Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2018-10-25
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2018-10-25

by shaenon on October 25, 2018 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Figgs and Phantoms
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Discussion (52) ¬

  1. Owlmirror
    October 25, 2018, 12:07 am | # | Reply

    “Maths” — another Britishism.

    • Ogden Wernstrom
      October 25, 2018, 12:27 am | # | Reply

      Yes, the bees speak English American.

      • awgiedawgie
        October 25, 2018, 12:55 am | # | Reply

        In other words… English.

    • woozy
      October 25, 2018, 1:47 am | # | Reply

      As is the adjective “Wizard”. The hints have been broad enough. I’m wondering if they are supposed to be spoken with British accents or British isms with American accents. Virginia ‘ s never mentioned any hinges about *english* women living in delaware.

      • Dr. Steve
        October 25, 2018, 10:07 am | # | Reply

        or… off to SEE the wizard

    • greenknight32
      October 25, 2018, 4:17 am | # | Reply

      These were major clues that led Virginia to believe they are Gavotte – the British isms, the tea. Her first appearance in the strip, she asks Tip to water her orchids because they’re looking “peaky” – very British. Then she offers him a toffee…

      • Schismatism
        October 25, 2018, 12:17 pm | # | Reply

        Heck, when she goes into supersedure, she starts using Cockney slang.

    • Paula Goodwin
      October 25, 2018, 4:50 am | # | Reply

      When I read it everyone has an English accent!

    • jdreyfuss
      February 3, 2020, 4:45 pm | # | Reply

      Gavotte was pretty clearly British.

  2. dexitroboper
    October 25, 2018, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    “maths” – not USA dialect.

    • Clifton
      October 25, 2018, 12:22 am | # | Reply

      Also “wizard”, as an adjective. If they start saying “pip pip”, she’s getting close.

      • D. Walker
        October 25, 2018, 4:48 pm | # | Reply

        It actually was briefly used in America, after The Phantom Menace came out.

        Ahh, the 90s… so terrible…

  3. Clifton
    October 25, 2018, 12:12 am | # | Reply

    “Predictive” vs. “predicative” maybe?

    • awgiedawgie
      October 25, 2018, 1:04 am | # | Reply

      She’s both. “No bus will come for you” is predictive. “The bus is the only way out” is predicative.

      • Robert Nowall
        October 25, 2018, 4:34 pm | # | Reply

        “Bus” or “buss?”

        • awgiedawgie
          October 25, 2018, 8:12 pm | # | Reply

          Hmmm… in virtual reality, she and Nick actually could kiss, so maybe “buss” is the right word after all. Then again, that also makes “no buss will come for you” all the more depressing.

  4. Owlmirror
    October 25, 2018, 12:14 am | # | Reply

    I am utterly baffled as to where the materials and fuel are supposed to be coming from. Beachfront resorts are not typically known for energy-dense oxidizers or materials that can withstand energy-dense oxidizers oxidizing.

    • Marisa Mockery
      October 25, 2018, 12:19 am | # | Reply

      Starting to think in this place, at this beach, if Virginia wants it, it’s going to be there.

      • tremor3258
        October 25, 2018, 11:38 am | # | Reply

        I see items for a rudimentary lathe…

    • chh01
      October 25, 2018, 12:19 am | # | Reply

      VR system. None of this is real, so the rules can be bent to accomodate the game play.

      • Robert Nowall
        October 25, 2018, 12:36 am | # | Reply

        If the laws of physics don’t apply…well, they might as well all be in that “Star Trek” episode with the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral.

        • chh01
          October 25, 2018, 10:40 am | # | Reply

          The laws of VR game physics apply. For details, check the documentation.

    • Clifton
      October 25, 2018, 12:21 am | # | Reply

      Well it’s not a real beach, just a VR beach simulation, and it wasn’t necessarily coded with realistic rocket fuel formula analysis, so I suppose it’s all a matter of what Ginnie can con the simulation into supplying, or into accepting as a propellant.

      Maybe the rocket will propel itself via collision-detection glitches in the program. (Similar things have happened with genetic algorithms “playing” in a simulated 3D world – they sometimes evolve to exploit bugs in the system which is often simpler than evolving the intended behaviors.)

      • Jay
        October 25, 2018, 2:13 am | # | Reply

        Kerbal Kraken Drives? Hmm, are they going to launch themselves by raising the landing legs and then putting them down again really really fast?

      • Seph Shewell Brockway
        October 25, 2018, 5:59 am | # | Reply

        I guess the Mad just have the ability to do that with actual reality.

        • georgethearchon
          October 25, 2018, 5:59 pm | # | Reply

          Good point, well made.

          And a timely reminder that there may be a _reason_ that Ginny is so good at ‘reverse engineering’ mad technology. 🙂

          (And that she’s surpassed that, in St. Charlie amongst others.)

          • awgiedawgie
            October 25, 2018, 8:19 pm | #

            I’ve been saying that for years, but no one ever agreed with me. They always had some explanation for how she could possibly be sane and still do what she does. Now, I see others are finally suspecting that she may have been Mad all along.

    • equisetophyta
      October 25, 2018, 1:37 am | # | Reply

      Maybe they’re at Chambers Field. Good place for a Virginia.

    • David B Huber
      October 25, 2018, 1:53 am | # | Reply

      IIRC there’s a saltwater taffy shop on the north side of the boardwalk, which would make an excellent rocket fuel and I can’t help but wonder if mayhap some saltpetre could be found in old Walnut shell compost piles?

