easy. Let her assume her human form, take her medallion, and move it out of range. If she spontaneously becomes a sphinx, she is a genuine sphinx, since she can not access the medallion to disguise herself. A transformation spell would not work as a disguise under these circumstances since Anthony became feathery when touching a medallion for just a few seconds. The strong medallion magic broke the weaker transformation spell. Michelle’s medallion would have made short work any transformation spell. Actually, just moving her medallion out of range should do it, but the bit where she suddenly becomes a sphinx is more dramatic and fun.

On the other hand, it would be more dramatic and fun (at least for us,) if Michelle had to prove herself by going on a quest beyond the Desert Where Camels Die to the Mountains of Jade and Light, to find the ancient Monastery of the Non-Human Monks and speak to the Grandmaster of the Enlightened who would write her a note. (“Yes, Michelle Jocasta is a real sphinx.”) He would know by moving her medallion out of effective range.

Okay, I am just being plain silly now. I had better shut up.

This kind of thing is one of the few places where I think comics can sort of fall down hard in terms of storytelling conventions.

In a movie, or a book, you pretty much never have any doubt who is making an interjection from ‘off screen’ unless it’s a completely new party making their entrance.

In web comics, it is sometimes used as an easy way to create a cliffhanger before the next episode…But if the speaker is someone who’s already spoken, then the audience should know who that is. And generally, even in the worst-written superhero comics where it’s someone making their debut appearance, the speaker then gets given a splash page and the cliffhanger isn’t ‘who said that?!’ but rather is ‘what is that person going to do next?!’

Leave a Reply to ghostygooCancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *