Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2018-09-12
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2018-09-12

by shaenon on September 12, 2018 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Figgs and Phantoms
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Discussion (40) ¬

  1. Efogoto
    September 12, 2018, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    So … Narsil?

  2. awgiedawgie
    September 12, 2018, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Great… All that work in robotics might pay off. Can you fix a bus?

    But seriously, maybe my theory yesterday was closer than I thought. Maybe Virginia’s mind has fractured, and she has to get it all working together again to escape her own subconscious.

    • Bruce A Munro
      September 12, 2018, 1:58 am | # | Reply

      She’s really a Mad suffering from post-traumatic sanity?

      • awgiedawgie
        September 12, 2018, 3:00 am | # | Reply

        Well, she was suffering delusions of sanity. Now, she seems to just be suffering delusions. Only when she realizes that “we, the Mad, are the truly sane,” and embraces her Madness, can she be made whole.

    • D. Walker
      September 12, 2018, 4:07 am | # | Reply

      The issue I have with this idea is that NONE of this is familiar to Dr. Lee.

      When a trauma inflicted mind invents things to keep itself occupied, it draws from things it knows – not from things it doesn’t.

      It’s why when people report ghost “sightings”, they always claim to have seen a kind of deceased person they were aware of – but never one that they didn’t know about. For example, if someone visited The Great Wall of China and claimed to see ghosts, it’s overwhelmingly likely that they would describe seeing ancient chinese warriors in body armor, rather than rifle wielding Japanese soldiers in modern military uniforms, as most people aren’t aware of Operation Nekka in 1937.

      So if Virginia has had some sort of mind break, why is she seeing unfamiliar things? For example, given how big a role her very Korean parents, family, and upbringing had in shaping her personality and life, I would think they’d be present in her mind.

      No, it’d be more likely that this is virtual reality than it would be that Virginia is in some sort of bizarre fugue state.

      • awgiedawgie
        September 12, 2018, 9:00 am | # | Reply

        But how do you know that none of this is familiar to her? Simply because she hasn’t said anything? It could be related to a trip she took as a child… or something she saw on television. Each of the people could be unrelated to each other, but still be fragments from her own past. It’s still too early to say for sure.

        • D. Walker
          September 12, 2018, 1:20 pm | # | Reply

          All evidence points to her being completely unfamiliar with everything. Sure, anything is -possible-. But that doesn’t make it likely.

          Heck, it’s -possible- that entire Skin Horse storyline takes place purely in the imagination of an autistic child, like in the infamous television series St. Elsewhere. Very unlikely, though.

    • everlastingwonder
      September 12, 2018, 6:19 pm | # | Reply

      I’ve been in a LARP based around that exact concept.

  3. Duth Olec
    September 12, 2018, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Broken… loyalty?

    • Towering Barbarian
      September 12, 2018, 12:43 am | # | Reply

      Broken…a male gamer whose mind was put into an osprey and who was brainwashed into thinking of himself as a machine, perhaps. o_O

      • awgiedawgie
        September 12, 2018, 9:04 am | # | Reply

        Also of interest to that theory… “bus” was an old slang term for a pilot’s airplane — especially a large plane.

        • Robert Nowall
          September 12, 2018, 11:14 am | # | Reply

          So far, they’re all bozos on this bus.

          • waynezombie
            September 12, 2018, 11:18 am | #

            My wife’s a bozette!

  4. palenoue
    September 12, 2018, 12:30 am | # | Reply

    So who’s brain is she going to put into the broken bus?

    • Shadowmehr
      September 12, 2018, 7:43 pm | # | Reply

      There have been three volunteers so far, even if they don’t know it yet. She wouldn’t use Madam Delphi, as there she might start looking too far down the road to notice the car in front of her.

  5. rinku
    September 12, 2018, 1:59 am | # | Reply

    Data bus, maybe

  6. Gyrre
    September 12, 2018, 2:30 am | # | Reply

    And more covered eyes

  7. adam
    September 12, 2018, 4:57 am | # | Reply

    So, why can’t she just walk away? Are they on an island or something?

    • 5-tons-of-flax
      September 12, 2018, 6:07 am | # | Reply

      There’s endless ocean on one side, and endless desert on the other. And the road that the bus uses. I suspect that she’ll try it anyway and quickly wind up where she started.
      Being a scientist, she will need to test this hypothesis.

