Today is the last day to sign up for this quarter’s Skin Deep Merch Club on Patreon! This round is Library themed, so members get two pins based off the Liverpool Avalon building AND a bookmark! For your books!
Today is the last day to sign up for this quarter’s Skin Deep Merch Club on Patreon! This round is Library themed, so members get two pins based off the Liverpool Avalon building AND a bookmark! For your books!
31 Comments
Yes do more of the thing you are uncertain about I am sure that will fix it!
Not a bad suggestion though Greg
Oh dear. It sounds like her first attempt was a massive epic fail…
Sure Greg, I imagine race memories of a massive genocidal war are exactly what she needs to galvanise her focus right now.
Kinda love how the all powerful sphinx has a monkey’s paw attached…
So much power, so many problems.
(scrolls up to look at Michelle’s protection charms) I don’t see a– oh. Right.
Wait, so she made a medallion, something that hasn’t been done in hundreds of years and they just mention it casually?
Also, where is Greg’s Medallion?
Also also, it is very concerning that the thing their society entirely depends on is a lost technology.
Maybe she tried to fix Greg’s Medallion and thats why he’s all shaggy looking now,
Greg used the plural here, so she made more than one medallion already.
It’s not all that surprising that making medallions is a lost technology.
Only sphinx know how to make them and Michelle is the last one.
The also had to go into hiding and writing any of process down was probably really risky. Or maybe all the written information was destroyed during the war.
Did she make a Medallion for Bloodcarver?
Almost certainly that’s our mystery man from the previous chapter.
Dohhhhhh, should have realised. *forehead slap*
That’s back in the realm of possibility again, now that we know she HAS made at least some medallions. But she’s acting like they were flawed in some way. Maybe Bloodcarver can’t change back now?
Seems very likely.
Hmm. So she has made medallions. judging by Greg’s line, it isn’t just that she tried, either. But something about the experience has made her reticent to try again.
Are people (like Madam U) *aware* of her experimentation? Was it a personal issue, or is her reaction because of how *others* responded? There’s a reason she’s digging through books to understand the inter-species politics.
The medallions cemented the haves and have nots, to be sure. …and it can’t be fun throwing your body open to be run by memories (if that is what happened).
I remember a Reader Question about how Madam U would react to new medallions, but I can’t find the link. In short, she would rebrand hers as “antique medallions” and jack up the price even farther.
Greg seems chill enough in full form while Michelle is sticking to human form, which is interesting as her existence is hardly a secret any more. Granted her full form wouldn’t be very practical in a library but most mythicals seem to prefer midform for their day to day activities,
It might not be that obvious, but this looks like a midform to me. One designed around being able to use chairs, and thumbs, but still a midform. Just look at her ears, teeth and eyes. If she were in a human form, she wouldn’t have ears like that, wouldn’t have the fangs and would have pupils.
Uh oh, there’s a story there.
I suspect this has to do with the same issues that Jocasta and Wosret ran into. Who gets medallions? It seems to have been a highly political matter back in the day. It’s almost certain to be even more so today, where the lines between mythic and monster are so strongly drawn.
She either helps to maintain this status quo, or, like Jocasta and Wosret, chooses to help those who are considered “unworthy” and has to face the wrath of the Elders. I can’t imagine they’ll be sanguine if suddenly monsters like manticores and harpies suddenly have medallions.
that… or someone got stuck in a really misshapen form for a while!
…Actually, just because she *made* them, it doesn’t mean she know if they work, right? By its very nature, it’s a tricky thing to test, and I imagine not a lot of Avalon parents would be too eager to volunteer their kids as the first test subjects.
…Well, I know *someone* who would gladly play that game of Russian roulette for a harpy medallion at some point, but, given the beginning of this part, he might just less desperate now.
I fear that he might need a specially crafted one. Time will tell.
> just because she *made* them, it doesn’t mean she know if they work, right?
Unless the process of making them determines (by design, or as a random, but directly observable result) which species they’re for, it could be quite nontrivial to find out even if there are desperate volunteers (of a limited set of species).
(Remember, the old medaillons having an engraving that tells what species it is for is a later add-on, not part of the magic itself.)
I wonder if the council got wind of the medallions she’s already made and forbade her from making more.
Has it ever been explained where Madam U is getting her apparently constantly “full display case” supply of medallions from?
A while back, an RQ established that Madame U has Alec scouring estate sales and the like for old “costume jewelry”.
Ahhhhh! That would make sense, then… And hmmmnnn,…I wonder if providing that particular service adds even MORE to Alec’s somewhat cocky and bloated sense of self-esteem…
Michelle has several existential decisions to make.
If she starts making medallions, will anyone ever value her again for anything else? Does she know even know whether Greg’s suggestion is for her good or if he’s using her because he himself needs a new medallion? If you have to suspect your friends, how much worse does it get when you’re doing it for acquaintances? Or strangers?
Second, whom does she say ‘No’ to? She can’t make an infinite number of medallions. She can’t make enough for future generations when she doesn’t even know how large those future generations will be.
And is there any way for her to make them available to people who can be trusted, as opposed to making them a token of wealth, available in the limit case only to mega-rich sociopaths? Madame U and everybody else who now determines where they go seem happy to make them nothing more than a reward for having a lot of money.
Jocasta and Wosret by contrast made them for people they personally trusted, and then were goaded into making them for more and more people until folks feeling entitled to have them started a war that resulted in the extinction of her entire species. Michelle is likely to fear something similar as the outcome if she starts up the business again.
So, yeah… not knowing whether it’s a good idea is par for the course here.
I’m not sure how to interpret Michelle’s expressions in the last 2 panels there. She looks, IDK, ashamed? Defeated?
My guess might be that she’s worried about not being able to meet the demand; or of being responsible for whatever species order she picks and its consequences, but I don’t know if that quite fits.