Modest Medusa

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Modest Medusa is a web comic written by Jake Richmond and featured on Drunk Duck, although it got its own website on July 29, 2011.

On the night before Christmas, Jake comes home and finds that the toilet has overflowed and flooded his bedroom. While moving his stuff to a different room, he finds a gorgon child hiding in the closet. Because she cannot return to the land she came from, Jake and his niece Marah have to take care of her.

The comic starts here.

Tropes used in Modest Medusa include:

• Alpha Bitch: The mermaids
• Apologetic Attacker: Medusa, when her hair snakes' venom petrifies a mermaid.
• Author Avatar: Jake
• Badass: Urano, a Black Knight who shows up out of nowhere and decapitates the ghost with a battleaxe.
• Bacon Addiction: Even the Medusa's hair-snakes agree-- everything is better with bacon!
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma: When the Medusa has to tell Emergency Services about the Chainsaw-corn incident, she is asked to start from the beginning. She assumes that they meant the start of her life.
• Big "What?": Medusa's response to being called a raccoon.
• Blank White Eyes: The reaction of some characters when they first see the medusa.
• Bond One-Liner: Marah seems to be attempting them with increasing frequency, all in a similar vein...

Marah: I've got a sword I'll stick so far up your butt, everyone will call you "Sword Butt"!
Marah: Why don't you save [the cash] so you can buy a new butt? 'Cause your old one won't work so well after I kick the crap out of it!

• Brand X: Mostly Averted, the products. From Chocodiles to Arizona Greentea, the food products are real. Portal and Pokémon have also been mentioned, and even played. Jake even said Reshiram looks like a space chicken.
• Catapult Nightmare: Jake has one that signals that things are about to go downhill.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Lampshaded in strip #156.
• Chainsaw Good: The unicorn sent after the Medusa has a chainsaw for a horn.
  • Called "The Knight of Chains", he is a Complete Monster, and may be unkillable.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Jake. He's an all-around geek and bit of a loser, but damn, can he hold his own against chainsaw-unicorn!
  • According to Word of God, this was done as a Take That at a reviewer who accused Jake of being a Marty Stu because he was an Author Avatar. So he did this to show what a Marty Stu was really like.
  • The hair snakes. Sure, they may not talk much and they will eat anything, but if you threaten the Medusa, they will deal with you.
• Cute Monster Girl: The Medusa.
• Discount Lesbians: Despite apparently being five years old, the Medusa giggled when reading an issue Jake's Playboy Magazine. Don't forget that her freakin' hair has been caught staring at a mermaid's chest.
• Extreme Omnivore: The hair snakes may not eat much, but what they do eat, they usually shouldn't.
• Eye Scream: Marah gouges out one of the mermaids eye's with a kitchen knife.
• Face Palm: Jake does it a lot.
• Fan Nickname: One of Medusa's hair snakes has been dubbed Sneaky Snake because it tends to eat things Medusa's holding before she has time to react.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Both of the mermaids are smokers.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Medusa. She gets upset when she realizes she's the only one naked, but doesn't really comprehend what it means, and the matter is dropped after the Pokemon arc.
• Knight of Cerebus: Everything's all funny and witty and then suddenly, chainsaw-unicorn!
• Limited Wardrobe: Mildly lampshaded here.
• Male Gaze: The Medusa's hair snakes fall victim to this.
• Medusa: Guess who. In an aversion to the standard portrayal, she's prepubescent, cute, but very socially awkward. And it's not her eyes that petrify things, it's her hair-snakes' venom.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: The Green Mermaid when accepting an award.
• Murphy's Bed: Not knowing what the purpose of a toilet is, Medusa chose it as her bed. Cue both parties being shocked when Jake unknowingly pees on her.
• My Beloved Smother: The medusa's mother wanted her to come home so bad, she sent a chainsaw unicorn to slaughter her new friends.
• No Name Given: The medusa is only known as "the medusa" or, less often, "Medusa". This is only practical because she's the only medusa present.
• Oh Crap: One of the mermaids, when she realizes she's turning to stone.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The mermaids from the medusa's backstory are real assholes.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Urano is part of a band of vampire knights who rebelled against their general when the old king died, in an attempt to save the princess from imprisonment (an act that would give him the nickname "Oath Breaker"). No, he doesn't sparkle.
• Porn Stash: Gee, it almost looks like Jake doesn't want anyone to see what's in the box labeled 'XXX'...
• Power Incontinence: Medusa's hair snakes tend to act of their own volition and when their bites start to petrify a mermaid she doesn't know how to stop it.
• Running Gag: Medusa's hair eating things she's holding. Lampshaded and subverted in this strip, where a hair snake steadfastly refuses to eat the ghost residue Medusa has.
• Seashell Bra: The mermaids, of a particularly Stripperiffic variety.
• Shout-Out: To the first season finale of Heroes here.
  • "It's a secret to everyone."
  • The latest arc is called The Kingdom Strikes Back. And just like the Star Wars movie, it ends with a complete victory for the villains and utter defeat for the heroes. Of course just like Star Wars, the heroes are down but not out.
• Taken for Granite: The Medusa lacks her kind's trademark petrifying gaze. Her hair snakes' venom has that effect, though.
• This Is Sparta: "You are...such...a huge...jerk!"
• Toilet Humor: It starts with Jake's toilet getting backed up thanks to the Medusa. And goes on from there.
• Tomboy: The Medusa quickly took a liking to video games. Jake's niece, Marah, seems to be one too.
• Too Dumb to Live: The mermaids managed to convince Medusa to come with them so what was the point of the net?
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Medusa loves chocodiles.
• Unicorn: With a chainsaw-horn, no less!
• Weirdness Censor: Marah's mother completely ignores the fact that the Medusa's, well, the Medusa.
• Wham! Episode: The introduction of Medusa's mother.
  • "The Kingdom Strikes Back". In rapid succession, Medusa's mother corners the heroes with both her chainsaw unicorn and vampire knights, Marah's weapon is destroyed, Urano, their strongest ally, dies, and Medusa willingly goes back to her mother to avoid anyone else being killed. Literally the only positive aspect of this arc is that Urano apparently transferred his power of the Oath Breaker to Marah just before he died.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Marah, based on her experience with videogame and RPG depictions of vaguely medieval fantasy kingdoms, assumes that copper coins are the currency of Yeld. So she brings a bag of pennies, and is surprised when no one will accept them as payment.
• You Can Talk: The Medusa. It is later revealed that she didn't talk at first because she was too scared of Jake.

Jake: I spent hours trying to communicate with you! I fed you an entire box of chocodiles! And you could talk the whole time?

• You Didn't Ask: After the medusa finds out the concept of clothes and nakedness. She actually slaps Jake for not telling her sooner. He counters he thought she knew.