      • adam
        September 12, 2018, 7:13 pm | # | Reply

        I’m sure that there is a sufficiently zany hazard involved that could only be overcome with a bus. Zombie wolverines or something. I’m just wondering why it doesn’t occur to her as an option.

  8. Al the K
    September 12, 2018, 7:07 am | # | Reply

    Yup, x-ray spex. Next is the glasses with eyeballs on springs or mirror shades.

    • Robert Nowall
      September 12, 2018, 6:39 pm | # | Reply

      Perhaps someone has a Hypno-Coin…

  9. Owlmirror
    September 12, 2018, 7:30 am | # | Reply

    Good grief.
    I just noticed something so utterly, ludicrously simple.

    Beatrix — Melanie — Ape — Delphi

    B-MAD

    • Kirala
      September 12, 2018, 10:00 am | # | Reply

      … I LIKE this theory.

      • Candace
        September 13, 2018, 12:35 am | # | Reply

        This.^

    • Efogoto
      September 12, 2018, 7:48 pm | # | Reply

      I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!

      • Candace
        September 13, 2018, 12:35 am | # | Reply

        I’m mad, too, Eddie!

    • Josh L.
      September 12, 2018, 8:33 pm | # | Reply

      Also, all those names are bee-related, to a degree: Beatrix starts with “Bee”, “Mel” means “honey”, “Ape” is the start of “apis” or “apiary”, the Delphic priestess was referred to as a bee and there are bee-motifs on artifacts from Delphi. Bees are keepers of secrets and wisdom, and messengers to/guardians of the underworld.

      Hey… where is Gavotte, again?

      • Candace
        September 13, 2018, 12:39 am | # | Reply

        Hmmmm, you could have something there.

  10. Robert Nowall
    September 12, 2018, 11:13 am | # | Reply

    So when you post the Yelp review, Dr. Lee, don’t forget to put HELP! at the end of it.

  11. Thaeus
    September 12, 2018, 4:52 pm | # | Reply

    Minor observation: Everyone Dr. Lee has met so far has been a woman, with some sort of eyewear obscuring their eyes, and wearing clothes with one (Beatrix, Mrs. Ape) or more (Melanie, Madame Delphi) flowers on them (with the exception of the flowers on Madame Delphi’s ears, they all look like poppies).

    • Robert Nowall
      September 12, 2018, 6:38 pm | # | Reply

      There’s been mention of at least two specific others (the bus driver, the Mayor), as well as a general reference to “my whole family,” number unknown. But their sex or eyewear can’t be determined.

    • Foradain
      September 12, 2018, 7:31 pm | # | Reply

      Oz Poppies?!?! (Poppies! Poppies! Poppies!)

    • Owlmirror
      September 12, 2018, 8:14 pm | # | Reply

      Good catch; I hadn’t noticed the pattern of flowers.

      However, none of them look like poppies. Poppies have a distinctive cupped shape; the flowers we see on the characters all look completely flat. All the poppies I can recall seeing were distinctly red (except for an unusual white variety); while I suppose some poppies might be pink, that isn’t the typical color that one would use to depict one. To the extent we can see any centers to the flowers, they look the same color as the petals or yellow; the centers of poppies are typically black.

      When I search on pink flower yellow center, one of the first hits was:

      Pink Flower With Yellow Center Could Be An Anemone

      I think it is an Anemone hupehensis sometimes called a Chinese anemone. I found a picture of this type of anemone on the Missouri Botanical Garden site.

      So there’s that.

      • Owlmirror
        September 12, 2018, 8:15 pm | # | Reply

        Obvious followup: With fronds like these, who needs anemones?

    • Candace
      September 13, 2018, 12:44 am | # | Reply

      I don’t see any flowers on Mrs. Ape or her clothes.

      • Owlmirror
        September 13, 2018, 2:27 am | # | Reply

        It’s just the one on her lapel; and purple rather than pink with a yellow center.

  12. Frank
    September 12, 2018, 7:56 pm | # | Reply

    Yelp means internet! You can email for help!

    • awgiedawgie
      September 12, 2018, 9:31 pm | # | Reply

      Technically, she never said that Virginia could actually access Yelp. She merely asked for a good review. Notice that no one we’ve seen here so far – including Virginia herself – has produced a cell phone.

      • Towering Barbarian
        September 12, 2018, 9:46 pm | # | Reply

        Very true. But then that brings up the question of how she can reasonably ask for such a review if it can’t done. So the possibility that her request might actually constitute a hint at a way out shouldn’t be discarded too readily. ^_^

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