      • Owlmirror
        October 25, 2018, 8:28 am | # | Reply

        I wondered if you were being facetious, but rocket candy is actually a thing.

        Well.

    • Barking Monkey
      October 25, 2018, 6:23 am | # | Reply

      If you win enough skeeball tickets you get to choose from the SECRET prize cabinet…

    • Robert Loughrey
      October 25, 2018, 9:13 am | # | Reply

      There’s also a good chance the simulation WANTS her to succeed. This whole beach thing isn’t part of the normal extirpation VR. Gavotte is in here and one of the very first things Ginny is told is the only way out is to fix what is broken. Sounds like a quest hook to me.

    • waynezombie
      October 25, 2018, 12:06 pm | # | Reply

      Plenty of walnuts, providing meats and shells thereof. There’s always coconuts, and with Gilligan pedaling on the generator bicycle, I’m sure the Professor can come up with something. Maybe the Soyuz capsule that crash landed has some spare propellant.

      • Lady E
        October 25, 2018, 1:12 pm | # | Reply

        Mrs. Apis probably has fertilizer for her garden. Potassium Nitrate is found in fertilizers.

        • Sheik
          October 25, 2018, 3:02 pm | # | Reply

          So is the more energetic ammonium nitrate. We’re surrounded with all kinds of stuff that has other uses.

  5. Robert Nowall
    October 25, 2018, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    Some paper might be nice, too.

  6. Towering Barbarian
    October 25, 2018, 12:24 am | # | Reply

    For a second I thought Ginny was going to go on to say, “…which means that you can *predict* what the correct answers will be!”. >

  7. Owlmirror
    October 25, 2018, 12:33 am | # | Reply

    Whack prediction time:

    The rocket sled (or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be) will launch without passengers, either by accident or to test it first. It will hit the side of the cliff rather than City Hall itself, causing a huge landslip. Something will be revealed as being inside that huge steep hill.

    Extended whack prediction: What will be revealed is a cave mouth. A swarm of bees will fly out of the cave, which will say “Mother, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  8. Owlmirror
    October 25, 2018, 12:48 am | # | Reply

    Yesterday’s comic had someone bringing up the flowers that each of them are wearing. I noted that the flowers on Ms Delphi’s headscarf might be described as being rose in color.

    I am reminded that “under the rose” means something like “secret”. Is Delphi keeping a secret?

    Hm.

    Maybe she is secretly Mayor Queen?

    • awgiedawgie
      October 25, 2018, 1:09 am | # | Reply

      Your mind is beginning to wander… yesterday you proposed that Mrs. Ape is the Queen.

      • Owlmirrror
        October 25, 2018, 8:17 am | # | Reply

        Beginning to wander? I am constantly wandering the field of generated hypotheses.

        I have not forgotten that maybe Mrs. Apis is secretly Mayor Queen, nor that maybe Mayor Queen is a ringer, nor that maybe Mayor Queen, as a component of the swarm, represents the red/Quadling region of Oz. I don’t consider any of these ideas as definitively ruled out, yet.

        And I don’t think the idea that “Delphi is secretly Mayor Queen” as being that likely.

        If the roses even actually represent a secret/secrets, they might be the sort of standard garb of fortune tellers; a hint at having secret knowledge.

        Although now I am reminded of something else: Despite that Delphi specifically claims the title of astrologer, she has not said a single thing that astrologers usually talk about. No mention of or inquiry as to signs, or natal charts, or horoscopes, or mention of Mercury being in retrograde, or planets being in opposition or conjunction, or comets, or personality, or anything related.

        Maybe her real secret is that she knows nothing about astrology.

      • awgiedawgie
        October 25, 2018, 9:04 am | # | Reply

        Yes, I admit I was being generous when I said “beginning to wander.” 🙂

  9. Paula Goodwin
    October 25, 2018, 4:52 am | # | Reply

    I know I can be a bit slow, but I’ve only just realised that we can’t see any of their eyes!

    • awgiedawgie
      October 25, 2018, 9:08 am | # | Reply

      Maybe a bit slow, and maybe also not reading the comments for the past six weeks or so worth of strips. It’s been discussed quite a lot.

      • Paula Goodwin
        October 25, 2018, 1:02 pm | # | Reply

        Guilty as charged, all too often recently I have just read the strip and dashed off, sometimes work just gets in the way of the finer things in life.

        • awgiedawgie
          October 25, 2018, 4:09 pm | # | Reply

          Indeed… those pesky bills just demand to be paid.

  10. Frank
    October 25, 2018, 9:55 am | # | Reply

    F(X) = m*a

    what’s the X for?
    DOOM!

    • Dr. Steve
      October 25, 2018, 10:08 am | # | Reply

      now that’s MAH kind of physics!

  11. DonRCamp
    October 25, 2018, 10:49 am | # | Reply

    The materials and fuel come from hammerspace, of course!

  12. Shadowmehr
    October 25, 2018, 8:55 pm | # | Reply

    I like how Mrs. Apis is contributing by using a megaphone at the two people actually assembling the rocket. A true member of the management team.

  13. Andy4Hire
    October 25, 2018, 9:06 pm | # | Reply

    Not sure if it’s actually significant, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard a character use “wizard” as slang or exclamation. “Oh, wizard!” was Nera’s reaction to meeting Nick.

  14. Knuckles
    February 8, 2022, 12:55 pm | # | Reply

    I absolutely love Beatrix calling this “wizard”.

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